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Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2018 9:00 pm
by Black--Snow
Something I'd like to see in LT as an aesthetic bonus is the gradual and visible construction of extremely large vessels in open shipyards. Personally I think that'd be quite awesome, and could be done by partially or fully wire-framing the completed ship model for minimal(?) effort.

Of course this would only come into play for ships large enough to warrant dedicated shipyards (I assume capital ships won't be sharing the same type of facilities as a fighter would for production!).

eg.
Spoiler:      SHOW
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Also a little outside-spoiler freelancer bait for Victor:
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Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2018 9:44 pm
by BFett
I'd really like to see this happen as well. Either as plates, based on the sides of the ship or as individual "boxes" which are assembled in pieces.

Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 3:18 am
by Cornflakes_91
theres already confirmed free-space construction of spaceships via drones.
analogous to station construction.

Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 8:26 am
by BFett
Confirmed as in word of mouth, but no actual proofs of concept that we've seen any footage of.

Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 8:27 am
by Cornflakes_91
BFett wrote:
Thu Feb 08, 2018 8:26 am
Confirmed as in word of mouth, but no actual proofs of concept that we've seen any footage of.
confirmed as in "josh said so".

Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 8:30 am
by BFett
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Thu Feb 08, 2018 8:27 am
BFett wrote:
Thu Feb 08, 2018 8:26 am
Confirmed as in word of mouth, but no actual proofs of concept that we've seen any footage of.
confirmed as in "josh said so".
Yes, that is word of mouth, as I said.

Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 8:32 am
by Cornflakes_91
BFett wrote:
Thu Feb 08, 2018 8:30 am
Yes, that is word of mouth, as I said.
if you go by that criterium for "confirmed" theres not much we (will) have in the game :P

Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 9:44 am
by Talvieno
It hasn't been implemented, of course, but I'm fairly certain Josh plans to have visible ship construction, although I'm not actually certain what form it will take (and I'm not entirely sure he does either). I'll ask again when I can, just to make sure.

Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 11:42 am
by N810
Josh could probably make a cheep version where ships under construction would just have a different texture/material,
Like a transparent GIF with images of girders and half finished panels on it.

Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 7:20 pm
by Hyperion
I'm sure whatever the team comes up with will look pretty, I'm personally a fan of EVE's glowy stream of particles flying into place

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Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:02 pm
by S46
I'd enjoy seeing ships being constructed, especially similar to how it's done in EVE (yes yes yes EVE again)

Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:39 pm
by Black--Snow
Hyperion wrote:
Thu Feb 08, 2018 7:20 pm
I'm sure whatever the team comes up with will look pretty, I'm personally a fan of EVE's glowy stream of particles flying into place

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Look, it's pretty but it's not very industrial. I would like to see (Either as an option or just the default :V) more industrial looking construction.
I think industry has a beauty to it that shouldn't be thrown away in favour of magical glowy nanobots.

Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 12:24 am
by Hyperion
I agree, but I'm not sure there's a good and fairly quick way to get that industrial "Symphony of moving parts coming together" look for all the possible ships in LT, especially since the most animation we can realistically expect in 1.0 is spinning rings. Later on as a mod, I'd love to see it, and would definitely download it. :thumbup:

Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 12:53 am
by BFett
Maybe it will be easier after we see what procedural capital ships look like in LT. Maybe components which are generated separately are able to be replicated and carried from a black box factory and placed into position. Or maybe there is a way to make the ship 'grow' from the middle outwards.

Or all ships could be treated the same and exit a massive hanger when they are finished. Being hidden from view while they are being worked on.

Re: Visible Construction of Capital Ships

Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 11:45 am
by Cornflakes_91
for the graphics side, i'd prefer something relatively elaborate.

first put up some skeleton bars along the major lines of the hull, the main spine(s) of the ship. either as single bar or as multiple interconnected lines going in parallel (mostly for bigger ships, redundancy and spread load)

then i'd expand some blobby structures around hardpoints (reactors, shields, engines, turret mounts etc) slowly expanding them and spreading webbing of preliminary structural elements, larger power conduits, conveyors and piping between them

then i'd start to fill out the bulk of the ship, growing from the structural bars and the hardpoints.

towards the end (at 50-75 ish percent volume filled) i'd start some webbing tracing the hull forms (hull frame)

at the end the actual hull plating gets added while the last gaps in the internal structure get filled out.

all of that accompanied by fancy sci-fi looking fanning beams tracing the locations where stuff is currently being added, originating from construction drones and/or the gantry around the object under construction
Spoiler:      SHOW
fancy sci-fi looking fanning laser show projector :V
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BFett wrote:
Sat Feb 10, 2018 12:53 am
Or all ships could be treated the same and exit a massive hanger when they are finished. Being hidden from view while they are being worked on.
why handle them differently from stations?
stations have to be built in plain view anyway, why not reuse whatever system they use?

also, why make capitals a special case? why would a fighter in construction be handled differently than capship construction? (besides the scale of the construction [something])
why shouldnt i be able to just put together a fighter in space if i dont have a production bay to do it internally?