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I may be removing ship modding... |
Sardaukar
Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: October 08, 2002
Posts: 1656
|  Posted: 2005-07-21 14:54
I think people should understand that a variety of ship roles will still be in place. You will see, from the magical toolbox of Tael, ships tailored to different playstyles not unlike what you see now. By removing modding and implementing that, a terrible thing is removed from darkspace: The device blackmarket and the fact that the majority of modded ships are simply modded for the most firepower and that an unmodded ship stands no chance against them, making modding a half-hour waste of time just to keep your ship on par with the others.
By removing modding, there will be no more exploited ship designs, at least not so many, no more spending a long time in your homesystem prepping a ship for a fight- you spawn, you go to the action. No more black market trading of faction specific technology that gives the richest players the best equipment. This new playing field will as level as it diverse and balanced.
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Sardaukar
Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: October 08, 2002
Posts: 1656
| Posted: 2005-07-21 14:54
Gah. Double post. Where'd the delete button go?
[ This Message was edited by: Sardaukar {C?} on 2005-07-21 15:00 ]
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Russian Roulette with Muskets
Grand Admiral
Joined: September 04, 2002
Posts: 393
| Posted: 2005-07-21 15:09
Oh, and if starport-items are causing lag: ditch the whole building stuff!
No more waiting for mods or arguing over build priorities: the starport offers a list of the factions items, you klick, you buy, you mod. Not needed parts are sold for their value and disapear into nirvana.
presto... item build times and stuff are annoyng time sinks anyway.
[ This Message was edited by: PutEADRearTorpsToFrontPlease on 2005-07-21 15:10 ]
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$wiss
Admiral
Joined: November 08, 2002
Posts: 640
From: Prancing in the meadows with Jesus
| Posted: 2005-07-21 15:10
I take back what I said before...
This would be a major step back for the entire game.
Fix the Bugs.
Fix the Prestige problem.
Fix Exploits.
People will rejoice.
No need for something this drastic.
$wiss~
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Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Raven Warriors
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2005-07-21 15:16
On 2005-07-21 11:11, Faustus wrote:
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1. Remove the ability to remove, refit, and upgrade devices on a ship. Keep in mind, devices will still have different levels, the player just will not be able to change them.
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This is both a good and bad thing. You keep things simple but then you make the game bland unfortunately...
I personally felt 1.482 only needed a few small adjustments to be balenced (such as ELF and Flux reduced one per ship) besides that, well, it was good.
Though I like the idea of stock ships, there's going to have to be ALOT of diversity in them...
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2. Remove the many different resource types, and go back to a single resource type system. Each planet, will have a single number called "Resources" which is used when ships are resupplied, structures constructed, structures maintained, and be bought / sold at ports. This resource type, will also be needed to build space platforms.
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Sounds good to me...
[quote]3. Factories lose their build queues, they become resource multipliers. (They only increase the existing resources on the planet).
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Sounds even better...
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4. Ports will now only one button - "Buy Resources"
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*points above*
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5. Mines generate resources.
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*points higher*
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6. When a ship is spawned from a planet, the resources for the planet are reduced by the value of the ship...
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So far good ideals...
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7. Remove "Resources Lost" from prestige calculations.
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This is something which seems a bit nutty. I would perfer that you DO remove it, however... I refer to This page for my idea on that subject...
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8. Mines become resource generators, they generate the actual resources needed to make things in the game.
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Again good ideas....
I personally feel this will make the game alot more...simple? Simple is a good thing, especially for newbies, however we will need some diversity in order to keep the game exciting and unpredicatble.
As stated above, I think that modding could be kept, but only a simple, or general modding system, or a very restricted one, either way, it would keep the game being very interesting.
But besides that...
Im all for this...It seems like a better direction to head into.
-Ent
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MrSparkle
Marshal
Joined: August 13, 2001
Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2005-07-21 15:24
I say bing able to mod one cannon for another cannon, or one beam for another beam, is ok. But right now there's too much modding available. You can get rid of the useless eccm for very useful aux generators, cannons for beams or vice versa, and any combination of special slot items.
What that does is ruin the original intended purposes of ships. Not so much with weapons but with special slot items (and beacons should go back to special slot items). Who needs a sensor frigate or a scout to beacon when any larger ship can do the same job?
Removing modding brings ships back to their original intended purposes. Just allow weapon mods like modding railguns for gauss guns or lasers for pulse beams etc. The simpler mods that add just enough variety to keep things interesting without throwing everything off. Don't allow special slot mods.
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Phoebuzz
Grand Admiral
Joined: November 17, 2003
Posts: 110
| Posted: 2005-07-21 15:25
Getting rid of upgrading. Awesome. Upgrading was the worst idea ever.
I think modding should stay, but if you want to get rid of starport item list and factory build queues, I suggest this:
When you are in the orbit of a planet with a shipyard, instead of getting the upgrade button when selecting an item, you in the refit button area a list of alternative items for the slot you selected.
You can then click on that icon and the item will be refited to the next selection you choosed. (The new item should be at least uncharged and optionaly 100% damaged)
Example.:
A K'luth orbits a shipyard planet, select a Disruptor, and see a Psi Cannon icon in the refit area.
An ICC selects a Guass Cannon, and see a Pulse Beam and a CL icon in the refit area. Click on the Pulse Beam icon, and the Guass Cannon is replaced with a Pulse Beam.
No factory queues, no waiting, no item swapping, no blackmarket, no starports with huge lists of devices.
[ This Message was edited by: Phoebum on 2005-07-21 15:30 ]
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Diabo|ik
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 16, 2002
Posts: 327
From: Quebec, Canada
| Posted: 2005-07-21 15:28
To remove upgrading, ok, I'm all for it. Less of a headache to balance the ships/factions.
But to remove modding... A big no. I never saw ANY and I mean ANY ship in darkspace that I said : it's alright stock, I don't want to change a thing...
It never happenned... Mostly because stock ships have dumb setups... eccm on kluth? yeah... 2 shredder missiles on all? put torps there... common... etc etc.
Completly remove the ability to mod other factions tech. Go back to a simpler slot system ( the light/medium/heavy one seems just fine, you can either fit hvy beams, or hvy missiles or hvy torps, all weapons from the same category ( say all heavy weapons ) could be tested to find a common DPS ( damage per second ) potential for them.
Make missiles more agile.
Make torps TRACK again.
( higher chance of hitting for these weapons, which makes it easier to balance them DPS-wise against beam weapons that hit no matter what ).
One more note, if we are to have a light/medium/heavy system and to keep modding in, we need someway to prevent the "all beam ships, all missile ships and all torps ships". A good way to do that would be to set a maximum for each class of ship for each kind of weapons. Say a cruiser class got 20 weapons mounts. 4 light, 6 medium and 10 heavy. Without limitations, this player could fit 4 light beams, 6 mediums and 10 heavies and go on with his beam ship ripping other "stock" ships apart...
But if we introduce a limit per kind of weapon ( beam/missile/torp/cannon ). This problem gets solved. The above cruiser wouldn't be able to fit more than say 50% of it's weapons in a single category of weapons, forcing the player to use other weapons than beams after the 10th beam has been fitted... He could choose to fit em in whatever size of slot he wish. as long as the total of 1 kind of weapons don't go over 50% of the total mounts regardless of the size of the mounts and it's diversity.
So you could have a cruiser with 10 torps on hvy, 6 missiles on medium and 4 beams on light, or anything you fancy. But whatever the guy would fit, he cant go "overboard" in one fighting style over the other.
50% is arbitrary, it could be 70% or whatever you'd like ( to adapt to factions weapons preferences... say a kluth ship would be restricted to 50% of its armaments being composed of missiles, but he wouldnt be as much restricted ( 75% of all armament being beams ) if he decided to go all out on beams, same for the other 2 factions ( uggies being oriented more towards cannons and ICC towards missiles ).
This would leave some freedom of choice to the player while still giving a frame for the developpers to make easy quick adjustments as the players give feedback.
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Koda
Marshal
Fatal Squadron
Joined: August 29, 2002
Posts: 1384
| Posted: 2005-07-21 15:35
How about setting up some kind of MV player Balance..
and if the player count is not 33.3%
and if the player cumlitive prestige is not 33.3%
then give some incentive to balance things out.. like hmm i dont know.. how about a modifier for the Undermaned or Newb faction...
-Charz
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Danek Ma`arna C`arns
Fleet Admiral
Joined: March 26, 2004
Posts: 102
From: Atlanta
| Posted: 2005-07-21 15:39
Hmm...
Perhaps a bit more clarifaction would help.
I personally like the idea of stock ships with multiple variants of some or all of the hulls.
I like the large prestige loss for dying. It is an issue now because people have become complacent, sure that no matter what they really do, you are still moving upward in rank. If this systme had been in place all along, it would not even gather a look, much less a comment.
One of the complaints before was that "everyone is in dreads". This is because if you played enough, you would be in a dread. Even I made it to dread level in the old system.
Now, sucky players are moving back down the ranks to the smaller vessels. This bothers them, as no one really wants to admit they are a sucky player, and do not deserve the large vessels. Well, even with a large amount of time constructing and supplying, I have lost 400-600 pres since the beginnign of 1.483. I am a sucky player who is overpromoted to the rank of 1RA... I am at best a Dessie skipper, with a good chance of being a Frig driver, and my massive deaths should be keeping me there.
Now, for the issue portion of the event... I do not want to be there alone. I do not want to be the only frig in the MV, fighting everyone else's dreads. This is a big issue, one of the top ones in everyone's minds in the pres loss discussion, even if it is an unadmitted one.
The next big issue is... you say unmodded stock ships. We fear your implementation of said stock ships. Since 1.481, when I joined, I have wondered what drunken Soviet designer in a Siberian gulag crapped out the incredible abortions called combat vessels in this far future conflict. Nearly every design seemed to be an impossible effort to cram the cruddiest possible version of the crudiest equipment in a bizarro world configuration with absolute intent that better should be built in a factory and modded in for every slot. Now, if, before modding, actual useable designs could be bought from the shipyard, that is a different story... but I have never seen them. While Tael has climbed the cross and announced the creation of the plan of the methodical and mathatically balanced hulls, I feel that perhaps a simpler way is available.
Despite claims to the contrary and a few oddballs of playstyle, after all the modding of a hull is complete, the loadouts are remarkably similar, from a newbie to an FA, there is usually a long range mod and a short range mod of each vessel and very little deviation. Thus, instead of Tael having to design and create all three factions alone, why not simply inquire us, the playerbase. Given a base hull capacity, I am certain a number of players would be delighted to assist in equipment selection and placement of arcs. I can assure you, ECCM and rear firing weapons would be minimal
As for the levels, that is where it gets very scary. The concept of levels is not so bad... it is the current implementation on stock ships that leaves one scratching his head. The biggest level scare is that larger ships have higher levels. Larger ships have more slots. Larger ships have more defensive absorbsion.
Thusly, the feared result is that larger ships can virtually ignore smaller vessels firing the expected Level 0 weapons, as over the course of ignored hours, the smaller vessel could still not signifigantly reduce even the armor plating of the larger vessel. Of course, at any point, the larger vessel could completely destroy the undamaged smaller in a single shot of level 10 weapons.
Larger vessels deserve a little bit of extra for the effort of attaining and maintaining the rank required to use it. However, if the lesser vessels are the mere swatting of flies, therein lies the problem... why would a faction even produce such underpowered designs? The answer is, they would not. Creation of completely useless vessels for the lower ranks is beyond lame.
A larger vessel should be more powerful, 1 on 1, than the smaller vessel. The largest vessel should not be more powerful than three of the smallest, ever. As long as players can be competitive, they are happy. Having to be in a dread to even be competitive with dreads is our current problem.
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Banshee
Grand Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: August 28, 2001
Posts: 2181
From: Philadelphia, PA
| Posted: 2005-07-21 15:40
DO IT!
Nuff said
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Tael
2nd Rear Admiral
Palestar
Joined: July 03, 2002
Posts: 3697
From: San Francisco Bay Area
| Posted: 2005-07-21 15:52
The original system I had worked up for moding had each hull type with a specific layout of grid slots... Each device had a set size... ie, 2x3 or 1x2, etc...
This ment you could only fit items onto your hull if you could make it fit. Meaning you may have some empty space...
But F said that would be to complicated to implement...
Sometime next week I will come up with a few flow plans to see what the best options are and how things would look with no modding, with limited modding, and a way to fix the current system...
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2005-07-21 16:01
Carns.
Your genious.
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Azreal
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 14, 2004
Posts: 2816
From: United State of Texas, Houston
| Posted: 2005-07-21 16:06
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On 2005-07-21 11:11, Faustus wrote:
The above changes I think will put DS back on track towards being fun, and not becoming another leveling tread-mill. ADDITIONALLY, it will reduce lag because we won't have PORTS filled with unused items.
All in all I think this will put the emphasis back on COMBAT, which is the core of this game, and will always be the core. The ship upgrade levels have put too much focus on getting "Credits" instead of fighting, and thats not really the direction I want to take this game.
[ This Message was edited by: Faustus on 2005-07-21 11:17 ]
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I so agree with this statment. I see the latest version evolving WAY to similar to Eve. It is the changing emphasis' in this game that are killing it for me. I like the bomb/fight/die/respawn theory. It should be fast paced, not log in, sit and mine, mod for 10 mins, then fight (?) for 5 mins. then three hours have gone by. I guess, I agree with the idea, Mr. F.
Az
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r3dj4ck
2nd Rear Admiral
Joined: June 24, 2005
Posts: 37
| Posted: 2005-07-21 16:22
Faustus & Tael, before I start let me thank you and the dev staff for all your efforts towards making such a great game.
I also cast my vote (if there is a poll going on) for keeping simplified modding but removing the upgrade/level system. While the current mod system might be a bit cumbersome and unbalancing, getting rid of modding altogether would drastically limit everyone's tactical options.
Suggested slots:
light beam
light launcher
light armor
light shield
med beam
med launcher
med bomb
med armor
med shield
hvy beam
hvy launcher
hvy bomb
hvy armor
hvy shield
special core weapon (dreads & stations only)
special I (generators, sensors, mines & beacons)
special II (fighters/bombers/sensor ships)
special III (faction specific special items)
special build/supply
special interdictor
universal (slot that will allow any special slot, 1 per command ship only)
sublight drive
light drive
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