Fighter / Capital Ship distinction

[jarlrmai]

The problem here, is that difference between sandbox world simulation and science fiction movies, the closer a simulation gets to being sandbox the less the ships seen in Sci Fi movies make sense. In Star Wars and a lot of movies / anime the setup of the vehicles is designed based around WW2 naval combat, large capital ships and carrier groups with fighters mainly because this provides a visually intersting and easily identifiable metaphor for combat not because it makes any sense in terms of actually fighting in space. Space shooters generall have aped this style of combat (planes in space) as they are copying the movies. Now StarMade gives a semi realistic space simulation and modular build tools, peope are not restricted to ships that try and copy the movies/WW2 ships so they can build ships that make actual sense in terms of the simulated world.

However I feel there should be a balance and a few more restrictions to force a more aesthetic design for example thrusters should have be exposed at the edge to provide thrust, and I think you should have to have attitude control thrusters to turn/strafe.

Symetry could provide bonuses to systems.

Maybe sheils, power, weapons need need to away from engines and each (some sort of interference, reducing output) this provides a requirement for seperation/nacelles etc.

Systems should not be protected by shields maybe, or get less protection, meaning hull is required to armour them, or rebalance the weapons to provide a Shields, Armour v Missiles, EMP, lasers

Bigger weapons systems should require more computers maybe, weapons over a certain size should

Oxygen in ships would be a great idea as well, would be awesome if say having a section trees etc could provide CO2 scrubbing...

This way you enocurage ship building rather than componnent lumping, you are still going to get ugly fucntion ships though in any competitive game. I think you\'ll see a PvP/RP/PVE split with different rules per server.

 

[Charlie_]

As far as needing to be inside interior to replenish Oxygen... all you\'d need would be a powercore. Because honestly, if piloting the ship from the core didn\'t replenish your oxygen or depleted it, then honestly, shove that breathing mechanic up its creator\'s ass and go home.

Therefore, the problem would not be fixed one bit, since all those cylinders need is a core. And let\'s face it, why would you move out of the core in a battle? No reason.

I do build interiors, and I do find it annoying. But hey, you want nice ships, they want efficient ships. And the most possible efficient ship would be a space-ship-sized robot controlled by an AI equivalent by a human mind when it comes to adaptability and real time strategic and tactical creativity. Well woopido, a no-hollow core-piloted ship is the closest thing you can get. ANd that\'s exactly what they go for.

There\'s a definitive objective here where you want your ships to be in either one of those:

MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY --- VS --- AESTHETICALLY NICE

Anything else is located in between. You can\'t make an aesthic ship without it not being efficient, but it will always be less efficient than the same-size same-mass equivalent cylinder. It\'s a simple rule.

It\'s a choice. You go either one way. This game is a SANDBOX. It\'s main selling point is that the player can build ANY ship they WANT any WAY they want to. So you can\'t supress one possibility or over-encourage the other. They\'ll both always be there, and it comes down to how you want to play your game. You want to play it visually interesting, and I\'m personally on your side. But for those people who just want to enjoy space battles and tear apart rival ships, there\'s no use for fancy interiors. So how can you blame them for not having any?

I think your engine idea is more or less not viable. If we\'re talking about a battle cylindar, then they\'d just shove a big chunk of thrusters facing every side. As your main critic is : appearance is not a concern, so who cares then if you need engines facing either way? Therefore this change would do one thing, and that is make turning and looking around a living hell of frustrating and groaned annoyance. Meanwhile, your cylinder friend over there has no issue with it and you\'re stuck in an even WORSE situation than before.

I know it\'s frustrating, I know it sucks to have the cylinder beat the awesome and interesting, fascinating sometimes, design. But that\'s life. That\'s the game, deal with it or build a cylinder.

 

[CCV]

I highly support many of you suggestions however if u won\'t to see a simaler more in depth look at it check out theme pedal donut. Plus I completely agree and very perswasive on your part. The game would need a stronger platform tho

 

[Terramort]

This doesn\'t seem very well put. You are essentially saying, \"Don\'t like the cheap part of the game? Too bad, man up and be cheap with everyone else.\" Sure, of course, you can do that (just like cheating to skip courses in race games, or spamming the same quick unblockable in fighting games that puts in an ifinite arieal combo), but really, you are just being a douche and abusing game mechanics that should be changed, since it\'s in ALPHA.

There are a lot of possible fixes. Nerf AMC fire rate, so a battle cylinder can\'t just roll up and snipe your core before you see it, and so players will want to use turrets to help against Frigates. Super nerf large ship turn rate+accel, and give fighters+frigates their advantages that should be there. Require anything requiring power to actually, you know, be connected to either Power Blocks or Power Tanks, so every possible cubic meter can\'t be stuff with additional AMC or shields without some planning, and even then, it\'ll be weak to having it\'s power lines broken if it\'s all massed and grouped. Have Hardened Hull share damage with all connected Hardened Hull, so ships can\'t \"drill\" as fast, and battle cylinders will be incredibly weak once the outer, single layer is penetrated. Have Heat Seeking missiles penetrate x blocks before detonating, making fighters very capable of swooping down on the narrow section of a battle cylinder and begin tunneling to the core (once shields are down, of course).

The game is in alpha. We should be doing things to avoid \"use it or lose, buddy\" type stuff, as it inevitably ends up ruining games. What fun would StarCraft be if the one of the 3 races was just obviously better than the other 2? Everyone would always use that race, and the game wouldn\'t be fun.

 

[Fashdag]

The Ships in Starwars DO NOT have side specific weapons (with the exception of fighters) They have TURRETS, and for that reasen, so they can shoot from any direction.

I hoped this comment clears things up.

 

[omelet]

Since there is some logic and optimization that can be made with ship layouts, some layouts are better than others. If people design with only those considerations in mind or as priority, since everyone is playing by the same rules, the most optimized ships will tend to look similar. If they made a sphere shape the most powerful (or added oxygen or whatever other thing mentioned) then there would be a bunch of people killing you in boring spheres instead of cylinders. Optimization of systems would have to be so complex or random that people are not able to figure it out (not fun), or theyd have to change the system to where people were forced to build/buy ships in certain pre made configurations (which limits creativity) or the optimization rules would have to be thrown out the window with all ships having the same abilities (Also not a good idea).

It kind of makes sense that the efficient powerful ships are boring. Look at cars today, they practically all look the same. If they built them to look cool only or look like batmobile, they probably wouldnt get the best gas mileage.

in my mind the way to balance this out is through other elements of gameplay such as resources, combat skill, strategy, or teamwork.