Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: 1 ... 9 10 [11] 12 13 14

Author Topic: Ship Recovery  (Read 97716 times)

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #150 on: February 12, 2017, 04:30:36 PM »

I have a thought that stems from the ability to restore ships to their "factory condition", or however you want to describe the painstaking removal of D-mods from damaged ships. Will we ever see the ability to massively overhaul one ship class into another? Obviously I'm referring to ship classes that are described as being conversions from others (Tarsus to Condor, Buffalo to Buffalo MkII), and I think it could be really cool to upgrade/modify/convert a Tarsus freighter into a Condor carrier. I don't doubt that this would take massive quantities of resources, and I'm not sure of the practical uses in the campaign, but it could be worth thinking about what with all the other factors being added with ship recovery here.

Thoughts?

(Been playing Starsector for a few years, but I'm new to the forums)

First off, welcome to the community!  :D

Idk what Alex has in mind for conversions like the condor currently, though correct me if I'm wrong here but I believe in the past the goal was to eventually have that be sort of an additional layer of tech unlocking in the future. I am talking like back in 2014-15 though, so I don't think its been mentioned in a bit, but I was under the impression that skin files were the first step towards something along those lines. Some campaign things like that have since been cut from immediate development for gameplay reasons though. A much smaller campaign feature, random patrol tolls, for instance, got cut (I think two updates ago?) because they didn't add much more than an random frustration element for the player despite making sense from a realism perspective.

Not saying conversions would definitely fall into that category or anything, just that the plan may have changed due to things not working out as intended once play tested.

Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23988
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #151 on: February 12, 2017, 04:42:24 PM »

Spoiler
Absolutely adoring the concept of Autofit. :D Something I've wanted in some form or other for a long time, and you've absolutely cracked it.

I have a thought that stems from the ability to restore ships to their "factory condition", or however you want to describe the painstaking removal of D-mods from damaged ships. Will we ever see the ability to massively overhaul one ship class into another? Obviously I'm referring to ship classes that are described as being conversions from others (Tarsus to Condor, Buffalo to Buffalo MkII), and I think it could be really cool to upgrade/modify/convert a Tarsus freighter into a Condor carrier. I don't doubt that this would take massive quantities of resources, and I'm not sure of the practical uses in the campaign, but it could be worth thinking about what with all the other factors being added with ship recovery here.

Thoughts?

(Been playing Starsector for a few years, but I'm new to the forums)
[close]

Hi and welcome to the forum :)

Re: autofit, whether it'll be good or not I think largely depends on the quality of variants produced by the algorithm. Hopefully it'll be good enough; early testing seems to be positive. At the very least, it's much easier to use than "manage variants" was.

As far as conversions, I don't think those will pan out - they'd be cool in those specific instances, yeah, but those are so minor that it really doesn't warrant a front-row place in the refit UI, or the effort/complexity of adding something for it that's just a one-off, more or less. It's just a couple of ships out of, at this point, what, a couple of dozen?
Logged

Midnight Kitsune

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2846
  • Your Friendly Forum Friend
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #152 on: February 12, 2017, 04:58:07 PM »

Spoiler
Absolutely adoring the concept of Autofit. :D Something I've wanted in some form or other for a long time, and you've absolutely cracked it.

I have a thought that stems from the ability to restore ships to their "factory condition", or however you want to describe the painstaking removal of D-mods from damaged ships. Will we ever see the ability to massively overhaul one ship class into another? Obviously I'm referring to ship classes that are described as being conversions from others (Tarsus to Condor, Buffalo to Buffalo MkII), and I think it could be really cool to upgrade/modify/convert a Tarsus freighter into a Condor carrier. I don't doubt that this would take massive quantities of resources, and I'm not sure of the practical uses in the campaign, but it could be worth thinking about what with all the other factors being added with ship recovery here.

Thoughts?

(Been playing Starsector for a few years, but I'm new to the forums)
[close]

Hi and welcome to the forum :)

Re: autofit, whether it'll be good or not I think largely depends on the quality of variants produced by the algorithm. Hopefully it'll be good enough; early testing seems to be positive. At the very least, it's much easier to use than "manage variants" was.

As far as conversions, I don't think those will pan out - they'd be cool in those specific instances, yeah, but those are so minor that it really doesn't warrant a front-row place in the refit UI, or the effort/complexity of adding something for it that's just a one-off, more or less. It's just a couple of ships out of, at this point, what, a couple of dozen?
Sounds like the convert button will never get used then...
Logged
Help out MesoTroniK, a modder in need

2021 is 2020 won
2022 is 2020 too

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23988
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #153 on: February 12, 2017, 05:24:32 PM »

Logged

Machine

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 114
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #154 on: February 12, 2017, 07:19:27 PM »

Oh... that's surely a large hit on my expectations of ever having a vanilla system to transform a ship class into a different one, fully repair a (D) variant or even just exchange ship paintjobs. :-\

I guess I'll have to settle with mods for that.
Logged

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #155 on: February 12, 2017, 08:21:55 PM »

As far as conversions, I don't think those will pan out - they'd be cool in those specific instances, yeah, but those are so minor that it really doesn't warrant a front-row place in the refit UI, or the effort/complexity of adding something for it that's just a one-off, more or less. It's just a couple of ships out of, at this point, what, a couple of dozen?

Yeaahh kind of suspected this to be honest, and concede that its a pretty minor niche right now as far as current ships go. I suspect the U.I element is the biggest part of it. Have to be choosy with what gets showcased without visual clutter and all that.

My devil's advocate statement (because well, why not? haha): the skin files are really convenient for this from a feature standpoint. All the things you would want to "convert" are already packed in a single file that can be called instead of the "base" hull. No real foundation work needed for it code wise right? Only a switch to change the scope of the call in the campaign. Replace "hound" with "hound_hegemony" for instance.

Then just convert existing hull Ids for "conversion" ships to skin files with built in stat modifier hullmods. In the case of the condor, there should already be function calls to support the addition of flight decks considering the new hullmod talked about in the fighter blog post, so that shouldn't be a huge issue.

Idk, is the effort worth the payout? I know I am probably not the only one who would find it to be a unique and cool feature for the game, and it could definitely spice up customization. But, thinking about it more it also definitely has the danger of breaking things on the campaign layer too. Faction rep for skins kind of becomes irrelevant when conversion is an easy alternative, so you can't make it easy, or even cheaper.. but then why would you even want to do it in the first place? On the fly? That just seems silly in cases except for the freighter conversions, which brings us back to the niche feature argument.

Yeah, I can see where it could become tricky.  :P
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23988
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #156 on: February 12, 2017, 08:24:42 PM »

Yeah, the main work here is "game system design", and since there's no real driver for it in terms of "solving other design problems" (and, as you point it, it could potentially conflict with other design goals), my feeling is it's not a good idea to go down that path.
Logged

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #157 on: February 12, 2017, 08:33:12 PM »

Yeah, the main work here is "game system design", and since there's no real driver for it in terms of "solving other design problems" (and, as you point it, it could potentially conflict with other design goals), my feeling is it's not a good idea to go down that path.

Fair enough. :) Thanks for the dialogue/clarification on it!
Logged

Gothars

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4403
  • Eschewing obfuscatory verbosity.
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #158 on: February 13, 2017, 01:39:19 PM »

This doesn't rule out that hull conversion might still be possible with dialog options, right? Like, at a station, for a fee. Or at one of you outposts, for resources.

It would slightly bug me if there is something in the game world that clearly should be possible for the player, but inexplicably isn't. I mean, how can the Sector be filled with converted ship if there's no way to convert them?

...not that I'd actually want to convert them all that often. I'd just consider it a nice touch for world building.
Logged
The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

AxleMC131

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1722
  • Amateur World-Builder
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #159 on: February 13, 2017, 01:51:07 PM »

Thanks for people's thoughts and welcomes! :)

I think I see the main problem with converting ships between classes - as Alex said, there are only really two ship pairings where this applies in the lore at present, and the last thing you want is a feature that is only accessible by a tiny proportion of the game. I do really appreciate how Fractal Softworks aims extremely hard to keep out superfluous mechanics and boring grinds, so I'll follow their judgement on that.

Morrokain, you bring up a good point about the ability to have different "skins" appear as variations on a ship class other than the loadout. It's a good point that, having different skins for spacecraft, it's somewhat unnecessary to also have the ability to change a ship class just a little more - when you think about it, a Wolf compared to a Wolf (D) isn't that far off from the difference between a Condor and a Tarsus, other than the method by which the ships have been altered.
Logged

AxleMC131

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1722
  • Amateur World-Builder
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #160 on: February 13, 2017, 01:55:39 PM »

It would slightly bug me if there is something in the game world that clearly should be possible for the player, but inexplicably isn't. I mean, how can the Sector be filled with converted ship if there's no way to convert them?

...not that I'd actually want to convert them all that often. I'd just consider it a nice touch for world building.


To clarify, the point I was making was from a similar standpoint to Gothars, saying that there is something apparently in the game we are informed of from lore (namely ship descriptions), yet the player has no way to access it or even any evidence that this information is true in the world of Starsector. Again, I'm not pushing for the mechanic, but that's how I was initially thinking about it. As Gothar said, it's a nice touch for world building, and as an amateur author I do adore world building!
Logged

Wyvern

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3786
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #161 on: February 13, 2017, 02:38:36 PM »

While conversion doesn't make sense for the Hegemony's XIV skins*, it does make a lot of sense for special skins for other factions, not to mention being something that modders will inevitably want to play with (see, for example, Tiandong Heavy Industries).

Now, obviously, you'd need an appropriate reputation & commission with a faction that can do the conversions.  And I don't think it deserves its own front-row button in the ship UI - a conversion is, much like refurbishing a (D)-class ship, something that would be expensive and not to be undertaken lightly.  But it should be at least possible, and as more factions get faction-specific skins, being able to do those conversions will become both more interesting and more important.

* Edit: Though, come to think of it, it could - while the current lore is that all the XIV ships were special hulls that arrived with the 14th fleet, there's no particular reason to assume that the conversion techniques are impossible to replicate in the current Sector, if you have enough cash and supplies to make it work...
« Last Edit: February 13, 2017, 02:41:24 PM by Wyvern »
Logged
Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7174
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #162 on: February 13, 2017, 03:22:09 PM »

I for one would love to be able to buy/find/steal the rare and necessary components, blueprints, and skilled personnel/contacts to retrofit a ship into an elite variant like the XIV's. If one of my outposts could do that conversion, no matter the cost, I would be glad to have my entire fleet blown out from under me to protect it. (Or the outpost's garrison, if I'm halfway across the sector ;p)
Logged

AxleMC131

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1722
  • Amateur World-Builder
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #163 on: February 13, 2017, 05:49:25 PM »

Oh man, I'd forgotten the XIV variants. XD They are super cool, although I have yet to enjoy the pleasure of properly piloting one.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Recovery
« Reply #164 on: February 13, 2017, 07:03:29 PM »

From what I saw about XIV variants, the "...performed by pre-collapse industrial methods (or techniques)..." (caveat: may not be exact text, but close enough if not) could just mean Hegemony could build new XIV ships with pre-collapse industry tech.  Survivor of original XIV does imply the ship is likely pre-collapse.
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 9 10 [11] 12 13 14