Building Ships in Star Traders 2

[Cory Trese]

In Star Traders 2, buying new ships at the Starport will be a new experience.

You'll be able to buy used ships, from other Star Traders and trade in your existing ship.

The new experience will be custom ship orders. The current plan is that you'll be able to design the ship from the ground up, and then, if you have the Credits, order it from the Starport.

At that point, based on the Starport's rating, the build will start. If you order a custom Battleship it might take 1000 turns to be finished, during which time you have to survive.

What do you think? Is this fun or miserable? I like it, but I want your thoughts.

I feel it is more immersive Star Traders RPG and provides both quick ship availability and fully customized builds.

[ntsheep]

So do you turn in your old ship before or after the new one is finished. Waiting isn't a problem when you still have a ship to use. If I was stuck on planet or in a space station, it would be nice to be able to have some job you can do. Like maybe security or cargo runs or go exploring, etc.

[Cory Trese]

Dec 19, 2016 12:28:48 GMT -5 ntsheep said:

So do you turn in your old ship before or after the new one is finished. Waiting isn't a problem when you still have a ship to use. If I was stuck on planet or in a space station, it would be nice to be able to have some job you can do. Like maybe security or cargo runs or go exploring, etc.

You would keep your existing ship while they completed your new custom build. At the time of build completion, you could sell or dry dock your old ship.

[ntsheep]

Sounds cool. I would say get to work on it, but I'm the leader of the Free The TB's movement, take a break, it's the holidays

[contributor]

It sounds very interesting. It's hard to say much without actually using it, yet. For positives I like that it is realistic. I also like the added complexity and the importance of having the right contacts/knowledge to get it built quicker (or perhaps there could even be a quality modifier?). There's even more potential for complexity too. What if you left your engineer officer behind to get the job done more quickly. What if on Indy or at Black Market shipyards you could pay in goods or contracts? I really like the contracts idea. "We'll start building the ship. You put 100k down and go kill this guy. If he's not dead when the ship is finished we sell it to somebody else and you're out your money."

Concerns I have: I'm a little worried about the turn timer. I don't know what 1000 turns will feel like, but if it takes too long the mechanic could just feel annoying and hard to bet on. The ships would have to be truly unique and better than what you can find anywhere else. What if you found just as good a ship in the meantime? You'ld be kicking yourself that there are still 741 turns left till your other ship is built and now you have no money. Speaking of annoying, I can see some backlash from players. I know you're going to get that anyways but I can see it being a big sticking point for some, because while it's realistic, it flies in the face of a lot of players expectations. It could feel like a false mechanism, because digital ships really take no time to complete, so give me mine now dammit!

Ooo, ooh I just had an idea. You could charge players $6.99 to get their new battleship now. You'ld be rich, rich I tell you!

[richard]

To follow-up, the idea of paid a small $ like $0.50 to get your custom ship very soon (like in 50 turns) would be good

Also customer ship built should be about one-two game years

[Cory Trese]

Any design choice has a risk of player "backlash" but that's just life. The solution is just to focus on finding the fun.

Will the option to build a ship from scratch, picking each component and deck be something a player will want to do?

I think yes -- I think a certain segment of players will want a custom solution.

Without it, the pattern will be to buy a canned ship and then upgrade each of the components to be customized.

Either way, I know we'll need the feature -- and if the "turns to build" becomes a sticking point we just turn it down to 0.

[resistor]

I like this idea.

In ST1, it seems all that is needed to have an optimal ship is a million credits and an urban zone with 45 upgrades. Having a construction time for custom ships would extend the amount of time a captain would be searching in the game to improve his/her ship's capabilities.

[captaincadar]

Imho, I think the idea of a custom ship build from scratch is brilliant. I bought ship builder as soon as I realized that I could. For me, the ability to customize how I want "my" ship makes the experience more personal to me. I fought and traded, stashed and waited until I had finally earned enough space cabbage to buy that one ship my explorer dreamed of.
Being able to take it to the next level in st2, be it by being able to choose upgrades,specialized crew,or anything my(your) imagination can come up with, would really allow for that next level feeling of personal accomplishment.
...
I am Captain Cadar, I wish to commission a ship.
Well sir, depending on the specifications you request, it will take X years to build and we will require a % of the total cost up front. Obviously, the more extravagant the request the more % we would require and the more time it would take. We can however push the timetable of completion up if the captain wishes to put a much higher % down
...
For me,dying while waiting for ship to finish being built is akin to getting ship stomped by a kranng alien with 200 arti stashed after just buying "my" ship. But thats me.

[ntsheep]

NO IAP'S! Paying to get it done faster or now would be bad I think.

I do like the idea of being able to shorten the time be leaving you engineer\mechanic to supervise.

I don't mind the time it would take if it's realistic and reasonable.

[contributor]

I do like the fun of the down payment idea. It could create some fun situations, and deciding how much to put down influencing build time would be good too.

I think that when your ship is completed you would ideally have a sufficiently long time (1-2 years) to swing by with the final payment otherwise it gets sold to the highest bidder and you get 75% of your down payment back. Think of the ways we could all screw it up.

1. Wandered too far to get back in time.
2. Didn't keep enough money in reserve and now we're hoping we can sell our current ship for enough to cover it.
3. Got ganked by pirates or aliens or templar on the way to pick it up and don't have the cash.
4. Really believed we could get in one more contract or one more shortage before heading to the shipyard.
5. Forgot where we ordered it.
6. Managed to piss off our shipbuilder's faction and have to pray that one more late point we put into stealth will help us avoid any encounters on the way there.
7. I'm sure there's more ways.

It also makes for possibilities like, you've found a really great builder who managed to get a deal on materials and wants to pass the savings on to you (final price is lower than expected) or more likely costs and time commitment were higher than expected and now you've got to pay a bit more than expected.

I'm sure all of this is more complicated than it needs to be.

[ntsheep]

Trading in cargo would be cool. Using a load of Artifacts\Electronics\Weapons to help build the ship could be a neat thing. Shortages in the market could also effect things like it always says in ST1.

[Guest]

Welcome to Cadar Shipyard Incorporated! Home for the fastest torps on the market!

You would like custom ship? That will have to wait. We have orders for next (2d6-2) years. You can try Your luck with De Valtos.
Of course we can move You up the priority list with Premium Trader Pass (set amount/10%x per year).
According to Your specification ship will cost (x). It will take (y) years to build this masterpiece.
We can offer You exclusive one-time Premium Torp Speed packet to speed up the manufacturing process to (y/1.5) for (100%x).


Welcome to Syndicate Space, where everything is for sale. Keep calm and fly safe.

[poryg]

Sorry for the weird response back then, I was half asleep and didn't read all properly
Let me say that... The idea isn't at really different from ST RPG 1, the only thing I see differently is the time factor. As long as it's reasonable, I think it's not a bad thing to do. 1000 turns is really too much though. 500 turns are better. But maybe, instead of IAP, I think it would be nicer to be able to pay more credits to have something like Priority construction that shortens the time needed to build a ship (only to a certain degree, perhaps to 50%, to keep it realistic).
And maybe it could be done that not every planet would offer the same ship parts. The way ST1 is designed allows a non-Cadar (the only thing SS are good for, they produce everything cheap, but that's where my cooperation with them ends, because they always try to kill me) to build a Cadar ship with no efforts (after all, there isn't really a point in equipping a ship with 40 torps, 24 are enough, especially with upgrades), which kind of hurts the game imo.

[Cory Trese]

Hehe, I think you're underselling the component-based ship design system in ST2. I think that alone makes it dramatically different than ST RPG.

Because upgrades are strictly available based on zone ratings, finding a 10/10/10/10 zone that can build almost every component will be exceedingly difficult.

In ST RPG, Upgrade and Ship availability is calculated very differently, and I think ST2 will provide a more immersive experience.