The Case for a Complex Ship Design System

[Vorengard]

TL;DR Give enough depth that building excellent ships is hard, but building good enough ships is easy.

 

I'm here to advocate for a ship design system that is complex and deep enough that it requires a certain level of skill to get the most out of your designs. I don't know how the Dev team plans to work out ship statistics, so I'll lay off the specifics and focus on the general concept of what I think would make interesting gameplay.

 

Key Concept: Functionality should be easy, Excellence should be hard

 

It shouldn't be hard for your average player to figure out how to put together the necessary parts for a space ship or building. A couple basic components and you should be good to go (I know the Devs want it to be relatively hard to get into space at first. I absolutely support that, this is just a comment on the general complexity of building things, not the easy of acquiring resources). It should be easy to make something that flies, because a space game (which is how 90% of people will look at DU) is about flying a space ship. So building your first space ship should be relatively easy. But that first space ship you make by yourself should suck. Like really suck. It should be 1 step above barely functional, and achieving anything better than that should require a decent amount of knowledge and expertise.

 

Like with fitting ships in EVE Online, there should be a clear performance difference between the people who know what they're doing and the people who just throw on things that seem good. Then there should be another clear difference between the people who know the basics, and the real Fit-Masters. But with DU, there's also the possibility for complexity in the actual ship hulls, not just what you put in them. So when it comes to building ships, it should be complex enough that only real masters of the craft can design ships with the best speed, or most HP, or most damage, etc. Then those people should be able to sell those superior designs for more money on the market.

 

To use another EVE example, it never ceases to surprise me how many people don't know how to fit their ships properly, because the system is deep and complex enough that it takes a great deal of knowledge to fit the best possible ship. Most people are acceptable, many people are terrible; but after 7 years of playing I still see fits every now and then and say "wow... that guy has a really nice fit that I've never thought of".

 

Ship building in DU should be like that. Simple enough that anyone can get by, but deep enough that quality takes real skill. Then extend that complexity where possible to buildings and space stations, etc. But especially to space ships.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

[Code24]

Couldn't agree more. I think ship design is planned to be more complex than the Pre-Alpha construction video made it seem. They have released models of energy conduits that can link between various elements. If you look closely every single element has ports for these conduits somewhere on their surface. I'm thinking the way that energy is distributed through the ship and the amount of redundancy in energy systems will add a lot of depth. 

[Dominar]

I also couldn't agree more. The one thing I disliked about the building video released was that JC simply placed a single fuel tank and some engines wherever and was able to travel to space just like that. Now, obviously, it will not be that simple when the game fully launches, but even so, it made me think. Once you have the resources, how easy will it be to build a spaceship? Will there be some KSP style thinking behind it? Or a simple slap on some thrusters, SE style what the logic. 

[thburn]

I also couldn't agree more. The one thing I disliked about the building video released was that JC simply placed a single fuel tank and some engines wherever and was able to travel to space just like that. Now, obviously, it will not be that simple when the game fully launches, but even so, it made me think. Once you have the resources, how easy will it be to build a spaceship? Will there be some KSP style thinking behind it? Or a simple slap on some thrusters, SE style what the logic. 

 

From what i've gathered the plan is to allow players to make ships how they want, with some realistic requirements.  So for instances you can make a tiny one person ship but if you make the cockpit too small they can't get in.  There are components that people can make that aren't visible that people can apply to turn the item into a ship item such as an engine.  To make it easier you can sell the items you've made.  So for people who are not artists or programs can either buy whole ships or piece one together.  This also means that optimizing placement of the ship items will be crucial.  Sure you might get some thrust from an engine near the front, but it will probably be more efficient to have it near the back.  So in theory you could make some incredibly fancy, powerful ships if you know what you are doing or slapstick one together and ride the junker off into the sunset.

[MasteredRed]

I think it's more aligning to the complicated system of gathering the resources to do everything you need. However, building complicated ships will take time and I completely agree with that mechanic. 

 

It just makes sense to me that the one of the hardest things about building a ship will be getting the resources. As currently, the tech that is present in Dual Universe would be very expensive and difficult to make due to the elements required, it means we'd spend more money on the resources than the labor most likely.

[Ripper]

The one thing I disliked about the building video released was that JC simply placed a single fuel tank and some engines wherever and was able to travel to space just like that. Now, obviously, it will not be that simple when the game fully launches, but even so, it made me think. Once you have the resources, how easy will it be to build a spaceship? Will there be some KSP style thinking behind it? Or a simple slap on some thrusters, SE style what the logic. 

 

 

I think there will be a BIG difference between the build video, and what the final product will be.

 

But, consider a game with a VERY complex build for a ship.  It wouldn't be very long before players started packaging components into constructs that could be "bolted on".

 

Who doesn't like bolt ons?

 

So, it may initially be very difficult to build a ship, but after a few months, a player could just buy the modules (or the entire ship) from the marketplace.

[Shynras]

Resources required limit ships, but don't forget about skills. I do expect small ships to be quite easy to build, but growing in size should make designing a real challenge, since the combinations between elements would be infinite. Ofc this requires a good variety of elements each of which should be useful enough to justify using it, and that requires a complex exploration/combat/whatever system. Then, ships shouldnt be much affected by structure: we know ships have mass, so why would you add mass to your ship to make it slower? Everyone would create a basic, small and compact structure to be competitive....so that could be balanced providing more mass AND more armor to each block added. Then they need to balance ships depending on their size, for both utility and effectiveness.....that's just the beginning... in the end, it's not an easy task.

[ATMLVE]

I know that I stated my agreement to this in the other thread of a similar topic of the opposite argument. Anything in this game, it needs to be hard to due. Because if it's easy, then everyone can do it. If it's hard, then only the skilled can do it, which adds diversity to a game civilization.

[Wicpar]

I agree that building a ship should be a difficult enterprise, but not a frustrating one. A way to do it would be to add aerodynamics, which would require quite a bit of aerodynamics calculations/testing to be able to launch a flyer in the atmosphere. Alternatively, space thrusters could be 100% electric but would not give enough force to liftoff from the surface, thus requiring to use a fueled thruster that requires chemical manipulation and some ammount of of skill to build and fuel. that point passed, you would require a material only found on asteroids, but commonly, to be able to build higher tier electrical thrusters to be able to lift off from a planets surface.

[Violet]

Yep, couldn't agree more. There should be some ineficency loss from conduits and they should have maxium power ratings and where you place your engines in relation to your center of mass should have an effect on the flight model.

[Damian_Firecaster]

DU

Guys I just came up with an idea for building the first space station. Build a Seed ship on the ground this can be the command center for the station, make it like a big cargo ship. big empty room with a cockpit or bridge built on, launch that in to space place it where you want then build the station around that seed ship the empty room can be filled with chairs, consoles, screens. maybe mod the ship to put in windows for the command room. or build the complete command center on the ground launch that in to orbit then build the station around that. later on as the station grows you can add another bigger command room.

[Damian_Firecaster]

guys it will be easy to build ships in DU, im building a model of a ship in landmark to see how it will look in voxels. the smallest voxel in Land mark is about 10 to 11 ins on a side cube.so not sure how that equats to metrics. but we will be able to make much smaller voxels then that but that will be after you place the voxels down.there is Alot more I can tell you about building with Voxels but it will have to wait till alpha.

[Limyaael]

guys it will be easy to build ships in DU, im building a model of a ship in landmark to see how it will look in voxels. the smallest voxel in Land mark is about 10 to 11 ins on a side cube.so not sure how that equats to metrics. but we will be able to make much smaller voxels then that but that will be after you place the voxels down.there is Alot more I can tell you about building with Voxels but it will have to wait till alpha.

Off the top of my head, ten inches is almost exactly 0.25m (the linear size of the voxels). So what you're building with is about the smallest DU will be working with at launch.

[Cornflakes]

so not sure how that equats to metrics.

http://bfy.tw/7IiN

 

*cough cough*

[Cornflakes]

There are components that people can make that aren't visible that people can apply to turn the item into a ship item such as an engine.

Nnnnnnnope.

Functional parts are premade by NQ, so the engine you mount is a non-voxel externally 3D modeled mesh element you cant change.

 

https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/841-ask-us-anything-event/

 

"On the other hand, crafting enables players to make gear and Elements. Those are non-customizable 3d models (meshes)."