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[Grungetastic]

Hi Guys!

These two tie into the one thing really...

But will ships eventually have animations? Eg flashing lights, moving parts (eg radar or civilian rotating pods artificial grav type stuff)

Also, I've been thinking it'd be nice to have specialized ships that have to 'transform' into assault mode or something. Eg when taking on a space station or something similar structure assault ships could transform into slow moving single high powered weapon ships. Could be a one way or two way process (some Ships could transform into but not back)

There's quite a couple of different places this could be used.

Ideas: (before | after)
Defensive platforms: Fast moving, no attack, low def | high attack, no movement
Structure Assault Ships: Medium speed, defensive weapons | V low speed, single slow focus high attack
Capital Ship: normal movement, normal weapons, normal shields | no movement, no weapons, v high shields (last stand kind of stuff, waiting for backup)

And so on...

As another thought... Combinable ships? (eg 3 'regular' ships temporarily combine into some kind of super weapon) Or is that too much


Blargh. The end. Sorry if this has all been mentioned before.

[Avan]

Animations would be nice for Q-ships; ie, having panels slide away to reveal guns.

[Alex]

But will ships eventually have animations? Eg flashing lights, moving parts (eg radar or civilian rotating pods artificial grav type stuff)

Ahh, I've been meaning to make the radar dishes on the sensor array - even have the graphics and everything. So stuff like that is possible - mostly in the form of little doodads here and there. But it's so low priority, and there are so many core features to add, that I can see it falling through the cracks, at least for a while.

Also, I've been thinking it'd be nice to have specialized ships that have to 'transform' into assault mode or something.
...

That's not feasible, I'm afraid. The amount of animation frames that would need is prohibitive. Could do something with fixed modules just moving relative to each other to avoid that, but it's still be a very effort-intensive feature. I think it'd work better in a game that's actually about doing that - not as a side, "oh yeah you can do that too" type of feature in Starfarer. Now, there might be ship systems that do something similar functionally - I just can't see particularly fancy graphics for it.

[evil713]

Does it need to be an animation for a ship to transform?

I mean cant you have ship A and ship B models already made, and the trasform effect could just be an opaque shield raise.

Ship a, transform shied goes up, ship a swaped out ship b swaped in, transform shield goes down.

You could use the effect to deploy stations and other stationaries from your mission pool.

[hairrorist]

Why would a ship have different modes in the first place?  Its not like you need aerodynamics in space.

[Avan]

It would make sense for a Q-ship, where false panels pull away to reveal weapon emplacements instead of cargo.

[hairrorist]

Yeah, if there are Q-ships it would make sense.

[evil713]

Other than my deployable structures idea, I have a few thoughts.

1, a speed form for rapid transit, low armor, weapons limited to bombs and light mounts.

2, an assault form, weapons locked to forward fixed mount, no light mounts, heavy armor and mounts in abundance.

3, archer form, missle and balistic mounts in abundance, wide body.

4, support form, weapons array set up for area denial, pd, and sniping, very high flux capasity.

Forms above (cept for the first) could be deployables, stationary stations to reinforce objectives.

From an ouside the game point of view, a larger form is easier to live in, a smallet one is harder to hit.
matter ammout remains constant, so smaller form is tougher.

[hairrorist]

Here's the thing, hoss.  How would using light armor help you go faster when you're carrying both?  Why would you ever use the light armor if you're already carrying heavy?  Similarly, why the hell would you lock swivel guns forward for any reason under any circumstance?  Why would you carry all those extra weapon systems?  If you're carrying them in your ship already, carrying that extra weight already, you might as well go ahead and use them.

[evil713]

assuming a modular design most things on a ship would be multi purpoused. practical suplight engines on there own use craploads of power and put out alot of material, its rarely mentioned in sci-fi.

a larger ship would have light armor because the skin would be streached out, less armor per cubic meter. a larger hull can also have more engines deployed, thus more accelleration, thus faster ship.

by configuring to an attack formation thoes systems used for propultion are rebuilt into attack systems, engine bells become cannons, fuel and hull become ammo, the ship shrinks the armor starts stacking up.

a turret needs more parts than a fixed gun, which on a modualer ship could mean less of somthing else.

since theres little friction in space, speed achevable is dictated by acceleration. yes your ship stil has alot of mass, but its output is variable.

also weapons are going to be damagable/disableable in the future, having a critical weapon under armor (missles, heavy cannon ammo) keeps them viable for future attacks.

i posit the Kris Longknife series by Mike Shepard, the Known Space series by Larry Niven,  the VB-6 Koenig Monster by Shoji Kawamori (who has his hand in all good mecha) and Kazutaka Miyatake (original designer) ( ),

[hairrorist]

Yeah, see, in space, changing the shape or armor thickness doesn't matter if your mass stays the same.  The other problem is that what you're not counting is that you can't just turn armor into engines.  You'd have to carry both.  I don't understand why more parts for a turret mean less parts somewhere else.   In general, the more likely something is to happen in anime, the less likely there's a practical reason for it, or even that its possible.

I understand that there's a "HELLS YEAH ATTACK MODE GO" argument here, but I really hope thats not a direction this game will go.