Racial traits

[AndrewW]

What about renaming 'Pilot" to 'Gunner' to better reflect what effect it has?

Then creating a new "Pilot' trait that has an effect on ship speed?

This would give a little more to the which race to build ships then simply "Best available pilots".

[MatGB]

Ooh, that could be an idea. Quite a nice one. Yes, you can have a Mu Ursh battlefleet, but they're not renowned for their speed.

Hmm, definitely worth thinking about. But not before the next release

Could do a fair bit of balancing with that sort of idea.

[AndrewW]

Ooh, that could be an idea. Quite a nice one. Yes, you can have a Mu Ursh battlefleet, but they're not renowned for their speed.

Hmm, definitely worth thinking about. But not before the next release

Probably better to wait to get some testing/balancing done first.

Could do a fair bit of balancing with that sort of idea.

Sounds right up your alley.

[AndrewW]

I could see making the pilot to gunner change before the next release though. So those trying things out get used to that.

Then just putting pilot in sometime after that.

[Vezzra]

What about renaming 'Pilot" to 'Gunner' to better reflect what effect it has?

Then creating a new "Pilot' trait that has an effect on ship speed?

Good idea, concerning the terms however I'd prefer a more generic term like "Fighters" instead of "Pilots"/"Gunners", and "Navigators" for species with ship speed bonus/malus (as being able to do long distance travel faster strikes me more as depending on navigational than piloting abilities).

[Bigjoe5]

What about renaming 'Pilot" to 'Gunner' to better reflect what effect it has?

Then creating a new "Pilot' trait that has an effect on ship speed?

Good idea, concerning the terms however I'd prefer a more generic term like "Fighters" instead of "Pilots"/"Gunners", and "Navigators" for species with ship speed bonus/malus (as being able to do long distance travel faster strikes me more as depending on navigational than piloting abilities).

I think "gunner" conveys the intended meaning better than "fighter". To me, "fighter" seems to imply something about ground combat rather than space combat.

[AndrewW]

Good idea, concerning the terms however I'd prefer a more generic term like "Fighters" instead of "Pilots"/"Gunners", and "Navigators" for species with ship speed bonus/malus (as being able to do long distance travel faster strikes me more as depending on navigational than piloting abilities).

Fighter to me would be more the vehicle itself, I think Gunner would be a better fit here.

I could see either Pilot or Navigator though. (Maybe the navigators could use Ki Spice, since we don't have any melange...)

[Kassiopeija]

Since a planet can also gun/fire at ships I think you'll simply have to add a single explanatory sentence to whatever term you'll decide to use, and that should clear the meaning up in the end.

[Dilvish]

Since a planet can also gun/fire at ships...

Fire, yes, but "gun" maybe not-- our descriptions of Planetary Defenses do not indicate if they are manner or not, but I tend to think of them as unmanned (or at least not employing gunners doing manual targetting). Note also, the bonuses we are discussing for this term are the ship weapons bonuses (not anything to do with planet defenses).

I think the term 'gunner' is my preferred choice to replace the current "pilot"

[em3]

How about 'Expert Dogfighters', which would be giving bonuses only for smaller hulls (and, eventually, fighters)? Or 'Expert Skirmishers' which would increase damage dealt when your stealth is greater than enemy's detection strength?

I can try to code 'em up later if anyone thinks it would be fun (well, probably the 'skirmishers' is not doable right now, because would require mid-combat effect evaluation... which would be a nice feature to have, by the way).

[Geoff the Medio]

...bonuses only for smaller hulls...

This requires establishing and assigning hull size traits, and then for players to keep track of these statistics / ratings. This is not an established design point, and would make things unnecessarily complicated, in my opinion.

[em3]

...bonuses only for smaller hulls...

This requires establishing and assigning hull size traits, and then for players to keep track of these statistics / ratings. This is not an established design point, and would make things unnecessarily complicated, in my opinion.

Fair enough.

[MatGB]

...bonuses only for smaller hulls...

This requires establishing and assigning hull size traits, and then for players to keep track of these statistics / ratings. This is not an established design point, and would make things unnecessarily complicated, in my opinion.

Depends, you could do it just based on slots or parts used, we have the ability to check for that now.

Not sure it's worth doing though, would be a neat idea if we every do a tactical/campaign game using the engine.

[em3]

...bonuses only for smaller hulls...

This requires establishing and assigning hull size traits, and then for players to keep track of these statistics / ratings. This is not an established design point, and would make things unnecessarily complicated, in my opinion.

Depends, you could do it just based on slots or parts used, we have the ability to check for that now.

Yes, but this would prove error-prone if other pieces of content would also depend on a ship being "small". Each such place could potentially have a different definition. So I agree, this is not a worthwhile addition for now.

[MatGB]

If we were going to use a small/medium/large splitup in some way, then it would need to have amacro to define/do the maths on what each means and then each time it's used you use the macro, encouraging more macro use for standardised expectations is a good thing.