Ship Designer Rules Debate Thread

[slawyer]

Awesome, can't wait 'till it's ready for prime-time.

I'm dying to try building my new dream cruiser:

Terminus Est - sword cruiser pic
Hull 15
Armor 15
Engines 50
Sails 46
Crew 138
Cargo Hold 132
Guns 33
Torpedoes 21
Speed Fast
Agility Quick

If you made the caps fit Omega Cruiser, it should just fit.

[shapcano]

Mar 30, 2014 9:27:05 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Mar 28, 2014 6:44:41 GMT -5 shapcano said:

I'm experiencing a small bug with the ship designer.

Every time I alter any of the stats, With buttons or sliders, my screen jumps to the top.

Device: Samsung Galaxy S4
OS: Android 4.3
Build Number: JSS15J.I337UCUEMK2

Please update to the latest version of Star Traders RPG

Thanks, that did it!

[Deleted]

Mar 30, 2014 12:41:21 GMT -5 slawyer said:

Awesome, can't wait 'till it's ready for prime-time.

I'm dying to try building my new dream cruiser:

Terminus Est - sword cruiser pic
Hull 15
Armor 15
Engines 50
Sails 46
Crew 138
Cargo Hold 132
Guns 33
Torpedoes 21
Speed Fast
Agility Quick

If you made the caps fit Omega Cruiser, it should just fit.

Actually no, it shouldn't. Engines, Sails, guns and torpedoes are all significantly higher, and you have 42 more cargo and only 42 less crew, despite cargo being worth more than crew. The proportions are also unheard of: both engines and sails 3x hull, guns 2x hull and armor = hull.

[slawyer]

Sorry, I wasn't clear -- I mean, if Cory makes Omega Cruiser work in the ship designer, then that design should just barely fit inside the criteria for validating the design.

He didn't make Omega Cruiser work though.

It fails the Structure check (too high at 3.6), and Torpedoes check (too high at 2.67), and the Armor check (too high at 4.0), and the Stability check (too high at 22.07).

For details about the checks I mean, please see here (I made a spreadsheet):

ST-RPG Ship Designer

My updated design is in the Design sheet. The Analysis sheet has details about each non-Alien/Hulk ship that fails each check.

I'm trying to get Cory to change the min/max for all the checks to match the actual min/max computed from the ship catalog (excluding Aliens and Hulks) but he's reluctant.

It would be nice to get the max values for Engines and Sails increased too, but after Cory's post referencing the "Hull 25 cutoff for fast/quick" I'm not holding my breath.

[Deleted]

And what I'm saying is that that ship is wayyy better than the omega cruiser. It has significantly higher statistics and more extreme ratios. Even if your spreadsheet says it should work, the ship is much more unbalanced than the omega and shouldn't work

[Deleted]

Apr 1, 2014 11:10:47 GMT -5 slawyer said:

Sorry, I wasn't clear -- I mean, if Cory makes Omega Cruiser work in the ship designer, then that design should just barely fit inside the criteria for validating the design.

He didn't make Omega Cruiser work though.

It fails the Structure check (too high at 3.6), and Torpedoes check (too high at 2.67), and the Armor check (too high at 4.0), and the Stability check (too high at 22.07).

For details about the checks I mean, please see here (I made a spreadsheet):

ST-RPG Ship Designer

My updated design is in the Design sheet. The Analysis sheet has details about each non-Alien/Hulk ship that fails each check.

I'm trying to get Cory to change the min/max for all the checks to match the actual min/max computed from the ship catalog (excluding Aliens and Hulks) but he's reluctant.

It would be nice to get the max values for Engines and Sails increased too, but after Cory's post referencing the "Hull 25 cutoff for fast/quick" I'm not holding my breath.

Even if ships past 25 hull can't be fast/quick, there can certainly be ships that are only fast or only quick. Just make raising engines past Max decrease max sails and vice versa. Same for crew and cargo. He can tweak the armor ratios at lower hulls such that 15 hull can have 15 armor, 30 hull can have 20 armor, etc. He can also use the points system I suggested to increase max statistics without allowing a 30 hull fast/quick ship

[Deleted]

Okay so in case the points system that I came up with wasn't appealing, here's another one Cory Trese and fallen might like. I call it the maximum statistic compensation system.

Here's how it works:

Max Stats
max hull: 50
max armor: 25
max engines: 60
max sails: 60
max crew: 240
max cargo: 180
max guns: 45
max torps: 45

Statistical balance rules
- every engine over 50 = decreased max sails by 2
- every sail over 50 = decreased max engines by 2
- maximum propulsion (sails + engines) = 50
- every crew over 160 = decreased max cargo by 1
- every cargo over 160 = decreased max crew by 2
- maximum interior (crew + cargo) = 300
- maximum statistics based on hull
- maximum engines additionally based on crew
- maximum cargo additionally based on sails
- maximum armament (guns + torps) additionally based on engines
- higher speed and agility tweaks max interior space such that a ship both fast and quick cannot have both 150 crew and 150 cargo, to give an example
- maximum armor to hull ratio = 1:1 up to 16 hull, and the ratio decreases as armor goes up
- maximum price = price of most expensive custom ship (omega cruiser at the moment)
- other checks and balances to prevent statistical and ratio imbalances as well as too powerful ships

With this new system, most ships can be replicated and personalized to the captain's preference. Certain high-end ships with an extreme statistic number cannot be replicated perfectly but can be compensated with other statistics. For example, I cannot design a ship with 62 engines like slayernz, but I can compensate that with more crew and guns. I cannot design a ship with 300 crew like titan cruiser, but I can compensate with higher agility and more torps. I cannot design a 15 hull fast/quick ship with 180 crew like omega, but I can compensate with...

[phantombudgie]

I can't buy a designed ship unless I have about 20% more money than the purchase price, as the purchase button remains greyed out until the cost is reduced by dropping a stat (no rule breaks are listed like Hull too small etc., the ship price is about 350k). Is this intentional?

[djdunn]

I'd definitly like to see a higher armor to hull ratio. Maybe something can be limited. Maybe require more engine and sails to keep the 1:1 ratio of hull armor. Lots and lots of armor was always my favorite.

[slayernz]

Default (non-tweaked-by-Cory) ships were always meant to be limited to 50% armor to hull. In order to boost your armor values, you needed to purchase ship upgrades.

There are a few ships in the database that have higher levels of armor but they have been specially tweaked by Cory in order to push them through the system.

[Deleted]

Apr 11, 2014 4:48:31 GMT -5 slayernz said:

Default (non-tweaked-by-Cory) ships were always meant to be limited to 50% armor to hull. In order to boost your armor values, you needed to purchase ship upgrades.

There are a few ships in the database that have higher levels of armor but they have been specially tweaked by Cory in order to push them through the system.

Way more than a few. Lots of ships have an armor to hull ratio higher than 1:2.

[slawyer]

There are 106/600 (17.67%) non-Alien/non-Hulk ships in v5.5.5 that have Armor / (Hull / 4) > 2.19 ("Too much Armor plating for the Ship's hull"), and 10/600 (1.67%) that have Armor / (Hull / 4) < 0.5111 ("Too little Armor plating for the Ship's hull").

It's the most-violated of all the ship designer rules (almost 20% of all the non-Alien/non-Hulk ships).

For comparison, the next-most-violated rule is for Cargo Hold:Sails.

There are 32/600 (5.33%) non-Alien/non-Hulk ships in v5.5.5 that have Cargo Hold / (2 * Solar Sails) < 0.5111 ("Too much deep space propulsion (Solar) for the Ship's fuel store (Cargo Hold)") and 4/600 (0.67%) that have Cargo Hold / (2 * Solar Sails) > 2.19 ("Not enough deep space propulsion (Solar) for the Ship's mass (Cargo Hold)").

I don't get why the designer forces all ships to have armor and guns. It should let you make a ship with 0 Armor/Guns if you want, IMO.

[slayernz]

There is the Cadar shuttle that has zero guns ... torps though (understandably).

[djdunn]

concerning armor hull ratios, I'm not a statistician or a mathologist but 100/600 doesn't seem exactly seem like outliers to me, I think the rules need to be adjusted, maybe even a good time to rebalance all the ships to fit a standard bell curve,

How about a series of unlocks where each progressing unlock raises how far from center you can get in the bell curve concerning the limiter ratios. Maybe make them based on the number of ships designed and/or total value of those ships, a more experienced engineer / ship architect can "bend" / "compensate" on the designs of functional ships. For example a designer who designed 400 designs is more experienced on how to apply appropriate and effective armoring techniques and more able to push the boundaries by making the same amount of armor protect better, so a ships architect 5 might be able to get 30 hull / 30 armor max from the same amount of raw materials as a ships architect 1 who can only figure out how to make 30 hull / 10 armor max.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Gambit]

I understand where some of you are coming from...but honestly I kinda like the idea of have a few elite ships that are unattainable to get every match/game such that the average or medium max is always defines by the game rules already in place...and then if you want the omega cruiser or titan cruiser...finding it in the shipyard or capturing it becomes all the more rewarding. And imo that shouldnt happen or appear every game.



I like imagining that there is only 1 titan or omega cruiser in the galaxy...and if I capture it or am in the right place at the right time with the most money of all the faction aquisition delegates present, then it is mine.



My only sympathy lies with the fact that you cant make or buy ships comparable to the alien ships. Even with upgrades...becuase of the game difficulty slider...



Dont get me wrong...I think alien hunting should be risky business...but if I have to exploit game rules and mechanics to cheat by boosting strength and warrior and boarding as the only way to effectively fight aliens especially late game...then alien hunting is not a career choice it is a suicide option that seems like a cool way to end the game when you are bored...and go out with a bang.



Seems to me like instead of reworking or rebalancing an entire system in place...leave a few outlier ships...that add to game lore and inspire to to capture or buy them when you see them...and rebalance the alien ships so I dont need you to rework the entire ship designer system...in order for me to keep playing...



Since the ship stats are included in the alien captains level getting a bigger ship really doesnt help me. And since even the best faction ships cant touch the alien ships...idk...to me the ship designer isnt the problem here...its the late game str of aliens that prompt people in this forum tonargue in favor of the need for more powerful or insanely unbalanced ships.



And honestly...why even factor the low end outliers...they are irrelivant and just twist a statistic in favor or getting what you want...ie 100 outlier ships...who cares if the cadar shuttle has no guns...



Granted then again I could voice my opinion that minimums for things like guns or torps shouldn't exist anyways. But as the minimums benifit the player...like forcing you to have at least 4 guns or a few torps...I dont see why this is worthy of argument and therefore becomes irrelivant.



All the other constraints make perfect sense. And as you could always buy the appropriate upgrades to add more armor to equal the omega cruiser (which the computer doesnt do) it seems close enough to me in that there are many ways you could pass the computer ship stats with few exceptions...as it should be.



Now I know someone is going to say that the omega cruiser can get more armor than your designed ship by adding the same upgrades...my response is so what. If you can't design the omega cruiser it is alreafy in the game as an exception to the rule...so just buy it...and be happy it excists at all.



Rather than cory redesigning an already amazingly balanced system...I argue in favor or deleting or removing the omega cruiser...problem solved.



The overall point? Every game should have a defined system that forces players and computer alike to follow and Star traders already has a great system in place. Finding rare exceptions to the rules...should be...rare exceptions to the rule and fun discoverables in game.



Most games i play have rare drops...or finds...or rare spawns...and in every game there are always some people complaining about why they cant craft an equally rare or more powerful option...



Be thankful there is a ship designer...becuase before the ship designer no one was the wiser.



My custom designed dreadnaught is still going to kill your custom designed omega cruiser anyways...



My response to that problem is to make the spawns of omega cruiser or titan cruiser more rare...so they become outkiers rather than exceptions to the rule as true flagships are...and if cadar doesnt want to arm thier shuttles...well I dont want to hear about them having to increase patrols in thier faction space becuase of an increase in the number of local bands of pirates..



I just want to enjoy my ale and spice in peace.