Please stop penalizing 'roleplaying' builds

[aceface]

I would like to build and fly ships which others find attractive to look at, that are believably interesting. I would like to be able to play on a 'roleplaying' server where the look of a ship is paramount. However the actual game mechanics actively deter me from doing so, and unnecessarily so.

The bottom line is that big, heavy ships are absolutely no fun to fly. Their acceleration is abysmal and they turn so slowly it is downright painful. Beautiful 'roleplaying' ships require significantly larger amounts of both size and mass to build than ships built without such regard, and so the roleplaying ships are slower and turn much more sluggishly than for instance, a 'battle cube'. (A cube contains the most volume for the least amount of hull armor, another reason for which the existing game mechanics reward such building.)

I propose two very easy to implement changes to address this. Make turn rate much less dependent on size and much more dependent on mass. This will partially remove the disincentive to including the space required for beautiful builds. The other crucial change is to make decorative blocks, those blocks that have no other function on a ship other than making it pretty, have zero or otherwise extremely low mass. I should not be forced to accept less enjoyment from flying a ship in order to make it nice to look at.

Crucially; basic hull, not the armored versions, should have it's mass reduced to near zero and it's HP value similarly reduced. It's function aught to be to create shapes and colors, not to turn your ship into a slugboat.

In short, blocks that contribute to the combat power of a ship should continue to do as they do, add mass, making the ship harder to fly and less responsive. This is necessary to balance their power. It is NOT necessary to do the same for construction that does NOT add to combat power.

As things stand now, you want the maximum amount of ship in the least amount of volume, as volume directly translates into reduced maneuverability. You also want the maximum amount of ship volume covered by the least amount of hull mass, so as to protect the most with the least armor. In a game that allows for random PvP (griefing), to fly around in anything not designed for maximum combat power is just begging for ruined days.

Yes, your 50K mass roleplaying ship is tough, but it is nowhere near as tough as a 50K mass battle cube. This must change.

i really agree with you man, any block that does not add to combat systems such as damage, shields etc should have a lot lower mass and be a lot cheaper than systems in my opinion

 

[Krazykat]

You people need to READ THE POSTS he states earlier that decorative blocks when hit should NOT STOP THE PARTICLE THAT HIT IT

 

[Dark_Inquisitor]

I see little to no problem here.
You want RP ship?
Go to RP server.
You want to kick some asses and kill dudes?
Go to PvP server, bring your doom device (cubes are thing of the past) and kill everyone.
As for huge ships... What do you expect? Turn rate of the fighter?
Also - look at the history of the WAR machines.
There is NO place for beauty. Just more guns.

 

[MrFURB]

In my adventures I've found that it is possible to build a ship of nearly any size that is both beautiful and functional so long as you're not relying on massive amounts of open interior; more than 20% for a capital ship and a little more for smaller ones.
Having lots of convex or raised (depending on your style) surfaces can increase both aesthetic value and volume without increasing your ship's dimensions. Focus on combining selective exterior details with a unique shape to give your exterior the theme you want; don't go overboard on detailing unless a certain space is in need of depth. Try not to use a lot of thin protrusions like fins or long antenna as they tend to increase both dimensions and surface-volume ratio, which you want to keep low.
Once you get a good eye for a style that fits the above guidelines it's easy to design vessels that both look amazing and match up 90-95% of the combat stats of what people call a doom-ship. That 5-10% difference is easily made up tenfold by circumstance and should only be apparent when you are both sitting still and start shooting at the same time.

Hope this helps!

 

[Panpiper]

... it's easy to design vessels that both look amazing and match up 90-95% of the combat stats of what people call a doom-ship.

Except for two fundamental and crucial differences. The 'doom ship (cube)' will be a smaller shape making it harder to spot and harder to hit. The doom ship will contain more volume under the (dubious) protection of less armor, permitting more mass to be devoted to shields and weapons. But most importantly of all, the doom ship will have VASTLY better maneuverability. More than anything, it is the maneuverability that kills it for me. I can barely stand flying a 49 block wide cube for it's crappy turn rate, let alone something that requires 30 seconds of mouse dragging just to line up on an asteroid.

Seriously, the turn rate is SUCH an issue for me that I regularly contemplate giving up on the game in utter disgust. The only thing that keeps me in it is the fact that the turn rate can be modded in single player and the hope that some server host somewhere will see fit to mod it on their multi-player server.

 

[Dark_Inquisitor]

I can barely stand flying a 49 block wide cube for it's crappy turn rate, let alone something that requires 30 seconds of mouse dragging just to line up on an asteroid.

Oh no! My giant ship can't manouver as fast as regular fighter. Make is so 200m ships will be able to dogfight.
NO.
Big ships are supposed to be slow, tough and pound hard to destroy other big ships while fighters can zip around them picking up other fighters, small ships and turrets.
And for ships, again - look at the modern navy, spot the diffrences between warships and civil ships.
In warships there is NO PLACE for fancy pants decor, WIDE corridors and big open spaces, AND YOU HAVE HALF OF STUFF PACKED THERE. Notice how they ARE SMALL compared to the civil ships.
It's not about cubes and penalazing (and long sticks are better anyway), but the build itself.

 

[HerrColonel]

Also - look at the history of the WAR machines.
There is NO place for beauty. Just more guns.

Beauty is subjective. Tanks or war machine are build around a few main guns. Everything else is here for a funtionnal purpose and the exterior side is done to give it the right profile so it's likely to dodge or resist projectiles being shotted at from some angles

 

[TrainDodger]

If you want more power, simply enclose a larger volume of space in hull blocks. The empty space used for your interior takes up no mass. Where you're penalized is in the mass and dimensions of the hull along the perimeter of this space. After a certain point (i.e., a 30,000-mass ship a couple hundred meters long), turning rate is irrelevant. So are forward-fixed weapons. If you want to bring forward-fixed weapons on a 30k+ mass ship to bear on a small fighter, you're doing something wrong. That's a turret's job. Turrets have an excellent turning rate, and they can be any size, even the size of a titan if need be.

 

[Valiant70]

The bottom line is that big, heavy ships are absolutely no fun to fly. Their acceleration is abysmal and they turn so slowly it is downright painful. Beautiful 'roleplaying' ships require significantly larger amounts of both size and mass to build than ships built without such regard, and so the roleplaying ships are slower and turn much more sluggishly than for instance, a 'battle cube'. (A cube contains the most volume for the least amount of hull armor, another reason for which the existing game mechanics reward such building.)

I agree completely. This absolutely murders the game for me right now. I could create such beautiful ships if decoration blocks were massless and didn't affect turn rate.

I propose two very easy to implement changes to address this. Make turn rate much less dependent on size and much more dependent on mass. This will partially remove the disincentive to including the space required for beautiful builds. The other crucial change is to make decorative blocks, those blocks that have no other function on a ship other than making it pretty, have zero or otherwise extremely low mass. I should not be forced to accept less enjoyment from flying a ship in order to make it nice to look at.

That'll do it.

I think keeping box dimensions for turn rate will still work, I just feel that the upper limit before you hit 1.0 should be increased, so 100-200 or so metre ships handle better than they do, but 500m or so ships are still as sluggish.

I guess I'd be okay with that, but only if massless blocks aren't factored into the boxdims. That way I can put big decorations on ships as long as those decorations aren't armored.
[DOUBLEPOST=1422478258,1422477956][/DOUBLEPOST]

If you want more power, simply enclose a larger volume of space in hull blocks. The empty space used for your interior takes up no mass. Where you're penalized is in the mass and dimensions of the hull along the perimeter of this space. After a certain point (i.e., a 30,000-mass ship a couple hundred meters long), turning rate is irrelevant. So are forward-fixed weapons. If you want to bring forward-fixed weapons on a 30k+ mass ship to bear on a small fighter, you're doing something wrong. That's a turret's job. Turrets have an excellent turning rate, and they can be any size, even the size of a titan if need be.

Unfortunately that doesn't help medium-sized ships much.

How does one give a ship extensive interior and still perform as well as another ship of the same mass? Make the interior weightless. Problem solved. This needs to be done for the sake of gameplay. Even a realism junkie like me can see that. I'd be tempted to say give them a little bit of mass... but no, as long as they don't despawn projectiles, they should be completely weightless for balance reasons. My use of interiors and decoration would absolutely explode into something altogether new, different, and more considerably more elaborate.

 

[Dark_Inquisitor]

(...) How does one give a ship extensive interior and still perform as well as another ship of the same mass? (...) Even a realism junkie like me can see that. (...)

Guys, I can't. I'm losing it. STOP comparing RP ships built to be eye candy to actual battleships. For example, take irl thing that's closest to the spaceships (imo) - navy (submarines mostly).
Have some pictures of extensive decorative interior of submarines:

Spoiler

And before you'll go HURR DURR, note:
I like to build eye candy ships with decor, too. Everyone does like to have a representative ship with extensive interior, hangar bays, and tons of empty useless corridors. But killing other ships ISN'T their role, nuff said. But seems like not everyone can accept that pure look of the ship won't kill. It's the guns that do it. That's why you make thight corridors. Put just enough crew, not too much. Make them sleep in very cramped, tiny rooms. Engeneer the ship to be as deadly and efficient, as it is possbile.
STILL, there are things that needs work, that's for sure. But decor blocks act like normal ones. They stop the bulets, for example. They add another layer for your ship. And as for dimensions and rotating speed - there is simple physics behing it.
Sake of gameplay?
Yeah, of course. If your 150m ship turns and accelerates almost as fast as 10m fighter, whats the point in having those? Almost like "good" old times when people was flying with titans which was able to get after few hours.

 

[HerrColonel]

Yes but the main subject is, in my opinion, that having a minimalist interior makes the ship better in terms of fight
that's ok for very small ships, but for medium-big sized ships it makes you feel you don't want ANY corridor/empty space so you will have a minimalist cabin even in a big destroyer (so it'll win over ships of the same size with only RESONNABLE interior (no decorations) like small corridor between cockpit, minimalist sleeping room, storage room)
When I say it's ok for very small ship, what I mean is a fighter of the size of a 200-300 mass ship is supposed to have quite only cockpit, or be unable to resist fire/carry big enough weapons/be sluggish campared to a ship of the same size. So that's the way I build them and I think a lot of players do core rooms this way
simple cockpit access: http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/220412starmadescreenshot0028.png
compact and useful cabin: http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/171899starmadescreenshot0029.png
ship core in front of the player and you go back to your sit when exiting the ship core so I like it and find it nice and handy even if it's quite ugly


If that's not OK for big ships is because in reality you CANT pilot a big sized water battleship in a single room, you need PLENTY of rooms for engines, weapons, etc, and corridors to access them (and your crew won't be too much thankfull for the rooms) even in a very small submarine (I don't know too much) you will still have a small main corridor between engines and rooms and controls right?

But I don't feel we need to add weightless blocks because after this no one (me included) would want to put a single "not weightless" block to make interiors or such and we would need a whole new set of blocks and colors

I think the game has to give us some mechanic with these rooms (engines, sleeping rooms, turret and weapon access, etc) so you'll want to put some "not weightless" block to make a room for it, and (because of this increasing your mass) you have to choose to what you'll restrict yourself and balance the size and the loss in weight/space compared to the bonus you'll get

 

[Lecic]

Yes but the main subject is, in my opinion, that having a minimalist interior makes the ship better in terms of fight
that's ok for very small ships, but for medium-big sized ships it makes you feel you don't want ANY corridor/empty space so you will have a minimalist cabin even in a big destroyer (so it'll win over ships of the same size with only RESONNABLE interior (no decorations) like small corridor between cockpit, minimalist sleeping room, storage room)
When I say it's ok for very small ship, what I mean is a fighter of the size of a 200-300 mass ship is supposed to have quite only cockpit, or be unable to resist fire/carry big enough weapons/be sluggish campared to a ship of the same size. So that's the way I build them and I think a lot of players do core rooms this way
simple cockpit access: http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/220412starmadescreenshot0028.png
compact and useful cabin: http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/171899starmadescreenshot0029.png
ship core in front of the player and you go back to your sit when exiting the ship core so I like it and find it nice and handy even if it's quite ugly


If that's not OK for big ships is because in reality you CANT pilot a big sized water battleship in a single room, you need PLENTY of rooms for engines, weapons, etc, and corridors to access them (and your crew won't be too much thankfull for the rooms) even in a very small submarine (I don't know too much) you will still have a small main corridor between engines and rooms and controls right?

But I don't feel we need to add weightless blocks because after this no one (me included) would want to put a single "not weightless" block to make interiors or such and we would need a whole new set of blocks and colors

I think the game has to give us some mechanic with these rooms (engines, sleeping rooms, turret and weapon access, etc) so you'll want to put some "not weightless" block to make a room for it, and (because of this increasing your mass) you have to choose to what you'll restrict yourself and balance the size and the loss in weight/space compared to the bonus you'll get

Let's be real here. Combat is not, despite what people frequently think, a 100% numbers game. Pilot skill and some good luck with your AI's aiming skills can easily turn the tide in a battle. If two ships of equal mass are fighting, the fact that a bit of that mass is interior hull isn't going to matter much in the end. Instead of blaming your decorations for losses, maybe look at your own piloting skill and general tactics and ship balancing.

Current stats are based around ships being about 1/3 shield, 1/3 weapons, and 1/3 everything else. Is YOUR ship properly balanced, or are you too heavy or light in one area?

 

[HerrColonel]

Let's be real here. Combat is not, despite what people frequently think, a 100% numbers game. Pilot skill and some good luck with your AI's aiming skills can easily turn the tide in a battle. If two ships of equal mass are fighting, the fact that a bit of that mass is interior hull isn't going to matter much in the end. Instead of blaming your decorations for losses, maybe look at your own piloting skill and general tactics and ship balancing.

Current stats are based around ships being about 1/3 shield, 1/3 weapons, and 1/3 everything else. Is YOUR ship properly balanced, or are you too heavy or light in one area?

I'm not complaining about combat. My point is if your ship is 1/3 shields 1/3 weapons and 1/3 everything else (and is quite bigger than a fighter) I'll build a ship of the same mass with 1/3 shields 1.8/3 weapons (lets put 0.1/3 more because I need more power to fire it up) and only a core room for the 0.1/3 remaining and it'll be better in any fighting stat (even if the issue of a fight can ALWAYS be hazardous because of people like me having shitty skillz) (the numbers I wrote are quite meanless but it's only to show what I think. There is plenty of other small %)
and my conclusion was: we don't need blocks without mass to build interiors with to avoid this issue. I think people will still build reasonable interiors if theye're happy to do so, but what we need in the first place is a reason to build something more that a single core room. Because we have no reason to do so, we feel every empty space is useless

 

[CyberTao]

You also cant give arbitrary bonuses or an advantage to a single style of play, and more or less force people into using it. What if someone wants to play like it was EvE or X? With minimal interior and focus on fleets or player inaction or such?

Back when I first started, I made a ship with lots of interior in singleplayer. Why? Because I intended it to be a ship of importance, a mothership of sorts that I would always be around. Once I got to servers though, I used a ship with basically bare bones interior and a nice hull, cause I spent more time flying around then walking around.

And that's a lot of what everyone does on a server, just fly around and maybe building a base. Large important ships? Yes, they can use some interior for fanciness, but the common cruiser or mainline battleship would probably get away just fine with minimal interior and maintenance shafts. But that is just my interpretation, how I intend to play someday. If you want full scale interior on everything, then build and play like that.

Who gets to decide what blocks become massless anyways? What you use for interior might be someone else's exterior hull (What if I like Advanced Hull floors? Will I punished for my choice in RP material?). There is no winning there unless we get the ability to change the mass on any block (Like we are probably going to) and mass gets fixed by default.

 

[Proxima_Centauri]

Until the mechanics change such that 'doom' cubes are no longer the most agile thing to fly, I will be building cubes.

So let me get this straight.
You are (extremely mad) that you are "forced" to fly a non RP ship?
Why don't you play on a non-pvp server if doing such a thing is so important to you?
What do you have to say about servers like Elwyn Eternity, where it is practically rule-less pvp and yet there are many large factions with good RP ships?

Also nice job in addressing literally 0 of the functional points I brought up, it really helped convince me of your argument.

 

[Panpiper]

Also nice job in addressing literally 0 of the functional points I brought up, it really helped convince me of your argument.

I have zero interest in discussing anything with someone who approaches a conversation with derision, nor do I care to waste my time trying to change what you think. I might attempt to change the thinking of people I actually care about, such as people who can converse with decorum.