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Playermade ship and station model-base

#1
:idea: Imagine an ad-on to the game where players can make and save some model-bases of ships and stations for the AI to modify it with some procedural contents.

There will be a slider in which tell how much the model-bases will be modified by the AI where '0' means no modifications at all and '10' means heavy modifications. The model-bases from '1-10' will evolve overtime at different rates in-game where '0' will stay static. Player will have full control in modelling '0' classed models, on the other hand lesser control on the other classes.
There is a difference between models and model-bases. Models will be the '0' classed model-bases on the slider and the rest will be model-bases. Models will be generated directly by players and model-bases will be model ideas given to the AI by the players.

Hope I made myself clear. :thumbup:

The model files will be saved in a directory in the game file so that the players can share directly share with their friends or upload it to the net.

This idea is like merging human imagination with computer PCG.
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Re: Playermade ship and station model-base

#2
Since the ship models were supposed to be procedurally generated, then maybe they could create a ship builder in to the game. One that allows you to modify the ship's appearance on the fly by tweaking some sliders that are linked to the generator's attributes? The ship attributes like size and hard points would be linked to the class so you wouldn't be able to tweak those, but appearance, why not? When you find one that is appealing then you could save that ship and apply it to a blueprint. Or, make it a part of the blueprint creation process.

You can give your ships a distinctive feel that makes them look similar to each other, regardless of class, but also much different than those that belong to others in a way that they feel like they belong to you.

I can already see as squad of formation flying cocks and balls in space.
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Re: Playermade ship and station model-base

#3
As i said before it will be an option (ad-on) and it will not just be for the player's ship but all ships and this is to be done before creating a new universe. :shifty:

Player may let the AI generate ships procedural at the start and modify theirs ship on the fly or they can give the game some guidelines so that it creates a variety in ship or station structures but yes ship attributes will be same according to type and class.

Its like in a zombie game where the modelers sometimes give the AI some model-bases or basic structure of zombie and tells it to procedurally generate faces and clothes and body parts.

The result is you get many different looks of zombies yet with same abilities. :thumbup:
Post

Re: Playermade ship and station model-base

#10
The early version of the ship builder was pretty traditional in the sense of being an editor for "class 0" ships, if I understand it correctly. Loosely comparable with the one in Kerbal Space Program. A nice extension to that would be the option to import some PGC-created ship from an NPC faction and modify that. Maybe only after acquiring one in-game and reverse engineering it, so it does feel less like a cheat :think: .

The idea of PGC-enabled ship classes created by the player is interesting for modders. I'm not sure how much use I would personally make of it though :think: . Once I've designed a ship, I would like it to stay that way.
Post

Re: Playermade ship and station model-base

#11
I am sure it will be far superior to the original Rabiator. After all it was a specific stretch goal. :)

It's not my idea of having fun. That's the main reason why I've been banging on about ship and station design for the defaults. I do not enjoy grinding, polishing, buffing, lapping, and honing my own creations. I know there are many who can turn this into a pastime and spend hours at it but it's not for me. :mrgreen:
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Re: Playermade ship and station model-base

#12
Victor Tombs wrote:I am sure it will be far superior to the original Rabiator. After all it was a specific stretch goal. :)

It's not my idea of having fun. That's the main reason why I've been banging on about ship and station design for the defaults. I do not enjoy grinding, polishing, buffing, lapping, and honing my own creations. I know there are many who can turn this into a pastime and spend hours at it but it's not for me. :mrgreen:
Why not make it modular then?

You start out with a standard chassis with minor tweakable options for design and look.
As you gather more resources, you'll be able to either build or purchase a chassis for another class of ship or another general chassis for your current class.
You can then purchase or build additional modules, like turrets, cargo space, thrusters, engines and so on (depending on the chassis class).
It would probably have to be slot/node-based for different modules, to make it more controlled but still quite customizable:

Ship class M
Engine slots: 3
Turret slots: 4
General slots: 2

You can then opt to forfeit an engine and put in extra cargo space instead (in the sense that cargo space is an universal module and can fit in any slot). So you'll have more cargo space, but your ship will be slower. General slots would be for non-weapon, non-engine modules, like scanners and jump drives... I hope you get the drift :)

EDIT:

I could probably put in some time to design the structure of the entire ship building system, but only if the dev and the community is interested (I'm a software designer after all).
Post

Re: Playermade ship and station model-base

#13
radus wrote:Why not make it modular then?
The problem we have at the moment radus is we haven't seen anything of the shiny new editor yet. No, not even EC members. So what we are talking about could be a radical departure from the one we have seen. It has happened so many times in Limit Theory development that I am loath to even say I won't use it when it finally gets that reveal. Josh just keeps on surprising us. :D

If you haven't noticed, I try to keep any comments I make about suggestions from members to a minimum. I have seen so many worthwhile, even brilliant ideas in these forums that have a real chance of being picked up by Josh and incorporated into his vision that I am loath to say anything that will give false hope to a member. It's like walking a tightrope. :angel:

As to you being a software designer, I am certain you are in good company in this Community. ;) :)
Post

Re: Playermade ship and station model-base

#14
Victor Tombs wrote:
radus wrote:Why not make it modular then?
The problem we have at the moment radus is we haven't seen anything of the shiny new editor yet. No, not even EC members. So what we are talking about could be a radical departure from the one we have seen. It has happened so many times in Limit Theory development that I am loath to even say I won't use it when it finally gets that reveal. Josh just keeps on surprising us. :D

If you haven't noticed, I try to keep any comments I make about suggestions from members to a minimum. I have seen so many worthwhile, even brilliant ideas in these forums that have a real chance of being picked up by Josh and incorporated into his vision that I am loath to say anything that will give false hope to a member. It's like walking a tightrope. :angel:
Fully understandable. Giving false hope will only result in a backlash. I'm still trying to finetune myself into how this community works :)
Victor Tombs wrote:As to you being a software designer, I am certain you are in good company in this Community. ;) :)
Yup, noticed that from the beginning :P
Post

Re: Playermade ship and station model-base

#15
radus wrote:
Victor Tombs wrote:I am sure it will be far superior to the original Rabiator. After all it was a specific stretch goal. :)

It's not my idea of having fun. That's the main reason why I've been banging on about ship and station design for the defaults. I do not enjoy grinding, polishing, buffing, lapping, and honing my own creations. I know there are many who can turn this into a pastime and spend hours at it but it's not for me. :mrgreen:
Why not make it modular then?

You start out with a standard chassis with minor tweakable options for design and look.
As you gather more resources, you'll be able to either build or purchase a chassis for another class of ship or another general chassis for your current class.
You can then purchase or build additional modules, like turrets, cargo space, thrusters, engines and so on (depending on the chassis class).
It would probably have to be slot/node-based for different modules, to make it more controlled but still quite customizable:

Ship class M
Engine slots: 3
Turret slots: 4
General slots: 2

You can then opt to forfeit an engine and put in extra cargo space instead (in the sense that cargo space is an universal module and can fit in any slot). So you'll have more cargo space, but your ship will be slower. General slots would be for non-weapon, non-engine modules, like scanners and jump drives... I hope you get the drift :)

EDIT:

I could probably put in some time to design the structure of the entire ship building system, but only if the dev and the community is interested (I'm a software designer after all).
I have ideas for the ship editor that would make things very highly modular. It'd be based on a new kind of engine that Josh would need to develop (but possibly base on his current node engine) that would allow for this and several other game mechanics I'd prefer to see appear.

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