So first of all, I'd like to say I really love this game so far, the potential is great, and I'm amazed with how you've incorporated the docking and turret systems. At the very least, in that you've incorporated a working and not lagtastic docking and turret system.
However, something I'm a little disappointed on, is that there isn't... Basically a modular ship system, that kind of works like docking does. Because that's how I design ships. Now I'm thinking things like, you can have a base frame for the ship, and maybe have a plexdoor to get to some of the internal structure, and you load in a module into that system, that gets incorporated into the ship itself, rather than being treated as a different entity like docking does; the potential is visible from having turrets able to drain power from the ship they're mounted on.
For example, lets say you have a ship, and you install a cannon module into it. After some testing, you decide, you don't like how that works, or now you're going to go on a mining mission. So rather than rebuilding the entire thing, you take the module out, and swap in a module that's designed to be a salvage system, instead. All doable by turrets so far, yes. But lets say you find out that your ship doesn't hold up well in combat, so you swap out that mining module and replace it with a shield module, instead. Or you discover that for the way your weapons systems work, it'd be better to have a power core that focuses more on generation than capacity. You could have your main core be a separate module, and swap it out. (Also allows for warp core ejection from Star Trek. ^_~)
But that's all things that you can do with patience and replacing blocks, yes. Now lets look at the advantages for fleet design and construction. We'll use Star Trek again as an example. Let's say you want to make both a Miranda class ship (The USS Reliant) and a refit Constitution class ship (The Enterprise-A, in this case). Both of them use the exact same style of warp engines (although they're mirrored, or have a fin, et cetera, minor details easy enough to change). Rather than make the exact same warp engine four times (as there are two per ship), you make a module that you buy four times, and mount them onto the ships. This also allows for having engines that are designed for jump drives, and ones that are designed for thrusters. (Or have ones that are made for increased power output). All of which you could just switch at a shipyard as quickly as unmounting a module and mounting the new one, and you can come back later for the them, rather than deleting the old engines and building a new one every time, or building an entirely new ship. This becomes especially useful when you start designing/building entire cultures of ships, that all use similar design methodologies in their components.
But wait, it gets even better, when you think in terms of carriers! You can have a squadron of strike craft, all with their weapons systems installed as modules. You can have them loaded up with cannons to bring down an opponent's shields, and then, in the middle of combat, have them return to the carrier, swap out their cannons for missiles, and use them to start battering away at the soft metal bits of the ships hull. And once the ship's core is overheating, swap them for salvage systems to mine up the ship to use to build new ships.
However, something I'm a little disappointed on, is that there isn't... Basically a modular ship system, that kind of works like docking does. Because that's how I design ships. Now I'm thinking things like, you can have a base frame for the ship, and maybe have a plexdoor to get to some of the internal structure, and you load in a module into that system, that gets incorporated into the ship itself, rather than being treated as a different entity like docking does; the potential is visible from having turrets able to drain power from the ship they're mounted on.
For example, lets say you have a ship, and you install a cannon module into it. After some testing, you decide, you don't like how that works, or now you're going to go on a mining mission. So rather than rebuilding the entire thing, you take the module out, and swap in a module that's designed to be a salvage system, instead. All doable by turrets so far, yes. But lets say you find out that your ship doesn't hold up well in combat, so you swap out that mining module and replace it with a shield module, instead. Or you discover that for the way your weapons systems work, it'd be better to have a power core that focuses more on generation than capacity. You could have your main core be a separate module, and swap it out. (Also allows for warp core ejection from Star Trek. ^_~)
But that's all things that you can do with patience and replacing blocks, yes. Now lets look at the advantages for fleet design and construction. We'll use Star Trek again as an example. Let's say you want to make both a Miranda class ship (The USS Reliant) and a refit Constitution class ship (The Enterprise-A, in this case). Both of them use the exact same style of warp engines (although they're mirrored, or have a fin, et cetera, minor details easy enough to change). Rather than make the exact same warp engine four times (as there are two per ship), you make a module that you buy four times, and mount them onto the ships. This also allows for having engines that are designed for jump drives, and ones that are designed for thrusters. (Or have ones that are made for increased power output). All of which you could just switch at a shipyard as quickly as unmounting a module and mounting the new one, and you can come back later for the them, rather than deleting the old engines and building a new one every time, or building an entirely new ship. This becomes especially useful when you start designing/building entire cultures of ships, that all use similar design methodologies in their components.
But wait, it gets even better, when you think in terms of carriers! You can have a squadron of strike craft, all with their weapons systems installed as modules. You can have them loaded up with cannons to bring down an opponent's shields, and then, in the middle of combat, have them return to the carrier, swap out their cannons for missiles, and use them to start battering away at the soft metal bits of the ships hull. And once the ship's core is overheating, swap them for salvage systems to mine up the ship to use to build new ships.
There's a templates in advanced build mode thing? (Loads up game to investigate...)
