Docking and the upcoming home base points system should use mass/block counts, not box sizes.

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

Already with the current turning system, a ship's dimensions are counted against it rather than its block count (which AFAIK is just the mass times ten because all blocks have the same mass, so let's say mass from here on out); this encourages slightly designs where the full box is filled with blocks, since it maximizes blocks per turning, with the only detriment being thrust required.

From what I've heard on the Q&As, it seems that the upcoming system of home bases consuming faction points to stay invulnerable will also be based on just the box size of the base, and this will be used to indirectly affect what you can dock because enhancer box size scale with the box size you want to create for docking with them. While this is a cool idea, it will lead to the most efficient system being to make box ships in any competitive environment, since making ships that don't use the full volume wastes a lot of docking volume and thus enhancer size and thus base size.
The best factions would all be the ones with box ships flying around with ridiculous setups and only using docking volumes that would normally be used for really weak ships by people who build non-box ships (and especially RP ships; a Nebulon-B Frigate would not be viable due to the relatively thin structure, long length, and downward protrusion of the forward section).

I propose that instead, docking and home base size be based off of mass.
Each docking enhancer could add a fixed amount of mass, and the dock would decide if the ship could dock based on whether there were sufficient enhancers connected for the mass, and also whether there's room for the ship (still need an open volume...but not a box-shaped one, just need to actually be able to fit the ship in).

To prevent very light (and thus cheap) homebases from being able to dock much more massive ships, as well as to prevent docking ships with ridiculous amounts of turrets cheaply, each enhancer would, if it had something docked, add to its owning structure/ship the amount of mass it's allowing, rather than .1.
In this way, if you docked all the turrets to a station-docked ship after docking it, it would become more massive, and if the station's docking enhancers couldn't handle that, docking would be lost.

What do you guys think?

 

[Cybertooth]

I'm sure it was based off of mass, but im thinking of the first Q&A which was a while ago so i could easily be wrong.
But yes, doing this based purely on dimensions would be ridiculous.

 

[Planr]

docking based on dimensions only makes sense. people build docks to hold ships of a certain size, not of a certain mass. its simpler this way.

besides... we all know that having the box dimension system for homebases determining available faction points vs protection is good for keeping small factions from building giant titan docks, and im all for killing giganticism.

though, i suppose with the upcoming game mechanic updates, titans will already be super-nerfed anyway, in addition to the planned inventory size limit.

 

[Cybertooth]

I agree with you that docking boxes should remain the same, size based. But i do agree with the op that the point system should work off of mass. Otherwise it will be further encouraging borg cubes, and while you might be all for killing giganticism (which i dont mind either way), i'd rather people have good looking ships than cubes. As the op points out, the turning mechanic allready encourages them

 

[Planr]

but the box ships we see take advantage of the faulty game mechanics that currently encourage giganticism. they just plaster huge amounts of 10^3 cubes of shields, power blocks and AMCs and thrusters together to make giant death machines. when the new game mechanics come along that kill the titans from being op, the box ships are gonna get nerfed even worse cause they take advantage of the flawed system the most.

the future introduction of ftl will be a good tradeoff for us to set soft limits on ship speed relative to ship mass as a percentage of max server ship speed too, thus meaning the death cubes we see today that can hit top speed in a second would have to rely primarily on ftl for getting around quickly, and they would be considerably slow at sublight speed.

 

[Cybertooth]

I agree with that entirely, i dont like cubes and all they represent. However that is getting off topic now.

Would everyone agree with a compromise on the op, that docking should remain as it is, but the points system should be based on mass?

 

[Planr]

the main difference in mass vs dimensions for faction point consumption is that mass counts it block-by-block while dimensions counts it in terms of exponentials (every further-out dimension space increases available free block space exponentially).

on a mass system, its easier for small factions to build big docks for big ships because they can just use the barebones amount and not have to worry about running out of dimensional space as long as they use as little as they have to. this can be problematic in that small factions can make big ship docks easier.

on a dimension system, its more rigid and tier-like in the manner in which a station can expand. it helps limit people building huge ship docks, thus the dockable ship sizes for a factions homebase are directly related to how big the base is able to be safely. the bad side is that there will be those who are impatient with having a small dimensional space and so to make their station more powerful they will just make it into a giant ugly op box.

both sides have advantages and disadvantages. personally, im happier off with a dimension system.

 

[rece ktore leczo]

Mass based docking is not to balance the ease of building big ships but rather not to encourage building flying cubes, which size based docking does.

Also mass based docking system have the advantage that we can precisely know how much mass current dock block can handle. So while docking a ship there is no problem of unknown if our ship could be contained inside boundaries, because we perfectly know the mass of our ship and mass limit of dock.

My question was asked during Q&A about docking based on mass and maybe this system would be implemented.
But there is one (and only as i can tell) problem with this system, which was told during Q&A, that when changed from size to mass based, it'll cause an undocking of every ship and every turret on servers, so yeah, plenty of lag and work on docking everything again. Maybe it can be solved that if the turret/ship was already docked, it stays docked, and checking for the sufficient dock mass would be done only once trying to dock something after an update. I don't know, i'm not Schema


Planr
I mostly disagree with You. Sized based docking and determining the upkeep cost of base leads to bases being as compact (in dimensions) as possible. That means players in cost of appearance would make small and cubic bases.
With mass based system players would be able to use the same amount of blocks, pay the same upkeep (with proper balance) and have bases which look as they want to. Still, enormously big bases could be kept invincible only by huge, active factions but overall result would be bases looking better, not being bigger.

Size based system mostly cripples people which are building farther from cube role model and it both goes for building ships (while docking) and bases.

Moreover mass based system is the fairer one. If i'm building something i want to pay upkeep for what i've built or when docking i want to take only the space the ship is taking. With dimension system we are paying for the space we are not occupying and don't want to occupy.

Your objection about less costly mass based system leading to oversized buildings is wrong, because upkeep cost for 0.1 mass (for mass system) can be higher then the cost of space of one block. It's all about the cost balance (probably could be changed for every server)

 

[Cybertooth]

^This
Pretty much exactly what i meant, i just didnt explain it nearly aswell :D

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

Mass based docking is not to balance the ease of building big ships but rather not to encourage building flying cubes, which size based docking does.

Also mass based docking system have the advantage that we can precisely know how much mass current dock block can handle. So while docking a ship there is no problem of unknown if our ship could be contained inside boundaries, because we perfectly know the mass of our ship and mass limit of dock.

My question was asked during Q&A about docking based on mass and maybe this system would be implemented.
But there is one (and only as i can tell) problem with this system, which was told during Q&A, that when changed from size to mass based, it'll cause an undocking of every ship and every turret on servers, so yeah, plenty of lag and work on docking everything again. Maybe it can be solved that if the turret/ship was already docked, it stays docked, and checking for the sufficient dock mass would be done only once trying to dock something after an update. I don't know, i'm not Schema


Planr
I mostly disagree with You. Sized based docking and determining the upkeep cost of base leads to bases being as compact (in dimensions) as possible. That means players in cost of appearance would make small and cubic bases.
With mass based system players would be able to use the same amount of blocks, pay the same upkeep (with proper balance) and have bases which look as they want to. Still, enormously big bases could be kept invincible only by huge, active factions but overall result would be bases looking better, not being bigger.

Size based system mostly cripples people which are building farther from cube role model and it both goes for building ships (while docking) and bases.

Moreover mass based system is the fairer one. If i'm building something i want to pay upkeep for what i've built or when docking i want to take only the space the ship is taking. With dimension system we are paying for the space we are not occupying and don't want to occupy.

Your objection about less costly mass based system leading to oversized buildings is wrong, because upkeep cost for 0.1 mass (for mass system) can be higher then the cost of space of one block. It's all about the cost balance (probably could be changed for every server)

I was unaware this had been asked during a Q&A. Must've missed it. Anyways, I think that one-time undockings are simply bound to happen and we've been through that before (seems likely that the game can't just recheck docking when loading stuff); it wouldn't be so bad.

I do suspect some people would build very large, mostly hollow bases, but I really don't see a problem with that; creating thin shell bases leaves them really vulnerable if they lose protection, and there really wouldn't be much reason to do it except to create hangar space for titans, but realistically, you'd need so many blocks to make the hangar, that it would probably cost comparably to the docking enhancers needed unless you built an utterly huge shell (square vs. cubic scaling implies that, at some point, it is better to build the shell).
It would also probably be relatively easy for Schema to implement a system that checks if there are undocked ships mostly encapsulated in homebases, and adds them to the cost of upkeep, for cases when people do go ridiculous and try to encapsulate their titans in invincibility.

Combined with enhancers costing mass equal to what they're allowing, that should prevent any small factions from being able to afford large ship docks. A key thing to note, however, is that docking must follow the same scaling system as home base cost, or else there will be problems; it really isn't possible to keep docking the way it is, but make hombases cost based off of mass, as then there would be small factions with big ship docks on small stations.

 

[Tomino_sama]

There are some big assumptions made here on the system itself. We just don't know what the setup will be, regardless of how it is calculated (Mass, Dims or otherwise).

I keep that in mind. mostly.



Also server wide undocking due to core changes is not a big deal, doesn't even need mentioning imo :D

 

[Zovc]

heres my suggestion:
sorry if this offends you or you find it rude.
Learn what turrets are.
Learn what shields are.
Learn how to build an effective and good looking ships.
I am struggling on the good looking part, but im working on it.
Problem with dimension is you just use a lot of shields.
Nice thing about dimension is it limits the Titans a server will have.
Problem with mass is you cant use a lot of shields, and good looking block expensive interiors are harder to come by. Imagine, you have a base, and a full realistic interior. Dance rooms, kitchens, dining rooms, meeting rooms, school rooms, gym, bedrooms. That's interior, and if you want different wall colour inside and out, that's a double layer. Now you probably will have a factory, and those need a lot of power. So to run good factories for big factions you need a lot of power. More power blocks means more mass. More mass mean more cost. Dimension leaves you interior decorating, and some exterior. Mass leaves you good exterior and limits a massive interior. Also mass limits your productive side, cause you want to use as few blocks as possible, and because its a cost over time, it limits builders, cause they cant build large protected bases.
Nice thing with mass, you can build bigger in 1 direction.

 

[Cybertooth]

Zovc, how does that contribute to this topic?

edit: just so I dont sound like a troll, that post only read as far as the line about good looking ships, it has since been edited.

 

[Zovc]

How, well, if you have strong turrets and a lot of shields, who needs homebase.
10mil shield blocks is a lot of shields

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

heres my suggestion:
sorry if this offends you or you find it rude.
Learn what turrets are.
Learn what shields are.
Learn how to build an effective and good looking ships.
I am struggling on the good looking part, but im working on it.
Problem with dimension is you just use a lot of shields.
Nice thing about dimension is it limits the Titans a server will have.
Problem with mass is you cant use a lot of shields, and good looking block expensive interiors are harder to come by. Imagine, you have a base, and a full realistic interior. Dance rooms, kitchens, dining rooms, meeting rooms, school rooms, gym, bedrooms. That's interior, and if you want different wall colour inside and out, that's a double layer. Now you probably will have a factory, and those need a lot of power. So to run good factories for big factions you need a lot of power. More power blocks means more mass. More mass mean more cost. Dimension leaves you interior decorating, and some exterior. Mass leaves you good exterior and limits a massive interior. Also mass limits your productive side, cause you want to use as few blocks as possible, and because its a cost over time, it limits builders, cause they cant build large protected bases.
Nice thing with mass, you can build bigger in 1 direction.

In my experience, interiors affect box size far more than mass, due to them being mostly empty. Under a system counting box size instead of mass, you come across the problem that a ship with actual interiors is severely underpowered compared to a flying box. With a mass system, the interiors being mostly empty space means they don't affect the limit of your ship nearly as much, and as a result you can still fit in your ship systems. Of note is that power in particular likes to be made of the longest chains possible, so it's easier to achieve the power you need when you're not limited by length but instead by block amounts (just 76 power in a line gives 35K e/s regen...pretty decent. I've made a ship with around 300K e/s regen ship pretty easily using 840 power blocks). As for shields, they really are going to be costly in the mass system, but the box size system has to be balanced around limiting sizes or else it would allow pretty powerfully shielded ships. A more forgiving box system means that you can just utterly pile the shields on in a box until you have a pretty ridiculous ship.

Thinking about this a little more, I think that there might be some ship design issues under the mass system due to the way box size matters in thrust and engines (pushing players towards really long ships), but it's certainly less of a powerful pushing factor than docking areas since you only really need one long dimension to achieve fairly good power, and most ships are pretty long anyways.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

[post created by hitting reply instead of edit, needs deletion]

 

[Ithirahad]

besides... we all know that having the box dimension system for homebases determining available faction points vs protection is good for keeping small factions from building giant titan docks, and im all for killing giganticism.

One problem: It won't really kill giganticism. It'll just encourage people to make idiotic-looking, uncreative, retarded doomcubes to make the most of their maximum box dimensions.

 

[Strange]

I think the power of a ship is in its mass, not its dimensions. I can make three 1X100 long stacks of gray hull, stick them at right angles to each other, and I have a 100X100X100 ship - technically. Now if I fill that space with shield, energy, AC and thruster blocks, I'll also have a 100X100X100 ship. But it's pretty obvious which one is stronger.
Now, if I build two ships that have the same stats, the same blocks, but one has an interior, one will be bigger than the other, but they'll still be (fairly) equal. So, I think that the home base calculations should be done by mass, not dimensions. Mass is much more relevant.

 

[Malacodor]

I hate the current docking system (aside from the fact that docking itself is a great feature), it really limits creativity.

It forces us to either build angular hangars and cubic ships, or to waste a lot of space. I made a fighter which looks like a bumblebee without wings; it isn't pretty, but it would look cool to have several of them sitting in tube-shaped docks, which aren't much bigger than the fighters themselves. But the round fighters must fit into an angular box, which in turn must fit into a round tube, which has to be significantly bigger in diameter than the fighters, and the docking block sticks out looking ugly, too.

I'd also like to make round indentations for round turrets, but I'm limited to flat surfaces. I don't wan't my ships to look like cardboard models or 3D models made of just 20-30 polygons (there are already enough of these in my opinion :p), but if I want decently sized turrets I need large enough horizontal or vertical faces (docking blocks in the shape of wedges and pentas would be cool, btw). With the current system I can make turrets in such a way that large parts of them overlap with the ship when they rotate, but I can't attach a turret when a single block, which can't ever be touched by this turret, is inside that damn bounding box.

 

[lio_oVo_oil]

Not to deny all of your interesting comments, but it seems that both systems have their advantages and disadvantages, and to say that one system is better than the other is like saying communism, or capitalism can be fully achieved. I think a system, combining both the mass and box system, should be set in place. Less emphasis on limiting the dimension, and more on mass because irl, to move any mass in space is a b****, and it becomes less efficient as the amount of mass and volume increases. I'm not saying that the game should be like real life (of course it isn't), but I want some sort of more logical system, considering there are factors like mass, and volume to deal with, and we don't want cubes, but instead, we want nice ships. This system I am referring to should be something that equates to [density=(mass*10)/volume]. This would allow ships to be larger, while still limiting their mass, so that you can have space inside of ships, instead of cramming a bunch of power/shield generators and power tanks inside of them. I find this useful for determining how large a dock should have to be (though docking modules would allow a greater density ship to be docked there and as for turrets, the same would apply), and how small your ship must be shouldn't be a mystery to anyone. Though another system, also using density, should be used for determining how effective shields, cloaking, and radar jamming systems are.