Actzoltan wrote:Just_Ice_au wrote:From your perspective, when you buy the ship, THEY WILL ALL BE EMPTY.
I think you have misunderstood me. I want the player to be free to remove all equipment from their ship if they wanted and i listed examples where that could be beneficial.
Okay, I just want to state that you've been very thorough in your explanation of what you want, and I appreciate that, but Josh appears to think he has something
even better cooked up.
I don't
think I've misunderstood you at all. If anything, I'm not sure that you've entirely grasped the details of Josh's design as he has expressed it in this topic. I'll endeavour to quote from him directly when I'm rebutting your statements.
I myself favour Josh's solution. Unfortunately, he does do away with being able to completely remove systems from stock ships, but I'll cover below why this is actually a good thing.
Actzoltan wrote:How could this be beneficial?
- 1. The player could have extra hardpoints to use for other ship equipment.
2. The player can cut the cost of owning a lot of ships by selling the scrapped systems.
3. The player can experiment with crazy ideas with their ships.
Response:
1. Any "extra hardpoints" would be taken up by basic systems. You might have more on paper, but a minimum number will have to be used up just to get basic functionality. In Josh's second scenario, you reserve the hard points for things you want to specifically upgrade, and you get everything else virtually for free.
JoshParnell wrote:Consider the two scenarios:
1. You buy a fighter, it has 6 generator hardpoints (among other things), but comes with no equipment. You spend time searching for the correct level of sensor, power grid, and thrusters to fit to the ship. These take up 4 out of the 6 hardpoints (assuming you get 2 thrusters). Later, when you want to upgrade, you swap out the basic parts for more advanced ones.
2. You buy a fighter, it has 4 generator hardpoints, but comes with factory-installed sensor, power grid, and thrusters. It works out-of-the-box. Later, when you want to upgrade, you simply purchase an auxiliary power generator, propulsion boosters, sensor enhancers, etc, and use the hardpoints for those.
My question is, is there really any difference in freedom afforded by the schemes? I claim that the first is only more tedious, not more flexible. What's the difference between allowing you to swap out base equipment, and providing extra hardpoints so you can enhance the base equipment? IMO, the second option is easier to think about, less tedious, but equally customizable.
2. You're supposing that basic systems will cost an appreciable amount of a ship. However, traditionally in games, starting equipment is worth almost nothing. There is also the fact, that if you owned a lot of ships, under this model, you'd virtually have to personally oversee the equipping of each. Also, you'd have to purchase equipment to replace the basic stuff you scrapped - which will always be more expensive that leaving them with the base gear in.
Using Josh's scenario, you could assume that each ship is basically functional, and upgrade where you deem it appropriate. You wouldn't have to personally inspect each ship if you didn't want to. This system would seem to provide tangible benefits in time management by reducing the basic complexity required, while still supporting the rich customisability you seem to want at anything over a basic level of functionality.
3. Re: Player experimentation. I can't see anything that would seriously inhibit player experimentation in the proposed system. You seem to think that you'll be "Stuck" with the default layout, with no "entire system" upgrades possible under Josh's system, when from what I can tell, you're basically free to run whatever propulsion/weapon/sensor mix you want (provided you have enough hard points - a capacity that will probably be limited more by the size of the vessel than anything else). I can't see any barrier to trying any outre combination you want, you'll just have to call it an "upgrade" rather than a "complete system replacement". Semantics.
Actzoltan wrote:Just_Ice_au wrote:The only difference here will be the fact that your ship, when you strip out all your fancy upgrades, and leave all the hard points empty, will Still Fly Around. It will Still Not Leak Air.
When a player strips down a ship to the point of nothing but a hull as to still be airtight the ship can not fly around but drift and would need to be captured by a carrier or other ship to be moved.
Why? Floating around in interstellar space waiting for a rescue sounds
Super boring. Why would you ever implement a system that's just going to bore and/or annoy your players?
Actzoltan wrote:
Just_Ice_au wrote:Way to miss the whole point.
Okay, every ship has a set of basic sensors, engine, etc.
Accept this fact, THEN IGNORE IT. Your ship will fly around. Your ship will not leak air. Worry less about the details.
I have no problem with having a basic set of factory installed equipment in ships that have been bought by a player.
From what Josh has said we can still replace those pieces of basic equipment with new parts.
Do you think part of the point is to prevent the standardization of factory installed equipment for ships that have been bought which makes buying existing ships a more pleasant experience? Please tell me your version of the point.
As for exceptions to this point above i'm sure it would be nice to get the occasional fixer-upper junker ship with only its hull intact.
For me this is the point:
- Limitations on the minimum amount of equipment is unnecessary as this blocks the players freedom to explore. These limitations should only be a guideline not a rule. As for the conditional issue in my previous post if i have misunderstood Josh i want the ability to replace the basic equipment within ships that have been bought.
I think this is pretty much the crux of our contention, and I'm going to quote Josh here for backup.
JoshParnell wrote:All ships will come with basic factory-installed equipment that will make sure your ship is functional as soon as you buy it. As far as you are concerned, these do not take up hardpoints or affect you in any way, except for the fact that you don't have the "freedom" to build a non-functional ship. The only change is that now, you are thinking of equipment upgrades as being upgrades, not replacements. In terms of gameplay, it makes no difference whatsoever.
See, the point (as I see it) is, functional ships are useful (and using them should be fun), whereas non-functional ships are not useful (and therefore using them is frustrating).
Whenever a game developer has the choice to implement a fun feature, or a frustrating one, generally it's a good rule of thumb to implement the fun feature.
In the proposed system, you will never be able to buy a non-functional ship, but that's okay, because this fact really won't impact on your ability to customise any ship how you want, it just won't
force you to customise if you don't want to. If anything, it removes some basic limitations you might expect a starting ship to have - which is great, because removing limits is kinda what this game is all about.
Actzoltan wrote:
Just_Ice_au wrote:If you want more hardpoints to play around with, just straight up ask for more hardpoints, don't wuss out.
Yes i want more hardpoints always will. There is another post which talks about more hardpoints and alternatives.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=720
No problem
I'm actually in favour of as many hardpoints as possible myself (how else am I going to cram every advanced system I can find into as little space as possible).
Actzoltan wrote:PS: Thanks for telling me i wasn't being completely clear.
No worries, I'm happy to be having the discussion. If there's anything you're still not clear on, let us know and we'll keep the ball rolling.
...
And now by popular request (or if you thought all that was TL:DR), Diagrams!
Fig1: Limit Theory with basic gear thrown in:
Fig2: Limit Theory with a more complexicated system: