Suggested Carrier Management Blocks

[Durendal5150]

I know that a lot of this stuff is probably already in the pipe, but I had some thoughts on how to make carrier management fairly intuitive.

The basis of this is on two blocks: Carrier Rail, and carrier Rail Attachment. Some of the functions might be workable into existing rail blocks instead, but here we go.

The Carrier rail functions pretty much like a normal rail except that it always holds the docked entity in place unless it receives either A: A logic signal or B: A launch order from the fleet settings.

In addition, it can slave a pickup point. This way, when a ship is ordered to join a fleet/carrier, it already knows which pickup point to use, or will randomly pick one otherwise. Once the pickup itself has been used the rail will go into a 'wait mode' and then its normal 'docked mode' once there is an entity on it. This way if all the carrier rails slaved to a pickup point are in wait or docked mode, the pickup will deactivate itself, disallowing the recovery system from becoming jammed, even if there are craft moving on it that have not reached their carrier rail.

The carrier rail attachment simply signifies the explicit rail attach a ship should use to attach to the carrier. When executing carrier_recall or similar orders, it won't attempt to dock with other rails, and possibly disable them so it can't (Allowing docking of ships with other kinds of ports correctly)
EDIT: I now realize that having pickups slaved by carrier rails simply not accept non-carrier rail attachments would be the cleaner solution.

As well, both blocks would be able to slave storages. Not only allowing the usual transfer mechanics, but allowing a ship executing a mining command to know when its storage is full or over a certain percentage, and to automatically return. The carrier rail itself could then check the attached rails cargo flag, and if empty and the fleet is still mining, re-launch automatically.

Other possibilities include both types of rail being able to cycle through say, numbers 1-10. This way a ship with an attacher 2 in a fleet will only attempt to dock to a carrier rail 2 or its slaved pickups, allowing mixed docking types with greater ease. And for example, setting fleet options such that only rails 1,3 and 4 will launch for combat, and 2 for mining.

Another possibility is setting carrier attachers to an F or fleetship mode, and then assigning the fleet itself a 'home base' in the form of a station. When ordered to return home, they will know where to go and, through the mechanics described above, which Fleet-linked carrier rails and pickup points to use on the station. A new order could then either simply detach the attacher, or cause it to signal the rail its docked to to allow it to pass.

Working into mining, this way a carrier with mining drones could know to return home to dock and be unloaded when full as well, even if its sector/area/patrol path isn't finished, then to launch and continue as a standalone ship would.

Putting in stops such that say, a carrier will only itself dock if all of its currently known carried entities are themselves docked, would allow for concepts such as fighters carrying small 'add/option/funnel' drones to be implemented without undue fuss as well.


The idea itself is admittedly a little rough, but I feel a system like this could allow complex carrier gameplay, while being a fairly intuitive and straightforward extension of the existing rail mechanics.

EDIT: More brainstorming <.<
Another thought is for carrier rails to have a ship design associated with them, so only ships of said design would/could dock there. Advantage here being shipyards could then possibly be set to 'supply fleet,' producing craft for empty carrier rails. (and allowing ships to be ordered directly form the fleet menu, but that's a whole other can of worms.)

 

[ltmauve]

Carrier rail and carrier rail attachment seem a bit unnecessary.
The carrier rail attachment is already implemented with the pickup points. Ships in a fleet will remember where they last docked and will dock to that point.

As for "automatically add to fleet," that function can be done by slaving the pickup point or rail block the ship rests on to the faction block.

For getting unmanned carriers to launch their drones I have an idea that will be a bit more flexible than what you have planned. Here's a thread

Another possibility is setting carrier attachers to an F or fleetship mode, and then assigning the fleet itself a 'home base' in the form of a station. When ordered to return home, they will know where to go

I like this idea.

Putting in stops such that say, a carrier will only itself dock if all of its currently known carried entities are themselves docked, would allow for concepts such as fighters carrying small 'add/option/funnel' drones to be implemented without undue fuss as well.

Very good idea.

EDIT: More brainstorming <.<
Another thought is for carrier rails to have a ship design associated with them, so only ships of said design would/could dock there. Advantage here being shipyards could then possibly be set to 'supply fleet,' producing craft for empty carrier rails. (and allowing ships to be ordered directly form the fleet menu, but that's a whole other can of worms.)

Maybe allow shipyards to link to pickup points (it would have to be on the same ship/station) and then completed ships would make their way to the pickup point and dock?

Other possibilities include both types of rail being able to cycle through say, numbers 1-10. This way a ship with an attacher 2 in a fleet will only attempt to dock to a carrier rail 2 or its slaved pickups, allowing mixed docking types with greater ease. And for example, setting fleet options such that only rails 1,3 and 4 will launch for combat, and 2 for mining.

How about implementing custom formations? Especially with my idea, that means you could link some launch rails to formation A, and some to formation B

 

[Durendal5150]

Carrier rail and carrier rail attachment seem a bit unnecessary.
The carrier rail attachment is already implemented with the pickup points. Ships in a fleet will remember where they last docked and will dock to that point.

As for "automatically add to fleet," that function can be done by slaving the pickup point or rail block the ship rests on to the faction block.

For getting unmanned carriers to launch their drones I have an idea that will be a bit more flexible than what you have planned. Here's a thread

The idea was moreso to avoid needing to manually dock each and every ship beforehand, and to allow a form of sorting of what ships should use which pickup points. It is possible as is to build rails from the shipyard to the docked carrier, then transfer the carried craft and shoot it off a launch rail into the new pickup rail, but doing this dozens of times, possibly realigning the rails each time, is an enormous pain. As well, even when a ship has a set pickup point, it often bumps it with the wrong rail attachment, in the case of docking larger vessels.

The other reason was just to not overload the existing blocks with features, for a lot of the other ideas suggested.

(An easy way for mining ships to signal their full/empty status to their carrier, etc is likewise important I feel) Though your system using inner ship remotes isn't a bad idea either. My concern was in part with making these things intuitive as the game begins to scale up, and a player/faction may have to manage dozens of fleets with who knows what layouts.

On the station idea, glad you like that. I feel like it's important to be able to give fleets somewhere they can easily be parked by command. Can make it easy to send something to ones homebase to be protected, etc. This also brings up why I feel the current system isn't quite up to snuff, as it should be possible, or easier, to order fleets/ships to dock at things other than their one and only 'home block.' Especially for things like automated freighters/trade ships when/if they become possible.

Maybe allow shipyards to link to pickup points (it would have to be on the same ship/station) and then completed ships would make their way to the pickup point and dock?

Not terrible, but again runs into an economy of scale problem, I feel. When you've got multiple fleets with losses operating, it'd be far easier to bring them to ones home system and just set smaller yards to supply each while they're there, especially once multiple carriers become possible. (Especially for folks who want to do lots of drone-equipped ships, or even fighters. Manual resupply would be a nightmare.) As well problematic for ships with multiple pickup points. There's no simple way, even with that idea, to tell a shipyard to resupply a ship with, say, individual pickups for eight drones on racks.

How about implementing custom formations? Especially with my idea, that means you could link some launch rails to formation A, and some to formation B

Such that you can only launch certain ships for each formation? That does sound like a decent solution, if a little more convoluted to set up, imho, than a block that intelligently knows what orders to activate for. (Although admittedly more flexible!)



So yes, I'm not sure that entire new blocks are necessary, just that they may be intuitive. And while I definitely feel like your idea with the remotes and custom formations could work wonders, I worry that even that would begin to bog things down at later stages of long games.
A lot of the things I've seen planned around the forums both allow an amazing level of control over individual ships, and point to a vision that allows for massive numbers of individual units. I love that the game will support both play styles, but there's going to have to be some serious and intuitive automation of things like carrier management, crew management, supplies, etc. It may take away some of the challenges and puzzles of the game involving setting up logic networks, but I feel like otherwise the game at large-scale may become an unmanageable chore.

 

[ltmauve]

Not terrible, but again runs into an economy of scale problem, I feel. When you've got multiple fleets with losses operating, it'd be far easier to bring them to ones home system and just set smaller yards to supply each while they're there, especially once multiple carriers become possible. (Especially for folks who want to do lots of drone-equipped ships, or even fighters. Manual resupply would be a nightmare.) As well problematic for ships with multiple pickup points. There's no simple way, even with that idea, to tell a shipyard to resupply a ship with, say, individual pickups for eight drones on racks.

Well, there is the repair option, but that's glitchy and poorly-implemented right now. I wonder if it would be possible to tell a fleet to cycle through a shipyard and get repaired.

Though if you want sub-shipyards, that's probably a topic for another thread.

The idea was moreso to avoid needing to manually dock each and every ship beforehand, and to allow a form of sorting of what ships should use which pickup points. It is possible as is to build rails from the shipyard to the docked carrier, then transfer the carried craft and shoot it off a launch rail into the new pickup rail, but doing this dozens of times, possibly realigning the rails each time, is an enormous pain. As well, even when a ship has a set pickup point, it often bumps it with the wrong rail attachment, in the case of docking larger vessels.

Having a rail designated as "this thing will join the fleet" and having that apply after construction, repair, and joining a fleet will alleviate probably 99% of the problem with assigning ships to fleets.