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Post by johndramey on Feb 14, 2017 21:06:15 GMT -5
Cory recently mentioned how he and fallen want to tier the crew amounts in ships to encourage the players to upgrade into bigger ships rather than just stack the same components on a ship, and that got me curious.
What are your general ideas behind designing the ships? With the current system, it seems like the player has nearly unlimited freedom in designing his or her ship. Sure, I've been using the frontier liner like a merchant vessel, but the only thing keeping me from kitting it out like a war ship is money.
So, what all goes into your base designs for the ships? Does it mostly come down to the number of small/medium/large slots?
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Post by grävling on Feb 14, 2017 21:18:21 GMT -5
Right now I am mostly looking for where my crew is overstaffed. Then finding a component I already have that can be upgraded to something that soaks what I have too much of. Then I upgrade.
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 14, 2017 21:41:09 GMT -5
OK, I'm going to argue that ship components are important to the functionality of the ship, they do not define it's optimal task assignment.
Beyond mass, a ship hull provides these values.
Hull Points
Base Armor
Base Deflection
Base Fuel
Max Officer
Decks: Component Count (Small/Medium/Large)
Decks: Component Proximity (Engine/Bridge/Warp)
Decks: Component Spacing
And 8000 Mass ship can have anywhere from 1800 to 3500 effective hull points based on mass/armor/deflection/fuel allocation. That's a huge difference and makes it possible to have 8000 mass ships that are radically different in terms of optimal application.
Yes, you can put 15 Guns on that 8000 mass heavy lift and do some damage. But compared to the architecture of the Drakos Carrier, there is literally no comparison in terms of how much damage they can soak up, or how well they deal with heavy barrage damage.
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Post by xdesperado on Feb 14, 2017 22:07:49 GMT -5
OK, I'm going to argue that ship components are important to the functionality of the ship, they do not define it's optimal task assignment. Beyond mass, a ship hull provides these values. Hull Points Base Armor Base Deflection Base Fuel Max Officer Decks: Component Count (Small/Medium/Large) Decks: Component Proximity (Engine/Bridge/Warp) Decks: Component Spacing And 8000 Mass ship can have anywhere from 1800 to 3500 effective hull points based on mass/armor/deflection/fuel allocation. That's a huge difference and makes it possible to have 8000 mass ships that are radically different in terms of optimal application. Yes, you can put 15 Guns on that 8000 mass heavy lift and do some damage. But compared to the architecture of the Drakos Carrier, there is literally no comparison in terms of how much damage they can soak up, or how well they deal with heavy barrage damage. Reason I'm so looking forward to getting my hands on actual ship design capability instead of just making limited adjustments to the ship I'm currently running. My dream is having a fast multi roll ship capable of engaging in some limited trading but being more geared towards extended missions, patrols and counter pirate type stuff. Means it needs to be plenty fuel efficient for those long patrols/spy missions/multi jump assignments and have solid offense and defensive abilities. |
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 14, 2017 22:10:53 GMT -5
The plan for ship design does not include players making new hulls.
We've got budget for a component-based ship designer, with a variety of ship hulls in the game.
Because of the cost of developing and balancing a ship hull (and the art work, decks, deck layouts, etc) are so expensive and complex, we have to have a limited number of them.
That said -- your described role and ship WILL be available as a player option in the component based designer. With enough hulls and components, the permutations will be more than sufficient.
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Post by xdesperado on Feb 14, 2017 22:16:56 GMT -5
The plan for ship design does not include players making new hulls. We've got budget for a component-based ship designer, with a variety of ship hulls in the game. Because of the cost of developing and balancing a ship hull (and the art work, decks, deck layouts, etc) are so expensive and complex, we have to have a limited number of them. That said -- your described role and ship WILL be available as a player option in the component based designer. With enough hulls and components, the permutations will be more than sufficient. As long as we can start with an empty hull with X numbers of each size component I have no issue with that. One of biggest problems I have currently with upgrading is I can't strip a bunch of components out, say to myself ok I have X amount of free mass so now lets go fill that space back in with a mix I like that takes best advantage of my crewing and intended use of ship. |
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Post by grävling on Feb 14, 2017 22:26:20 GMT -5
The plan for ship design does not include players making new hulls. We've got budget for a component-based ship designer, with a variety of ship hulls in the game. Because of the cost of developing and balancing a ship hull (and the art work, decks, deck layouts, etc) are so expensive and complex, we have to have a limited number of them. That said -- your described role and ship WILL be available as a player option in the component based designer. With enough hulls and components, the permutations will be more than sufficient. So now we discover it! You two are just a couple of Pierson's Puppeteers running General Products! All the spaceships in this world look alike because there really only are GP1 GP2 ...to GP5 in hulls! This explains some things about the sock puppets, too. |
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Post by tenbsmith on Feb 14, 2017 23:50:08 GMT -5
All we need now is Ringworld.
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 14, 2017 23:57:14 GMT -5
The plan for ship design does not include players making new hulls. We've got budget for a component-based ship designer, with a variety of ship hulls in the game. Because of the cost of developing and balancing a ship hull (and the art work, decks, deck layouts, etc) are so expensive and complex, we have to have a limited number of them. That said -- your described role and ship WILL be available as a player option in the component based designer. With enough hulls and components, the permutations will be more than sufficient. As long as we can start with an empty hull with X numbers of each size component I have no issue with that. One of biggest problems I have currently with upgrading is I can't strip a bunch of components out, say to myself ok I have X amount of free mass so now lets go fill that space back in with a mix I like that takes best advantage of my crewing and intended use of ship. You will get this exactly as you request. |
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Post by johndramey on Feb 15, 2017 1:34:05 GMT -5
So will the system be such that, when we get our allotment of ship buying money during template creation, we can take an off-the-shelf ship for $X or take a hull for $Y and customize with the left overs?
Either way, I'm very excited for the ship designing aspect. I think it's the second-most-exciting feature for me. First is most definitely smuggling, by the way.
Curious about the base design trade offs, then. Will there be a reason to select ships that don't have the most HP/deflection in their class? Will less HP/deflection/etc. translate to a faster ship or a ship with more components? I guess I could see armor plating taking up space that could otherwise be set aside for an extra compartment.
Similarly, how does deflection compare to the armor and shield rating of our ship? Exactly what does the armor and shield rating do?
So many questions about ship design, so excuse me for spewing a bunch out here.
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 15, 2017 2:39:19 GMT -5
I'm talking strictly about ship design in game.
Character creation customization will take the form of "design packs" which can be applied.
A design pack will cost $X and include a set of upgrades controlled by the game.
1) Ship customization needs to be part of the Template
2) Templates need to be backwards compatible for all releases
Each ship will have a set of (possibly unlockable) design packs.
Think like ...
- Explorer Customization Pack (Adds Exo-Crawler, Nav Assist 2, Harvesting Bay)
- Hyperwarp Customization Pack (Upgrades Torps to Level 3, Adds 2 Fuel Assist Modules)
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 15, 2017 2:41:51 GMT -5
So any of these values can be used by me, the ship hull designer, to balance the others.
Hull Points
Base Armor
Base Deflection
Base Fuel
Max Officer
Decks: Component Count (Small/Medium/Large)
Decks: Component Proximity (Engine/Bridge/Warp)
Decks: Component Spacing
So maybe this ship trades Hull Points for Deflection -- that makes the hull weaker but the components harder to take out. Another design may have an advantage in Armor and Hull points, but all of the critical Systems are clustered at the back of Deck #2, making it vulnerable to cascading damage.
Maybe this ship has great hull, but low armor and trades -1 large compartment for +5 deflection. I have a bunch of equations to balance things out, and we'll continue to evolve and test them as we go from 8 ships to 800.
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Post by xdesperado on Feb 15, 2017 3:01:01 GMT -5
So any of these values can be used by me, the ship hull designer, to balance the others. Hull Points Base Armor Base Deflection Base Fuel Max Officer Decks: Component Count (Small/Medium/Large) Decks: Component Proximity (Engine/Bridge/Warp) Decks: Component Spacing So maybe this ship trades Hull Points for Deflection -- that makes the hull weaker but the components harder to take out. Another design may have an advantage in Armor and Hull points, but all of the critical Systems are clustered at the back of Deck #2, making it vulnerable to cascading damage. Maybe this ship has great hull, but low armor and trades -1 large compartment for +5 deflection. I have a bunch of equations to balance things out, and we'll continue to evolve and test them as we go from 8 ships to 800. Any idea what the largest Max Officer count will be? |
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 15, 2017 3:07:46 GMT -5
We've done all the math for ships large enough to Crew 65 and Officer 10. These ships are heinous to operate and Captain. I suspect we'll keep scaling them up until we find where the fun stops. I am betting that is around Crew 40 Officer 8, but we'll see. The other challenge is that if you allow Crew 65 / Officer 10 to be a think, the AI needs to get them to keep the game capable of making a challenging fight. Maybe Xeno will get Crew 70  |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2017 3:21:33 GMT -5
Speaking of crew, when we buy or design a new ship, does the crew follow? Seems a shame to spend so much time and effort customizing a crew and have to start over again because we switched ships.
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