Players and/vs Systems

    Zerefette

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    Hello everyone today I throw my opinion on things like how players work on systems and how they deal with them.
    Let's start with images because I like visual comunication.
    Note: I'm making arguments considering the new power system, and don't hardly assume all the cubes I use to represent components mean that I want bricks of systems, it's just the way I use to represent some need of grouping and rules.

    This is efficency supersemplified, we're not taking distances in count here and the brown thing which I forgot to add to the legenda is armor. Also shield treats caps and rechargers together.
    This is how the best ship is a brick and how every ship can be considered a brick looking inside.
    While the new power is trying to bring some sense in this mess by becoming internally modular, the part outside of the stabilizers/chambers/reactor block (which worringly resembles a brick) up here remains the usual brick mess as bad as old power system.
    There's too much freedom, we need some reason/rules to have less dense areas.

    This is how system grouping works and it doesn't look like a ship part at all.
    Extend modularity to all or most of the systems to get rid of this systems amoeba.

    Let's make some examples.

    Have shields grouped as a big generator, or many with their own indipendent settings which won't change until a reboot happens.
    Shield rechargers now give a % regen of the pool provided by shield capacitors and must be on contact to work. Of course it's won't be a equal relationship where a 1:1 ratio gives a 100% regen of shields but something a little better than the one we currently have.

    Profit: People won't struggle to fill the ship with random shields blocks everywhere and they'll use the low density block that was announced.

    Weapons are target for a rework and rebalance, also for visuals but let's take that part in minimal consideration just for the output for now.

    This is how a weapon in it's worst form is and the sad thing is that it can work.
    I wanna have a look at weapons in a modular form.

    Splitting the weapon in subcomponents can grant it a shape and also lets people choose how big the shot can be, how large is the power reserve for the weapon is to allow burst weapons like a 3 shot cannon if the pool can support the Gun Engine fire 3 times and the Output rules the shape of the shot, maybe you can set that the Gun Engine xy size can never be bigger than the Output's to introduce a size rule.
    A ship weapon can have no pool if it does not desire multishot or whatever function it can do but each extra shot requires a minimum of pool to do the full damage of the first shot.
    The Gun Engine could work the same as weapon do now with main slave and effect.

    So after this modular exploration let's move to this cute shuttle here.

    Now that you've seen the beauty of modularity, we can start filling ships shells with modular systems.
    This should be a blueprint of a space shuttle I found on google images.

    As a last note, while "Schine" thinks that people would not like extending long lines of conduits I think it'd be appropriate for any complex structure to have them so maybe if you have the "eye" you can follow them to determine the position of the ship's components.
    Oh and I hope my paint drawings do not disgust you.
    Back to hating bricks, not that my proposals make them impossible or inefficent but I think they make cool looking stuff less behind vs efficent shapes.

    Extras:
    My objective is not to deny the construction of brickships but to have systems take a structure form inside a ship and not have this giant sea of shield capacitors with stuff scattered inside, in a way I'm saying systems should be more bricky so you can tell where the subcomponents of a ship are and maybe put them offline in a fight. So people start to decide the position of whatever you put inside way better.
    Here's the section of one of the most effective and infamous ships, the Despoiler.

    It's a missile boat with some systems covered by layers of shields, how ever can you discern where stuff is to cripple a ship by destroying one of it's sub components? I can't even tell where thrusters are. The only pro thing in this is the sublayers of extra armor, and this thing is "meta".
    Also interiors and cockpit in one pic.
     
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    Ithirahad

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    I fully agree with the sentiment, if not the suggested implementations. As I have said at least (and probably more than) once before, forcing space within the power system while allowing everything else to remain amorphous results in both frustration and practically encouraging people to create exploity 'cloud-ships.'
     
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    Certiantly a creative post.
    Just some thoughts:

    Let's start with images because I like visual comunication.
    I love you. Now please carry on : )

    This is how the best ship is a brick and how every ship can be considered a brick looking inside.
    While the new power is trying to bring some sense in this mess by becoming internally modular, the part outside of the stabilizers/chambers/reactor block (which worringly resembles a brick) up here remains the usual brick mess as bad as old power system.
    There's too much freedom, we need some reason/rules to have less dense areas.
    -I understand what you mean, I quite like to think in ratios as well. I'm sure you also awear how badly bricks take damage though :P
    -+1 to more modualr systems. Rather than having a soup with the ocassional chunk, having a more organised meal.
    -I personaly quite like having the freedom to build ships in different ways and having the systems where I chose (rather than a mechanic forcing me to put all my thrusters at the rear for example). Having some more order to that wouldn't be bad as long as how I can build the system isn't too limited or biased towards certian designs. I'm sure we are all awear of how much dislike the stabilizor mechanic has generated.
    -Not so sure about less dense areas. I should not be forced to leave big hole in my ship, the ammount of exposed faces causes more lag and does not increase the effectiveness of my ship. If I want an interior I can easily put one in without affecting the ships performance.

    Have shields grouped as a big generator, or many with their own indipendent settings which won't change until a reboot happens.
    Shield rechargers now give a % regen of the pool provided by shield capacitors and must be on contact to work. Of course it's won't be a equal relationship where a 1:1 ratio gives a 100% regen of shields but something a little better than the one we currently have.
    -My concern over this arises from needing to build my ship around various large generators, instead of being able to design a hull, then spread my systems throughout it. I do not think we should be forced to build systems before a hull.
    -Intersting idea regarding shields. That certiantly does change how they would function a bit, but does make a lot of sense. Not sure how 'on contact' would work. Having to place each recharger adjacent would just result in giant time consuming waffle boards. I do not enjoy building those. Not fun and engaging building :,(

    Profit: People won't struggle to fill the ship with random shields blocks everywhere and they'll use the low density block that was announced.
    Probably my biggest gripe so far, I have never struggled or seen players struggle to fill in excess space. Placing more blocks should increase your ships stats imo. Empty space is terrible on your frame rate and I find it visualy un-appealing unless it is a designed interior or hanger. Being forced to do so or instead place these useless "filler blocks" I find disguisting as a builder. We also have various build tools now which make filling in space take very little time.
    E.g do I want to fill in this space with a useless block or more systems??? More systems of course! Players should not be peanlised for trying to get the maximum performance out of a ship.

    Weapons are target for a rework and rebalance, also for visuals but let's take that part in minimal consideration just for the output for now.

    I wanna have a look at weapons in a modular form.

    Splitting the weapon in subcomponents can grant it a shape and also lets people choose how big the shot can be, how large is the power reserve for the weapon is to allow burst weapons like a 3 shot cannon if the pool can support the Gun Engine fire 3 times and the Output rules the shape of the shot, maybe you can set that the Gun Engine xy size can never be bigger than the Output's to introduce a size rule.
    A ship weapon can have no pool if it does not desire multishot or whatever function it can do but each extra shot requires a minimum of pool to do the full damage of the first shot.
    The Gun Engine could work the same as weapon do now with main slave and effect.
    Some good an intersting ideas here. Seems like re-doing the seconday and tertiry effects a bit.
    With the orgional cannons you used to beable to change it's rof, range, damage etc with a variety of conected sliders. Maybe such a thing could be re-implimented.


    So after this modular exploration let's move to this cute shuttle here.

    Now that you've seen the beauty of modularity, we can start filling ships shells with modular systems.
    This should be a blueprint of a space shuttle I found on google images.

    As a last note, while "Schine" thinks that people would not like extending long lines of conduits I think it'd be appropriate for any complex structure to have them so maybe if you have the "eye" you can follow them to determine the position of the ship's components.
    Oh and I hope my paint drawings do not disgust you.
    Back to hating bricks, not that my proposals make them impossible or inefficent but I think they make cool looking stuff less behind vs efficent shapes.
    I love conduits too :3 Having some tangaible progression and flow in a ship makes a lot of sense to me. I would more so favour conduits being used to power systems. (e.g the reactor is the heart and the conduits are the blood vessels).

    As long as ship systems can easily be built to fit around a ships hull and not enforce direct shapes I agree with most of what you've said here.

    Thank you for the constructive post.
     

    Zerefette

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    -Not so sure about less dense areas. I should not be forced to leave big hole in my ship, the ammount of exposed faces causes more lag and does not increase the effectiveness of my ship. If I want an interior I can easily put one in without affecting the ships performance.
    They were planning to add a low density filler block, I'm taking that into account.
    I really don't mind the filler block behind interiors, it's not like you can fit interiors everywhere and if you do they start having odd shapes by following all the hulls, then again if systems become so effective together to make scattered dots inefficent when in the same entity together with larger groups filler blocks are my go. Players use mining trash already to fill stations.
     
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    But the problem is that mining trash usually have transparency and complicate light calculations.
    I wish capsules could be turned into blocks with the same stats.(that would be a solution for filler blocks)
     

    Zerefette

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    But the problem is that mining trash usually have transparency and complicate light calculations.
    I wish capsules could be turned into blocks with the same stats.(that would be a solution for filler blocks)
    Dolom and such have this stuff? Odd, it's used to fill station to increase fps by decreasing empty spaces.
     
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    Dolom capsules have transparancy.
    Regular dolom does not have that but it is three times heavier while having the same hp.