Hmm. A veritable gem mine of information. Well, I realize it's too soon to do any serious tweaking of current content so I'd like to avoid that if at all possible, but I pretty much agree with everything I read in this post. This post by the way, was in response to an observation about there being not much in the way of people developing content we currently have.[color=#BF0000]Geoff the Medio[/color] wrote:The ship components had nearly no effort put into their design. I just needed a functional basic set of components to demonstrate / test the new ship design mechanism and to replicate the previously-existing basic set of hard-coded ship designs (mark I through mark IV, scout and colony ship). I also obviously didn't put any effort into their descriptions, due to having other things I wanted to focus on getting done. (Josh agrees)
Buildings are a bit more mixed. Some are just test / demonstration. Others were made a couple years ago by someone who didn't really put much thought into them, at least as far as I can tell. Those are mostly the generic +X to Y type, which is, I think, most of the buildings. The Caducean Institute likely falls into this category. These are the type I'd like to avoid making too many of, as they're really quite boring if there are too many of them. Better, in general, are techs and buildings that alter how the game rules apply or what the player can do, rather than ones that just give some numerical bonus to a statistic... (Josh agrees)
A few buildings are the result of random ideas I've had that seemed nifty or that I felt were needed now or in future to test game mechanics. The Observatory falls into the latter category, by giving planets extra detection so that when we have a decent visibility system implemented, there will be a way for planets to interact with it and to test it. (Josh agrees)
Basically, buildings and ship parts and hulls are content. Before they can be done in a long-term useful and satisfying way, we'll need more game systems and mechanics to be implanted. The v0.3.1 and later effects system let us to some trivial test / filler buildings, and more recent ship design stuff let us add some ship parts, but not much can really be done with them until more of the game (eg. combat) is implemented. (Josh agrees)
We could probably pare down the existing buildings and techs to get a basic set that's more playable that could be balanced and that fits well into the currently functional scope of the program, but it's not really a priority for me when basic game systems need designing and implementing... (Josh agrees)
Or if you're just referring to the fluff descriptions for the techs, parts and buildings, rather than their function, then I suppose you can think, in general, of tech descriptions as the result when I tried, most buildings as the result when someone else didn't try very hard, and ship parts as when I didn't try at all to write decent descriptions. (Josh agrees)
It appears it's all being shouldered by one person; Geoff. If anybody else has spare time, wants to help, can't do coding or drawing, and especially for those of capable writing ability, I just want to point out that some written parts of FO are feeling particularly neglected and would be glad to have something thoughtful written for it if you want to.
Obviously, this is just a friendly suggestion, and aimed only at those willing and capable of doing a good job. It really doesn't seem that hard, though submissions should go through someone directly responsible for design decisions. I would suggest this:
1: write something up for something. this will probably involve work.
2: PM Geoff or somebody responsible (not me) with the title description of whatever the paragraph is meant for.
3: realize that you didn't pay attention to steps 1 and 2, and that you need to read them again.
Additionally, if you want to start a brainstorming topic, consider starting brainstorming topics based on content we already have or is pending very soon, rather than things that will only be considered in the far future. Again, this is just a friendly suggestion.
