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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#16
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Thu Oct 19, 2017 6:06 am
Silverware wrote:
Wed Oct 18, 2017 6:44 pm
And here is the critical part of my message. :D

When you remove agency for poor skill, you create frustration.
Reducing agency as a penalty for poor skill is okay so long as you allow the player a way to claw it back. (in this case through assigning extra pips)
except for the pip concept agreed.

pips are a horrible way to handle ships over 6+ scales of magnitude :P

unless you just want to make them the fundamental unit of power/energy and have capitals throw around a couple of megapips of power
To be fair, they work for the majority of ships the player expects to fly.
Capitals I would expect each subsystem to have its own set of pips and places to shunt.

So instead of just having [Engines], the engines subsystem might have [Main Thrusters] [Attitude Control] and [Another One]; (I can't think of a third right now)
Allowing the same mechanic to deal with all ship scales. But larger ships have much finer control, and much larger reserves of pips. Basically Megapips, yes. :V
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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#17
Silverware wrote:
Thu Oct 19, 2017 12:34 pm
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Thu Oct 19, 2017 6:06 am
Silverware wrote:
Wed Oct 18, 2017 6:44 pm
And here is the critical part of my message. :D

When you remove agency for poor skill, you create frustration.
Reducing agency as a penalty for poor skill is okay so long as you allow the player a way to claw it back. (in this case through assigning extra pips)
except for the pip concept agreed.

pips are a horrible way to handle ships over 6+ scales of magnitude :P

unless you just want to make them the fundamental unit of power/energy and have capitals throw around a couple of megapips of power
To be fair, they work for the majority of ships the player expects to fly.
Capitals I would expect each subsystem to have its own set of pips and places to shunt.

So instead of just having [Engines], the engines subsystem might have [Main Thrusters] [Attitude Control] and [Another One]; (I can't think of a third right now)
Allowing the same mechanic to deal with all ship scales. But larger ships have much finer control, and much larger reserves of pips. Basically Megapips, yes. :V
Except that theres a lot of sliding scale between a fighter and a capital ship.
And unless you want to bullshit around with how much watts are a pip algorithmically its easier to just let the player define how much power e wants to transfer per hotkey press and the rest just with more or less continous allocation.
Because that works with one rule set for everything.

Instead of bullshitting around with disparate systems because you insist on using a system thats not suited for all scales of mostly similar objects in the game.

Also: how would you handle energy transfers between engines and shields in a capital?

How would you deal with having a couple of small anti fighter/missile guns on a superfreighter?
Just assign 1e6 units of power to something that only needs 1e0 units?

it may be bearable if there were two discrete classes of ships, but with the whole spread of sizes inbetween has to be handled as well it has to be a very continous system to keep it from breaking at some point
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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#18
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Thu Oct 19, 2017 2:09 pm
Except that theres a lot of sliding scale between a fighter and a capital ship.
And unless you want to bullshit around with how much watts are a pip algorithmically its easier to just let the player define how much power e wants to transfer per hotkey press and the rest just with more or less continous allocation.
Because that works with one rule set for everything.

Instead of bullshitting around with disparate systems because you insist on using a system thats not suited for all scales of mostly similar objects in the game.

Also: how would you handle energy transfers between engines and shields in a capital?

How would you deal with having a couple of small anti fighter/missile guns on a superfreighter?
Just assign 1e6 units of power to something that only needs 1e0 units?

it may be bearable if there were two discrete classes of ships, but with the whole spread of sizes inbetween has to be handled as well it has to be a very continous system to keep it from breaking at some point
Well, seeing as pips would be relative to the power generation of the ship. I don't think it matters what the specific unit is.
On a fighter it might be W, on a corvette KW, on a capital MW or even GW.
Since all subsystems on a fighter would use power on the order of a W, while those on corvettes on the order of KW, and those on capitals at MW or even GW.

A pip is an abstract, designed to reduce numbers and make things simple, while still providing interesting abilities to shift power around.


I would make each ship have all the subsystems, then it's the same everywhere.
This is how I would do it:

You have 10 Big Pips to allocate between System Categories.
Each System Category can hold 5 pips.
There are Four Categories [ Engines, Weapons, Defenses, Subsystems ]

Each Category has 4 Minor ... things. Some may be disabled based on the ship you are flying.
Each Category has 10 small pips to allocate. These are NOT dependent upon big pips being placed into the system.
Each Minor Thing can hold 5 pips.
eg Engines: [ Thrusters, Manuevering, Cruise Drive, Jump Drive ]

The number of Big Pips in a category determines how much effect the small pips have.
So, if you *REALLY* want to go fast, put 5 Small Pips in Engines::Thrusters. And 5 Big Pips into Engines.
This will give you the Absolute Maximum power output of the Forward Engines. And you will rocket forward like a mad man.

Smaller ships would likely assign small pips just once, and then leave them there, as they are likely to focus on a narrow selection of these smaller systems. And will want to assign big pips dynamically as the situation evolves.

Larger ships will want to move some of their smaller pips around, as well as the big pips to better compensate for a dynamic battlefield. Players in larger ships should also have fewer things to worry about, as they move slower thus need less focus on WHERE they are going, and turrets (imo) should be automatically controlled, so less focus on the weapons exact placement.

The Largest ships will want to shunt power around a lot to make the absolute most of their, frankly overkill, systems.


This system allows everything to be the same, individual pips to not actually be related to any specific numbers, but more to general power levels. And for an organic level of control over the minor systems included in a Spaceship.
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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#19
I think a better system than pips would be Percentage power of a system. So each subsystem has a maximum power capacity that can be given to it. In general the generator can only provide about 50% of the max power for all the subsystems at the same time. Then when you transfer power to or from a subsystem you increase the percentage of a subsystems maximum power that is currently going to that subsystem. Obviously for more power hungry subsystems like the engines, this represents more absolute power, but it seems like it would be fairly intuitive that giving 5% more power to your engines is going to take more power than 5% more power to your rcs thrusters. This way it doesn't matter the size of the ship since you'll be working on percentages anyways. You could also have a second mode where you allocate a percentage of your generator to each subsystem and then when you increase or decrease, it's represented by the percentage of your generator that is going into a subsystem.
A life well lived only happens once.
Seems deep until you think about it.
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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#20
Silverware wrote:
Thu Oct 19, 2017 4:02 pm
Well, seeing as pips would be relative to the power generation of the ship. I don't think it matters what the specific unit is.
On a fighter it might be W, on a corvette KW, on a capital MW or even GW.
Since all subsystems on a fighter would use power on the order of a W, while those on corvettes on the order of KW, and those on capitals at MW or even GW.

A pip is an abstract, designed to reduce numbers and make things simple, while still providing interesting abilities to shift power around.
For surface level hotkey control and equally rough display purposes yes.
For everything else give me actual fine controls :P
Silverware wrote: I would make each ship have all the subsystems, then it's the same everywhere.
So every ship has to house weapons, mining, factories, refineries, jump drive/gate, ECM/EWAR, warp lane, station construction, repair, etc systems to be able to work in your system?
Silverware wrote: You have 10 Big Pips to allocate between System Categories.
Each System Category can hold 5 pips.
There are Four Categories [ Engines, Weapons, Defenses, Subsystems ]
Why make it so hard coded?
What if i want to have my sensors be an extra category to be able to control wigh top level controls (eg in a scout fighter)
What if i want my primary and secondary weapon systems to have independent TLCs? (Eg cruiser with a spinal cannon array and general turret coverage)
Silverware wrote: Each Category has 4 Minor ... things. Some may be disabled based on the ship you are flying.
Each Category has 10 small pips to allocate. These are NOT dependent upon big pips being placed into the system.
Each Minor Thing can hold 5 pips.
eg Engines: [ Thrusters, Manuevering, Cruise Drive, Jump Drive ]
Again, why hardcode?
make that a dynamically generated system (with a manual override to make personalised changes to the groupings) which can have arbitrary amounts of elements in them.

My fighter may just have depth 2 in its weapon systems.
All-> weapons -> gun=[0:3]

My battleship has a greater depth
All->weapons->large/medium/small->forward/backward/top/bottom/left/right->gun[0:n]
Or any other differentiations i want to make personally.
May i want to differentiate my guns by purpose?
anti missile, anti smallship, anti medship, anti largeship, long range, shield breaking, etc.

Why would i want this control to be taken away from me?
What would discrete, hard coded categories with coarse controls give me over continous dynamic groups with some hotkeys to transfer some step-size amount of power priority between systems?

Silverware wrote: turrets (imo) should be automatically controlled, so less focus on the weapons exact placement.
Hey, i know that im going to need back facing turrets soon because im about to turn around or have other intel available but the control system doesnt let me because reasons.
Yes, sounds like a great idea to have an automatic system take slowly slewing controls away from you to prevent you to do any planning with it.


Silverware wrote: This system allows everything to be the same, individual pips to not actually be related to any specific numbers, but more to general power levels. And for an organic level of control over the minor systems included in a Spaceship.
the same and equally restricting for every ship class :P
Having something Pip equivalent for quick hotkey based power shunting okay, but as the fundamental system it just takes control and possibilities and doesnt give anything back.
Especially with hard limited categories like you suggest.


Tl;dr: hotkeys and pips for fast high level controls, proper continous controls with dynamic subgrouping for everything beyond that
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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#21
For one, I never suggested that every ship needs those, I put Jump Drive in there as an example of that. in 90% of ships I expect that option is grayed out.
And with dynamic categories, you just have a mess.
Think of this from a UI standpoint.

It's easier to grey out an unusable option (eg refineries, not that I suggested this at all) than it is to try and fit how many potentially dozens of subsystems into a dynamically placed UI section, without overlapping other UI, without eating away at the player's FoV.

It also requires you to have dynamic button mapping.
What if someone wants to shunt power around in combat, are you expecting them to look hard at the screen, or just hit a HAT button on their joystick to do so?

There is also the problem, of why the shit would one put power to non-combat systems at all?
Doing so just means that immediately at the start of combat you pull all power out of these systems and shunt them to combat ones. And vice-versa when combat ends.
I actually *did* think about that, and realized that the simplest option is to not. Assume all non-combat systems switch off during combat, or have their own power source.
They wont tend to need bursts of power when you need your weapons firing for instance.


As to your example of wanting to shunt power between aft and fore turrets. Why? That's micromanagement for the player.
Instead of making this a literal power-gaming option, you just now made it a micromanagement hell.
Moving power between aft and fore as foes fly around you.
It's not control being taken away, its micromanagement being reduced in favor of general management.

You punt power to Turrets, ALL turrets at once.
You punt power to Maneuvering, ALL maneuvering thrusters at once. (not just the fore-under-left number 2 thruster, sending you into a roll whenever you try and pitch)


This entire system was about increasing options (from the basic Shields, Engines, Sensors, Guns approach) without overwhelming the player, and allowing it to be entirely ignored if preferred.
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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#23
Silverware wrote:
Fri Oct 20, 2017 1:58 pm
For one, I never suggested that every ship needs those, I put Jump Drive in there as an example of that. in 90% of ships I expect that option is grayed out.
And with dynamic categories, you just have a mess.
Think of this from a UI standpoint.

It's easier to grey out an unusable option (eg refineries, not that I suggested this at all) than it is to try and fit how many potentially dozens of subsystems into a dynamically placed UI section, without overlapping other UI, without eating away at the player's FoV.
And just having every useless option in place that will never be relevant for a certain ship is not UI bullshit?

And who the fuck would you place all the subgroups on the front UI visible at all times? Collapse that stuff away when you arent accessing it and/or hide it in menus, same way as with all subgroups.
Or did you want to place all your stuff on the screen all the time? :P
Silverware wrote: It also requires you to have dynamic button mapping.
What if someone wants to shunt power around in combat, are you expecting them to look hard at the screen, or just hit a HAT button on their joystick to do so?
Power group [0:n] +-
Solved.
Silverware wrote: There is also the problem, of why the shit would one put power to non-combat systems at all?
Because the power system doesnt pop into existence when combat starts. Its always there and thus all systems have to be handled by it.
Silverware wrote: They wont tend to need bursts of power when you need your weapons firing for instance.
I may want to keep my jump gates or warp rails or the factory supplying my station's missile launchers active while in combat.
Or not have my industry completely shut down every time a single scout ship comes in range.
Silverware wrote: As to your example of wanting to shunt power between aft and fore turrets. Why? That's micromanagement for the player.
same reason why theres shield capacitor shunting in 90's space games. Because theres something at the front that i want to be dead but not at the back.

Also, why not? Give the player grouping any way e wants. If you dont want it, dont use it.

Silverware wrote: You punt power to Turrets, ALL turrets at once.
You punt power to Maneuvering, ALL maneuvering thrusters at once. (not just the fore-under-left number 2 thruster, sending you into a roll whenever you try and pitch)
But still you want power shunting from maneuvering to main propulsion? Why does that need to be different?

missile defence and main guns have the same relation, i may not want extra power to missile defence when i want to blast away that cruiser.
so why limit the power shunting arbitrarily?

Silverware wrote: This entire system was about increasing options (from the basic Shields, Engines, Sensors, Guns approach) without overwhelming the player, and allowing it to be entirely ignored if preferred.
And you still can if you insist and just use the top level pip system and never touch the deeper system.
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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#24
The HUD needs to be dynamic and change as modules are added and removed from a ship. I think a combat mode preset for the pip system would likely help the user easily find the correct pips that they are looking for. So there would be two modes, the first for non-combat flight with weapons unpowered and other settings and pips available, and a combat mode where pips are assigned to certain locations by the player (with a combat focus). Certain player defined systems are hidden when in combat mode to reduce pip clutter during combat.

A ship only produces a set amount of energy depending on the generator installed. It is up to the pilot to manage energy distribution. Non-combat systems like mining lasers shouldn't be powered during combat mode so that the pilot can use that energy for faster speed, faster shield recharge or other systems. There is no energy that's just appears when in a particular mode. It has to be redirected to the proper system (preferably using pips).

I understand why the player would want to shift power between fore and aft shields, but not turrets. I'd like to keep this type of thing uniform throughout the entire ship. If you set 3 pips to your turrets all turrets fire 3 times as fast as a 1 pip setting in the same system. It may be a good LT mod, but it sounds like too much micro management for a LT 1.0 release build. Shields have uniform regeneration rates and can be layered, turrets (when split into multiple firing groups) do not.
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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#25
BFett wrote:
Fri Oct 20, 2017 10:03 pm
I understand why the player would want to shift power between fore and aft shields, but not turrets. I'd like to keep this type of thing uniform throughout the entire ship. If you set 3 pips to your turrets all turrets fire 3 times as fast as a 1 pip setting in the same system. It may be a good LT mod, but it sounds like too much micro management for a LT 1.0 release build. Shields have uniform regeneration rates and can be layered, turrets (when split into multiple firing groups) do not.
Where is the difference between powering up a turret with a certain equipment in it and a turret in a certain location.
Its per-hardpoint power allocation.

Why make limits based on arbitary distinctions?

Why is directional passive defence fine but directional active defence not?

Why is reinforcing my shields different from reinforcing my missile defence?

Why should your opinion on turret power allocation be binding for me? If you want uniform turret power distribution then keep them all in the same group and dont bother and let me set up groups and allocate power to them as i like.
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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#26
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 3:30 am
Why should your opinion on turret power allocation be binding for me?
It shouldn't.

As usual, one can always argument for more options, more freedom, less constraints. This is always a good talking point - who can be against freedom?

But as usual in life, there are compromises:
The major one is depth of complexity vs. learning curve/fun factor for casual players.
This is important: this is a commercial product, so it should not please only few hardcore gamers; the market would be too small. With beautiful graphics and a rich atmosphere, this game has everything to please a crowd of people that may want to boot the game just for a few hours when they have time - these players should not have complex interfaces and option coming into the way of flying and dogfighting-

Obviously, one can set "defaults" everywhere and allow options to hide the complexity, but then we come to the next compromise:
Depth of one feature vs. number of features/diversity/richness given in a defined development effort (man-hours). As an example: if the developper spend time to allow for arbitrary hierarchies of power distribution including a well thought GUI, he has no time to spend on a more interesting procedural generation or a better AI.

So in this regards, the question is not whether you want more freedom/depth, but if depth in this particular feature including the whole development time to make it work naturally or to be able to play without using it, is worth more than the other things that could be done with this development time.

So in this particular case: what compromise adds good game elements without being too costly or too complex? In my personal opinion spaceships in the future should have smart onboard computers, so for casual players, the system should automatically switch between combat and non-combat configurations (e.g. when activating targeting computer, or when activating shields or whatever). For more advanced player, adding hot-key driven option to channel more energy to shield, or point defence, or canons or engines (some few well thought categories) add gameplay without being too difficult to implement.
And then switch to other features - AI and procedural generation of asset cannot have too much effort put into them, they are "make or break" elements.
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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#27
BFett wrote:
Fri Oct 20, 2017 10:03 pm
I understand why the player would want to shift power between fore and aft shields, but not turrets. I'd like to keep this type of thing uniform throughout the entire ship. If you set 3 pips to your turrets all turrets fire 3 times as fast as a 1 pip setting in the same system. It may be a good LT mod, but it sounds like too much micro management for a LT 1.0 release build. Shields have uniform regeneration rates and can be layered, turrets (when split into multiple firing groups) do not.
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 3:30 am
Where is the difference between powering up a turret with a certain equipment in it and a turret in a certain location.
Its per-hardpoint power allocation.

In my opinion, not having all weapons online at the same time adds unnecessary complexity to combat which isn't needed. Just make 2 weapon groups, fire the fore turrets in group one and the aft turrets in group two and you are set. Why do you feel the need to turn on and off your turrets?
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 3:30 am
Why make limits based on arbitary distinctions?
It's just for simplicity and making LT a game which is user friendly. It seems redundant to the weapon grouping system and would seem to force the player to micro manage each individual turret.
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 3:30 am
Why is directional passive defence fine but directional active defence not?
Directional active defense is fine, hence weapon groups. The issue I have is with powering half the weapons off and expecting additional energy from them. I feel that all systems should be either on or off not half on or half off. If a weapon group that wasn't firing didn't draw energy (no matter it's online offline state) would that satisfy you?
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 3:30 am
Why is reinforcing my shields different from reinforcing my missile defence?
I'm not talking about Anit-missile systems. Those should be automated by the ship's on-board computer and should activate as necessary. The player doesn't need to control this system. They just need to make sure it's powered.
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 3:30 am
Why should your opinion on turret power allocation be binding for me? If you want uniform turret power distribution then keep them all in the same group and dont bother and let me set up groups and allocate power to them as i like.
Let me know what you think of my suggestions above. Groups make way more sense to me than powering down turrets on an individual basis. I'm not trying to restrict you, I'm trying to work out game mechanics which will make LT fun for the vast majority of players and I'm also working with your ideas as I understand them. What does power distribution have to do with weapon groups? All weapons in the groups draw energy when they are used. And could potentially draw less energy when they are online but not in use.
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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#28
CSE wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 3:53 am
But as usual in life, there are compromises:
The major one is depth of complexity vs. learning curve/fun factor for casual players.
This is important: this is a commercial product, so it should not please only few hardcore gamers; the market would be too small. With beautiful graphics and a rich atmosphere, this game has everything to please a crowd of people that may want to boot the game just for a few hours when they have time - these players should not have complex interfaces and option coming into the way of flying and dogfighting-
well, im already saying to shove all equipment into easily autogenerated groups (weapons-> size -> type, shields, sensors, drives, other systems -> type (factory, refinery, wormhole device, warp rail) ) and have that be the base groupings based on which discussions can be had and the base gameplay without any additional mental burden can be based on.
for a fighter it would coincide with the desired groupings anyway and for larger ships its a base from which a player can adapt and change it to eir needs.
CSE wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 3:53 am
Obviously, one can set "defaults" everywhere and allow options to hide the complexity, but then we come to the next compromise:
Depth of one feature vs. number of features/diversity/richness given in a defined development effort (man-hours). As an example: if the developper spend time to allow for arbitrary hierarchies of power distribution including a well thought GUI, he has no time to spend on a more interesting procedural generation or a better AI.
well, we already need some interface and code to handle power management between elements, if done in a robust way it could be trivially nested to produce arbitrary groupings.
if done really robust it can even be reused for totally different purposes as well, like generalised resource allocations (ships, money, materials)
same for the interface to handle it
CSE wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 3:53 am
So in this particular case: what compromise adds good game elements without being too costly or too complex? In my personal opinion spaceships in the future should have smart onboard computers, so for casual players, the system should automatically switch between combat and non-combat configurations (e.g. when activating targeting computer, or when activating shields or whatever). For more advanced player, adding hot-key driven option to channel more energy to shield, or point defence, or cannons or engines (some few well thought categories) add gameplay without being too difficult to implement.
And then switch to other features - AI and procedural generation of asset cannot have too much effort put into them, they are "make or break" elements.
well, considering that the cruise drive (which is a pretty fundamental movement mode) is just a power setting to thrusters.
So some basic manual power settings more or less need to be in to preserve that.
(also, completely ignoring that josh already seems to have made his mind up on how the basic power mechanics look. as documented in the early videos and the prototype)

BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 10:10 am
In my opinion, not having all weapons online at the same time adds unnecessary complexity to combat which isn't needed. Just make 2 weapon groups, fire the fore turrets in group one and the aft turrets in group two and you are set. Why do you feel the need to turn on and off your turrets?
why should i keep my anti fighter guns running when theres nothing in that size class around?
just stuff that extra power into the equipment that i actually need.
BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 10:10 am
It's just for simplicity and making LT a game which is user friendly. It seems redundant to the weapon grouping system and would seem to force the player to micro manage each individual turret.
why force?
did the repeated notion of nested grouping pass your attention? :V
plop the stuff into power groups (with some automated base setup) and control those.
but the point is that any predefined or automated system cant possibly catch all the things i want to do.
i may want to set up a couple of different weapon banks to power up and down as needed or to spread my fire (if we combine that with control groups, and i think we should for simplicity)

also: what weapon grouping system?
i havent yet seen one shown in LT, it could very well just merge with it.
weapon bank [0:n] control group is the same as weapon bank [0:n] power group.
BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 10:10 am
Directional active defense is fine, hence weapon groups. The issue I have is with powering half the weapons off and expecting additional energy from them. I feel that all systems should be either on or off not half on or half off. If a weapon group that wasn't firing didn't draw energy (no matter it's online offline state) would that satisfy you?
because thats not how the power management josh showed us works
and why shouldnt i be able to push more power into a gun (up to a limit) and have it fire faster?
or the inverse, reduce the power to my gun and have it fire slower but allow me to keep all my stuff firing.
with just binary on/off you just have to hope that the gun you want to fire has energy when you need to fire it.
with dedicated allocations its guaranteed to fire at a certain rate of fire.

and its not additional energy, its less drain on the main system which has limited resources.

BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 10:10 am
I'm not talking about Anit-missile systems. Those should be automated by the ship's on-board computer and should activate as necessary. The player doesn't need to control this system. They just need to make sure it's powered.
wheres the difference between a gun and an anti missile system?
have a few fighters ward off missiles with their main guns like in most games that feature the player piloting fighters and capital ships to be protected (like freespace, starlancer, freelancer and wing commander (not sure on WC, but i assume the option exists because its cool and a good way to interact with friendly capitals) )
BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 10:10 am
Groups make way more sense to me than powering down turrets on an individual basis.
how to define those groups other than shifting them around manually?
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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#29
You don't have to run your anti-fighter guns when there are no fighters around. I believe those would fit in the same category as the AMS system you also brought up. They would be treated as one in the same. Just toggle it on or off with a single pip. I'm all for power distribution between various systems so if there is no need for AMS or anti-fighter systems to be online, go ahead and shut them down and use the extra energy elsewhere.

Groups don't need to be nested within each other. Just have 2 settings, one for combat mode and the other for non-combat, assign the settings and let it trigger when a player performs a certain action or is fired upon. The pip system allows for refinement of energy settings when in combat. Pre-defined systems just simplify things for the player when they are initially attacked without warming. Again, keeping all weapons on a system where they are individually turned on or off is unnecessary. Especially if it takes more energy to initially power on a system. It should be cheaper to have all weapons on (with some passive) than to be consistently turning a number of turrets on or off depending on what group you wish to use.

Weapon groups were discussed in the Road To Beta updates. The pip system was also displayed in those updates.


I don't understand the [0:n] symbol you keep using nor what it represents. However, I am suggesting that every distinct system has it's own power group which is displayed using the pips. One could also imagine that each weapon group draws power equal to the weapons in that group. Passive weapons do not draw power above the passive energy rate. Active weapons draw more energy. All weapon systems are either online or offline. Defensive systems are separate and draw their own power. It's the same way engines are separate from shields.

You can push more power to guns (energy weapons) and have them fire faster. The inverse is also true. Guns are either on or off, the amount of energy provided to all of the guns is variable and depends on the number of pips assigned.

Additional energy being energy freed up from other non-combat systems such as mining lasers. Again, this is the reassignment of pips.

An Anti-missile system is not something the player has to aim, guns are. I have no problem with fighters shooting down missiles, rockets or the like.

The player can define what turrets are in what group before leaving a space station. Once defined, the player should not need to rearrange the groups while in a combat situation. It's just setting up the groups one time and then not having to worry about them until the next time the player decides to purchase newer ship weapons.
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Re: UPS (uninterruptible power supply)/ power bank/ power storage

#30
BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:18 pm
You don't have to run your anti-fighter guns when there are no fighters around. I believe those would fit in the same category as the AMS system you also brought up. They would be treated as one in the same. Just toggle it on or off with a single pip. I'm all for power distribution between various systems so if there is no need for AMS or anti-fighter systems to be online, go ahead and shut them down and use the extra energy elsewhere.
and why not allow the player to separate them if they have different weaponry on board for those purposes?
how to define which guns are for which purpose?
BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:18 pm
Groups don't need to be nested within each other. Just have 2 settings, one for combat mode and the other for non-combat
i have no idea how those two statements relate to each other.

groups are for simplifying giving orders to systems, you can still have any quick orders on them with or without grouping.

BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:18 pm
It should be cheaper to have all weapons on (with some passive) than to be consistently turning a number of turrets on or off depending on what group you wish to use.
actively controlling a group doesnt have to be the same thing as powering it up or down.
im just saying that the groupings for power and control are the same (well, power assignment is just an aspect of controlling them)
BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:18 pm
Weapon groups were discussed in the Road To Beta updates.
oh, you are right, forgot about that.
BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:18 pm
The pip system was also displayed in those updates.
there being a pip system for fast power allocation doesnt mean that theres nothing below that system for finer control :P
and i kinda doubt that josh would give away the fidelity.
BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:18 pm
I don't understand the [0:n] symbol you keep using nor what it represents.
"the group of n+1 objects from object #0 to object #n"
[0,1,2,3,...,n]
BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:18 pm
However, I am suggesting that every distinct system has it's own power group which is displayed using the pips.
what now?
only large scale groups ("weapons", "engines") or individual (gun1, gun2, gun3..) power levels?
Decide
BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:18 pm
You can push more power to guns (energy weapons) and have them fire faster. The inverse is also true. Guns are either on or off, the amount of energy provided to all of the guns is variable and depends on the number of pips assigned.

Additional energy being energy freed up from other non-combat systems such as mining lasers. Again, this is the reassignment of pips.
why cant i only push power to main cannons?
why should i power up my missile defense guns when i want to dish out some punishment?
(or vice versa)

(also, why "pips" as the fundamental unit? a pip is just an interface thing for fast reassignment, nothing else)
BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:18 pm
An Anti-missile system is not something the player has to aim, guns are. I have no problem with fighters shooting down missiles, rockets or the like.
the anti missile system IS a set of guns, you just place them under automatic control
like most cannons on your battleship. why handle them manually?
just control your main ones manually or even none at all and just command

BFett wrote:
Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:18 pm
The player can define what turrets are in what group before leaving a space station.
why not change them while mobile?
theres nothing that could amount to some unfair advantage to be gained when changing power groups when underway.
it doesnt increase your combat power or anything, so why limit the reassignment?
also, how would that work with capitals that basically cant dock to stations or stations themself which work with the same system?

also: suddenly user defined groups? werent you talking all "no groups" the rest of your post...?

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