Request for Comments: Ship Design

[marhawkman]

Is there a reason we need to have parts be larger than one slot? If there were always one slot per part, there'd be no need to rotate or concern about which several covered sides a parts falls on...

There is no point in having a grid system then, since it just boils down to putting parts in easily, you might as well just have a list system.

To have the same features you could just have 5 lists with some open "slots" each. Or am I missing something?

That way you don't have to make graphics for each weapon/equipment.
Would save a lot of time...

It'd be easy to make the firing arc of a weapon a function of which slot it's mounted in. the main thing is that using a gui to design a ship by placing stuff in the hull is fun. (for most people) Also this way we could have combat determine what gets smashed by what side of the hull got hit.

[utilae]

Sure, thats the only thing the grid system adds, is the firing direction and limits on how many weapons can fit in the different directional slots.

But I think you have to have some weapons and systems that take up 1x1, 2x2, 3x3, etc slots to bring out the full use of the grid system.

[Geoff the Medio]

...bring out the full use of the grid system.

You're going to have to be a little more specific than that... What about using 2x2 or 3x3 parts is better than only using 1x1?

[marhawkman]

...bring out the full use of the grid system.

You're going to have to be a little more specific than that... What about using 2x2 or 3x3 parts is better than only using 1x1?

It what you put the uber-large stuff in. Like say Stellar convertor, or spatial disrupters.

[utilae]

...bring out the full use of the grid system.

You're going to have to be a little more specific than that... What about using 2x2 or 3x3 parts is better than only using 1x1?

When you place a component, that is only 1x1, always 1x1, then you can put it anywhere in the grid, it doesn't matter. It only matters if it is a weapon, where you have to put it in a directional slot (sides,front,back of ship) to determine weapons direction of fire.

You might as well just have a list system, and when you put the weapons in, you choose the weapons direction, without having to drag and drop things into slots.

If there were weapons/equipment that took up more than 1x1 slot, then there is strategy in placement, ie you cannot fit everything easily. Sure we dont want players mucking around with this problem for too long, but it is probably just a graphical representation of the list system, where space is x space out of x space and you don't know when you have no space, until the ship is out of space.

In this grid system a component would not take up 500 space or 100 space. It would take up 1x1 space or 2x3 space. This usage of space stuff would just be translated into a visual rather than number based system.

[eleazar]

...bring out the full use of the grid system.

You're going to have to be a little more specific than that... What about using 2x2 or 3x3 parts is better than only using 1x1?

Graphically, if we do (as i hope) build 3D models of the weaponry, and place them on the 3D hull models, it would be rather cool to have weaponry that's much bigger than the weapons you can build at the start. The dramatic impact of a death star with lots of little weapons isn't nearly as dramatic the one huge beam.

Tactically, 4 small Weapon Xs might do less total damage than a 4-slot single, large Weapon X, but would have a higher chance of doing some damage (4 chances), and/or be able to simultaneously target multiple enemies. So small weapons might be better at PD or any small fast targets, while big weapons would have a natural advantage against large, slow or otherwise easy-to-hit targets. This mechanic seems pretty intuitive.

I can't claim this is a must-have feature, but i'd like to see it if we can work it in, without too much trouble.

[Geoff the Medio]

You might as well just have a list system, and when you put the weapons in, you choose the weapons direction, without having to drag and drop things into slots.

Presumably dragging and dropping onto visible slots is a more enjoyable, understandable and fun process than using a series of drop lists...

If there were weapons/equipment that took up more than 1x1 slot, then there is strategy in placement, ie you cannot fit everything easily.

I think we need to justify the annoyance to players, and computational complexity for AI, of such a system better than just declaring that it exists. It isn't so much strategy as it is a potentially frustrating geometry or logic puzzle.

In this grid system a component would not take up 500 space or 100 space. It would take up 1x1 space or 2x3 space. This usage of space stuff would just be translated into a visual rather than number based system.

If we had only 1 slot per part, then that would be the size of each part. There would be no additional space requirement. All parts would take 1 slot. Why is it necessary or beneficial to make things more complicated than that? (not a rhetorical question)

Graphically, if we do (as i hope) build 3D models of the weaponry, and place them on the 3D hull models, it would be rather cool to have weaponry that's much bigger than the weapons you can build at the start. The dramatic impact of a death star with lots of little weapons isn't nearly as dramatic the one huge beam.

If we assume that one slot represents a fixed volume of physical space, then this might be a problem, but the number of slots in a hull doesn't necessarily have to scale proportionally with the on-screen apparent volume of a ship model, as long as we can fit the weapon models onto the hull model somehow... So, we could have a single-slot death-star laser that looks much bigger on the model than a single-slot pea shooter tier-1 PD weapon.

Tactically, 4 small Weapon Xs might do less total damage than a 4-slot single, large Weapon X, but would have a higher chance of doing some damage (4 chances), and/or be able to simultaneously target multiple enemies. So small weapons might be better at PD or any small fast targets, while big weapons would have a natural advantage against large, slow or otherwise easy-to-hit targets. This mechanic seems pretty intuitive.

I suspect we'll want to have have separate types of weapon parts to do PD, SR, LR, or deal with fighters on a ship. So, the comparison between a single-slot and a four-slot version of the same weapon for PD vs. SR might not even be an askable question...

[utilae]

Presumably dragging and dropping onto visible slots is a more enjoyable, understandable and fun process than using a series of drop lists...

But it takes so much longer. Bare in mind I am thinking of a Moo2 style list system. It was quick and wasn't boring or anything, maybe could have used a few more pictures, but I was thinking that if they achieved the same thing, then you might as well have the faster method because in both you are doing the same thing if components only ever take up one slot eg.
Moo2 style: select weapon A, select weapon B
Grid style 1 slot: drag . . in weapon A, drag . . in weapon B

If we had only 1 slot per part, then that would be the size of each part. There would be no additional space requirement. All parts would take 1 slot. Why is it necessary or beneficial to make things more complicated than that? (not a rhetorical question)

Given a part, Stellar converter vs Laser, would both take up 1 slot or would stellar converter take up 4x4?

Or are both taking up one slot + X space?

Graphically, if we do (as i hope) build 3D models of the weaponry, and place them on the 3D hull models, it would be rather cool to have weaponry that's much bigger than the weapons you can build at the start. The dramatic impact of a death star with lots of little weapons isn't nearly as dramatic the one huge beam.

Not like Galciv2 I hope. It took me ages to create ships in that game and to make them look good took even longer. Then I find out that all that work is wasted since the combat system was just seeing them fly torward each other and shoot their weapons.

But anyway, I would like a system closer to spore, but something more automatic and generated
eg
- 'Choose hull shape' <<== might involve connecting a few shapes
choose one: |rectangle|triangle|circle|
- 'Modulate shape' <<== auto generate modified shape to theme
choose one: |spikes|smooth|rugged|
- 'Texturise' <<== add in textures to theme
choose one: |organic|metal|glow|

[marhawkman]

Honestly though fancy pictures are only barely useful. We could go and use the tech icons for the first version. I like the idea of using weight, but I also like the idea of hull slots. SE5 combined both in a very easy to use way. (intuitive and cool) The design screen showed you the total weight, and the max weight your hull could hold, and the description of each part showed how much it weighted. Grantred none of the parts took up more than one square, but that made no sense at all. Especially when you take into account the only reason colonizer hulls exist. Colonizer components are as heavy as a small battleship. Colonizer hulls are there so you can use colony components without being able to build any other kind of huge ship. I must say that I like the idea of an auto-design feature. Something like is MoO3 where all it does is add whatever you best tech is to the hull. The design wizard then lets you go back and change things if you want.

[eleazar]

But anyway, I would like a system closer to spore, but something more automatic and generated

Sorry, Spore's modeling is groundbreaking, and took a team of geniuses years to make. It's way out of our league. As is often the case, there's an inverse relationship between the simplicity of using something, and the simplicity of coding/designing it.

[utilae]

But anyway, I would like a system closer to spore, but something more automatic and generated

Sorry, Spore's modeling is groundbreaking, and took a team of geniuses years to make. It's way out of our league. As is often the case, there's an inverse relationship between the simplicity of using something, and the simplicity of coding/designing it.

Yes, and that is why I said something more automatic and generated, ie something simply, quicker, like I described. When I said Spore, I only said Spore for its 'editor'. I think Galcivs 'editor' and Spores 'editor' are both very advanced, fancy and beyond us, but I like the idea.

[marhawkman]

Yeah fancy graphics are a "would like to have" item, not a "must have" item.

[Sloth]

Graphically, if we do (as i hope) build 3D models of the weaponry, and place them on the 3D hull models, it would be rather cool to have weaponry that's much bigger than the weapons you can build at the start. The dramatic impact of a death star with lots of little weapons isn't nearly as dramatic the one huge beam.

If we assume that one slot represents a fixed volume of physical space, then this might be a problem, but the number of slots in a hull doesn't necessarily have to scale proportionally with the on-screen apparent volume of a ship model, as long as we can fit the weapon models onto the hull model somehow... So, we could have a single-slot death-star laser that looks much bigger on the model than a single-slot pea shooter tier-1 PD weapon.

Having just one-slot-weapons and each slot representing a fixed amount of space would have more disadvantages, namely that huge ships would have to have a large amount of weapons instead of huge weapons, which is not only boring but also means tedious designing.

That just leaves the decision between (or taking both):

1. multiple-slot-weapons

2. slots representing a variable amount of space

concerning 1. there has been some contras in this topic (For example from me).

There is no concept how to accomplish 2. in these posts so far ( I think?). So are there any ideas?

[marhawkman]

There is no concept how to accomplish 2. in these posts so far ( I think?). So are there any ideas?

that's what most of my posts were about.

Big heavy things have multiple slots associated with them. Or is there something I'm missing?

[Sloth]

There is no concept how to accomplish 2. in these posts so far ( I think?). So are there any ideas?

that's what most of my posts were about.

Big heavy things have multiple slots associated with them. Or is there something I'm missing?

Multiple Slots was point 1. , but I just noticed that you (marhawkman) mentioned the weight component from SE5 which covers point 2. .
Sorry should have read your posts more carefully...