Split engines into different types with different effects. Also, add "Item levels/tiers"

[KuramaFox]

As the title says, the idea is to replace engines as they currently are with a couple different types. I'll get into the second part of the title after that.



Naturally, the ship core would have a base level for all types of parameters as it currently does.



Type 1: Normal Engines. Determines how fast you accelerate and decelerate. In other words, what we already have.

Optional: Make the above only apply to forwards and backwards, and have a second version which works for horizontal and vertical strafes (both in one, no need to be any more complicated then that). Which makes them necessary for messing with planets, for instance (though you'll still want some anyway for manuevering and stopping).



Type 2: Turning thrusters. Determines how fast you turn. Simple enough. Add more for a ship that can turn faster. Would be useful for larger ships. Alter the core's "default" level of this power to make it necessary to throw one or two on small ships too.





Type 3: Engine Enhancers. Determines your maximum speed. Lets say a ship without any has a maximum of 10 k/s. Add some to increase it, up until the hard speed cap (which defaults to 50 currently, but for purposes of this suggestion can be upped to 100 or 200). Like other engine parts, its effect is scaled against the vessel's mass or size. So you will need more of them to make a large ship fast then a small ship.













The second part of this suggestion is basically to take what we have for hull currently (hardened hull is basically "Tier 2 hull"), and apply it elsewhere. Engines, shields, weapons, armor, power cores. Basically all the major things. For simplicity, we can probably allow multiple tiers of anti-matter cannons for instance to all use the same weapons computer (although a more expensive one could calculate a reticle that shows where the target will be by the time the shots travel there).



Effectively, this can allow small ships to take on larger ones, if you just happen to not like flying a large ship and are particularly rich. Spend enough money on a small "Tier 3" fighter and it may be powerful enough to tear open a large "Tier 1" battleship for instance. Alternatively, you can just be more selective with your purchases, and only splurge on higher-tier equipment for your turrets for instance to keep them small, or on particular parts for internal asthetic purposes. Anything more then 3 tiers is probably unecessarily complicated though, aside perhaps from a handful of unique high-end items.

 

[shadowcrusnik]

GREAT IDEA!

This would be incredible, at first i thought Tier 1 stuff would end up being useless, but with a large enough price differentiation between each tier, along with increased difficulty to craft the parts, you could actualyl create a simple and very effective power chain, big ship of cheap stuff? or small ship of very exspensive stuff? The small ship is MUCH harder to get, but very well worth it, while the big ship can take on AIs and smaller tasks!

You should get a Nobel fuckin prize!

 

[Archer6621]

Maybe the placement bonuses of the thrusters we already have could be changed in such a way that it would allow all three improvements.

Like making very wide thrusters yields a big bonus in turn-rate, making very tall thrusters will improve thrusting capabilities more than normally, and making really long thrusters would boost your max speed.

Just a rough example, but not sure if it would actually work like that. Maybe an extra bonus could be given for thrusters that are only large in one specific direction to prevent people from making all-around thrusters that have a large cubic size and provide all three functionalities.

Or maybe a bonus could be given for having thrusters with a large surface.

 

[shadowcrusnik]

Thats an idea ive always thought about, have weapon dimensions affect their stats based on their shape, like with AM cannons, having really thin paperlike ones increases fire rate but decreases accuracy, having really long, stick like ones increases the damage and accuracy, but yields a slightly slower fire rate. With no way to shape it for increases projectile speed.

Also, change the projectile, it launches Anti-matter, not lasers...



Edit: Also!!!! Give the option to have multiple outputs, i want to have a chain gun like AM cannon setup where a couple cannons over here fire, then a couple over here, then the first cannons and two other cannons fire, but slightly off. Similiar to what happens when your shield goes down and your cannons get separated.

 

[KuramaFox]

Indeed, the basic thought is that if a T2 piece is about n times as effective as a T1 piece, it would actually cost somewhere from 2n to 5n times more then a T1 piece. This is to balance for the fact that a smaller vessel is also harder to hit. Engine pieces would have to scale a little less then some other parts as tier increases to avoid further problems with ship size lopsidedness. More advanced parts could be heavier, but the fact remains that a T1 ship and T3 ship of the same size will not be too hugely different.



Also, an addition to the 3rd type of engine blocks, the max-speed one. These should have diminishing returns on top of being relative to vessel mass. So it shouldn\'t be too hard to get a ship capable of moving 50 k/s, but making it hit 200 k/s would effectively require a ship made of nothing but power cores, engines, and engine boosters. At least if you were using T1 boosters for the speed enhancement. T2 or T3 variants of the parts would be more powerful, and would allow you to make a ship that moves quite fast without having to throw away all your armor, shields, or weapons.



It also gives a good way to make your engine power matter more. All ships currently have the same effective speed-cap. You can\'t just outrun things unless they have really, really horrible acceleration.



I would also like to comment that the part for the \"type 1 engine parts\" optional bit would be quite nice too. After all, not all ships would necessarily be fit for planetary operations. Also, just imagine the potential for:

Racing! Yes, racing. People build ships, and race them. Where? People can just build a giant ring, buy a bunch of them, and fly them out where they want, and they have a course. Maybe throw asteroids in too. And have it go through a planet some guy with hopped up missiles was trigger happy on. If all ships move the same speed, its just not the same as it can be if every player\'s design reflects the capabilities of the ship. Acceleration, deceleration, the maximum speed, how fast it turns. AND, how fast it can recover from side-ways movement after turning. With all four of these variables in the design, one design will not be the best for EVERY race. Some races may favor a ship that is better suited for straight-aways, while others may work best with a racing ship that is designed to hug corners, and make U-turns really quickly.

Oh yeah, and having such characteristics can be important in combat too, especially if they ever increase planet size and effects to the point where landing on a planet becomes a viable means of getting away from a large vessel unable to support its weight. Well, unless it can just blow the planet to pieces. But then, something that massive? You can just have a faster ship that has a higher max speed and outrun the thing. It would also have the potential to actually necessitate having a shuttle hangar onboard a particularly large ship so you can get in a fighter or smaller craft docked there to go down onto a planet.



I\'m sure you can think of other fun things to do with both the split-up engine functionalities and the possibility of tiered equipment, if not both at once.

 

[KuramaFox]

In reply to just augmenting current thrusters to include turns and max-speed options, that could also work. But it would make things less fun with designing them, and also be less clear to new players (at least items have descriptions in the shops that are actually pretty good at telling you what they do). Additionally, it would hurt the ability to design specifically for the attribute you want while not being forced to adapt a specific ship shape (with regards to making block dimensions a factor similar to how weapons do it).





Edit: one other thing. For purposes of testing, all parts can be purchased from the shop for now, but eventually Tier 3 parts would be difficult to find in shops, to promote use of factory systems. Or perhaps shops would only restock higher end parts if a nearby factory-station was built that can produce them, with the shop getting 1-3 of any part that factory-station builds in stock (these would be duplicates for the sake of shop-stocking, the part built by the factory itself goes to the owner of the factory).



Edit 2: Several threads that mention toughness in general indicate that we do indeed need to buff armor blocks a bit. This would need to be done in addition to adding item tiers though regardless. After all, even what is effectively T2 armor right now is still all but useless for protection to current weaponry on medium sized vessels or above, relative to shields. And of course, bring missiles into the mess and...

 

[heskey30]

Adding tiers of equipment seems like it would emphasis on player progression instead of building - there are already lots of games that have player progression and it would not make this game more special. Also, what happens when someone makes a high tier battleship? Then they will be invincible not only to small fighters, but also to other, cheaper, battleships, that maybe someone put a lot of effort and time into building.

But I do like the engines idea.

 

[KuramaFox]

Well, at present that is definitely a concern due to how rediculously easy it can be to make money sometimes. But once that issue is dealt with, it would presumeably become extremely difficult to make a full T3-level battleship. And anyone who managed to accomplish such a thing would have had to put a lot of effort into it.



Additionally, limiting higher end gear in shops as I added in my last post would make it very difficult for ANYONE to get ahold of enough such blocks, even if they were rich, unless they had some major facilities devoted to producing the blocks so that the nearest shop would stock a few. They\'d need to produce somewhere between 25% and 50% the blocks themselves if the nearest shop to a factory stocks 1-3 of a part each time said factory makes one (and then they\'d have to buy said expensive parts from said shop). Odds are, such a ship would end up being something you only ever see in a long-time server as a \"Grand Faction Flagship,\" a capital ship of a large and long-running faction\'s entire forces that represents an immense group effort by them and serves as a symbol of their might.

If that much effort gets put into a ship by someone or more likely a group of someones, then they deserve to flaunt it around a bit. And if that is an issue, servers can occasionally reset it, or the ship can be ambushed or attacked in a group while it is vulnerable in some manner. Having a ship that powerful is just asking for a group of players to gang up on it with multiple ships using whatever underhanded tactic they can come up with.



Edit: One other thing. It is not as though you\'d have to scrap a T1 ship with a lot of effort put into it either. You can pick and choose parts you wish to retrofit with better components at any time. In fact, its most likely that any \"faction flagship\" would get built up slowly in this manner, such that it was likely a T1 ship originally itself. Take out the old power cores and replace them with better ones. Same with shield or weapon blocks. That gorgeous hull is fine too. Many particularly large ships have more interior space then they really need, so you can line the inside of that fancy design with the better armor too, rather then go through the trouble of replacing it (which would be a pain for some beautifully contoured hull). If anything, that extra internal lining of armor could make it even cooler as the exterior \"paint job armor\" would show damage more easily via exposed internal lining armor, giving battle damage an even cooler look, and making it more noticeable when you want to repair it.

 

[Mister Collins]

First of all, I want to point out what I think are flawed ideas of yours.

I do not think the thrusters for increased turning speed are a good idea, nor do I think max speed increasers are a good idea. However, thrusters should scale logarithmically to their amount with max speed; the more you put on, the higher the max speed, but with diminishing returns. The increased turning speed is bad because it strengthens the bigger ship, while putting the smaller at a disadvantage; the point of fighting one big ship with several smaller is to use the mobility to outmanouver the enemy. For this reason, having greater acceleration and turning speed is the key to standing a chance. However, obviously, in space with no drag and such, despite having lower acceleration (and decceleration) the max speed is greater.

Second, I think the tier system is a bad idea that ruins the point of the game. The whole point in constructing the best ship in this game is to CONSTRUCT the best ship. Not to throw in the best part, but through engineering, thinking, planning and innovation compile the greatest vessel that suits your playstyle and tactical techniques best. For this reason, I\'d be glad to see how differing shape of for instance cannons would promote different results; it forces the player to try, explore (which we\'re already doing), giving greater depths and options for our constructions. As another poster said in this thread,


\"Thats an idea ive always thought about, have weapon dimensions affect their stats based on their shape, like with AM cannons, having really thin paperlike ones increases fire rate but decreases accuracy, having really long, stick like ones increases the damage and accuracy, but yields a slightly slower fire rate.\" - shadowcrusnik


While I do also entertain the idea of having a grand veteran capital ship which has taken ages to build and is really powerful, I think it\'s way too likely that it backfires and just flattens out ship design gamedepth and destroys game balance. As I said before, a small fighter is to win versus a big one using mobility and good construction, not firepower/equipment.



Your idea with the armor is lovely though.

 

[AnNoYiNg NaMe]

I like the idea of multi tiered items. However, I don\'t like how complicated that engine idea is.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

Seems a bit overcomplicated. I think the directional changes could just be accomplished by taking into account the way a thruster faces when you place it.

Rotational engines are sorely needed. Turning is too slow.

I\'m opposed to having the max speed be affected by anything but your ship\'s accelerational abilities.

 

[KuramaFox]

You have one type for forwards/backwards, one for sideways and upwards (which you can keep low for ships that don\'t land on planets), one which increases max speed, and one that helps you turn faster. That last one I believe is already planned.

Alternatively, you just have three, with forwards/backwards rolled together with sideways/vertical. Meaning that engine is basically the same exact thing we have now.



Oh, and I have considered a potential problem with tiers and came up with a solution.

Problem: How do you deal with multiple tiers put together in one group?

Solution: Each item type has a set exponential to it. So if T2 is 4x as good as T1, then T3 is 4x as good as T2. So a group of T1 has 4^0 times the effectiveness, a group of entirely T2 has 4^1 times the effectiveness, and a group of T3 has 4^2 times the effectiveness. If a group has a mix of items, the average tier level is considered. For this math, T1 uses the exponent of 0, T2 uses 1, etc. Since X^0 = 1

Example: you have 20 T1 cannons and 5 T2 cannons in a weapon, and lets just say weapons have a 3x tier multiplier. So you have (20 ^ 0) + (5 ^ 1), divided by the total number of blocks (25). Your effective tier exponent for calculation is 0.24. And 3 ^ 0.24 = 1.302ish. So your weapon is 1.302 times as effective as if it were composed only of Tier 1. If instead you used T3 blocks for those 5, it comes out to about 3.134, or about on par if the entire thing were made of T2 (this may not be cost or effort-effective to do since 5 pieces T3 would have a cost and effort required that would exceed that of just getting 25 T2s).



Why this is important: Some blocks, power generators most famously, use the dimensions of their group as an important factor in calculations. Which is why you see fancy pants power core designs. This method of tier consolidation allows the user to mix and match tier levels without disrupting this mechanic, allowing for partial upgrades of a core at a time if they so desire. By allowing them to be considered as a single group, it takes out potential hassles that would come about if they were simply incompatible.







One last thought: Eventually servers will ideally get options that allow them to control what can be purchased from a shop via blueprints. Restricting it completely to what the shop has in stock could be one option, selectable by admins or server owners. As could allowing anything to be bought. If tiers are put in, a toggle can be put in for the second option that says \"allow purchase of ships containing up to tier X,\" requiring parts in the shop inventory (or perhaps a \"private player bank\" attached to the shop) to purchase a blueprint vessel containing higher level parts.

 

[Nootau]

Nothing else to add to this topic, I just like this idea.

 

[Cee64E]

I think the directional changes could just be accomplished by taking into account the way a thruster faces when you place it.


I agree. Have it\'s orientation arrow in build mode show the direction it pushes. The limiting factor on this is, of course, size. A given size of ship only has so much room for engines, or anything else, so one could increase ones spin rate or translational acceleration at the cost of forward acceleration, or fewer guns, or less shielding. Also of note is that destroying those thrusters would decrease a these as well, which adds an interesting dynamic to battle if you can cripple a ships ability to turn. Historically, a ships rudder and masts were always prime targets.

 

[Tezumina]

won\'t write an essay i just like the idea xD

 

[KuramaFox]

Any more comments?

 

[DeadMeerkat]

Yet another excellent suggestion thread!

 

[tubadancross]

the teir system sounds great for making an efficient small ship. Like, if the next teir was around 10 times as much cash but 5 times as powerful/strong. Ideally far too expensive to make a 100,000 block battleship so there isn\'t a continuous supply of invincible star-destroyers.

 

[Deavonyx]

Honestly, I dont like the idea of a small fighter attacking a big ship. We build big ships so that they can be the bulk of fleets, and they will get taken down by some advanced fighter? Lame. I totally understand the idea of different tech ships, but one fighter should never be able to take down a capital ship. In now game I have ever played does that make sense.

 

[Morhe]

Blocks in this game are already \"tiered\" in the sense that adding more blocks to a grouping bonus cluster increases the effectivenss of all bocks in the cluster. Adding multiple levels of every block type would just widen the gap between the ships of new players and established players, because once you can afford the best block, you will use nothing but. And if everyone is using only the last tier of every block, there may as well not be lower teirs underneath it... exactly like it is already.