Ship Building HOI style

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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utilae
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#76 Post by utilae »

Geoff the Medio wrote: I feel I should point out that the suggested system isn't perfect. If your ship only has two lasers, for instance, and each level 1 laser costs 8, and each level 2 laser costs 10, then there's a big cost difference between two level 1's and a single level 2. And you can't really do anything about that, since you can't put in half a laser (presumably). So the player's choices are unfortunately limited to some degree.
Yes, like I figured. I think it is a good system though.
Impaler wrote: Take for example a Ship with 10 Lasers that take up 10 space each and do 3 damage each. Insted of the refinment making the laser take up 5 space and making the player redesign the ship to hold 20 of them we could instead say the higher level laser shoots twice as fast and all the math works out to be identical. The only other possible benefit of Miniturization is being able to place a single weapon in a Hull which previously couldnt hold said weapon. Having size based Mods attach to the weapon and shrink it will solve that problem making miniturization unnessary.
This is not necesarily the best thing. You propose to make one laser take up 20 space as an alternative to 5 lasers taking up a total of 20 space (miniturising the lasers).
This all looks 'identical', but it is not:
-you have to have at least 20 space to fit a laser. Where the other method you could at least have a 5 space lasers (if your that poor).
-You could only shoot one ship. With the other method you could shoot at most 4 ships. This is all assuming Moo2 style of how you can shoot as many ships as you ahve lasers.
Ranos wrote: Laser Mk1: Damage 6, Cost 4, Space 5. Modifiers activated: None
Laser Mk2: Damage 8, Cost 5, Space 5. Modifiers activated: None
Laser Mk3: Damage 10, Cost 6, Space 5. Modifiers activated: Long Range: Cost increase: 2, space increase : 1, range x1.5
Laser Mk4: Damage 12, Cost 7, Space 5, 2x fire rate. Modifiers activated: None
Laser Mk5: Damage 14, Cost 8, Space 5, 2x fire rate. Modifiers activated: Continuous fire: Cost increase: 3, space increase : 2, fire duration x1.5
Laser Mk6: Damage 16, Cost 9, Space 5, 2x fire rate. Modifiers activated: None
Laser Mk7: Damage 18, Cost 10, Space 5, 3x fire rate. Modifiers activated: Armor Piercing: Cost Increase: 5, space increase : 3, 60% chance to pierce armor on hit
This system seems flawed, because you get too many benefits for refining lasers by one level. So people are not gonna care about getting bigger ships to hold more lasers, when they just need to refine the lasers.

Also I don't think increasing the firerate is a good idea, unless it is an official weapon mod. When you make something smaller, it means fitting more in the same space. So you could fit more powerplants, more barrels (damage), etc. Though I guess if fire rate was somehow determined by cooling the lasers, then you could fit more cooling, therefore more firerate.
noelte wrote: OK, maybe having Moo2 in mind makes no sense, because there you only had laser and heavy laser and no laser lvl X. But still i think it's not a good solution to define, that newer laser are always the better choice, because they are smaler/equal, cheaper/equal, .... New Lasers should rather always be bigger, more powerful and should cost more. Miniturization should decrease the weapon size (not necessary for an specific weapon).
Yes, I agree.

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#77 Post by Impaler »

This is not necesarily the best thing. You propose to make one laser take up 20 space as an alternative to 5 lasers taking up a total of 20 space (miniturising the lasers).
This all looks 'identical', but it is not:
-you have to have at least 20 space to fit a laser. Where the other method you could at least have a 5 space lasers (if your that poor).
-You could only shoot one ship. With the other method you could shoot at most 4 ships. This is all assuming Moo2 style of how you can shoot as many ships as you ahve lasers.
Utilae: Thats completly not what I said and your making the totaly unfounded assumption that each individual weapon can only fire at 1 target per turn regardless of its rate of fire. When has anyone indicated that would be the rule? If a higher level device has a high enough rate of fire it could functionaly substitute for a larger number of low tec devices and still have the same damage output. Furthermore your completly ignoring Size modifiers when you say I "you have to have at least 20 space to fit a laser. Where the other method you could at least have a 5 space lasers". For crying out loud have you been reading the thread at all. Just slap a "Mini Mount" on that laser and you have a smaller laser.

Ranos's chart is an excelent example of how it should be done, ofcorse their are balancing that needs to be done you cant critiisise balance at this point he is mearly demonstrating the underly refinment PATERN. And its quite silly to say people wont make Bigger ships, Bigger ships will hold more weapons and Armor. Their are probably going to be limits on how high you can refine something too, its not like you could just pump all your reserch into Lasers without doing anything else.
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Geoff the Medio
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#78 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Ranos wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:I feel I should point out that the suggested system isn't perfect. If your ship only has two lasers, for instance, and each level 1 laser costs 8, and each level 2 laser costs 10, then there's a big cost difference between two level 1's and a single level 2. And you can't really do anything about that, since you can't put in half a laser (presumably). So the player's choices are unfortunately limited to some degree.
You misunderstand. There is a difference between cost and space. Laser Mk1 does 5 damage, costs 5 and takes up 5 space. Laser Mk2 does 8 damage, costs 6 but still takes up 5 space. Cost is the ammount of pp this particular item costs where space is how much room is take up on the ship.
I assure you I understand the meaning of the words "cost" and "space" in this context. Your example doesn't change the situation where it costs you more to get your firepower above a certain level in some situations. If Mk2 costs 6 and does 8, and Mk1 costs 5 and does 5, to get 10 you have to spend 10 with Mk1's and 12 with Mk2's. If you only need 10, researching Mk2's would make it more expensive, for no benefit. (The meaning of "damage = 10" isn't well defined in this example, but it doesn't need to be to illustrate the basic concept. "fire rate" or "fire duration" are irrelivant, as I'm using "damage" as an aggregate description of weapon effectiveness, which could depend on many factors).

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#79 Post by Ranos »

noelte wrote:
Name one thing in real life that newer didn't mean better choice.
After a quick thought, it's easy to answer. I plan using a HDTV HTPC. So even if a P4 EE is the most powerful pc, i'm looking for an cheaper, more silent pc, which uses less power and can handle the job.

One good thing in life is, that if new things come out, the older once get cheaper.
Okay that didn't work like I intended it. I'll just say this instead, if I had the choice of going into a battle with wimpy little lasers or a nice big plasma cannon, I'm going to use the plasma cannon. Now maybe if you are losing to another empire you would choose the lasers, but that is okay. When you start talking about a single dollar (or whatever the FO monetary unit will be) then that is just ridiculous. Having to choose between versions just adds more hassle for the player in ship designing.
utilae wrote:
Ranos wrote:Laser Mk1: Damage 6, Cost 4, Space 5. Modifiers activated: None
Laser Mk2: Damage 8, Cost 5, Space 5. Modifiers activated: None
Laser Mk3: Damage 10, Cost 6, Space 5. Modifiers activated: Long Range: Cost increase: 2, space increase : 1, range x1.5
Laser Mk4: Damage 12, Cost 7, Space 5, 2x fire rate. Modifiers activated: None
Laser Mk5: Damage 14, Cost 8, Space 5, 2x fire rate. Modifiers activated: Continuous fire: Cost increase: 3, space increase : 2, fire duration x1.5
Laser Mk6: Damage 16, Cost 9, Space 5, 2x fire rate. Modifiers activated: None
Laser Mk7: Damage 18, Cost 10, Space 5, 3x fire rate. Modifiers activated: Armor Piercing: Cost Increase: 5, space increase : 3, 60% chance to pierce armor on hit


This system seems flawed, because you get too many benefits for refining lasers by one level. So people are not gonna care about getting bigger ships to hold more lasers, when they just need to refine the lasers.


Once again utilae, you miss the point. First, who in their right mind is going to give up researching a bigger ship which can fit at least half as many more lasers on it just to research advancing the laser? That is why I am not too fond of refinements, though I discuss it because that seems to be already set in stone. Instead of concentrating on researching to get a better weapon in general, many people will research upgrading the dinky weapon.

Second, how many benefits should you get at each level? How many levels of refinement should there be? Should each level only give one more point of damage or one modification? If that is what you see, then what is the point of refining? I could just skip refining and head towards the next weapon which will be better than a refined laser.
utilae wrote:Also I don't think increasing the firerate is a good idea, unless it is an official weapon mod. When you make something smaller, it means fitting more in the same space. So you could fit more powerplants, more barrels (damage), etc. Though I guess if fire rate was somehow determined by cooling the lasers, then you could fit more cooling, therefore more firerate.
Here is where you miss the point. Look at my method of refinement. Now look at this one:

Laser Mk1: Damage 6, Cost 4, Space 5. Modifiers activated: None
Laser Mk2: Damage 8, Cost 5, Space 3.75. Modifiers activated: None
Laser Mk3: Damage 10, Cost 6, Space 3. Modifiers activated: Long Range: Cost increase: 2, space increase : 1, range x1.5
Laser Mk4: Damage 12, Cost 7, Space 2.5. Modifiers activated: None
Laser Mk5: Damage 14, Cost 8, Space 2.1. Modifiers activated: Continuous fire: Cost increase: 3, space increase : 2, fire duration x1.5
Laser Mk6: Damage 16, Cost 9, Space 1.85. Modifiers activated: None
Laser Mk7: Damage 18, Cost 10, Space 1.66. Modifiers activated: Armor Piercing: Cost Increase: 5, space increase : 3, 60% chance to pierce armor on hit

Now just in case there is somebody who isn't good with math, at Mk4 with the above system would allow you to put 2 Lasers in the same space as 1 Mk1. Then you could have 3 Mk7 in the same space as 1 Mk1.

Let me put them next to eachother.

Multifire system----------------------------------------------------------------miniaturization system
Mk1: 5 space = fire rate =1, 1 shot per recharge time----------------Mk1: 5 space = 1 laser, 1 shot per recharge time
Mk4: 5 space = fire rate =2, 2 shots per recharge time---------------Mk4: 5 space = 2 lasers, 2 shots per recharge time
Mk7: 5 space = fire rate =3, 3 shot per recharge time----------------Mk7: 5 space = 3 lasers, 3 shots per recharge time

What you end up with is the same exact thing without the hassle of having to redesign your ships with every new level. This sounds a hell of a lot easier to me. Does that make sense?
Geoff the Medio wrote:I assure you I understand the meaning of the words "cost" and "space" in this context. Your example doesn't change the situation where it costs you more to get your firepower above a certain level in some situations. If Mk2 costs 6 and does 8, and Mk1 costs 5 and does 5, to get 10 you have to spend 10 with Mk1's and 12 with Mk2's. If you only need 10, researching Mk2's would make it more expensive, for no benefit. (The meaning of "damage = 10" isn't well defined in this example, but it doesn't need to be to illustrate the basic concept. "fire rate" or "fire duration" are irrelivant, as I'm using "damage" as an aggregate description of weapon effectiveness, which could depend on many factors).
But I can easily flip that around on you. If Mk2 costs 6 and does 8, and Mk1 costs 5 and does 5, to get 16 you have to spend 20 with Mk1's and 12 with Mk2's.

Some of you seem to be obsessed with figuring out how to make your ships be cheap and do little damage instead of wanting your ships to do as much damage as possible. I would love to play a multiplayer game with those of you who are dooing this. I would win in no time.

I want my ships to be bigger, stronger and faster as time goes on. Therefore, I'm going to be researching ways to make my weapons stronger, my shields and armor able to take more hits and my engines to be faster. Why would you want to build a little sissy ship just because its cheaper?

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#80 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Ranos wrote:But I can easily flip that around on you. If Mk2 costs 6 and does 8, and Mk1 costs 5 and does 5, to get 16 you have to spend 20 with Mk1's and 12 with Mk2's.
Pointing out a way in which a system would work, which also happens to be a way the alternative would work, is not a valid argument for why one system is better than another, or a valid refutation of an argument based on a way in which they don't work alike. The issue is whether or not the player can specify what version of component to put on a ship, or whether s/he has to use the best one available. Your example fits in either case, as the player could always chose to use the best equipment available.
Some of you seem to be obsessed with figuring out how to make your ships be cheap and do little damage instead of wanting your ships to do as much damage as possible.
Sometimes doing "as much damage as possible" might not require spending as much money/production/resources as possible.
I would love to play a multiplayer game with those of you who are dooing this. I would win in no time.
Not if the other player was able to build a few extra ships by saving on components that don't need to be top of the line.
Why would you want to build a little sissy ship just because its cheaper?
You answer your own question. It's cheaper. The resources saved can be used on something else. Alternatively, if the ship has a fixed cost / turn to build, and putting the more expensive parts on pushes that cost above what you can afford, you wouldn't even be able to build the ship (or at least would be able to build few of them).
Ranos wrote:First, who in their right mind is going to give up researching a bigger ship which can fit at least half as many more lasers on it just to research advancing the laser? That is why I am not too fond of refinements, though I discuss it because that seems to be already set in stone. Instead of concentrating on researching to get a better weapon in general, many people will research upgrading the dinky weapon.
You assume much that has not yet been decided. Researching refinements might be just as effective as researching a new weapon. Researching refinements might be much faster and cheaper than researching a whole new class of weapon. Researching the first few refinements might give a large benefit, but those benefits might trail off for a while, until very advanced refinements, at which time the weapon becomes much more effective for the cost compared to researching a whole new type of weapon. It's all dependent on how things are balanced.

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utilae
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#81 Post by utilae »

Impaler wrote: Utilae: Thats completly not what I said and your making the totaly unfounded assumption that each individual weapon can only fire at 1 target per turn regardless of its rate of fire.

If a higher level device has a high enough rate of fire it could functionaly substitute for a larger number of low tec devices and still have the same damage output.
Er, well I kinda forgot about how rate of fire is handled in turn based VS real time. That's all cool then.
Impaler wrote: For crying out loud have you been reading the thread at all. Just slap a "Mini Mount" on that laser and you have a smaller laser.
Sure, mini mount is a nice solution. But without the minimount, shouldn't the weapons be getting bigger as they are refined, otherwise it is like an automatic miniturisation.
Impaler wrote: Ranos's chart is an excelent example of how it should be done, ofcorse their are balancing that needs to be done you cant critiisise balance at this point he is mearly demonstrating the underly refinment PATERN.
I wasn't criticising balance, just thinking about a possible problem. You see, researching for better weapons like the plasma cannon should take longer than refining a laser weapon. This means that when you refine a laser weapon, the change in stats between each level of the refined laser should be small enough, so that refinements are not a better path to researching for plasma cannon, but you have refined this far, so you might as well keep refining to get the full benefit (the two paths should be about equal).
Impaler wrote: And its quite silly to say people wont make Bigger ships, Bigger ships will hold more weapons and Armor.
So, you have never had a situation where you can't afford the biggest most powerful ship or you need a ship early, for the first strike. Ever heard of rushing tactics. Building cheap ships early game. Or building cheaper ships when you can't afford good ships, hoping the few extra ships you can muster save you.
Impaler wrote: Their are probably going to be limits on how high you can refine something too, its not like you could just pump all your reserch into Lasers without doing anything else.
Why shouldn't you be able to pump all your research into lasers and not do anything else? It would be fun to do that. Besides, surely you will be able to delecate reserach between mainstream research and refinements. Maybe certain weapons can be refined more than others. Maybe 10 levels is a nice number to refine something. What I would like though is for refinements to be an alternative to reseraching newer weapons. You should be able to stick with lasers and make them better and better. Of course a plasma cannon may be infinately better than a super refined laser, but then maybe refinements are intended to give you a better weapon quicker, though not for the very long term.
Ranos wrote: Once again utilae, you miss the point. First, who in their right mind is going to give up researching a bigger ship which can fit at least half as many more lasers on it just to research advancing the laser?
Because the poor man wants to be able to build what few extra ships he can, even if it takes one little tiny extra ship to turn the tide against the enemy. Also there are those who would like to build ships in the very early game, ie Rush tactics.
Ranos wrote: That is why I am not too fond of refinements, though I discuss it because that seems to be already set in stone. Instead of concentrating on researching to get a better weapon in general, many people will research upgrading the dinky weapon.
Both paths should be about equal, but maybe a super refined laser is not as good as a plasma cannon. Maybe refinements are good against mid game weapons, but not end game weapons.
Ranos wrote: I could just skip refining and head towards the next weapon which will be better than a refined laser.
True, but you should be able to refine a few extra levels of laser before actually researching the next weapon. So refinements may be good in the early game/mid game, but not against the late game. And maybe if you get into refinements too much, it prevents you from catching up to the late game in time as others will surely beat you.
Ranos wrote: Some of you seem to be obsessed with figuring out how to make your ships be cheap and do little damage instead of wanting your ships to do as much damage as possible. I would love to play a multiplayer game with those of you who are dooing this. I would win in no time.
Have you never been rushed by someone, saving up for your biggest most powerful ships and some comes in with some tiny ships and wipes you out before you can even build any ships.
Ranos wrote: I want my ships to be bigger, stronger and faster as time goes on. Therefore, I'm going to be researching ways to make my weapons stronger, my shields and armor able to take more hits and my engines to be faster. Why would you want to build a little sissy ship just because its cheaper?
A few extra ships may turn the tide of battle. Maybe you are so poor that even the smallest ships can help you. Maybe you can build a few ships before everyone else and rush them.

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#82 Post by Daveybaby »

Okay this is getting silly. It seems to me that some people are being deliberately obtuse.

Refinements to existing weapon types let you have greater firepower on a ship of the same hull size and maintenance cost. Researching larger ships is NOT necessarily better, because you have to have bigger shipyards to build them and they cost more to build and maintain.

Bigger guns are NOT always better. For example, if you want good point defence weapons, youre not going to get much mileage out of your huge stonking plasma cannon. You want lots of small weapons, and if refinement lets you pack more firepower, rate of fire, or just more individual weapons in then it can be incredibly useful.

The whole point is that, if the combat system is well designed, there will be lots of different viable strategies. swarms of small ships vs a few big ships vs heavy beams vs missiles vs fighters vs point defence vs all round designs vs specialised designs vs shield piercing vs long range vs short range vs..... ALL of these strategies should be viable.

If youre arguing that one of these strategies will/should always win then youre going to end up with a space combat model as dull and predictable as Moo2's
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#83 Post by Ranos »

Geoff the Medio wrote:You answer your own question. It's cheaper. The resources saved can be used on something else. Alternatively, if the ship has a fixed cost / turn to build, and putting the more expensive parts on pushes that cost above what you can afford, you wouldn't even be able to build the ship (or at least would be able to build few of them).
At first, I was against the pp/turn way of doing construction, but now I understand it and think it is a better system. But not if it is an absolute fixed system. This would result in wasted pp. If something costs 5 pp/turn over 10 turns to build, I should still be able to build it if I can only afford 4 pp/turn, it would just take longer. The base pp/turn over X turns should be a maximum not an absolute. This results in wasted pp as I already said but also would mean having to make sure that when building a ship, you didn't go over the pp/turn that you could spend.
Geoff the Medio wrote:You assume much that has not yet been decided. Researching refinements might be just as effective as researching a new weapon. Researching refinements might be much faster and cheaper than researching a whole new class of weapon. Researching the first few refinements might give a large benefit, but those benefits might trail off for a while, until very advanced refinements, at which time the weapon becomes much more effective for the cost compared to researching a whole new type of weapon. It's all dependent on how things are balanced.
utilae wrote:Both paths should be about equal, but maybe a super refined laser is not as good as a plasma cannon. Maybe refinements are good against mid game weapons, but not end game weapons.
If researching refinements "might be as effective" or "should be equal to" researching a new weapon, then what's the point? Why not just put lasers in the game, save on loads of techs and just refine the hell out of the lasers? If a Laser Mk10 does 20 damage, then the next weapon in line should do 40 for less than double the space.
utilae wrote:Sure, mini mount is a nice solution. But without the minimount, shouldn't the weapons be getting bigger as they are refined, otherwise it is like an automatic miniturisation.
No they shouldn't. Refinement is making a weapon better. You do this in two ways, make it stronger and make it smaller. Using my chart, it does both. One of the points that Impaler has been trying to make is that by not making a weapon change size when it gets refined, you don't have to design a new ship every time you research the refinement. The laser would get stronger but the space would stay the same. Through a little bit of automatic multifire with one of the refinements and you get the same effect as miniaturization. Can you agree that it is better to do it this way instead of having to redesign your ships all of the time?
utilae wrote:So, you have never had a situation where you can't afford the biggest most powerful ship or you need a ship early, for the first strike. Ever heard of rushing tactics. Building cheap ships early game. Or building cheaper ships when you can't afford good ships, hoping the few extra ships you can muster save you.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that I won't be trying to get to a point where I can build the biggest and best ship. Take MOO3 for example. At the start of the game, I can build Light Cruisers, but instead I build Frigates because I can get the ships I need to do what I need them to do faster. I stay 2 ship sizes behind for a while just so I can churn out the ships that I need. Before too long though I move up so I'm only one size behind. Around the time I get Super Dreadnoughts, I am building the biggest hull, because now I have the production capacity on my planets to do that. FO will probably be similar.

I won't stay behind though because it isn't economically smart. In MOO3, ship capacity doubles with every other hull size. This means that a Battlecruiser has twice the space that a Light Cruiser has. I just went in the game and designed two ships. I know FO will not be MOO3 but they will be similar. I made a Battlecruiser and a Light Cruiser with Heavy Zortium armor, Large Shield Generator Class V shields, X-Ray Transponder System, I don't remember what engines. On the LC, I put 12 Lasers (Miniaturizeation I and II) and on the BC I was able to put 30 of the same. The cost of the LC was 2014 and the cost of the BC was 2479. To get them to be of equal strength, use 2 BC (60 Lasers) and 5 LC (60 Lasers). The cost for building those would be 4958 for the 2 BC and 10070 for the 5 LC. Now you tell me which is better.

You seem to be focusing on the early game or the desperate situations instead of the norm for what everyong will do.
utilae wrote:Why shouldn't you be able to pump all your research into lasers and not do anything else? It would be fun to do that. Besides, surely you will be able to delecate reserach between mainstream research and refinements. Maybe certain weapons can be refined more than others. Maybe 10 levels is a nice number to refine something. What I would like though is for refinements to be an alternative to reseraching newer weapons. You should be able to stick with lasers and make them better and better. Of course a plasma cannon may be infinately better than a super refined laser, but then maybe refinements are intended to give you a better weapon quicker, though not for the very long term.
You could, but then when you have your big bad Lasers that do 20 damage, everyone else is going to be improving there infrastructure and researching the next weapon in line along with the bigger ships, stonger armor and shields and better sensors. It doesn't matter whether you can delegate your RP between mainstream and refinements because it still takes RP to do both. The more you put into refinements, the further behind in the mainstream tech race you get. I don't think you should be able to refine things forever. That would just be insane. I also don't think that a max refined laser should be as good or better than the next weapon on the research tree.
utilae wrote:True, but you should be able to refine a few extra levels of laser before actually researching the next weapon. So refinements may be good in the early game/mid game, but not against the late game. And maybe if you get into refinements too much, it prevents you from catching up to the late game in time as others will surely beat you.
And while you are spending RP refining your lasers three or four levels, I'll have the next weapon in line and be able to destroy your ships faster. I belive the whole point of refinements is to be able to improve your existing ships so they are more effective, not as a replacement for more advanced weapons.
Daveybaby wrote:Okay this is getting silly. It seems to me that some people are being deliberately obtuse.
Just because you don't agree with what somebody is saying doesn't give you the right to call them stupid. I disagree with what others are saying but that is my POV. IF you don't like it, then say so and give a good arguement as to whay, but don't call me stupid. When a post starts with that, I ignore it.

Now I'll get back to the main topic. I think refinements can add flavor to a game, I just don't want them to be overly complicated. I don't want to spend 20 minutes designing one ship because I have to keep selecting which refinement I want to use. If there is an option to select which refinement you want, fine, but make the default the best refinement so those of us who don't want to scroll through a list of refinements can get on with the bigger and better stuff. This would solve the problem all around. I get my best weapon without a lot of hassle and you get the option to put a little dinky weapon on your ship. I think that we can all agree on that.

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#84 Post by emrys »

Ranos wrote:
Daveybaby wrote:Okay this is getting silly. It seems to me that some people are being deliberately obtuse.
Just because you don't agree with what somebody is saying doesn't give you the right to call them stupid. I disagree with what others are saying but that is my POV. IF you don't like it, then say so and give a good arguement as to whay, but don't call me stupid. When a post starts with that, I ignore it.
Just to quell the flames a little, DaveyBaby was not necessarily (or even, knowing DaveyBaby, probably) calling anyone stupid, the other meaning of obtuse (and the one usually alluded to in that phrase in my experience) is "unwilling to try to understand", i.e. trying to see something as more complicated than necessary (e.g. in order to argue against it).

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#85 Post by Impaler »

I'll say it one more time "We shoud design the weapon stats so their is no possible incentive to use a low un-refined device in a ships design, thus completly eliminating the need to speficy the level of device being used in the ships design"

This will save SOOOO much time in the design process and I suspect in the coding as well that I cant see any reason to include a toggle option on this simply to an un-nessary and completly un-desirable feature. KISS principle BIG time!


On the issue of limiting refinment levels, I belive their should be a limit on how much you can refine a single device. They player should need to do some research in other closly related fields to "unlock" additional refinment levels. I would go with something like Moo1 here, the player is given an overall rating in each field based on what advancments they posses (only theoreticals would be considered). I think Moo has a "level" on each Tec and you get the level of your highest Tec +1 for each additional Tec. That becomes your overall "advancment level" in the field.
So you could have "Level 12 Costruction" or "Level 4 Space Offense". Devices can only be refined up to that level.

On another note I am going to start a new thread discussing the overall Design of ships focusing on the Stars!/Moo/SEIV variations on how you actualy put "stuff" into the ship. This thread can continue on over the detains of the "stuff" itself and the new thread can adress how its organized within a ships design.
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#86 Post by MisterMerf »

Impaler wrote:I'll say it one more time "We shoud design the weapon stats so their is no possible incentive to use a low un-refined device in a ships design, thus completly eliminating the need to speficy the level of device being used in the ships design"

This will save SOOOO much time in the design process and I suspect in the coding as well that I cant see any reason to include a toggle option on this simply to an un-nessary and completly un-desirable feature. KISS principle BIG time!
I agree wholeheartedly. Refinements should have more damage output per time, per cost, per space. The modifiers, if the system is used, should be where choices need to be made. KISS, KISS, KISS

And I agree also with Daveybaby.

It shouldn't be too difficult! Design the system so there are reasons to use newer weapons, but also reasons to keep refining the same old weapon. Reasons to swarm with small ships and reasons to crank out capital ships. Reasons to use this or that mount.

Isn't the goal to encourage some game variety without making it too complicated? We just need to figure out what kinds of variety come at a cost of too much/unfun complexity.

Ranos
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#87 Post by Ranos »

Impaler wrote:On the issue of limiting refinment levels, I belive their should be a limit on how much you can refine a single device. They player should need to do some research in other closly related fields to "unlock" additional refinment levels. I would go with something like Moo1 here, the player is given an overall rating in each field based on what advancments they posses (only theoreticals would be considered). I think Moo has a "level" on each Tec and you get the level of your highest Tec +1 for each additional Tec. That becomes your overall "advancment level" in the field.
So you could have "Level 12 Costruction" or "Level 4 Space Offense". Devices can only be refined up to that level.
This could make refining anything totally pointless. It of course depends on how fast the levels would be researched and when in the levels the next and better weapon would appear. If you start the game with lasers and you get ion cannon at level 4, it would be pointless to upgrade. If ion cannon doesn't show up until level 8, then it isn't that big of a deal.

I think there should just be a set number applied to the refinements. Only 5 levels of refinement or only 10 levels. This gets the same effect while not hindering the refining.

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utilae
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#88 Post by utilae »

Ranos wrote: If researching refinements "might be as effective" or "should be equal to" researching a new weapon, then what's the point? Why not just put lasers in the game, save on loads of techs and just refine the hell out of the lasers? If a Laser Mk10 does 20 damage, then the next weapon in line should do 40 for less than double the space.
They need to be equally viable to a player, if players realise that normal research of weapons is way better than refinements could ever be, then no one will ever go for refinements. Both mainstream research and refonments need to be balanced enough to lure players into research and refinements at an equal frequency. So we need to think of some advantages and disadvantages for both mainstream researched weapons and refined weapons, that make them equally useful and usable in the game.
Ranos wrote: No they shouldn't. Refinement is making a weapon better. You do this in two ways, make it stronger and make it smaller. Using my chart, it does both. One of the points that Impaler has been trying to make is that by not making a weapon change size when it gets refined, you don't have to design a new ship every time you research the refinement. The laser would get stronger but the space would stay the same. Through a little bit of automatic multifire with one of the refinements and you get the same effect as miniaturization. Can you agree that it is better to do it this way instead of having to redesign your ships all of the time?
Sure, I guess. It is a good solution.
Ranos wrote: You seem to be focusing on the early game or the desperate situations instead of the norm for what everyong will do.
Er, such situations may make or break a game. Plus there have been many times in Moo2 that I have had to wait too long for even the cheapest ships, so unless I was an industry powerhouse, I wouldn't be able to build a doomstar full of 50 plasma cannons, lol.
Ranos wrote: And while you are spending RP refining your lasers three or four levels, I'll have the next weapon in line and be able to destroy your ships faster. I belive the whole point of refinements is to be able to improve your existing ships so they are more effective, not as a replacement for more advanced weapons.
Refinements is taking an applied tech, like lasers and advancing it in levels, making it better, etc. And when a laser is refined, it is like reserearching an entirely new weapon, so it would not automatically upgrade your ships lasers to refined lasers. You would have to refit for that.

Plus if you get better weapons before my refined lasers could be any use, then what would be the point of refinements. Either refined weapons are able to be researched quicker than the next weapon or refined weapons are stronger than the next weapon but are reserached slower than the next weapon. And maybe mods should be very powerful (mods only available on refined weapons). They would be wouldn't they. Shield piercing for example, that is a huge boost to the weapon.

noelte
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#89 Post by noelte »

utilae wrote:
Ranos wrote: If researching refinements "might be as effective" or "should be equal to" researching a new weapon, ...
They need to be equally viable to a player, ...
Note, there is a difference between refinements and new techs. refinements should only be done a few steps, say from lvl 1 to lvl 5. New weapons techs would lead to more powerful weapons. I guess ref is cheaper than research new once, but at the drawback, that you can not refine for ever.
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Daveybaby
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#90 Post by Daveybaby »

By obtuse i meant focussing on one aspect to support an argument as if it is the only possible way for the game to work. The whole conversation was getting bogged down in incredibly detailed 'i'm correct because i think the combat will always work this way' type arguments. Everyone seemed to be completely getting bogged down in details for a (currently) nonexistant combat system.

I could probably have phrased things a bit more fluffily, but i wasnt having a very fluffy day. No offence intended.

@emrys : cheers, thats what i was trying to say. :P
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