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Found 11 results

  1. The dismounting constructs and ships (current and upcoming) leads to serious issues in trading and manufacturing. Could you please add a mechanic to destroying elements in the constructs (both static and dynamic) owned by other players? Also I would like to have mechanic for capturing tiles of active players. I'm not talking about pvp on the planets. It seems impossible at this stage. However, it should be a way how to attack and defend the constracts and tiles. Attack with destruction of the elements and voxels. Possibly, NPC can help with something. You promised the territory wors
  2. I'm going to dive into several topics here. In addition to organizing this post like a book. Use CTRL + F to find the topic you're interested in reading. Note: Some carebears are going to complain about it but yes, this is going to go down the route of PVP and will touch a little on how this can help the markets in game so deal with it: Energy Management Concept, taking a page from another game (because this game took pages from multiple games already) Armored Core How energy management works on the fly Parts Weapons Energy Consumption The RedZone Cooldowns, Boosters and backups How it can apply to PVP ship combat in DU The Core XS ships Small Ships Medium ships Large Ships XL ships when? XXL ships... probably never at this rate. Batteries Generators Magnetic Nuclear Advanced Magnetic (slightly made up) Fusion Fission Cold Fusion Gravatron (this is made up ... it's a game) Thoramine (Finally a use for it??) Tachyon Zero Point Energy Backup Generators Overdrive Generators/Engines/Components Coolant Elements Auxiliary Coolant Elements Weapon application Instantaneous Usage over time How it can be applied to Buildings in DU The Core The introduction of game built Power plants Coal Hydro Nuclear Fusion Fission Cold Fusion Zero Point Energy Backup Generators Batteries/Power provisions for Base turrets Tiles How it applies to the markets The Starting Value The Starting Price How may change over time The limitations that would make ACTUAL sense Usage over time Instantaneous usage Red Zone awareness Coolant Mechanics Regeneration mechanics Auxiliary mechanics Additional elements to help balance energy management from the start Generators Primary and Auxiliary Generators Backup Generators Coolant pumps & Injectors Water Coolant Rods Emergency kill/cutoff switches (lua) Other ways that basically will hurt/push DU to dwindling Excessive limitation examples Not listening until AFTER the fact Pride Listening to carebears (yes, I hate them because they kill games that have tons of potential) ===================================================================================================================================================================== 1. Energy Management Concept, taking a page from another game (because this game took pages from multiple games already) Out of all the games I've ever played, this one, Armored Core executed Energy Management and power consumption flawlessly on playerstation 1 and into future games on Playerstation 4, Xbox and CPU. Their approach should act as a halmark and in fact, flavors of it are seen in other games such as Halo and Mech Warrior just to name a few. Armored Core Description: The game Armored Core is multi-series multi-console game that started on PlayStation. Set way into the future where corporations control everything. You are called a Raven who will embark on your journey through various sorties (missions) to take down some evil corp or antagonist Raven pilot. It features a mechanised robot you control and manage and fully customize thus sending the player down a route of awareness for how they wish to build their AC (Armored Core). How energy management works on the fly Parts As you've seen in the video the game features numerous parts for the AC which allows for full customization. Each part offers their own list of benefits and natural drawbacks that the player needs to consider in their playstyle. All parts consume some sort of energy when in use or passively. For example Light arms for a quick sniper focused AC would consume a small amount of energy passively and have good accuracy for sniper/singleshot weapons. However, would be horrible when taking a direct hit or attempting to use rapid fire weapons like machine guns that are too heavy for it to manage or carry. Weapons Similar to arms, legs, tank chassis, core/chests ect. Weapons also have the different types of energy consumption. Passive, Instantaneous and none. Passive would be for things like laser swords that are active and out. Or a high range/high sensitivity scanner to search for cloaked targets when active and in use. Instantaneous would be when a handheld laser cannon, or shoulder mounted laser/railgun is charging and/or fired. None would be for when a regular mechanical bolt-action rifle or machine gun (requiring NO energy) is fired. Energy Consumption For Armored Core Energy is typically indicated via your bar shown above. Where the green and red are your available energy but the red is known as your red zone. The RedZone The redzone, as previously mentioned, is your avialable energy remaining however when you exhaust all of it then you need to wait for your core and generators and coolant to all work together to regenerate your energy. While your suit is regenerating energy your suit draws power from the auxillery generators to keep you moving, however you're unable to attack, fly/boost in any direction or do anything outside of walking around to avoid getting hit. Cooldowns, Boosters and backups The game features a number of boosters backups and cooldowns ect. or other ways to assist with your power management to ensure you're able to stay active in the fight for as long as possible. 2. How it can apply to PVP ship combat in DU The Core - It should be known that the Core of a vessel is what provides the main source of power. With that the various sized ships can pull energy and use it to however it was designed. XS ships All ships should be able to produce enough power to allow them to function in a minimal capacity. For extra small ships they should be able to do more than enough work so that new players can still build themselves up on Alioth or even on Sanctuary. For the more experienced players and PVPers we should be able to add in batteries and even an XS generator to power the ship and have enough energy regeneration for the ship to do scouting, or long hauling runs or even dog-fight. However, they should also have a built in issue where sometimes the redzone may be just a bit to much on their meter and may sometimes require assitance in some way. Small Ships This is typically where the novice level solo player ends up. Small core ships should be able to produce a healthy supply of power for w/e the ship is built for. The use of backup generators or batteries should help aid the ship both passively and instantaneously when weapons or boosters are required to get out of hairy situations. For PVPers these are typically known as gunboats, however since small sized ships cannot use medium sized weapons. This ship is practically pointless for PVP. Even with the silhouette mechanics. Medium ships... getting tired A more thorough outline is mentioned in the Part 2 for Energy Management. Just search for the respective section. It's been recently updated. Large Ships ... getting tired A more thorough outline is mentioned in the Part 2 for Energy Management. Just search for the respective section. It's been recently updated. XL ships when?... A more thorough outline is mentioned in the Part 2 for Energy Management. Just search for the respective section. It's been recently updated. XXL ships... probably never at this rate.... I've given up hope... Batteries Batteries would be a way to store power for the ship meant as either for backups when all else fails or for temporary overdrive to fatten your ship's max energy. The additional energy batteries would provide would be temporary and once used the canister can be widthdrawn from it's battery outlet (new element alert) and placed in a separate outlet to be recharged. One time use batteries should NOT be a thing because this is the freakin future... let's make it make sense here. Renewable energy sources SHOULD BE INVOLVED BY NOW. If a Sink needs to be added then you can create T1 through T5 batteries. Each tier featuring a set number of recharges before needing to be recycled for parts used to make the batteries. The higher the Tier goes the higher their max energy storage. In addition the tier would also be able to be buffed by talents to increase their number of recharges and max storage. Generators would be able to recharge batteries only when the ship is not being piloted so that way it creates an ability for the ship to somehow sustain itself. Generators - There are a plethora of different kinds of generators real and fake that can be added to the game from T1 to T5 Magnetic - Generator that takes advantage of the Electromagnetic field to create motion and thus energy for the ship. It's much more advanced than your combustable coal engines used in powerplants but still for more efficient and better for the environment. Nuclear - We already know about this... Extremely high amounts of energy, dangerous if pushed too deep into the redzone and can cause a meltdown destroying half the ship, has a decent energy regen rate. Advanced Magnetic (slightly made up) - A more advanced version of Magnetic Gens. with a higher max energy cap but a slower regen. rate and a larger redzone Fusion - Generator type that features a moderate energy cap., low red zone but slow regen rate. Fission - Cousin Gen. Type that features higher energy cap., slightly higher red zone but much better regen rate of energy. Cold Fusion - The best of the Fusion/Fission style gens that has highest energy cap, lowest red zone, but fast yet fidgety regen. rate. (meaning there's times when it will stop recharging for 2 - 5 seconds) Gravatron (this is made up ... it's a game) This Generator is a T3 and T4 generator that takes advantage of the gravitational field of nearby celestial bodies to boost its regenerative abilities. It features an insanely high energy cap. 15 times the cap of nuclear and a very small red zone. However it's regen. is extremely low. This feature would make the generator useful for really long voyages to new systems or hidden pockets of space. (Think Exploration cruisers) Thoramine (Finally a use for it??) - T-5 level generator Tachyon - T-5 level generator Zero Point Energy - T-5 level generator that has almost infinite energy or the highest energy cap, Lowest red zone but no energy regeneration. The Zero Point Energy Gen would instead have a feature that allows the maintainer to "pull" energy from no-where. The maintainer would be able to do this X number of times per hour. Backup Generators As the name suggests these generators would be brought up online when something catastrophic goes wrong to maintain small amounts of power for the ship while it fixes it. Overdrive Generators/Engines/Components Overdrive generators would act as boosters for engines or to increase max energy cap temporarily. Using them would cause wear/damage to the engines but would result in the ship GTFO of a bad situation. Coolant Elements Coolant Pumps ... to cool the generators and the core Coolant Rods... well you get it Auxiliary Coolant Elements For when you need to be more chilled Weapon application Instantaneous All weapons would use a varying amount of instantaneous energy when in use. The cannons, being mostly mechanical, would use the least amount of energy. Missiles would be the 2nd least instantaneous use. Where as Railguns would use the most per volley. Enough for the usage to be noticable but not so much to where the ship can barely function. When we get harpoons and Interdiction.... This would be where they'd get applied as well Usage over time This is mostly applied to lasers, and tractor beams. The larger the laser or tractor beam the larger the usage over time. For tractor beams, the Longer the hold, the more energy is used. The more massive the tethered target, the more energy consumed. This can be slowed down by overdriving your system with your batteries and backup generators for greater output and better effect. However, doing so will severely hinder your ship for a while when you need to regen your energy stores for both the main and backup generators and batteries. None No energy is used when the ship is not being piloted 3. How it can be applied to Buildings in DU The Core - Produces it's own baseline energy for the entire Construct Requires other elements (generators) to boost it's max power for more elements on the construct The introduction of game built Power plants - These power types can help offset the demand for the core on static and space constructs Coal T - 1 Hydro T - 1 & T-2 Nuclear T-2 & T-3 Fusion T-2 & T-3 Fission T3 & T-4 Cold Fusion T4 -T5 Thoramine T5 only Zero Point Energy T5 only Backup Generators For if you mess up somewhere and the power gets knocked out via your own stupidity or via PVP engagements Batteries/Power provisions for Base turrets Batteries can be used to help offset the base's already existing power consumption during combat/defense. Where the turrets will draw from the batteries or side- generators. When the turret's designated power supply is drained it will begin to drain from the primary core just to protect the construct. Tiles Tiles on a planet or moon or asteroid would affect the three basic characteristics of the static cores placed. Max Energy (This would only be an addition) Larger Increase for barren planets Larger increase for Asteroids or moons Smaller increase for Cold planets Smaller Increase for Hotter Planets Energy Regeneration (This could be a +/- to the energy regeneration) Larger regeneration for Hotter planets (This gives hot planets like Sicarri, Sinnon or Madis an increase in land value) Smaller Regeneration for Colder planets Redzone Larger redzones for hotter planets Smaller redzones for colder planets (this gives ice planets an increase in interest value) 4. How it applies to the markets The Starting Value This will help add value to Coal, Hydrogen and Oxygen and create a solid use for Thoramine well before Warp gates are even on the drawing board. Coal would have a relatively low value but it and Hydro and Oxy would begin to gain better uses as well. Thoramine would be worth fighting over on asteroids and selling on the markets. The Starting Price Set the price for T-1 schematics lower but also allow for bots to buy coal to further stir the economy How may change over time People will see reason to engage the markets more on this front because you've created a sound way of doing so for PVE and PVPers 5. The limitations that would make ACTUAL sense Usage over time Start the balance off Low. Don't go setting it on holy shit mode then walking the numbers back because everyone hates the mechanic and claims it doesn't make sense. Start small and work your numbers up. Setting the consumption and limitations excessively high will only curb your community towards playing Starbase and StarCitizen more. Instantaneous usage Most of this has already been explained. but Again, start small. Then adjust from there. Red Zone awareness Coolant Mechanics allow your construct (static and dynamic) to slow the decent towards the redzone. The name of the game is the keep in the green. It's a simple yet complicated balancing act that the player has to manage. Because of this properly executed challenge the player has fun actually trying to balance stuff out on their own. Being aware of your redzone's level will only help with immersion. Regeneration mechanics This literally adds a brand new job for someone on the ship. Where they'd hang out in the power room for most of the ship's trip to ensure everything stays running at the right levels. Think of Scottie on the Enterprise "I'm given her all she's Got Captain!" Auxiliary mechanics This would be on the "Scottie" of the ship to maintain and implement on the ship to ensure the ship can at least be marginally functional when it takes on catastrophic damage or experiences a catastrophic event from space. (Hint Hint: some random waves from a start that sucks out power from the ship or something ridiculous) 6. Additional elements to help balance energy management from the start Generators Primary and Auxiliary Generators Backup Generators - While Generators can be used as backup, these units would be unique and have a considerable advantage over regular generators but will only work if Regular generators are down. Coolant pumps & Injectors Water Coolant Rods Air Emergency kill/cutoff switches (lua) Used through lua to kill the power to a ship 7. Other ways that basically will hurt/push DU to dwindling Excessive limitation examples 0.23 execution. Yes I'm bringing it up again. Because 0.23 should serve as a valuable lesson of what not do to or how NOT to do something... ever again. Overdoing the power consumption - This will limit creativity and drive people away from the game. Again, start small with easy numbers people can work with so they can get used to the idea of power consumption. Limiting the number of weapons on a ship - You've already limited the size of weapons on a ship by core size to curb cubes... which did and didn't work. Setting hard limits on the number of USABLE weapons on a ship through power management will only piss off your community more than needed. AGAIN, start small and work your way up to something that's balanced. Like for example, I'm going to only allow 5 weapons on a Large core ship or 3 weapons on a small or medium core... sorry but I will change my credit card number in a heartbeat if this game takes that route and say good luck. Then pick up Starbase or spend money needlessly on star citizen and encourage all of BOO and even the AC to jump ship. Just FYI, DSI is already hitting us up about playing other games and saying goodbye to DU. Let's not even talk about Youtube and Twitter ect. Not listening until AFTER the fact ATV are full of very knowledgeable intellects. Their input is based on their perspective and from that of your community. Taking their word with a grain of salt will only hurt you vs. taking them seriously. You built the ATV for a reason. Pay attention to it to ensure your success. Pride - "Pride commeth before the fall" This one is mainly for JC. You are highly intelligent and very knowledgeable in many things and have garnered much respect from people, however being too prideful or too hardstanced (overzealous) in any one belief and unwilling to change WILL cause you to lose people. You have a team that have 2nd thoughts about the direction and a community with even more resentment about what you're building here. The question is, are you trying to build a simulator that will see 10-20k ACTIVE people after 10 years time? or one that will see that number 2 years after launch? Listening to carebears (yes, I hate them because they kill games that have tons of potential) The definition of a carebear varies from one PVPer to another. However, at it's core, a carebear is an individual who sees any one game mechanic that doesn't fit their personal narrative of a game (usually PVP focused) and does or says anything they can to cause devs to ruin it for the many.
  3. I am curious if there is or will be total ship/construct destruction? Or are elements infinitely repairable? If they are infinitely repairable, then it would be pointless to be a shipyard org or ship builder. Those types of orgs/jobs would not be economically sustainable. I have been searching for any current data/post stating as much. More information would be much appreciated.
  4. I wanted to officially protest against the possibility of building kilometer-long tower structures closer than 50 km from district; market; it is a danger; such structures should automatically collapse !!!! who is in favor please support it here https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/758994403057991720/768900946608390184/unknown.png
  5. Issue: Construct destroyed upon entry Client Version: BETA 1 OCTOBER 2020 - 0.22.6 Summary Upon entering my construct fitted with a medium dynamic core, I was greeted with a loading screen. After load completed the info message displayed was that I had respawned due to my construct being destroyed. Reproduction Steps Enter Construct on the ground near District 4 Market landing platform. Actual Result Destruction of construct & death Expected Result Enter Construct Forum Posts None Notes Construct was parked and slightly clipped into the ground. Crash Dumps No crash upon bug Screenshots/Videos No screenshot available happened instantaneously. DxDiag.txt
  6. Rather than cutting weapons up into several different ranges, classes, speeds, etc, I think it would be smarter (and allow for much more customization) if guns were put into a couple simple groups (Size of the base: anywhere from .25 meters to 100+ meters) as well as classifying the type of weapon they are (Spinal, Turret) plus maybe some damage types like kinetic, energy, or whatever. Everything else like range, speed, accuracy, tracking, and all the other stats that a gun should have can be controlled by modules, similar to the weapon system in From the Depths. Want a more accurate gun? Add a longer barrel. better tracking? Increase the power to the turret rotor system. This would even allow for an actual "Death Star" type ship in the game if a ton of people were crazy enough to assemble a massive ship with the majority of the interior dedicated to powerups for the one gun. On a smaller scale, it could also allow for ships to wildly customize their arsenal, like having a main gun designed specifically to take out fighters, or a high range and high damage but incredibly inaccurate gun designed for orbital bombardment onto a city. With a weapons system like this, the possibilities in PvP will be endless, just like they are in the rest of the game.
  7. I'm not sure how the current system works, but in my opinion there should be a way to shift a dynamic construct into a static construct, and back again. To avoid glitches it should only allow you to change if you are not touching any construct (with the exception of docking/being docked, something else I know very little about as far as mechanics). If turning a dynamic construct into a static construct, a period of "anchoring" where the ship goes offline and must be defended for a certain amount of time will occur to avoid people instantly changing their ships to static or dynamic during combat. Assuming this isn't already in the game, adding this would allow for mobile asteroid mining facilities or forward operating bases during the siege of a planet or system. Please comment your thoughts or suggestions, as i'm interested to see what you all think.
  8. 'We are considering the possibility of Mining Units inside your constructs, but this will be in an expansion after release and it will require some careful balancing to make sure standard mining is still an option, in particular for beginners.' ~Dev Blog So after reading this I got to thinking, how can this be balanced out? What problems does the idea represent, how does it disrupt the mining gameplay loop, and how can we solve this? So first, let's lay out the problem. The primary issue is one of progression. Mining by hand is a given task. Construct tools for the task increase the efficiency of this task immensely. Otherwise why would the player choose to use them? One might imagine a huge nanoforming device dissolving and scooping up huge swaths of land and ore in a fraction the time it would take a player. Obviously, this takes a lot of utility away from players without such devices. How can they compete? Why even try? But with a little thought, we can turn this right on its head. Make this a vehicle for emergent player choice and 'real' progression(1) rather than linear A->B improvement. The first step is to change up how ore voxels work. Instead of generating a Vein of X copper ore, as an example. Now we generate that vein, but we also pick a grade for the ore. This could be a variable percentage, or simply a low/medium//high variety. So a vein of 10,000 ore might be a small vein of pure ore, or a huge swath of mostly chaff minerals a half kilometer across. So now, we have room to make different approaches to different situations by tweaking how the tools themselves interact with these ores. On the one hand, we have low grade ores. Strip miner elements excel here. If you tried to mine this by hand you'd get nowhere at all. Pockets like this might go untapped for much of the early game because trying to mine them is so horribly uneconomical. But once you've got strip miners, suddenly they become a new potential source of material. On the far end, we have high-grade ore. Dense, slow to mine, and where hand mining excels. The huge, imprecise, and jam-prone methods of the strip miner fail here. Such a machine will ruin the ore, giving you only a pittance of the yield otherwise, and the process of melting down this dense chunk is just not what the machine is for at all, and will take just as long or longer as mining it by hand. So now we have, in the environment, a number of varying situations that call for different approaches. Some require artisanal mining by hand, some require the application of enormous strip mining equipment, and most importantly, both are valid, equally important choices at different levels of accessibility. It's also worth noting that mining elements don't have to necessarily be more powerful. You could have a simple, construct-attached version of the hand nanoformer for the benefit of greater storage via an attached hopper. You can have the strip-miner described above, or you can have something inbetween. Ultimately, the point I'm making here is that the key to balance for player resources and experience is, imho, to make different approaches valid in different situations, instead of viewing them as a clear progression. Hope my thoughts on the subject are useful! Edit: (1): I felt I should clarify what I mean by "real progression" since it's not really clear. What I mean by this is making the player able to interact with, utilize, or achieve something they were previously unable to before. As opposed to linear "illusory" progression where the activities in or state of the game world don't change, but the player simply becomes more efficient at them. (Or apparently more efficient in some cases.)
  9. I've made this suggestion in another thread, but decided to break this specific suggestion into its own topic as per the Idea Box rules. Computing Power - How to balance Auto-Turrets on constructs EDIT: Before I define what I mean by Computing Power here, let me define what I mean by an Auto-Turret. Auto-Turret is a gun that can be manned by a player, but instead has an Auto-Fire module installed. When the Auto-Fire module is active, the turret with target and fire at attackers using its own gunnery and accuracy stats (no buff from a player) and will function even if there is no player online on the ship. It is a player weapon turned Automated Defense System. The purpose of this post is to describe a way where such a system could exist in a balanced way, in-line with the design intent of NQ. Let me define what I mean by Computing Power here. Computing Power would be a resource provided by core units of constructs. Each system that relies on computing power will occupy a static amount of your ship's total computing power, and only while it is "on" and in use. Flight systems, certain scripted elements, weapons, and auto turrets are examples of systems that would use Computing Power. This resource would be more or less a non-issue for most constructs and would mainly exist as a balance mechanic for PVP constructs. Here is a proposed example of the Computing Power resource at work. Medium ship core has a computing power of 80 Cells. Below is a breakdown of how my 1-2 player ship uses those cells. Flight control scripts require 40 cells. Flight controls might be a flat value, but with Lua scripting the door could be opened to have a more complex flight script that requires more cells. The ship's primary weapon (forward cannon) requires 25 Cells to aim and fire manually. The ship's secondary weapon (side-mounted gatling gun) requires 10 Cells to aim and fire manually. The ship's shield generator requires 5 cells to maintain, but requires 15 cells to re-boot if completely depleted. This means to re-boot the shields, the secondary weapon must be taken offline automatically, or manually. There is an auto-fire module attached to the primary weapon that requires another 45 cells to operate. I cannot turn this module on while the ship is flying, it must be parked. There is an auto-fire module attached to the primary weapon that requires another 25 cells to operate. I cannot turn this module on while the ship is flying and while the primary weapon is in use. This can be turned on if I'm flying solo and want to focus on maneuvering only. There are several ways the ship could be spending those 80 Cells of computing power, but I can't have it all. If I'm flying the ship solo, I can't use the Main and Secondary weapon simultaneously (since I'm just one player). I can alternate between the two, but I can't fire them simultaneously. I also don't have enough Computing Power to have my secondary weapon auto-fire while using the Cannons. If I had a 2nd player on-board, we could be using the cannons and gatling gun simultaneously, however if our shields drop completely, we would have to cease the use of one of our weapons to get our shields back. This creates some compelling pvp decisions as to when to turn off a system, when is the right opportunity to disable a weapon to re-boot the shields. If I park the ship, I can set the cannon to auto-mode, but if I do then the ship can't re-boot its own shields without taking the cannon offline. This gives the ship some means of defending itself while I'm AFK or logged off in a non safe zone, while also making it way less effective than if I were there to use the weapons. If I decided to put the Machine gun on auto mode instead of the cannon while parked, the shields could re-boot or re-charge without losing the gun's functionality, but it would be unable to drive-away a tough ship. Some other features of the Computing Power mechanic... Setting a hierarchy for use using scripting. Lets take the 2-player piloting example from above. If we are both using weapons and the shields drop, there is no longer enough Computing Power to re-boot the shields. With a scripted power-hierarchy, the ship could automatically disable certain systems to free up resources for essential ones (like shields or thrust). Sample or Default hierarchy... Shield - Passive maintenance Flight systems Shields - Reboot Primary Weapon Secondary Weapon Primary Weapon auto-system Secondary Weapon auto-system The hierarchy would disregard any system that is manually disabled. For example a Parked Ship would not consider flight systems when managing its hierarchy. That way the 2-player piloting example would immediately disable the Gatling gun when the shields drop and promptly re-boot the shields to recharge them. Similarly, when the ship is Parked, it could auto-fire the cannon and switch to the Gatling as soon as it needs the computing power to re-boot the shields. This same systems management would work for Static Construct defense systems as well, managing computing power for AFK shielding, managing which turrets should fire, etc. I envision that a large base might have an array of 12 auto-turrets defending the exterior and 6 anti-personal turrets defending the Interior. The interior turrets would be higher on the power hierarchy than the exterior turrets, since fighting off intruders would be more important than supplying Computing Power to the west side of the base (that isn't under attack). The base might only have enough Computing power to fire 3 of those exterior turrets at a time, but could power all 6 of the interior turrets (since antipersonell weapons are smaller, the targets are closer and not moving as fast). A Base might be unable to destroy a heavily armored troop transport ship, but the troops might not be able to overcome the anti-personel defenses and the Base would still be in fine shape. What happens when a player just sets up several constructs in a small area, each with automated defenses? is this haxx? Captaintwerkmotor brought up this issue. There are two environmental limiting factors on automated systems, mainly automated defensive weapons. Each Sector of Space, and each Territory on a Planet has a maximum number of entities (using a max of 3 for examples) that can have automated defenses "turned on" same time across all players (including logged-off, this removes the incentive to multibox or have alts set up stations next to yours). The server decides which entities' turrets get turned on based solely on the entity's type and size. -Mobile and Immobile entities are counted separately, but a parked ship could be counted as an immobile construct for this count. -The constructs with the largest core are counted first, ties in core size are then determined by which entity has the most cores, followed by who entered the sector/territory first. -Once an area has "counted" all of the entities that will be able to use their auto-turrets, anyone else that attempts to turn their auto turrets on will get a "too much interferance" error and they will not activate (nor will they use up computing power). -If a player owns a TU, they can unilaterally give out permissions as to which immobile constructs can turn on turrets. Even if they give out permission, the "max entities per territory" cap will kick in as it normally would. Again, parked ships could count as immobile constructs for this count (to prevent players from designing "ships" meant only to park and supplement a base's defenses). This system should help with server load, to prevent a hundred automated weapons all firing at once in a fleet engagement. It also perfectly prevents a player from setting up a ton of tiny structures with auto-turrets to protect an area.
  10. So NQ has stated that Construct vs Construct combat will be released in a future expansion, and that means in the meantime ship vs ship combat will be limited to boarding parties. I'm perfectly fine with this, and understand why they need to wait to release CvC combat due to development costs. However, this concept seems incomplete. How exactly does one catch an enemy ship in order to board it, without even basic CvC combat? Space is a big place, with a lot of place to run/hide, which is great, but a problem if you are trying to board a ship. It's not like someone is just going to pull over and agree to be boarded, unless they think they can win. Otherwise, the second another ship tries to get close, people are just going to leave. And with no way for ships to shoot at each other or otherwise disable another ship, there will be nothing anyone can do prevent people from just running away. It's not like you can lean out the window and try to shoot out their engines with a pistol. This would eliminate many forms of emergent gameplay: Smugglers Pirates Navies Police Blockade Runners Blockades Ships would essentially be nothing more than flying buses, perfectly safe from any sort of threat. Space would be reduced to nothing more than a means to get from planet to planet, rather than an interesting environment of its own. As such, I feel that, even if advanced CvC combat doesn't come out until a future expansion, there should be a basic system in place to allow ships to disable/immobilize other ships, so as to allow boarding parties to do their job.
  11. Will player constructed facilities in alpha be seen in the beta and furthermore in launch? Normally after one of these phases characters are reset and maps are cleared; however, based on the lore of the game Alpha players simply were woken up first, so if that is true, will anything we do in the alpha persist to the beta? As well as into launch?
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