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Re: Modifying a vessel

#61
DWMagus wrote:You know, I can get behind this. If I'm only owning one ship, do I want to spend the time making the modifications, or do I want to just purchase another ship? I like the trade-off. The "Taking time to do something" hits a lot harder when you're only using one ship with nothing else to do but wait. It means that for those who REALLY want to do something like that, they can while nudging players more in the direction of just buying a new ship.
But wouldn't that basically be the same as scrapping your ship and using the material to build a genuinely new frame / hull / CM?

IMO the only difference there is semantics. =P
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
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Re: Modifying a vessel

#62
Gazz wrote: But wouldn't that basically be the same as scrapping your ship and using the material to build a genuinely new frame / hull / CM?

IMO the only difference there is semantics. =P
it would make an pretty tangible difference for pirates, lone wolfes, smugglers and such.

people who dont have access to the mainstream ship market and dont have the capacities for R&D + production.

those who have to adapt to stay competitive.

edit: those individials could gradually upgrade their ships with lots of small patches instead of buying a completely new ship
Last edited by Cornflakes_91 on Tue May 20, 2014 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Modifying a vessel

#63
Gazz wrote:
DWMagus wrote:You know, I can get behind this. If I'm only owning one ship, do I want to spend the time making the modifications, or do I want to just purchase another ship? I like the trade-off. The "Taking time to do something" hits a lot harder when you're only using one ship with nothing else to do but wait. It means that for those who REALLY want to do something like that, they can while nudging players more in the direction of just buying a new ship.
But wouldn't that basically be the same as scrapping your ship and using the material to build a genuinely new frame / hull / CM?

IMO the only difference there is semantics. =P
Hey, I like my fuzzy dice and cheesy rear-view mirror from my jalopy. I want it on my cruiser. It takes ages to get a seat to adapt to the correct butt-print. :lol:
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Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
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Re: Modifying a vessel

#65
Maybe I should explain myself better?

In my mind, a ship is made up of a lot of parts all mounted on a basic frame. The frame has all the mountings for all the various components of the ship. Hardpoints for weapons, brackets for engines and power generator, and so on.

If you want to make the ship bigger, you'd have to cut apart and extend that frame, so that would require a specialized machine shop. You'd have to use the facilities of a shipyard or something.

That frame is what I call a "Chassis", which might or might not be the right word but it's the best I've found so far.


The chassis ought to be modifiable, and you should even be able to design a new one from scratch and make it whatever shape you want, with whatever-size mountings of various parts you want. I mean, if you want to make a fighter with battleship-size thrusters, well... fine! Just don't expect to be able to power the things with a fighter-sized reactor.

Okay, so this lends itself to all kinds of nuance in ship design. Bigger frame means more weight, and also more armor plates to protect it (which means even more weight). You want fast? Well, you'll have to optimize between engine size, power facilities and the size and design of the chassis. Small, compact ships will be lighter and thus faster, but won't have room for a lot of cargo, weapons, ammunition and whatnot.


Let's say you want to make the ideal frigate-size brawler of a fighting ship. Here's how I'd think with it:

I'd be thinking with compactness and power output from the start. I'd put a slightly oversized reactor in it, and large-ish engine mounts. I wouldn't give it too many hardpoints, I'd want a limited number of hard-hitting guns so I'd use one or two very large turret hardpoints, and a couple of small ones just for point defense (don't want to be pecked to death by fighters).

Cargo space? Hell, no. Every inch of cargo space is another inch I've got to put armor on. I'd concentrate on keeping crew quarters and the command deck small, compact. As much as possible I'd cut it down to just reactor, engines and that couple of big guns.

The armor itself would be some compromise between good protection and not so much weight that it's going to kill me. But since I've limited the surface area of the ship, I can lean a little on the heavy side and put some really good armor on this thing.

Now I've got a fast, flying tank that can brawl with anything in its size class and win.



There's probably multiple ways to get around to this kind of ship-design gameplay so I'm not really married to having the things all built onto a frame and enforcing some kind of gameplay mechanic this way. I'm just really hoping I get to get into that sort of detail when I design and build my own ships.
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Re: Modifying a vessel

#66
Alcazabedabra wrote:Maybe I should explain myself better?

In my mind, a ship is made up of a lot of parts all mounted on a basic frame. The frame has all the mountings for all the various components of the ship. Hardpoints for weapons, brackets for engines and power generator, and so on.

If you want to make the ship bigger, you'd have to cut apart and extend that frame, so that would require a specialized machine shop. You'd have to use the facilities of a shipyard or something.

That frame is what I call a "Chassis", which might or might not be the right word but it's the best I've found so far.


The chassis ought to be modifiable, and you should even be able to design a new one from scratch and make it whatever shape you want, with whatever-size mountings of various parts you want. I mean, if you want to make a fighter with battleship-size thrusters, well... fine! Just don't expect to be able to power the things with a fighter-sized reactor.

Okay, so this lends itself to all kinds of nuance in ship design. Bigger frame means more weight, and also more armor plates to protect it (which means even more weight). You want fast? Well, you'll have to optimize between engine size, power facilities and the size and design of the chassis. Small, compact ships will be lighter and thus faster, but won't have room for a lot of cargo, weapons, ammunition and whatnot.


Let's say you want to make the ideal frigate-size brawler of a fighting ship. Here's how I'd think with it:

I'd be thinking with compactness and power output from the start. I'd put a slightly oversized reactor in it, and large-ish engine mounts. I wouldn't give it too many hardpoints, I'd want a limited number of hard-hitting guns so I'd use one or two very large turret hardpoints, and a couple of small ones just for point defense (don't want to be pecked to death by fighters).

Cargo space? Hell, no. Every inch of cargo space is another inch I've got to put armor on. I'd concentrate on keeping crew quarters and the command deck small, compact. As much as possible I'd cut it down to just reactor, engines and that couple of big guns.

The armor itself would be some compromise between good protection and not so much weight that it's going to kill me. But since I've limited the surface area of the ship, I can lean a little on the heavy side and put some really good armor on this thing.

Now I've got a fast, flying tank that can brawl with anything in its size class and win.



There's probably multiple ways to get around to this kind of ship-design gameplay so I'm not really married to having the things all built onto a frame and enforcing some kind of gameplay mechanic this way. I'm just really hoping I get to get into that sort of detail when I design and build my own ships.
I like the way you think. There is one problem though. According to Josh the cargo hold involves spacial compression so volume isn't the issue, mass is :ghost: . You could theoretically jam a battleship worth of air into a fighter.
Image The results of logic, of natural progression? Boring! An expected result? Dull! An obvious next step? Pfui! Where is the fun in that? A dream may soothe, but our nightmares make us run!
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Re: Modifying a vessel

#67
Alcazabedabra wrote:Let's say you want to make the ideal frigate-size brawler of a fighting ship. Here's how I'd think with it:

I'd be thinking with compactness and power output from the start. I'd put a slightly oversized reactor in it, and large-ish engine mounts. I wouldn't give it too many hardpoints, I'd want a limited number of hard-hitting guns so I'd use one or two very large turret hardpoints, and a couple of small ones just for point defense (don't want to be pecked to death by fighters).

Cargo space? Hell, no. Every inch of cargo space is another inch I've got to put armor on. I'd concentrate on keeping crew quarters and the command deck small, compact. As much as possible I'd cut it down to just reactor, engines and that couple of big guns.

The armor itself would be some compromise between good protection and not so much weight that it's going to kill me. But since I've limited the surface area of the ship, I can lean a little on the heavy side and put some really good armor on this thing.

Now I've got a fast, flying tank that can brawl with anything in its size class and win.
:clap: :clap: :clap:
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Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
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Re: Modifying a vessel

#69
I definitely agree with the suggestions here. Maybe no hardpoint requirement for the module, but there definitely should be a way of tweaking and developing your ship without having to have a long line of research and production stuff set up.

The way I'd work it is allow for you to improve the pieces from the base store bought items, but you can only improve them so far. And you can improve them without the drawbacks that come from researching. But at the same time, it is more expensive cost and time wise overall than just researching a new part and mass producing it. Or buying a better part. If you want to have a better ship that is yours, you're gonna take some time to make it yours.
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Re: Modifying a vessel

#70
EKHawkman wrote: The way I'd work it is allow for you to improve the pieces from the base store bought items, but you can only improve them so far. And you can improve them without the drawbacks that come from researching. But at the same time, it is more expensive cost and time wise overall than just researching a new part and mass producing it. Or buying a better part. If you want to have a better ship that is yours, you're gonna take some time to make it yours.
I respectfully disagree.

Why should you bother researching if you can just upgrade your equipment in your garage?

It should have drawbacks, equivalent or even larger to research.

Else no research would be performed but equipment would only be produced and modified
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Re: Modifying a vessel

#71
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
EKHawkman wrote: The way I'd work it is allow for you to improve the pieces from the base store bought items, but you can only improve them so far. And you can improve them without the drawbacks that come from researching. But at the same time, it is more expensive cost and time wise overall than just researching a new part and mass producing it. Or buying a better part. If you want to have a better ship that is yours, you're gonna take some time to make it yours.
I respectfully disagree.

Why should you bother researching if you can just upgrade your equipment in your garage?

It should have drawbacks, equivalent or even larger to research.

Else no research would be performed but equipment would only be produced and modified
That's where the unique part of this comes in. All modifications made can only be replicated by luck.

Basically if you're the head of an empire with a lot of ships it's better just to research as opposed to modifying each individual ship. Not to mention you can make a profit off of selling what you research. :ghost:
Image The results of logic, of natural progression? Boring! An expected result? Dull! An obvious next step? Pfui! Where is the fun in that? A dream may soothe, but our nightmares make us run!
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Re: Modifying a vessel

#72
Idunno wrote: That's where the unique part of this comes in. All modifications made can only be replicated by luck.

Basically if you're the head of an empire with a lot of ships it's better just to research as opposed to modifying each individual ship. Not to mention you can make a profit off of selling what you research. :ghost:
This only works well if you only ever have 1 piece of any equipment at hand.

(In RL) if i modify something i'd document it throughoughly and apply it to all my 4 guns that i have mounted on my fighter, not only the one im working on right now.
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Re: Modifying a vessel

#73
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Idunno wrote: That's where the unique part of this comes in. All modifications made can only be replicated by luck.

Basically if you're the head of an empire with a lot of ships it's better just to research as opposed to modifying each individual ship. Not to mention you can make a profit off of selling what you research. :ghost:
This only works well if you only ever have 1 piece of any equipment at hand.

(In RL) if i modify something I'd document it thoroughly and apply it to all my 4 guns that i have mounted on my fighter, not only the one I'm working on right now.
The modification module works on everything pertaining to the job at hand. If you want to modify a gun, it'll modify it, but the way that it does this is random. It could increase the reactor output and automatically reroute the extra power into the guns. :ghost:

Then again this is LT where the RE makes no sense. Just roll with it. 8-)
Image The results of logic, of natural progression? Boring! An expected result? Dull! An obvious next step? Pfui! Where is the fun in that? A dream may soothe, but our nightmares make us run!

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