The missing ship STAT

[salk]

The one ship stat I find missing and crucial to the game is...
MPG or the WF per AU.

A ship with a WF/AU rating of 3 would be a obvious fuel hog
While a ship with a rating of .25 would be the Prius of the fleet.

I know that the consumption ratios change, with skills, damage, location in space etc.

But even a base line measurement line for each ship, would allow informed purchases or captures without consulting the math listed in the forum.

Thanks for reading.
Salk

Ps. Enjoying the game.

[slayernz]

Hey Salk,
You can normally tell which ships are more fuel efficient. For me, I look at the number of sails compared to the hull. A ship that has 30 sails and a 15 hull is definitely more efficient than a ship that has 30 sails and 20 hull or 20 sails and 15 hull.

Fuel efficiency also comes from other factors. A ship that has 20+ sails has an efficiency bonus. A ship that has 30+ sails has an additional bonus.

Obviously it isn't just about the sails and hull size, but it's a good enough measure that you can quickly assess whether a ship will be a gas guzzler or run on the smell of a wet rag. I've never seen a ship that has >2x sails to hull that is anything but efficient for travel.

[Cory Trese]

Look for ships with more Engines and Sails than Hull + Armor and the Slower a ship is the more fuel efficient it is.

[Salk android]

This is great for people who come to the forum and research the game.

But notice how close the above text is to

I before E except after Y and sometimes slow ships get better mpg.

Many people including myself do not find questing in the forum for obtuse formula, part of the game.

While it neat to be one of the cool kids, who knows how to use the sea shells... Lack of inter grated documentation is rampant.

Imagine this small change... By adding dialog

On ship launch - cargo check crystals - FAIL

The ship engineer pages you on the intercom and mentions how she'd hate to get caught without crystals in the hold during a solar storm.

On ship crossing into red space - cargo check weapons - FAIL

Your zero-G bubble bath is rudely interrupted by the ships military office complaining that he'd be as defenseless as you are without some damn small arms in the hold.

Many more game included dialogs would so help play...

You pilot has taken to speaking in Chinese and babbling about a leaf on the wind.... It may be wise to check his spice rations...

I'm just saying many people will never find the on line forums and just assume the red head engineer is just a prissy b who won't work for her pay.

Thanks
Salk

[slayernz]

Hey Salk,
Not to disparage what you are saying - I agree that the documentation is lacking in the game and that there is a steep learning curve. There could be a substantial help file included in the game, but the problem is that many people find having to read through pages and pages of text to understand the game is off-putting. Instead they would rather learn on the job. So it's a trade-off ... how much do you want people to have to read/learn up front - and how much do you want them to "discover"? Should there be a bigger tutorial section at the beginning? Should there be something like the help in TK?

If you play for a while, you learn the sails to hull ratio very quickly. You don't need to search through the forum, or for that matter, even know about the forum. Like any new captain, green to the universe, you're going to have no idea what is good and what is not. However, as a new player, you're probably going to start playing in Basic or Normal where fuel consumption isn't a huge issue. You can afford to take/buy a freighter that sucks up fuel like it's water. It'll be a useful lesson none-the-less.

When you build up your skills and play the game for a few days, you'll discover that some types of ships are less fuel efficient than others, and after about 5 or 6 ships, you'll begin to notice a pattern. In that time you'll probably have learned a few other things about the universe (trade embargoes = headache, focusing on one skill at the expense of all others = bad, etc).

Now what could be done is in the"Rumors" section, there could be a rumor that explains how to find the most fuel efficient ship (among other useful rumors). That way if you bother checking and reading rumors, you could get a fast-track to understanding more about the game.

Is that something that could be a good compromise? I dunno - it's just one possible suggestion that has a faster chance of implementation than a large help document.

[salk]

Naw what I'm saying is...

Due to the end result only nature of this game, players are virtually forced into reading manuals.

Example adding this check to the game program

"Engineer on board" = NO = "No dialog"

"Engineer on-board" and "less than 10% crystals" = YES = "Engineer bitches about hold being empty"

While a newbie Star Pilot might not know better, there is no way in hell she's not going to say something?

Currently we only have a result, a red headed girl in the engine room sitting on her butt with no explanation as to why?

I myself find reading manuals one of the least fun features in a game, but to deny players basic info in a game like MPG or what ingredients go into a spell creates huge playability issues.

Like I said it's neat to have figured out, some of the game play... but random button pushing is more the style of street fighter and not a RPG.

I have to include one more example.

"Ship Crippled" = NO = "No Dialog"

"Ship Crippled" = YES = "Captain, things are not shiny here in the engine room, maybe it would be best to set down on the nearest deserted planet and I can try to patch us up?"

In that one bit of dialog, players have learned they can make repairs to the ship, Without a shipyard!

All without breaking the third wall, or reading a manual.

The added advantage to situational dialog is two fold.

Humans (US) learn better in context.

and

Senior players will never see newbie dialog because they know enough to keep such and such in the hold.

Thanks for reading
Salk

PS. Even if you don't want to add the checks, give new players a in game clue.

Under the photo of the pilot you could mention his spice habit.

Or how the engineer has an affinity for wearing shiny objects like crystals.

[blackgauntlet]

Apr 4, 2012 21:21:38 GMT -5 @Salk android said:

You pilot has taken to speaking in Chinese and babbling about a leaf on the wind.... It may be wise to check his spice rations...

I believe the saying is "He who sails without spice is akin to a leaf blown into the wind". "Ù—¿ŽÒ”@风’†Š". Just saying. ;D

[Cory Trese]

Hard to follow for me but I'm trying

I will agree that the manual is an after-thought in ST RPG. This is the result of most feedback being that the game's mathematical systems are enjoyable enough to figure out and experiment with because they are based on predictable formulas and stacks of simple ratios.

[whitegauntlet]

I don't think there should br any manual. To enjoy ST, you don't need to know jack....seriously. Only if you want to go all cyber-terrorist will you need the easily ignorable codes and insignificant details that make up the game.

[salk]

What I mean by this game is mostly
"End Results"

We die because our ship isn't getting repaired by the mechanic.

Why is it not being repaired? Sadly we have no idea...

We only know the end result "We Died"

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I purchased this game because of the letters RPG, not because I wanted to play a Math Sim.

The engineer should play her "Role" and mention, hey I can't repair anything without some raw materials in the cargo hold.

So now the player can understand the Math that keeps getting them killed.

Mechanic+Empty Cargo Hold= No Repairs to Ship.

Now it's up to the player, do I play it safe and move precious artifacts out of the hold to make room for repair materials?

OR

Do I play the greedy pirate and risk making a run with nothing but swag in the hold.

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A perfect example is lack of text explaining why mission completion, throws the newbie player back into orbit?

This creates tons of negative "End Results" yet the game provides no in game "Role Playing Dialog" for what the heck just happened.

I even went so far as to look in the game options menu, to see if I had turned on some "Go to Orbit" checkbox?

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Not to be a turd as the game obviously has a rabid fan base, but please think back on the classic RPG "Zork"

A game the relied entirely on Role Playing dialog in order to create a world, heck without story... Zork would have been nothing but a blinking cursor.

>

[salk]

Oh, back on the original subject is there a PDF or other such document that shows all the ships and their MPG or WF/AU.

I'm trying to run a Green star-ship and being able to compare fuel economy down to the decimal point, would help us cut fleet wide Anti-Carbon emissions.

Thanks for your help in keeping the Galaxy Green.

PS. Enviro Green NOT Alien Green

[bansh33]

There are a lot of variables that go into calculating the W/F consumption of various ships, and only half or less of the total calculation are derived from the ship's stats themselves. W/F consumption is also determined by your captain's skills (obviously Pilot skill, but also principally Intimidate), crew morale (hence the role of Intimidate), current ship damage, contents of your cargo hold (mostly how close to full it is; full holds increase W/F consumption), presence or lack of a Pilot officer, and probably others that I'm forgetting.

This complexity makes it impossible to calculate in practical game terms what the actual W/F consumption rate of a given ship will be. The game does give you a total-sum of all factors in the Cargo status screen for your current ship and status. Needless to say, doing this for all ships you see for sale, after a victory, etc. might be possible to code into the game (though not likely to happen), but it'd be impossible to accurately represent it in a static form such as a manual.

As others have said, the best way to know is to simply look at the relationship between Hull score and Solar Sail/Engine scores for any given ship. There's not really much else you need to know up front once you are familiar with the game. Through experience you'll eventually be able to conceptualize W/F consumption in a mental model so that you can "ballpark" the efficiency of potential new ships to a sufficient degree without having the game serve it to you on a silver platter.

[salk]

I'm not asking for "Silver Platter" I'm asking for a REAL stat that is given on real world vehicles.

I'm sorry but I don't believe that the WF/AU ratios in this game are comparable to Higgs Boson and for some mysterious reason can't be expressed as a decimal.

For real cars they calculate the MPG with average conditions, so by the same token the WF/AU can be given across the board by assuming a empty ship with the same pilot flying all of them.

I've seen a disturbing trend in this forum of
"It's always been this way" and "We know it, so why help anyone"

As I'm currently playing Skyrim I'll make a comparison, in the game there are millions of possible armor combinations and hundred of possible stats for each piece.

But the stats are listed so that players can make informed decisions, I'd hate to think what beta testing stat-less armor against a dragon would be like!

I repeat
"For NORMAL people, learning to play a game is not the fun part"

"Playing the game is"

This forum is about things to improve the game, and maybe it's to late to remove the sub-culture of
"Cool kids in the know" vs "Helping out the casual gamer"

I'll let you all decide...

[slayernz]

It can't be expressed as a generic decimal ... because it depends on a myriad of attributes. What may suck right now for a newbie captain may be one of the most efficient ships for an experienced captain who has the right skills balance. BUT you're right ... it would be useful if the basic fuel consumption calculation is done as part of the ship values. This would mean whenever you view a ship after combat or in a ship yard, you see what the fuel consumption would be for your captain if he/she were flying the ship right now. You'd have to remember what upgrades you added to your own ship though as the calculations are done based on the ship configurations. All acquired ships come with zero upgrades.

[bansh33]

Apr 9, 2012 14:18:11 GMT -5 salk said:

I'm not asking for "Silver Platter" I'm asking for a REAL stat that is given on real world vehicles.

I'm sorry but I don't believe that the WF/AU ratios in this game are comparable to Higgs Boson and for some mysterious reason can't be expressed as a decimal.

For real cars they calculate the MPG with average conditions, so by the same token the WF/AU can be given across the board by assuming a empty ship with the same pilot flying all of them.

I've seen a disturbing trend in this forum of
"It's always been this way" and "We know it, so why help anyone"

What?

Well, no idea what you're going on about, but it sounds like you just don't know what you're asking for--the "simple" answer that it sounds like you want is simply:

H = Hull Score
S = Solar Sails
E = General W/F efficiency of the ship (e.g. "MPG")

S/H = E

That's it. It's been given to you a bunch of times... sorry if you're still looking for an answer.