Ship Designer Rules Debate Thread

[slayernz]

Gambit, if you weren't a guest, I'd exalt you! Very cool post and I agree 100% with you.

[eltoreador]

I agree too, I think its normal than some ships like the Omega couldn't be reproduced with the ship designer, because if it was the case, it will mean that with some money you can buy every ship everywhere, and so it will become very boring. It's exciting too, to look in all planets, hours long, for finding some special ship.

[slawyer]

Apr 13, 2014 5:51:24 GMT -5 eltoreador said:

. . . it will mean that with some money you can buy every ship everywhere, and so it will become very boring. It's exciting too, to look in all planets, hours long, for finding some special ship.

So what's the problem with being able to buy a ship anywhere if you choose? I'm not suggesting that Cory take away the excitement you get looking for ships, and besides, only people who have purchased the ship designer could do it. But I thought that was the point of the ship designer, to shortcut that process? BTW I think you find that much more exciting than most.

Apr 12, 2014 19:46:50 GMT -5 Gambit said:

. . . I kinda like the idea of have a few elite ships that are unattainable

I disagree -- I like Cory's suggestion about adding a way to customize the existing ship class designs (see other thread here).

Apr 12, 2014 19:46:50 GMT -5 Gambit said:

. . . 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...

I think boosting Strength and Warrior for effective Alien boarding in combat isn't "exploiting game rules and mechanics" -- it's just how you don't die in this game when you find an Alien. Certainly not cheating.

Apr 12, 2014 19:46:50 GMT -5 Gambit said:

Seems to me like instead of reworking or rebalancing an entire system in place . . .

I don't suggest that; I suggest merely changing a few values so that all the existing ship designs can work.
It would take all of five minutes for Cory to do, and doesn't require any changes to the logic at all.

The "rebalancing" is in the ship designer only, and only affects the stats that pass for a valid design.

Apr 12, 2014 19:46:50 GMT -5 Gambit said:

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.

A better ship isn't what you need to fight high-level Aliens -- you need better stats and skills for that. And I don't see what's so "insanely unbalanced" about allowing the ship designer to make the existing catalog ships, or variants of those withing the existing rules, as adjusted with new min/max to allow all the current designs to work.
Again, I'm not suggesting that Cory change the logic at all -- just the min/max values that restrict how the logic is applied to evaluate which ships are valid.

Apr 12, 2014 19:46:50 GMT -5 Gambit said:

All the other constraints make perfect sense. . . . Rather than cory redesigning an already amazingly balanced system...I argue in favor or deleting or removing the omega cruiser...problem solved.

I totally agree about the "amazingly balanced system" -- the logical constraints that Cory has made for the ship designer are fabulous and beautiful and awesome.
I love how they interact with one another and require you to tweak your design in appropriate ways as you push the envelope of validity.
They're just using the wrong min/max values, and restricting everybody inside too small an envelope.
And I think taking away Omega Cruiser would be most unpopular. It's one of the best late-game ships.

Apr 12, 2014 19:46:50 GMT -5 Gambit said:

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

I guess my main point is, because the restrictions in the ship designer don't allow ships equivalent or better than the existing catalog ships, and in many cases you can make a better ship by finding one like Omega or Inquisition Cruiser and upgrading it than you can with the ship designer, it's not so useful for late-game players, who might already have a fleet of fully-upgraded Omega Cruisers, and are disappointed to find that the ship designer seems more intended for making wimpy newbie ships for new players (like maybe I wasted my money).

[Gambit]

You are missing the main point...comouter ships dont use upgrades.

For example...with the ship designer and all armor upgrades and titan components or advanced sail system installed I can make a ship withnthese stats:

Hull 36
Armor 34/39 (plus bonus 5 b/c hyperion superstructure counts for double)
Engines 50/55
Sails 50/62
Crew 160
Cargo 160
Torps 45
Guns 45

Find me a single ship that can surpass these stats. There is only 1 ship I found...Harbinger cruiser...with more hull 54?? Lolz...which arguably is not better.

Smaller hull equals more Hull2Engine ratio and higher Hull2Armor, with Harbeinger cruiser having decisively less crew and hold and torps, equaul amount of engines and guns, and the same amount of armor and hull points when added together (total life) For a total of 79 life, where as custom ship has 70 to 75 life due to double armor value. So the harbinger has slightly more life for decisively less everything else.

Now if you manage to capture the harbinger or the titan etc...well thats an op ship in the hands of the player when upgraded.

Hull 54
Armor40/45
Engines 58
Sails 52 (solar system array)
Crew 110
Hold 75
Guns 45
Torps 20

If you need more crew drop armor ups for crew ups like battleship architecture to bump crew up to 163 crew. Ect.

We get to upgrade. The computer does not.

Or here is another way to think about it:

Pretend the omega cruiser already has dreadnaught architecture or hyperion superstructure installed. Now it isnt an outlier.

Cory includes some upgrades to starting ships standard. Why should we start assaulting a system that works perfectly when we could easily rationalize the omega cruiser as having one kr two armor upgrades already augmenting it. Instead of assuming the rules were bent. Just think about it differently and enjoy the game.

[Gambit]

Appologies...please delete that long obnoxious post. Posting from my tablet. I registered so I can edit my posts now. = ) And you can exalt me. Lol. Also I edited some values after further mathmatical investigations.

Now that being said...

I would support raising some of the caps like hull and armor caps to 40 or 50 as unlocks etc. armor to 21 or 27 respectively, crew to 200 or hold to 165 or guns or torps to 48 or etc. If everyone thinks it is neccessary.

I only argue in favor of this becuase 50 hull, 27 armor, 50 engines, 50 sails, 165 cargo or 200 crew or 48 guns and 48 torps is so much more symetrical and pretty to look at...and with upgrades you get round numbers, ie battleship architechture yields 280 crew even, still leaving room for some elite ships to have surpassed us, or ie. Armor ups total plus 15 for a total of 46 hull and 40 armor.

Guns and Torps

48 gun max leads to 12 added guns (not including prow guns) or 17 bonus guns yields 60 or 65 guns respectively. Or just extended gun decks yield 55 guns total. Or hyperion gun decks would yield 50 guns even. Very sexy.

48 Torp max yields a 57 torp max with 20 percent upgrade. Although id argue in favor of raising the percentage of the upgrade to 25% more torps giving a total of 12 bonus torps for a total of 60 torps after upgrade. And torpedo battle plan would yield a sexy 50 torps.

So 48/48 gun/torp limits rather than the current 45 yield a sexy 60/60 gun or torp max.

It would also help facilitate the 60/60 gun torp max as presented above.

Guns/Torps
48 max
Change torpedo control pods to 25%
48 max yields 60 guns or 60 torps max

Engines and Sails

As for engines and sails...

Well for sails the current max at 50 is perfect...and better option is to add one more sail to the sail command probe bringing the total to 5. Thus 3 plus 5 sails yields 8 for a total of 58. Adding .25 percent then yields 72 sails. I have heard many times prople forgo sail command probe. Small buff wouldnt matter. Maybe add to its usefulness.


Engines? Well id keep the max at 50 (becuase essentially you are limiting fast and quick ships to a max hull of 25) but there seems to be no way around a not so sexy max of 61 engines atm. Or 63 if you dont switch the prow guns and titan gun batteries (13 is unlucky) this captain thinks? Id like to see titan components raised 1 point to 6 bonus engines, for a total of 56 max engines or 62 max engines with both upgrades. Still pretty sexy at 56 or 62. Not quite as high as sails but sails let you run away from aliens so they should be higher. = )

Engines
50 limit yields 61 max (currently) or 63 with titan gun batteries
50 limit yields 62 max (suggested) 64 with titan gun batteries in slot 5, or 62 with titan gun batteries switched to slot 4 with prow gun batteries switched to slot 5.

Sails
50 limit yields 71 sails max (currently)
50 limit yields 72 max (suggusted), buff to sail command probe.

Cargo hold

Finally cargo. Limit to 165. Current system allows for a bonus 35 cargo bringing the total to 200 even, or if utilizing the Cargo hold bonus 20 percent cargo...then 165 plus 27 yields a total of 192 x .20 gives a value of 38.4 for a total cargo hold of 230. Or if you install cargo hold first 20 percent of 165 is 33 for a total of 198...plus 27 gives a total of 225 cargo hold. Again very sexy.

Cargo hold max
165 yields 225 or 230 max.

The current max values seem so arbitrary...

Just my 2 cents. I think this would really polish off an already great system.

Conclusion

Raise maxes allowed to
Hull 40 (low) or 50 (high)
Armor 21 (low) or 27 (high)
Engines 50
Sails 50
Crew 200
Cargo 165
Guns 48
Torps 48

Hull cannot exceed 50 as it would exceed engines and sails. 50 max on high end. However with a hull of 50 and the combat hull architechture you coild effectively have a hull of exactly 54...on par with the highest hull in the game. Dont knkw why youd go for hull over armor...but you could if you choose to.

The only thing you could boost not noticably would be hull size. To 40 with armor value of 21 max for total of 40 hull and 36 armor (effectively 41 armor) after upgrades. But there are quite a few capitol ships boosting up to 50 hull with 27 armor on the table. With upgrades you would be looking at 50 hull and 42 armor. A true dreadnought. Although id prolly opt to cross his T with my battle frigate and shoot out his engines...harhar!

These changes would make everyone happy. Still be within the game system limits, still allow outlier faction capitol ships with unattainable stats out of reach, but not overly so. Be sexy and round numbers. And allow attainable capitol ship varients late game.

Math can be fun and sexy.

Very sexy...

[slawyer]

OK, I don't follow your last post at all; I guess you're trying to point out that the ships created in the ship designer can be upgraded to improve them beyond the base stats? Sorry, confused!

I would never use a ship like those -- way too slow and not agile enough. In the extreme late game, I've found it's wise to always have a fast/quick ship.

I guess I'm not making my point clear.

1. Cory said the ship designer would follow the same rules as his spreadsheet, that he's been using to make new ships for years.

2. We found that's not true; there are many ships that don't work (at first, more than half!).

3. So I made my own spreadsheet and found out why (the restrictions are too strict) and exactly which ships are violating each restriction.

4. Cory tweaked it a bit, and improved it so that most of the ships work now, but still a lot are invalid (about one third!).

That's the reason for the complaints -- it's not working as advertised, and I'm just requesting it be fixed so that it does.

And I'm not the only one making these points; there are several other posts in this and other threads pointing out the relative weakness of ships made with the designer versus the catalog ships.

Now I'm hearing that some "outlier" ships shouldn't be possible to make with the designer, that some are "aberrations" or have "hidden upgrades" or something that make them superior, and people shouldn't get to make ships like that in the designer, but I don't get why? I just don't see much use for the ship designer if I can't use it to make better ships than I could just buy -- I want better ships, not worse ones!

What's the problem with just making the inspection criteria work for all the current ship designs? I'm sure most people would much prefer that to neutering all the catalog ships that surpass the design restrictions -- nerfing is never the answer.

OK, I'm done complaining about this now -- I don't think I can be any more clear than this.

[fallen]

slawyer and all - thanks for the feedback! We will keep working toward a balanced result and improving as we go.

[fallen]

Gambit - I deleted your strangely formatted post.

[Deleted]

Okay, everyone is right in my oppinion. On one hand, the current ship designer doesn't allow for stats that make it as good as MANY ships in the game (not a few, not exceptions, many). That being said, changing the ship designer so that you could have engines and sails to a 3:1 ratio with hull like slawyer's dream cruiser is too overbalanced, regardless of price. In my opinion, I think that although there should be a few ships (ie omega cruiser, slayernz cruiser) that shouldn't be able to be replicated exactly, the majority of ships should be able to be replicated by the ship designer, and all ships should be able to be ALMOST replicated by the ship designer. For example, titan cruiser has 300 crew, 3 other ships have 250 crew. If the ship designer were to have a max of 230 or 240 crew, although it wouldn't be as good for boarding as a titan cruiser or sword cruiser, it would be almost as good and could have different advantages, like more guns or engines. And for balance, raising the max of 1 statistic (ie crew) would lower the max of another (ie cargo) such that there wouldn't be a ship like this:

Ship name: Unbalanced Cruiser
Hull 30
Armor 20
Engines 60
Sails 60
Crew 240
Cargo 165
Guns 48
Torps 48
FAST
QUICK

[Deleted]

Someone also said something about exception ships having "hidden upgrades". Well what about having "hidden upgrades" that you can choose from in the ship designer upon making your ship? And some "hidden upgrades" would be rarer than others, such that you have to look for certain high-end ship designer upgrades similar to how you have to look for certain high-end ships?

There are plenty of ways to improve the ship designer without making ship designer too overbalanced so that everyone's happy.

[Gambit]

The hidden upgrades comment was just about changing the way you percieve existing ships.

And to sumarize...

Max Stats
Hull 50
Armor 27
Engines 50
Sails 50
Crew 200
Cargo 165
Torps 48
Guns 48

You should be able to replicate every ship with upgrades.

Finding, buying, or capturing behemoth ships in game will always yield better stats with upgrades but should be exceedingly rare finds each game. Like rare drops.

Or instead of creating ships outside parameters, cory could add in upgrades to those ships to make them fit within parameters but justified by upgrades. Or not. Doesnt really matter either way.

I hold to my arguement that you could surpass any ship in game save hulk, alien, narvarian with the ship designer and appropriate upgeades with these maxes.

[contributor]

Great discussions here. Almost makes me want to put some of my HoS groups into cryogenic for awhile and come back to ST. In all of this there is also the story element that says most of the ships in circulation today were not built in the quadrant and the technology to build them has been lost at the time of Star Traders. So from a story perspective, at least, it makes a lot of sense to have certain ships that can't be designed in the game. They are hold overs from a more advanced age and are therefore rare and irreproducible today. Unless the ship designer is a way of buying out of the constraints of the story.

[rabidbite]

Gambit stop being a guest and join the forum. I have to exalt you. Like ... really man.


fallen and Cory Trese Ehem, a little butt kissing incoming. I ... really ... REALLY ... like that there is a spaceship design feature in Star Straders RPG. Thanks a ton.


On with the show, kiddies.


rabid

[rabidbite]

Apr 13, 2014 23:36:30 GMT -5 @starfixer said:

Ship name: Unbalanced Cruiser aka Carrot Stick
Hull 30
Armor 20
Engines 60
Sails 60
Crew 240
Cargo 165
Guns 48
Torps 48
FAST
QUICK

[djdunn]

One thing id like to see, is the total cost of the ship when you don't have the money, all I'm seeing is not enough credits

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk