StarSide Blood and Steel: Season 2

[GRHayes]

Borg cubes are the exception, if they are well made (really good greebling over the entire ship). Cones and cylinders fall under the "boring geometric shape" category.

Funny, you use the term "boring" and you treat it like a fact rather than an opinion which it is.
For me I don't really see shapes as interesting when it comes to objects.
To me they are nothing more than their technical aspects points and planes in space.

So how does that go liking a shape?
Wow, I really like those lines.
Ooh, pretty curves.
That change in symmetry just gets my leg tingling.
Those diagonals get me so excited.
Do you get all hot and bothered by parallelism?
Oh, my that shape is just so drab and boring.


Yea, sorry. Not my style of way. You can ask my x-wife and girl friends the only form that gets my attention is that of woman.
Just to clarify not suggesting anything about your orientation or anything like that. Simply saying when it comes to objects that is all they are to me.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Guys, guys, GUYS. I see fire again. Flames, flames everywhere. Stop the e-peen fight, please, both Leanson and GRHayes before someone gets banned and this thread gets locked over something this petty.

As someone who knows absolutely nothing about current naval ship design, even I tend to agree that the end result only coincidentally "looks good". It has to be somewhat sleek and streamlined for good speed and maneuverability, the angled surfaces serve to decrease the radar signature, and coincidentally, they end up looking what the human mind, with a high possibility, perceives as "looking good". Looking good however, is most probably the lowest possible priority on the long list of criteria (if on the list at all) a warship has to pass in order to be commissioned by the Navy (any Navy, btw) as this isn't the civilian market where you sell stuff with fancy outer design and brand that you can use to overprice your product (*cough* Apple *cough*) while having a lackluster performance.
Just like an Abrams tank doesn't have all the angled surfaces to look pretty. It has them to better deflect incoming fire. Coincidentally, that also makes it look awesome a.f.

That said, this is a GODDAMN SPACE BUILDING VIDEO GAME. Show me a single sci-fi starship that was built based on practical purposes and concepts only. Probably none. Terrible use of interior space with large rooms, exposed bridge, tons of structural weaknesses like windows, unarmored power lines, heat vents, fuel lines etc. to look good, because that's why they were sketched up in the first place.

So, I suggest we stop this utter nonsense and everyone go on their ways to build however the hell they want, and leave this thread to posts directly related to the upcoming event.

 

[Leanson]

It's ok matt, I think the insulting me has stopped. So it's all good.

 

[Panpiper]

Show me a single sci-fi starship that was built based on practical purposes and concepts only.

Actually that is one of my biggest beefs with contemporary media skiffy (I will not dignify it by calling it science fiction or even Sci-Fi). Ships, vehicles, weapons, all of it, looks very obviously (at least to me) that it was put together by an artist, not an engineer, but worse by an artist who is 'absolutely clueless' about absolutely everything (and I use the word absolutely very deliberately and literally). The counter from people I complain to is always that things have to look 'cool' in order to work in movies and television. My retort is that at least to me, things that are designed to their epitome of functionality DO look cool. Does an Abrams tank not look cool, an F22 Raptor, a tricked out M4?

Functional design does look cool. The trick in a building game such as ours is simply to highlight any and all functionality with the slightest of greebling, color changes and good lighting effects. That and fix the turn rate formula to stop favoring cubes, which is a ludicrous physics that only makes sense if you assume all turning is the result of centrally mounted gyroscope action.

 

[GRHayes]

Guys, guys, GUYS. I see fire again. Flames, flames everywhere. Stop the e-peen fight, please, both Leanson and GRHayes before someone gets banned and this thread gets locked over something this petty.

As someone who knows absolutely nothing about current naval ship design, even I tend to agree that the end result only coincidentally "looks good". It has to be somewhat sleek and streamlined for good speed and maneuverability, the angled surfaces serve to decrease the radar signature, and coincidentally, they end up looking what the human mind, with a high possibility, perceives as "looking good". Looking good however, is most probably the lowest possible priority on the long list of criteria (if on the list at all) a warship has to pass in order to be commissioned by the Navy (any Navy, btw) as this isn't the civilian market where you sell stuff with fancy outer design and brand that you can use to overprice your product (*cough* Apple *cough*) while having a lackluster performance.
Just like an Abrams tank doesn't have all the angled surfaces to look pretty. It has them to better deflect incoming fire. Coincidentally, that also makes it look awesome a.f.

That said, this is a GODDAMN SPACE BUILDING VIDEO GAME. Show me a single sci-fi starship that was built based on practical purposes and concepts only. Probably none. Terrible use of interior space with large rooms, exposed bridge, tons of structural weaknesses like windows, unarmored power lines, heat vents, fuel lines etc. to look good, because that's why they were sketched up in the first place.

So, I suggest we stop this utter nonsense and everyone go on their ways to build however the hell they want, and leave this thread to posts directly related to the upcoming event.

You do realize that is over we both apologized to one another? Guess not or you wouldn't have wrote this.

Correction:
It is an UNREALISTIC "GODDAMN SPACE BUILDING VIDEO GAME."

You should take a greater look into real space damage and issues with small particle collision and so on. Then consider the various hull advancements some of which are in actual development today. Add to that so called shielding. VS the potential damage a weapon does where the bridge is isn't going to provide much safety. Having an exposed bridge can allow navigation with minimal sensors and so on. Windows aren't necessarily a structural weakness. In fact windows can be quite a bit stronger than surrounding hulls which usually have seems that fail more often along with seals. Power lines and such in a vessel aren't armored. They can't afford them to be or you end up having trouble repairing them. Besides they are expecting the ships hull and shielding to protect them just like in real ships.

But there is also another point we aren't making a sci-fi ship in this game you are supposed to be making one for combat or serving another function not filming a movie.

BTW you are so wrong on the pricing issue and stuff that goes on with the Navy and in general our government buying stuff. They buy stuff massively over priced all the time. You would think that a process a company has to win a contract on would result in better pricing it doesn't though. Why simply there are few company's filling the orders and they know what the rates other companies won at in the past and so on.
Even when they buy something at a reasonable price they do so much garbage to it that it ends up over priced. A good example is the Government buys 1/4" washers in a 55 gal drum. Then they send it to a warehouse where a dozen vets sit up there and put them in individual zip lock bags and put a label on it. Another guy comes along and packs them in a box and stocks them on a shelf. When they are needed another person comes along takes it from the shelf attaches a paper to it and drops it on a conveyor. It then runs to a destination sorter which drops it down a shoot to another person who packs it with other stuff going to a distribution location near the place it is needed. It is then shipped out on a truck or train and that is just the start of the journey. So that 1/4" washer they bought for 2 cents by the time it gets to its location is a hell of a lot more expensive. I spent several years responsible for keeping sharpes army depot and tracy army depot operational during weekends. Like I said I know exactly how the contracting and so on is done. I also know how the rest of DOD/DLA operates along with GSA.

Warships are simply made to order they correct issues but there is no return system in place for them. Aircraft like fighters have a slightly different bidding process in which every so often when a contract is put up Multiple companies try and convince the military they have the best aircraft for the job. Even there bribery and kick backs happen even though it is all illegal. They do stuff like offer jobs to family members of the people doing the evaluation. Such as well hire your wife to be a sit in VP for 1Mill a year if you help with our approval... You can have a job with us when you get out. So the government has put in place laws like you can't go to work for a contractor for 6 months after you left the government. So all that happens is the person leaves does some work for another company then when the six months passes takes the position at the other company. It goes on quite often.
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Actually that is one of my biggest beefs with contemporary media skiffy (I will not dignify it by calling it science fiction or even Sci-Fi). Ships, vehicles, weapons, all of it, looks very obviously (at least to me) that it was put together by an artist, not an engineer, but worse by an artist who is 'absolutely clueless' about absolutely everything (and I use the word absolutely very deliberately and literally). The counter from people I complain to is always that things have to look 'cool' in order to work in movies and television. My retort is that at least to me, things that are designed to their epitome of functionality DO look cool. Does an Abrams tank not look cool, an F22 Raptor, a tricked out M4?

Functional design does look cool. The trick in a building game such as ours is simply to highlight any and all functionality with the slightest of greebling, color changes and good lighting effects. That and fix the turn rate formula to stop favoring cubes, which is a ludicrous physics that only makes sense if you assume all turning is the result of centrally mounted gyroscope action.

Maybe you should check out Gene Roddenberry's bio. He was a US army air corps pilot. You might be surprised.

But yes a great deal of space movies are fanciful.

However, lets take a look at some real space craft.
Inside shuttle bay. Notice what things you can see open and exposed. You probably are thinking this isn't a military craft. You are right. Military craft or not you hit a bb size peace of space junk and you won't believe the damage it can do.
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/O...pervelocity_impacts_and_protecting_spacecraft
You are talking projectiles traveling 4 to 5 times the average rifle round speed.

 

[Drakkart]

damn still half of the popcorn left why did you stop em? *sigh*
just wanted to step in and say. winning is good doing it with style is even better. just going for aestethic might be ill advised. But winning with something obviously ugly won't gain you any respect either.

 

[Raisinbat]

Update tomorrow as to if we increase the mass amount and to what we increase it to, tomorrow.

It's been tomorrow a coupple of times now, i can understand something getting in the way, and wanting to stay out of the thread, but i'd really like to know if i need to start expanding my design for a new mass limit asap.

 

[HerrColonel]

It's been tomorrow a coupple of times now, i can understand something getting in the way, and wanting to stay out of the thread, but i'd really like to know if i need to start expanding my design for a new mass limit asap.

bump?

 

[Winterhome]

If the tournament rules are not updated for a 120k block limit rather than a 12k mass limit, I will not be taking part, because I strongly protest the idea that the other contestants should be forced to downgrade to basic hull to have any realistic chance of success.

 

[Tunk]

Probably a good thing you aren't bringing your pram then.
I'd hate to see toys flying everywhere.

 

[Winterhome]

Probably a good thing you aren't bringing your pram then.
I'd hate to see toys flying everywhere.

...pram?

 

[Lecic]

Probably a good thing you aren't bringing your pram then.
I'd hate to see toys flying everywhere.

Not really sure what "pram" is, but...

We primarily use basic hull. We're essentially crippling ourselves by asking them to use block count instead of mass.

 

[Tunk]

Guess that's too regional, exchange with stroller, walker, or human larvae transportation device as appropriate.

 

[Drakkart]

assuming the settings for the ai will be not to target own missiles? Where to sign up?

 

[Master_Artificer]

Well this is going to be delicious.

Thanks to some people providing expertise, I have found that it is relatively simple to make Point Defense systems that can shoot down swarmers as they leave the launchers, and everyone will be flying shield heavy ships. This is going to be brutal.
Count me in, I am participating.


---

Also, would you guys mind hosting another one on a late December/early January weekend before classes start up again? And have it be a 48k-60k mass limit, (actually, make it a block limit at that point) with the requirement that you must have teams of at least 3?

I think that would be pretty cool, and also make for some great footage that we can use to promote this game and draw in players.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Also, would you guys mind hosting another one on a late December/early January weekend before classes start up again? And have it be a 48k-60k mass limit, (actually, make it a block limit at that point) with the requirement that you must have teams of at least 3?

I think that would be pretty cool, and also make for some great footage that we can use to promote this game and draw in players.

OH GOD YES. More like, 36K mass limit and teams of at least 2... there would be more participants but the battles still wouldn'T be overly massive and game-breaking.

 

[Master_Artificer]

OH GOD YES. More like, 36K mass limit and teams of at least 2... there would be more participants but the battles still wouldn'T be overly massive and game-breaking.

The reason why I want these guys to host something larger like that is because they have proven that they can make good video footage, and 'music videos' of fighting scenes to music.

 

[Krougal]

I find the whole discussion interesting since this is about building for combat, but really curious why some people think a block limit is more fair than a mass limit? Even though I won't be participating I look forward to the event.

 

[Lecic]

I find the whole discussion interesting since this is about building for combat, but really curious why some people think a block limit is more fair than a mass limit? Even though I won't be participating I look forward to the event.

Standard armor weighs 3 times as much as basic, and advanced weighs 5 times as much. No one smart would use standard or advanced in this when it's using mass.

 

[Master_Artificer]

I find the whole discussion interesting since this is about building for combat, but really curious why some people think a block limit is more fair than a mass limit? Even though I won't be participating I look forward to the event.

Standard armor weighs 3 times as much as basic, and advanced weighs 5 times as much. No one smart would use standard or advanced in this when it's using mass.

It makes starmade into rock paper scissors.
You can either have 1 block of standard armor (0.15), 1.5 blocks of systems like power, thrust or shields (0.1), or 3 blocks of basic hull (0.05 mass), or 15 blocks of miscellaneous items like circuits (0.025 or 0.01 depending)...

So, obviously people are going to stock up on shields for that all around protection and ditch as much armor as they can, with maybe some basic included. That means people will also bring more Ion weapons. Then a few people will bring armor tanks anyways to mix it up a bit, and everyone will pretty much pop once the shields go down, like the old days when you had core drilling and really tiny ships.


People with lots of ion weapons will have advantage over people with primarily shields for defense, and people with more shields than armor will beat armor tanks because they have more blocks overall on their ships, and people who have armor tanks will beat people tailored to kill light shield ships.

Also, this will probably make close range knife fighting more of a thing than you see in normal games, and the fights will be quick and simple.

I have a feeling that we will see some teams with tailored ships that you would never see serverside because they would normally suck.