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Darkarma

Alpha Tester
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Posts posted by Darkarma

  1. As a person who's real life job (one of them) is patents, I'm going to go out on limb here and say no. We don't need that kind of baggage on our ship designs. Now if you are talking about Read only blueprints that doesn't allow a ship to be edited upon being created/printed. Sure. But all the hassle of locking out reverse engineering?

     

    No. Just no.

  2. By your ship powers combined we are Captain Voxel Ranger Zord!

     

    Actually I was just thinking about this as means for say, making voxel based weapons such as large torpedos. Things that hit with remarkable power and are partially self guided once you set them to target. They would of course take up physical space on the ship rather than storage.

  3. It makes me wonder, how hard will it be for a single player to construct a space elevator? There's no physics that are going to be constraining the design of bases... so can't we just build straight up? If you keep it thin enough, it won't take much in the way of resources.

  4. On 9/25/2017 at 6:04 PM, KlatuSatori said:

    I can't speak for OP, but it seems this topic was about tech and yet most people are talking mainly about skills - two completely different things.  Granted the same structures can be implemented for both, but different mechanisms can be used for their exploitation and discovery.

     

    For example, it probably makes sense to have a deterministic, player driven approach to individual character skills development, ala Eve Online.  Technology advancement should be a lot more mysterious though, driven by an unknown combination discoveries, cooperation, random chance, dedicated research and more.

    I think that they should be intrinsically linked. All skills we have as humans are linked to the technology involved such as farming is to a rake or a hoe, as there is a skill in crafting the rake or a hoe. Which is I'm trying to say that if you have three entities that represent this. You have the knowledge of the technology unlocked, the skill to craft it at higher and higher qualities, and the skill to use it with higher and higher levels of skill and bonuses. Build your tech tree off of that and the tech tree leads different webs of related professional skills and tech.

  5. I'm thinking a combination of both linear and circular.

     

    Linear tech tree contains the core primary nodes for tech/skill backbones but each branch on linear shows differentiation for things unrelated like say agriculture and piloting.

     

    But each node on the linear explodes into a circular tech three lots of ways of specializing and growing. This allows you to cherry pick while still researching things required for the next major node on the Linear tree's branch.

     

    Say you can have a core branch for each major profession that produce numerous circular tech trees with upgrade differences in crafting and what not.

     

    This way you can also pair skills and tech without forcing people to pick up crafting if they don't want to or allow them to come back to it later.

     

    Hell you can have each circular node be three things you can train/research. Tech, Crafting Bonus, Usage Bonuses. Maybe certain linear branches are not revealed or even unlocked unless you spend a certain amount of training in a circular tree. Say having 1/3 of the circular tree being trained?

  6. On 9/15/2017 at 7:56 AM, Aesir said:

    Would be nice to have a way to change a bit the properties of the weapons, but this is indeed very risky.
    There is 2 possibles ways:
     - either you add modules to the weapons in order to improve them. This is "easy" to balance.
     - either you make flexible properties, with rules to fix the edges, and drawback to compensate the bonus.
    for example:

    you increase damage but you reduce range, you increase fire rate but you reduce precision, etc. You can also combine:
    You increase damage by x2, you reduce firerate by 3.5 and increase the size of the module by 4. You need to have consequent drawback. You need a "base module" to modify.

    But this is very heard IMO to correctly balance and will ends up with a "meta" prefering very few type of weapons. Which is the exact opposite of the original goal, ie propose a lot of different weapons.

     

    Anyway, you can still start with normal, stats fixed, prefab weapons, then go latter on customization.

    I think there is room to have this both on small and large scale all using the same system. Prefab weapons are great starters and but customs are a mixed bag.

     

    Custom weapons can be overpowered but they can also be incredibly weak or risky. Its up to the creator to learn where they can cut corners and where they need to reinforce. To much of anything either leads to waste or being impractical. Plus the more powerful the weapon, the more voxels are required to mount elements. Each element modifies all other element properties for the weapon. Sometimes unpredictably so.

     

    Rather than reducing range for more damage though it should be that the more powerful it becomes, the more recoil, maybe to the point where its a danger of damaging whatever is holding it, overheating, etc. You want more power, then you need a bigger energy source. Make the system logical so players start dealing with the same real world problems of scaling up that prevents anything other giant ships from equiping rail guns.

     

    If you want to scale a weapon down, its going to come with its own issues.

     

    Another aspect of this could be making elements for weapons themselves both universal and scaleable based on some sort formula that changes the properties based on the scale of each element and how it effects the weapons system.

     

    You want the death star? You may need to turn that tiny focusing lens that costs a ruby and some silicon you find in your blaster and scale it until it requires 60 kilos of raw silicate hydroxide and a thulsian star to manufacture. But as far as the game cares its the same element for each with a scale of +20 that turns the lens into a room sized mounted element. Your death star then becomes a single weapon entity with vehicle core with all the weapons system effecting each other.

     

    Programming side of this means that every element that comes out for the weapon system then allows greater degrees a freedom to experiment and more room to invent.

  7. So I had a thought relating to one of the dev blogs or what not stating they want to avoid ships just using people to hold move cargo as mules. So how can this be solved? The best way I can think of it working is storage is done via storage voxels which produce a formulaic amount of storage. The more voxels you have placed connect/next to each other the more exponential the storage becomes. It would need to be set up in a way where a small single player fighter would only have enough storage space to equal say half of a player's innate storage capacity. For freighters though they could move huge cache of supplies that could jumpstart base construction or what not as they can have large swaths of their volume dedicated to storage voxels.

     

    The catch is that this kind of storage eats up power since its essentially trying to replicate the tech used by each player at start, but unlike the starter tech that we have, its not a perfect replication. So the power requirements scale equally where as individual players don't have to pay power at all to store stuff on their person but could never compete with a freighter either.

     

    Another cost is that if the ship ever loses power you can't retrieve the stored supplies or if the voxels are damage, what was in the storage for those voxels could explosively release and fuse with your ship/base. If it some how survives, you'll need to mine your way out or clear it.

     

    Another aspect are storage crates, they can hold a lot, more than a player but you can't stack their effects like you would the voxels. Plus they are very large. These would be multi block assets/entities which can carry far more than a equal number individual storage voxels, but do not equal the total storage a group of voxels at an equal volume. The advantage to them though is they have their own dedicated power supply, or don't need it at all. Second, you can move the crates out the ship.

     

    But wait, why not just make voxel crates that I can load into a ship? You can, however they need power to work and you also need assets that provide power and movement like you would any vehicle thus adding to its volume/shape in unwieldy ways. Where as predefined crates are good go and perfectly cubical.

     

    At least that's my thoughts.

     

    Now just watch, some mod probably posted on this and a solution is already in the works... and I completely missed it.

  8. On 9/9/2017 at 8:50 AM, Elildar said:

    A Holodeck could be a good solution, indeed.

    Being able to load and work on a blueprint with virtual voxels, then save it and leave the room for someone else to use it.

    Would also be good for PvP without lasting repercussions too. Like simulating war games and what not. But primarily creative mode of some sort. Or at the very least allow limited combat in an otherwise protected zone.

     

    Hopefully it doesn't malfunction or someone turns the safeties... off.

  9. You what would be good for a creative mode? A Holodeck. You can build whatever you want, just make sure you save it before you exit to the 'Real' world. Just remember you can only take the blueprints with you.

     

    You could have a holodeck outlets as part of the arcship, or you can build one in your base.

  10. What is says on the tin. One thing I think needs to be done is allow us to attach chunks of the terrain to platforms, and other mobile objects. This would be perfect for a secret base where the ground litterally moves out of the way, when you open your base's entrance.

     

    Another advantage is to build terrariums inside your ship.

     

    The finally use, if you want to simply repair the terrain by moving everything back where you got it.

     

    Thoughts?

  11. I'll have to give the benchmark a try when I get home (currently remoted in so OpenGL is being absconded with) but here are my computer specs. I can run Star Citizen in its current incarnation fairly well. Not fantastic... so I'm wondering if I'll have some of the same difficulties. Four years old, almost five. Due for a new monitor at that. Still my baby.

    Mobile Chassis:     MYTHLOGIC Nyx 5713 (Clevo P570WM)
    Mobile Display:     17.3" Full HD (1920x1080) Glossy 90% NTSC Color Gamut LED Backlit LCD (5713)
    CPU:     Intel Core i7-3960X 3.30GHz, 2133MHz DDR3, 15MB Cache, Hex Core Processor
    System Memory:     32GB (4 x 8GB) , PC3-12800, 1600MHz SODIMM Quad-core processors ONLY
    Video Adapter:     2 x NVIDIA GTX 780M 4096MB GDDR5 DX11 Compliant Video Cards (Running in SLI)
    Operating System:     Windows 10

  12. If you can, save up for a high level pledge, you get lifetime subscription as a result. I myself abhor subscriptions and much rather pay a one time fee than monthly. Its not for everyone but it is what it is.

  13. Ok? Are you suggesting they are intentionally making planets boring? I ensure you they are not.

     

    This is not as simple as MAKE IT THIS WAY.  But I am sure they will do there best to make things look good.

     

    One major advantage this game has over NMS is that they are not trying to make unique planets using procedural generation.

    They are taking more of a Minecraft approach, where they make a bunch of good looking biomes then procedural generation places them in the world. Yes I know most games do it this way, "Minecraft" is just for example.

     

    Since the World will expand slowly, they have time to add more and more biomes to keep things fresh.

    Not all planets, but there is variety. My biggest pet peeve in NMS is that they are literally almost all populated

     

    Personally I say we go with the Star Trek method. A range of habitability and classifications and it generates biome diversity based on that.

  14. A mix a heavy mix of planets. Some I want desolate, even barren, to the point where the entire planet is just glass. A black obsidian planet with no life whatsoever.

     

    Planets with life should have a highly diverse set of biomes even if they are different flavors of the same theme.

  15. I did lay down my agriculture suggestion at the other thread, but here goes nothing :P .

     

     

    My suggestion revolves around certain things :

     

    1) Fertile Grounds : You can't just prop up agriculture anywhere, and not any ground is equally fertile. This would emulate the EVE Online mentality of "less safety = more productivity". So, inside the Arkships' Safezones? The yeild is slow, but the productivity rate is of-put by the sheer number of immediate access. Some "herbs" can't be placed within the Arkship's Safezone. Sorry aspiring Druglords, Arkship says no-no. You wanna be a thug? You better live in the thug-lands. The further one is from the Arkship, the better (and faster) the yield is on crops.  As an added bonus, you can't have the plants be in constant lack of sunlight. 

     

    2) GMO Food : Instead of upgrading harvesters, we simply have genetics in the game. You start with harvesting a certain plant, then researching it, then researching it even more to produce a better variant of it, like a better variant of it, then you use this "Blueprint Copy" (ala EVE Online) and plant seeds on the ground, which will produce them Brocollis of Doom. This guarantees that there are Seed Producers, and Farmers. Those two jobs, are not the same. One is producing sseds that only farmers buy, the other produces first sector products, like vegetables, similar to people in EVE producing Blueprint Copies for ship modules, while others buy said Blueprint Copies to keep their industry going.

     

    3) Farmville Universe Online : like the "fuel for shields" idea, you got somethign like that but in reverse. You water a plant, and it gets a cooldown on it. The plant can be watered a set amount of times before its ripe for harvesting, some plants take more waterings per day to be produced at their maximum yield, some plants take less. It's what Genetic Modification is for, to make said better plants happen. After a certain amount of time, you choose to harvest the plants and go sell thme in the farmer's market or w/e.

     

    So, with this model, a planet, far from a safezone, can produce a high count of a crop, but in exchange, you trade safety. Why? Cause if you were to produce 10 times as fast as a person inside a safezone would, with the added bonus of having little to no protection doing so as you can't keep all your crops within a permanent safety bubble, as Protection Bubbles and shields COST fuel (you need to upset the production somehow). It's a trade-off.

     

    And let's be honest, dedicated farmers will be the ones to make mad banks out of this kind of gameplay, or people woh RP a lo and/or people running small communities in-game. Like JC said on the GDC Q&A, some places have easy access to food for cheap, others have not, so its value rises.

     

    Just add the Good Ol' EVE mechanism of expiration dates, and while hunger won't be a legit worry, food going bad will be, as well as military bunkers requiring Cold Storage Units to slow down that expiration day dramatically.

     

    These are my two cents on the matter :P

     

    P.S. : this does not cover my idea of food processing. That's Cooking and it's a totally differnet beast to tackle :P

    This definitely needs to be done

  16. DU Lore:

     

    "2145: Massive rebellions all around the world signals the end of sentient AI, introducing a permanent universal ban on this technology, enforced by the very powerful [uMF]. Against all expectations, sentient AIs accept this and willingly shut down without any form of violent action."

    That may be what people believe, and what is recorded in historical documents. The truth of it... (Tin hat theory?)

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