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Iceman
Admiral
Joined: 14 Jan 2009, 10:17 Posts: 2042
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Revisiting the topic about making the shipbuilding capacity of a system be independent from that system's industrial output. If these two are de-coupled, small systems can still be good shipyard systems; they'll take longer to build the shipyards themselves though, so they are more useful but not as much as larger systems. The current system, because of the base industry provided by pop introduced in Sup, makes removing pop units from industry not have much of an impact on the system's ship construction capacity. So IMO it'd be better if it'd be changed to each shipyard having its own shipbuilding capacity, independent from the system's industry. The current Build Efficiency bonuses are scrapped, and instead build rate is determined by shipyard output and ship cost only. Much simpler, and easy to balance. There already is a PercentShipBuilding attribute, adding a ShipBuilding one is not much work. Plus, no real need to change the UI, only a bit of code. I'd start with something like this, and then tweak it (or ship costs): Code: Level Cost Output Energy Slots MaxLevel ---------------------------------------------------------------- Shipyard I 0 1000 400 25 1 4 Shipyard II 5 7000 1600 50 2 8 Shipyard III 9 20000 2600 100 4 12
Fleetyard I* 5 10000 2200 120 6 12 Fleetyard II 11 30000 4000 200 6 12
Minor SY I 0 800 300 20 1 4 Minor SY II 5 6000 1300 40 2 8 Minor SY III 9 18000 2100 80 4 11
Minor FY** 11 25000 3500 150 6 12 * only the Federation and the Cardassians have this SY ** Kazon, Axanar, Coridan, Tellarite I wouldn't really consider having different stats for each empire, since ship costs already reflect the empires' capacity to build ships; it'd be kind of redundant or conflicting (as the current system is). I'm also not convinced of the gameplay value of Slots, except for repairs, so I've kept them the same. --- I have some issues with the current database (regarding shipyards), which are also valid for these changes since some stats didn't change: - Fleetyards I They have 6 slots and MaxLevel 12, just like Fleetyards II. That's kind of odd, since they're level 5. - Shipyards II They have MaxLevel 12, shouldn't they be 11, and let only the Fleetyards build the top of the line ship for each empire? - Minor special shipyards (fleetyards) Same as above, maybe they should be MaxLevel 11. See below. - Fleetyards Both empires that have 2 FYs (Federation and Cardassians) and 3 of the 4 minors that have special SYs are in the Alpha Quadrant, which might pose some balance questions.
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30 Aug 2010, 10:42 |
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Iceman
Admiral
Joined: 14 Jan 2009, 10:17 Posts: 2042
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I've also tweaked the build costs of Outposts BTW. I'm testing all these changes in the game, and they look good so far. Energy structures, they need a complete overhaul though.
Outpost I - 1000 (no change) Outpost II - 3000 Starbase I - 5000 Starbase II - 15000
Science Station - 4000 (no change)
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31 Aug 2010, 11:05 |
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mstrobel
Chief Software Engineer
Joined: 11 Aug 2005, 01:00 Posts: 2688
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What if we powered the individual construction bays (slots) independently? For example. if you had a Shipyard III but only wanted to build 2 ships, you could power up two of the slots and leave the other two unpowered, requiring 50 energy instead of 100 energy.
_________________ Lead Developer of Star Trek: Supremacy 253,658 lines of code and counting...
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07 Sep 2010, 01:07 |
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Iceman
Admiral
Joined: 14 Jan 2009, 10:17 Posts: 2042
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That would be a good idea IMO, though it would kind of increase MM (energy). But colony management is all about MM. Plus, when I said slots wouldn't be all too useful, it was in the respect that either we make ships take very long to build, or you can just build one per system and not get behind - I'm assuming we're going with a trekish approach of not having large ship counts in empires. The downside effect of slots might be that you only build a few shipyards/fleetyards in your empire, and pump out ships from those few yards. That is, you don't need to build too many of them. Might not be a downside at all, depends on what you want with the game. Maybe restricting shipyard construction to systems with Raw Materials (and/or Dilithium might be pushing it) would help in this case. Sure, losing such systems would be crippling, but then again, one more reason to protect those systems with all you've got.
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07 Sep 2010, 10:09 |
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Captain Bashir
Genetically Altered Manual Labourer
Joined: 17 Aug 2009, 01:31 Posts: 2083 Location: Passed out on the floor after math mistake discovered by Hawking
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Well you might build more shipyards only because of location. Strategic. So that your output is close to a new front line. Plus in the old game there was something about a shipyard increasing the reach of your exploration. Bashir
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07 Sep 2010, 14:21 |
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Iceman
Admiral
Joined: 14 Jan 2009, 10:17 Posts: 2042
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Yeah, but notice the size of maps, range of shipyards, ships' fuel+range stats, pacts with other empires/minors, etc. And you can scrap your inner core shipyards as soon as you build new ones, to save on maintenance (will shipyards have credits maintenance?), since you'll be building on the frontier systems anyway. Notice I'm not saying you'll only have 2 or 3 SYs. Also notice that, like I said before, the role of stations might get shafted by all the factors mentioned above.
I've been making some comments about the changes to the game, and the extended database. They are not gratuitous. The old game was very streamlined (mechanics-wise that is), giving each part of the game its specific role. There was a purpose for everything, and that purpose was evident. With all the new stuff that was added, there's duplication of effects, redundancy, and innefficiency in various places. The massive amount of food structures, the proliferation of energy structures, the things I mentioned in the previous paragraph, etc. It feels like a mod. This is all just my opinion of course.
Oh, and when I asked Mike to add an _option_ to have move to systems only in the game, it was basically to make Scouts more valuable, make exploration harder and more challenging/interesting, prevent exploits and as a side effect reduce Turn Processing Time. In BotF you could move anywhere sure, but notice how ranges worked in that game.
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07 Sep 2010, 15:47 |
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Matress_of_evil
Evil Romulan Overlord of Evil - Now 100% Faster!
Joined: 02 Dec 2004, 01:00 Posts: 7392 Location: Returned to the previous place.
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I like the idea of having independently powered build slots. The question is how this will be presented to player to make it obvious. ... In reference to the proliferation in Food structures, refer to Dafedz's database only when it comes to Food structures. Structures like the Domestic Replicator Network were never intended to be in the game. They were an experimentation on my part that accidentally made their way into the May 2009 update.
_________________"Anyone without a sense of humour is truly at the mercy of the rest of us."
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07 Sep 2010, 18:11 |
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mstrobel
Chief Software Engineer
Joined: 11 Aug 2005, 01:00 Posts: 2688
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I'm struggling trying to come up with a better shipyard interface. Below is what I have so far, but it's not obvious how you power/unpower the bays, nor now much energy each bay consumes. Attachment:
shipyards_mockup.png [ 140.03 KiB | Viewed 12212 times ]
_________________ Lead Developer of Star Trek: Supremacy 253,658 lines of code and counting...
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07 Sep 2010, 21:37 |
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JeanAllTrekkie
Crewman
Joined: 30 Oct 2009, 01:22 Posts: 14
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Wow thats a awesome screenshot Mike. Lovin it!
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07 Sep 2010, 21:40 |
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Kenneth_of_Borg
Ship Engineer
Joined: 10 Jul 2006, 01:00 Posts: 5130 Location: Space is disease and danger, wrapped in darkness and silence!
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It does seam familiar though. It looks like the original game where you clicked to light up turn on or turn off darken an item. You would do that and watch the quanta of energy get consumed out of your reserves. You could change it to say Powered and Unpowered in place of Ready and Offline. It might be clearer that way.
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07 Sep 2010, 22:09 |
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mstrobel
Chief Software Engineer
Joined: 11 Aug 2005, 01:00 Posts: 2688
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Forget that earlier ****, I like this much better: Attachment:
revised_shipyard.png [ 292.97 KiB | Viewed 12198 times ]
_________________ Lead Developer of Star Trek: Supremacy 253,658 lines of code and counting...
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08 Sep 2010, 01:37 |
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Captain Bashir
Genetically Altered Manual Labourer
Joined: 17 Aug 2009, 01:31 Posts: 2083 Location: Passed out on the floor after math mistake discovered by Hawking
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Ok so that's just friggen awesome! I love the idea of ships actually in Bays - it's worthy of your exciting improvement in graphic realism. If we had all the models we could come up with a shot of an empty shipyard, and ones with the same yard, the same size with the chosen ship in it in a docked orientation. Hmmm. Do we have a 3D model of a shipyard owned by someone in our community? Captain
BTW: what do the tools in the top right signify? It's on and ready?
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08 Sep 2010, 04:03 |
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Matress_of_evil
Evil Romulan Overlord of Evil - Now 100% Faster!
Joined: 02 Dec 2004, 01:00 Posts: 7392 Location: Returned to the previous place.
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I'm assuming it means powered and available but no ships have been ordered for construction. So essentially the shipyard at that point in time is simply wasting energy.
Mike also told me on MSN last night that he was thinking about adding the energy requirement numbers near the lightning bolt so players know how much it costs to power the individual bays.
By the way, what about repairing ships, Mike? Are they still going to show up in the repair bays as planned, or are you just going to give ships a passive, per-turn repair as it was in BOTF?
_________________"Anyone without a sense of humour is truly at the mercy of the rest of us."
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08 Sep 2010, 10:00 |
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Iceman
Admiral
Joined: 14 Jan 2009, 10:17 Posts: 2042
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Looks good Mike. That background image, ugh, have you thought about changing it already? I've changed mine to a pure black with very dim white small stars. It's less aggressive Quote: In reference to the proliferation in Food structures, refer to Dafedz's database only when it comes to Food structures. Structures like the Domestic Replicator Network were never intended to be in the game. They were an experimentation on my part that accidentally made their way into the May 2009 update. Well, that was a very long lasting accident. It's a string of 6 upgrading structures, and they're still there. Anyways, I've sent the latest update to the database to Mike yesterday, with them still in it. Quote: By the way, what about repairing ships, Mike? Are they still going to show up in the repair bays as planned, or are you just going to give ships a passive, per-turn repair as it was in BOTF? Related to this, if the system is attacked when ships are repairing in the docks, will they fight, or remain docked - and be sitting ducks? With cloaking and all, could be interesting to have them docked.
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08 Sep 2010, 10:22 |
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Kenneth_of_Borg
Ship Engineer
Joined: 10 Jul 2006, 01:00 Posts: 5130 Location: Space is disease and danger, wrapped in darkness and silence!
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Captain Bashir wrote: Ok so that's just friggen awesome! I love the idea of ships actually in Bays - it's worthy of your exciting improvement in graphic realism. If we had all the models we could come up with a shot of an empty shipyard, and ones with the same yard, the same size with the chosen ship in it in a docked orientation. Hmmm. Do we have a 3D model of a shipyard owned by someone in our community? Captain We have all the models of ships and shipyards. The problem would be coding an engine to load the correct models and then ships into the correct bays. After that you need to take a render and display that. It is not impossible but a combat engine will come first.
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08 Sep 2010, 13:42 |
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mstrobel
Chief Software Engineer
Joined: 11 Aug 2005, 01:00 Posts: 2688
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I've pretty much written off the idea of manually repairing ships. There's just too much other stuff that needs to be done.
And yes, the tool icon is what you would click to select a ship for construction. I'm going to do away with the queues for ship construction.
I used one of the docking bays from our Federation Shipyard III model to make those graphics.
_________________ Lead Developer of Star Trek: Supremacy 253,658 lines of code and counting...
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08 Sep 2010, 14:30 |
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Captain Bashir
Genetically Altered Manual Labourer
Joined: 17 Aug 2009, 01:31 Posts: 2083 Location: Passed out on the floor after math mistake discovered by Hawking
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The other way to do this Kenneth is to have the following pictures (by way of example) and just switch between them.
Empty dock Dock rendered from the same distance and angle and lighting with a Star Ship #1 in it Dock rendered from the same distance and angle and lighting with a Star Ship #2 in it Dock rendered from the same distance and angle and lighting with a Star Ship #3 in it etc.
i.e. just program Supremacy to show the empty dock when there is no construction going or the "dock AND ship in question" when there is construction going on. It just means we need a "dock with ship" render for each of the ships. Our goal would be to have the images aligned exactly so that it looks like the ship appears in the dock and the dock stayed there. Computers are fast enough that you would not see the switch if the dock doesn't lurch or jiggle in the transition.
It occurs to me that it would make it necessary to pay attention to what tech level of dock and what kind of ship since a dock for larger ships wouldn't work well for Archer Enterprise level ships (the mechanical arms aren't close enough to the ship to manipulate anything). This problem was addressed in that episode where the repair station formed itself around Enterprise.
Bashir
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08 Sep 2010, 14:33 |
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mstrobel
Chief Software Engineer
Joined: 11 Aug 2005, 01:00 Posts: 2688
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Added the energy numbers. Better? Attachment:
revised_shipyard.png [ 281.1 KiB | Viewed 12164 times ]
_________________ Lead Developer of Star Trek: Supremacy 253,658 lines of code and counting...
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08 Sep 2010, 14:41 |
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vjeko1701
Crazed Emissary of the Photoshop
Joined: 13 Mar 2009, 20:17 Posts: 2091 Location: Krapina, Croatia
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Great!
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08 Sep 2010, 14:54 |
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Captain Bashir
Genetically Altered Manual Labourer
Joined: 17 Aug 2009, 01:31 Posts: 2083 Location: Passed out on the floor after math mistake discovered by Hawking
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Yes, terrific! CB
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08 Sep 2010, 14:56 |
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Matress_of_evil
Evil Romulan Overlord of Evil - Now 100% Faster!
Joined: 02 Dec 2004, 01:00 Posts: 7392 Location: Returned to the previous place.
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It's the little things that count. It's interesting to see how this compares with Dafedz's Yard Ops mockup from many moons ago. He had the ship images front-on as you suggest, Bashir.
_________________"Anyone without a sense of humour is truly at the mercy of the rest of us."
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08 Sep 2010, 17:11 |
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mstrobel
Chief Software Engineer
Joined: 11 Aug 2005, 01:00 Posts: 2688
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From mockup to (semi-)functioning prototype: Attachment:
ShipyardPrototype.png [ 525.49 KiB | Viewed 12142 times ]
I'll work on the progress bars later. But it works with live game data now.
_________________ Lead Developer of Star Trek: Supremacy 253,658 lines of code and counting...
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08 Sep 2010, 22:44 |
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Matress_of_evil
Evil Romulan Overlord of Evil - Now 100% Faster!
Joined: 02 Dec 2004, 01:00 Posts: 7392 Location: Returned to the previous place.
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Cool! One thing I just noticed though, could you darken the colour of, or even remove, the square around the ship image? It would make the ship look more like it is in the shipyard instead of floating in front of it as a separate image then.
_________________"Anyone without a sense of humour is truly at the mercy of the rest of us."
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08 Sep 2010, 23:26 |
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mstrobel
Chief Software Engineer
Joined: 11 Aug 2005, 01:00 Posts: 2688
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It's not going to look like it's "in" the shipyard either way. The perspective is all wrong. I'll probably keep it.
_________________ Lead Developer of Star Trek: Supremacy 253,658 lines of code and counting...
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09 Sep 2010, 00:57 |
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Captain Bashir
Genetically Altered Manual Labourer
Joined: 17 Aug 2009, 01:31 Posts: 2083 Location: Passed out on the floor after math mistake discovered by Hawking
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We can still give Mike images that are front on. Everything else is ready to go. CB
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09 Sep 2010, 07:04 |
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mstrobel
Chief Software Engineer
Joined: 11 Aug 2005, 01:00 Posts: 2688
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It would probably just be easier to eventually render the actual models themselves rather than manually making additional images of every ship.
_________________ Lead Developer of Star Trek: Supremacy 253,658 lines of code and counting...
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09 Sep 2010, 12:15 |
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Captain Bashir
Genetically Altered Manual Labourer
Joined: 17 Aug 2009, 01:31 Posts: 2083 Location: Passed out on the floor after math mistake discovered by Hawking
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By "Render the Models" I assume you are implying using software code such as would be in the combat engine to draw a 3D ship front on. The downside is the the ship would be low poly when it doesn't have to be or do I have the wrong idea? Captain B Here is a front on transport render I did in 3 minutes (in the middle of writing this post).
Attachments:
Transport Front.png [ 41.78 KiB | Viewed 12116 times ]
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09 Sep 2010, 14:34 |
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starfleet.command
Starfleet Ambassador to the French Peoples
Joined: 19 Jul 2009, 12:25 Posts: 471 Location: Les Pennes Mirabeau (13) France
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It's a great job MIKE, the next interfaces & mockups will be updated as this view?
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09 Sep 2010, 15:37 |
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mstrobel
Chief Software Engineer
Joined: 11 Aug 2005, 01:00 Posts: 2688
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The ships wouldn't be rendered very large, so it wouldn't really matter if they're low poly. I was thinking of rendering them in the ship build list anyway: Attachment:
ship_construction_early_prototype.png [ 512.54 KiB | Viewed 12089 times ]
_________________ Lead Developer of Star Trek: Supremacy 253,658 lines of code and counting...
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10 Sep 2010, 05:27 |
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Matress_of_evil
Evil Romulan Overlord of Evil - Now 100% Faster!
Joined: 02 Dec 2004, 01:00 Posts: 7392 Location: Returned to the previous place.
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You're gonna make a lot of people very happy with this update, Mike. ...Including me. If possible, i'd suggest making the background behind the ships black though. Or even better, display the Supremacy background. It would look better and make the ship look like it was in space. Hope it can be done without too much work.
_________________"Anyone without a sense of humour is truly at the mercy of the rest of us."
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10 Sep 2010, 11:30 |
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