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Author Topic: Configurable ship systems and weapon slots, Procedural Hulls and Weapons  (Read 3953 times)

gruberscomplete

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I don't know if this was ever mentioned before, but what if you could change the ship systems in a hull? I mean to separate ship systems into four categories - low, mid, high, special tech and only allow low tech systems on a low tech ship (like a condor with burn drive, or enforcer with ammo feeder).

Also, it would be nice to be able to modify the weapon slot types and/or add new slots to an in-game hull. This would be like changing the shepherd's borer wing to a fighter wing slot.

Lastly, if we could modify ship systems and weapon slots, it would be a nice feature for the AI to randomize their own hulls too.

For weapons, I mean mostly custom fighter wings, with different weapon types affecting the speed of the fighter.
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Deshara

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I was thinking earlier today of how much happier I'd be if I could use something like the Restoration interfact to swap my Eagle's Maneuvering Jets out with Plasma Jets, which would be infinitely more useful to me, or even just a burn drive.
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SCC

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I suppose ships are partly balanced with their systems, so... I think not. Same with mounts. Same with fighters and their weapons.

BillyRueben

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I suppose ships are partly balanced with their systems, so... I think not. Same with mounts. Same with fighters and their weapons.

Word. I shudder to think what an Onslaught could do with Maneuvering Jets, or a Paragon with that system that the Sunder uses.
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Megas

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Onslaught or Paragon with Phase Teleporter would be so evil, and nothing can run away from it.
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Deshara

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There's nothing stopping a system like this getting implemented with a balanced possible alternatives setup. It could be as simple as adding a new box to ship_data.cvs that lists possible alternatives
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SCC

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Spoiler
Onslaught or Paragon with Phase Teleporter would be so evil, and nothing can run away from it.
Not even it itself! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaJPDZe4lAg
[close]

Besides there's lore reason, which is "people forgot how to make things with their hands because everything is 3D-printed".

Megas

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The most dangerous enemy to a battleship is a swarm of frigates.  Battleship cannot catch them if they run away, and if they approach your ship, it is because there is about twenty or more ready to swarm and destroy your ship.

Beam Paragon with skills can take out multiple capitals and cruisers without too much trouble.  It cannot deal with a horde of frigates because the frigates run away like Timid ships when outmatched or swarm to kill when they have the numbers to do it.

When the frigates decide to swarm, it is hard to avoid it.  If you do manage to avoid it, the swarm withdraws quickly until another opportunity presents itself.

A battleship with teleportation, it can probably pick off anything one by one and avoid the swarm.
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Morbo513

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I'm really torn. On the one hand, it's a lot simpler to balance if every ship's weapon mounts and systems are pre-defined, and as a result every ship is distinct, making the choice of ship much more meaningful than otherwise. On the other, I'm always all for upgrades and customisation, and letting the player conform as much of the game's content as possible to their preferred playstyle. I do think there should be some pretty severe trade-offs, and investments and costs required, to make it another thing to flesh out the mid-late game, and also some hard restrictions to prevent the creation of absolutely overpowered ships. Phase tech especially would ideally be restricted to ships built around those systems, but you wouldn't be precluded from replacing them on those ships. Thinks like a chance of applying D-mods if you haven't invested in the pertinent skills or equipment. "Your crew stripped out the phase skimmer, but took some important components with it. Your ship's Peak Performance is now 50% shorter" (Unreliable subsystems) for example.

 But yeah, if it were up to me, I'd replace the small mounts on my Wolves with ballistics for some longer-range kinetic damage. But then we come back round to the argument that it then may be too powerful - The Wolf's already a very powerful ship for its size, cost and upkeep requirements; the restriction of all its weapons to energy serves to limit its versatility in the types of targets it's effective against. Some mods already break this by adding small HE energy weapons, and kinetic missiles that are miles better than Sabots, meaning in addition to its supreme mobility, I now have a lot more firepower that in vanilla, is otherwise traded off.
All this aside, I would like to be able to choose the ship's skin where applicable, I don't like having a non-uniform fleet if I can avoid it.

There's a problem though - I think the biggest hurdle with this suggestion is the technical aspect. As far as I'm aware, any variant of a ship is considered a different ship as far as the game's concerned, (D)s produced through combat notwithstanding. This is why those ships with destroyed/downsized weapon mounts or reduced OP can't be restored to the stock version of that hull, and why destroyed weapon mounts can't be applied dynamically in the same way as other D-mods. I'm not going to pretend to know what it'd take to implement what'd essentially be modding ships on the fly, but I don't imagine it'd be easy. The question then comes down to whether it'd be worth it for a huge but questionable shake-up to the possibilities within the game.

The creation of more variants, and allowing players to refit ships to those specs would be the best way to go about it imo, as done right it could maintain the balance that currently exists. Say, Wolf (B) - has had its medium mount replaced with a hybrid, and one of the small mounts is replaced with a small ballistic at the expense of the other two.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2017, 03:01:26 PM by Morbo513 »
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gruberscomplete

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Some ship systems (like teleporter) would be considered "special" ship systems (aka too OP for general use) and would only work on high-tech frigates.

Other systems, for example, maneuvering jets, would only work on midtech ships, and could not be added to a low or high tech ship.

Similarly, high energy focus is only feasible on high tech ships. As HEF is very powerful, this system could cost OP points to mount.

Less powerful systems like flares could be free, with more powerful systems taking a large chunk of a ship's OP points. More OP systems would cost even more OP to mount.

Changing the weapon slot types just allows you to mount different kinds of weapons. Adding new weapon slots would just require a bounds check to avoid "stacking" weapons on top of each other and creating a custom hull. Adding weapon slots could also reduce the amount of cargo, fuel, and extra crew capacity a ship has to offer.

This could all tie into industry, with new skills that reduce the chance of getting a dmod if you modify a ship, as Morbo513 mentioned above. Then you could make your own faction with your own custom hulls (instead of vanilla hulls), which further increases immersion.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2017, 04:20:09 PM by gruberscomplete »
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Toxcity

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Not really a fan. Ship systems and mounts are a major part of a ships balance. Doing this just destroys a bunch of potential future ship designs, and hurts ship identity a lot.

This would also just end up being heavily exploitated. Why would I ever use a Lasher when I could ballistic up a slot on the wolf for needler/phase lance spam. Or better yet a Tempest with a Mauler-Driver combo. Having more choice doesn't always = more decisons. To a new player it would look like that, but to anyone else, all the customization will culminate into a few dominant strategies.
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Megas

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@ Toxcity:  I would do as you say.  I would abuse the flexibility so bad it would not even be funny.  As you point out, Mauler and HVD would be an obvious combo for the Tempest.
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Serenitis

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While I like the intent behind the idea, I would just end up with burn drive on everything tbh.
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FooF

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@ Toxcity:  I would do as you say.  I would abuse the flexibility so bad it would not even be funny.  As you point out, Mauler and HVD would be an obvious combo for the Tempest.

I don't think anyone would mount energy weapons, if they could avoid it. Yeah, this would just turn into a homogenized heap of min-maxing.
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