Balancing

[Johnathan Dahmnation]

Assuming each hull provides 1 structural integrity point _ & _ Both thrusters and weapon block need 5 of them each (=enforce hull)

For 10 Hull blocks you can have (( 2 thrusters _ or _ 1 weapon, 1 thruster _ or _ 2 weapons ))
Passive effects would than also require 5 hull blocks each, thus can be (5+1)* as efficient without buffing doom-cubes, but they would buff RP ships with currently excessive amounts of hull.

thrusters + weapons + shields count + power == 1/5 of hulls == <1/6 of all == 10..16%
Would mostly nerf doom-cubes, not RP-orientated ships with already <10% mass in vitals.​

While decorative being <few% of blocks are negligible - thus have almost no impact on mass, but don't give you free hp either (as that would require them being spamed).
They are often only <few% on hybrid RP/PvP ships and only spamed on RP ships.

I'm feeling a bit misunderstood and repeating myself now & regret starting such a long 2-people post chain.
I said "vital-ore (using it as alias for one of the existing)".

Yeah, that was what I meant by scaling issues, looking at large ships even I can't imagine most, even RP, are built with 90% hull. Even on RP ships the available proportional systems mass would be likely to increase. Combined with diminishing returns or scaling power like what is being proposed for thrust it just seems like setting it so high is aimed at making them unfeasible when looking at a single ratio across all sizes.

I'm aware of what you stated regarding "vital-ore" also, I just pointed out that since some decorative elements are used in making functional elements it means we'd need a rework to making blocks that divorced the dependance of the same materials for each.

Regarding your regret, why?

 

[NeonSturm]

Regarding your regret, why?

Because some peoples will think it's boring and skip this thread maybe = less feedback

You don't need to remove Deco on Vital recipes, just add/require this vital-ore (which can theoretically also be obtained with: 10 shards/ore -> 99 normal capsules, 1 vital capsule)

The diminishing returns would then just be modified (have the "diminishing" expanded to be equal at more mass). You can currently also use push-modules.
I would like big ships to just use thrusters for manoeuvring and FTL (push = place holder till we have it)

You can navigate to nearby shops/planets with a small shuttle if you just need a little and your large ship - well makes at least planet-eaters less efficient than small salvager because of the included navigation time.

 

[Johnathan Dahmnation]

Because some peoples will think it's boring and skip this thread maybe = less feedback

You don't need to remove Deco on Vital recipes, just add/require this vital-ore (which can theoretically also be obtained with: 10 shards/ore -> 99 normal capsules, 1 vital capsule)

The diminishing returns would then just be modified (have the "diminishing" expanded to be equal at more mass). You can currently also use push-modules.
I would like big ships to just use thrusters for manoeuvring and FTL (push = place holder till we have it)

You can navigate to nearby shops/planets with a small shuttle if you just need a little and your large ship - well makes at least planet-eaters less efficient than small salvager because of the included navigation time.

The reason I suggested removing decos from functional ship components is that including them still means that you have resource competition between ship components and decoration. And the more I think about an even remotely scalable number the more it becomes apparent. 10% non-hull is ridiculous for all but the smallest of ships (even there it's questionable as a single man fighter fully hull enclosed came in at ~60% for me) and makes for little, or rather nothing in the way of functional design.

Infact it almost demands a reversal in the idea of diminishing returns as it just guarantees larger ships become more and more completely ineffective against each other with the prevalence of linear scaling.

I don't think I'll be having the size convo on this post though since it seems you're content to turn large ships into FTL carriers with little other use, but as I understand push modules are rather inefficient for the desired task as well as the fact that we now have a proposal looking at changing how they work.

 

[NeonSturm]

10% are not ridiculous *searching for randoom community content screenshots...*

[EDIT deleted pic. Don't need it any-more, my next post has math

You need 5/6 hulls thus 15..16%
That is where I've got my 15 from original post (instead of 6). It was hull% not multiplier for thrust/effect efficiency.]​

Thrust scales with diminishing returns dependent on available power. At some point you have to use linear scaling push-modules or something else linear.

We could just multiply thrust by 6 and we would have same balance as now.

We could also multiply weapon and shield strength by 6 - or reduce hull hp by 6.
We could increase salvage efficiency (more capsules per shard/ore) or make it faster by a factor of 6

0% non-hull is ridiculous for all but the smallest of ships (even there it's questionable as a single man fighter fully hull enclosed came in at ~60% for me) and makes for little, or rather nothing in the way of functional design.

Just use more layers of hull the bigger your ship is. You don't have to use just one layer all the time for decoration.

Why do you not build double-walls and double-floors so that you can make a light in one room without shining through to the other?
Or copy-paste completely walled in room-blocks with 1 space in-between for power-lines and some missing/round-edges or empty space to enable crossing lines of power/weapons...

That is how you should build a ship. 0.5m thick walls are impossible anyway, thus you don't need to try it super-realistic anyway and can just make 5m thick walls/floors/ceilings (in-between decks for engineering staff)

 

[Johnathan Dahmnation]

10% are not ridiculous *searching for randoom community content screenshots...*

Look at all these hulls. Don't tell me it's just 1 layer.
And now think about how many weapons you can have for it.

Thrust scales with diminishing returns dependent on available power. At some point you have to use linear scaling push-modules or something else linear.

We could just multiply thrust by 15 if each block requires 0.33 reactors and 13.33 hulls = 14.67 blocks and would have same balance as now.

We could also multiply weapon and shield strength by 15 - or reduce hull hp by 15.
We could increase salvage efficiency (more capsules per shard/ore) or make it faster by a factor of 15




Just use more layers of hull the bigger your ship is. You don't have to use just one layer all the time for decoration.

Why do you not build double-walls and double-floors so that you can make a light in one room without shining through to the other?
Or copy-paste completely walled in room-blocks with 1 space in-between for power-lines and some missing/round-edges or empty space to enable crossing lines of power/weapons...

That is how you should build a ship. 0.5m thick walls are impossible anyway, thus you don't need to try it super-realistic anyway and can just make 5m thick walls/floors/ceilings (in-between decks for engineering staff)

I'm going to give the benefit of doubt here and assume you didn't look too hard at this one. It's mostly a hollow WIP shell. Furthermore it's pretty thin in some areas and has MASSIVE amounts of unclaimed internal space. Hull thickness is also wildly inconsistent suggesting in some cases solid blocks were placed and shaping/details carved out of them. But even at 10 layers+ in some areas it still has so much unclaimed volume. If you want to prove a point you should probably look for a finished RP ship to see what a final balance looks like.

Also thrust is diminished for additional blocks currently, with power consumption equaling blocks placed. That puts a greater focus on mass balancing than power. That will be very likely changing but we don't know when. Looking at the new system push/pull is a non-solution because it still leaves you speed capped by the other navigation factors. There is somewhat of a natural size cap involved in the proposed mechanics, but it seems that you are assuming that adding 2 systems at proportions for full effect won't add enough mass at that point to further diminish results. I'm not so convinced considering all of the above need powered.

Also your assumption about reactors and hulls works around a constant that doesn't and won't exist, namely reactors to thrusters. It doesn't exist now due to diminishing thrust per block and won't exist with increasing thrust/block. Not seeing how you ended up at that number either. Currently a single undiminished thruster gives 4.4 thrust and consumes 1 power. So that's 1 reactor to fuel 44 blocks using 2. Adding 20 hull to the equation means to get the same proportional thrust is ~484 undiminished per thruster or 12x (assuming you are still arguing for 10 hull for every functional block). This also still doesn't address the fact that there is no way to compensate for diminishing returns through an increase in volume in larger ships since that volume is mandated at certain ratios.

As for double sided walls, that's irrelevant. We're looking at overall mass ratios, whether you spend it on internal walls or external armor has no meaning for the underlying system. Even that aside there isn't any reason rooms couldn't be bordered with some functional components like any real mass/efficiency conscious ship would.

 

[NeonSturm]

How much hulls thickness do you prefer?

I think 5 blocks high decks, walls and floor/ceiling = 2 blocks with 3 blocks in-between free is good.

If you fill 30% of this space and make engineer-tunnels, you have 2 floor/ceiling hulls for each vital block.
Count 2 block thick walls for 10xz or 20xz deck area and you get 2b*(10x+10z)*5y / ((10*10)*(3/30%))= 2 wall blocks for each vital

Now count the exterior hull and details = 1 vital / (10 blocks per deck * bot+top=1/10 of ship height) = 1 hull block for each vital.

15 was too much, I was tired/confused - it is the hull%, not the multiplier.
You need 5 blocks per 1 thruster/vital, got these and thus should multiply thrust and effect by 6 (not power as you don't need more power for more hulls)