Ship attributes

[nicolasc]

Hi,

Just a few thoughts to ship attributes:

• Shields: Single bubble or segmented? (2: forward, aft; 4: +,left ,right; 6: +, top, bottom), possibility to to distribute shield energy? Regenerative? I think so.
  If they get destroyed, they won't become active again until they have a capacity of 20% (this reduces calculation of damage distribution between shields and armor...)
• Armor, structure: If the shields fail, your a still have some protection. Not repairable during flight/mission
• Agility, maneuverability: How fast can you dodge incoming fire
• Afterburner: "3rd-dimensional escape", a possibility to countermand recoil of some big weapons - i.e they can only be used if the afterburner is available.
• Weapon slots, weapon cache: As defined {I didn't have the time to read through all the code yet}
• Computer, radar: How good are your guided missiles and how fast can they lock on to an opponent, or how often can they be fired?
• Reactor output, reactor capacity: Some weapons/systems may only be used if a certain reactor is installed.

Improving your stats: (they can also be worsened)

• Copilot: improves all stats at once
• Reactors, shield generator, engines, computer cores: Improve a certain stat, but decrease maneuverability in general (higher inertia due to higher mass)(??)
• Ship model: Drastic measure, but is more adaptive to a play style. (interceptor, fighter, bomber)

There is a possibility to combine the first with the second or the third option, but the second and third together could get very messy.

cheers
nico

[Marc]

Good ideas
Contains most of what I've thought of so far.

The only additions I've currently:

• Weapons: Ships have 2 types of weapons, one are energy weapons (meant for general usage) and special weapons (rockets, smart bombs, mines, ... with restricted ammo). Depending on the ship model used, the number of different weapons of each type differs. For example a scout would only have 1/1, while a bomber perhaps has 2/3 oder 2/4.
• Upgrade Slots: In addition to the model idea, I think one or two upgrade slots to allow individual ships would be a good idea. The type of upgrades could be an engine upgrade, a reactor upgrade, shield booster, target computer, ...

This would be easier to "design" balance wise than a freely configurable ship.

[patrick]

I see that we have picked the right people for the works on the weapon systems I like your ideas very much. We had also an idea about the weapon system. It is similar to this idea:

Reactor output, reactor capacity: Some weapons/systems may only be used if a certain reactor is installed.

And applies only for energetic weapons (related to the categorization made by Marc):

We've got a reactor with finite output power. Each weapon uses some amount of minimal energy per shoot (this is what Nicolasc already suggested), But you can balance the energy output of the reactor by yourself (for example in the hangar of the space stations) so you can assign one weapon 50% of all power and balance the rest of the energy to the other systems. This way this weapon will have much more energy and therefore has a much faster shooting frequency and/or deals more damage.

If you like to be on the safe side, you can also assign all power to the shields therefore gain maximal performance in shield-reloading speed and strength. Or you may be forced to fly through a asteroid level and need more agility more energy to the engines...


This "energy-idea" somehow brings the following ideas together into one system:

• Shields: Single bubble, or segmented? (2: forward, aft; 4: +,left ,right; 6: +, top, bottom), possibility to to distribute shield energy? Regenerative? I think so. If they get destroyed, they won't become active until they have a capacity of 20% (reduces calculation of damage distribution between shields and armor...)
• Agility, maneuverability: How fast can you dodge incoming fire
• Computer, radar: How good are your guided missiles and how fast can they lock on to an opponent, or how often can they be fired?

With the shields system I'm not yet sure. I like the X-Wing idea of balancing a 2-segmented shield (front/back) depending on how the enemies attack, but this brings a very complicated cockpit. Perhaps we could manipulate the cockpit with the mouse?
I will start a new thread about this mouse-cockpit idea:
more in this thread

cheers

[silvan]

[*]Computer, Radar: How good are your guided missiles, an how fast can the lock on. Or how often can they be fired?

Just as a reminder: there is already a guided missile and a trurret with a "viewing angle" and a "range" in game. Have a look at guided_missile.cc, targeting_turret.cc and aim.cc . But i'm not sure about what is working and what not.

[Marc]

Additional idea:

[*] Electronics: This is an additional attribute like shield and armor (and protected until both fail) . It mainly reflects the state of the ships electronic components. If these are damaged, the ships handling will suffer. Possible consequences could be lower fire rate, no weapon switch possible anymore, special weapons don't work, maneuvering gets harder due to engine failures, ...

[hofzge]

Now that's a cool idea which should also be implementable.
If all of a sudden you can't move left, because the ship's CPU has been damaged this adds a lot to the thrill of a frenzied battle.

[nicolasc]

• Electronics: This is an additional attribute like Shield and Armor (and protected until both fail) . It mainly reflects the state of the ships electronic components. If these are damaged, the ships handling will suffer. Possible consequences could be lower fire rate, no weapon switch possible anymore, special weapons don't work, maneuvering gets harder due to engine failures, ...

Sounds nice, but how much does it take to destroy you ship? I thought, that after shields and armor failed, it would only take a (few) decent hit(s) for a game over...
I think, it would be better, if the electronic get affected as soon as the shields fail. And I would combine it with a electrical damage for weapons (especially EMP-weapons, which blow your electronic to bits). And to make it easier for the player this feature should become a subject in a later level, i.e with the introduction of a weapon to disable ships...

cheers
nico

[hofzge]

I thought, that after shields and armor failed, it would only take a (few) decent hit(s) for a game over...
I think, it would be better, if the electronic get affected as soon as the shields fail.

That's very reasonable. In my mind I already scenes, when the ship get's hit and parts fly around the bridge and Scotty screams:"Seear, we're losing herr."

[nicolasc]

I'm summarizing, what I would like to put into the shipattributes:

• 2 Weapons Types: as Marc described: a (or a few) primary energy based weapons for general usage, and a secondary type (missiles) with a (very) limited ammo. I open a thread concerning some basic weapons here.
• Armor: This represents your hitpoints (RPG-like spoken)
  armor = 0 = your dead
• no-segmented Shield regenerative: just following the KISS (keep it simple, silly) principle. Shields are (compared to the armor) weak but rechargeable/regenerative

  With the shields system I'm not yet sure. I like the X-Wing idea of balancing a 2-segmented shield (front/back) depending on how the enemies attack, but this brings a very complicated cockpit.

  I fully agree; with a simple way to control the shield, I would put the 2-way-segmentation in place
  The shields do normally regenerate gradually. But if the shield fails, the shield bubble will reappear when the shield strength is back to 20%. In meantime the ship will be vulnerable.
• Electronics: With no shields, your internal systems get compromised when hit. Depending on the weapon used, this damage could be more serious. Damage to the electronic should be regenerative. Once your EHP (electronic-hitpoints) hit 0, your ship gets fully disabled to a non-regenerative state, i.e. you are dead
  It means basically creating a second way to get rid of your enemies
• Afterburner/Retro-Rockets: Just to make use of the 3rd dimension, and it give the player the possibility to evade some quasi-stationary objects (open-closing gates, fan-wings et all)
• Energy Distribution:

  ... But you can balance the energy output of the reactor by yourself (for example in the hangar of the space stations) so you can assign one weapon 50% of all power and balance the rest of the energy to the other systems. This way this weapon will have much more energy and therefore has a much faster shooting frequency and/or deals more damage.
  
  If you like to be on the safe side, you can also assign all power to the shields therefore gain maximal performance in shield-reloading speed and strength. Or you may be forced to fly through a asteroid level and need more agility Arrow more energy to the engines...

  Distribute energy to systems you might need more. Only the surplus of energy can be distributed, as the ship should still be flyable, even if all power is routed to weapons.
  Mathematically speaking: available energy (for a system) = basic energy + the portion of distributed energy. The distributable energy should be about the same as the basic.
• Different Ship-Types: i.e Scout, Heavy-Fighter, Bomber: they differ in Agility, Shields, Armor and Hardpoints/Slots (energy/missiles).
  • Scout: 6/5, high agility, medium shields with high regeneration, light armor
  • Heavy-Fighter: 4/15, medium agility, medium shields with medium regeneration, heavy armor
  • Bomber: 1/30, low agility, heavy shields with low regeneration, medium armor
  the number for missiles are slots, as a simple missile might take 1 slot, but some bigger ones might take 2 or 3.
  these are just exemplary values

The difficulty will be, to find a good balance between the energy distribution and the ship-types, and it shouldn't be possible to make a scout into a bomber (at least no fully)
If I had to choose between them, would keep the ship models, and give up the energy distribution, well knowing that it will be more difficult to implement

cheers
nico

[Marc]

Yes that makes sense, that after the shields are gone, the hull is damaged as well as the electronics can be damaged. That way player using all the shield would have lasting effects even if the shield regenerates again as the electronic doesn't repair itself.

[nicolasc]

That way player using all the shield would have lasting effects even if the shield regenerates again as the electronic doesn't repair itself.

I tried to avoid that, by pointing out, that there will be always some basic energy assigned to every system type...

...
Mathematically speaking: available energy (for a system) = basic energy + the portion of distributed energy....

[patrick]

The difficulty will be, to find a good balance between the energy distribution and the ship-types, and it shouldn't be possible to make a scout into a bomber (at least no fully)

Yes, I think this one will be the most important and complicated part in the character system implementation.
Most RPG games come around this problem by defining certain weapons/clothes only for vertain characters (eg. a wizard can not carry a axe). Such restricitons on the other side take away the freedom to buy whatever a ship's captain would want.

I would prefer, an energy distribution based approach. A scout schip can buy a heavy laser, but it will have such a miserable fireing rate, that no one will want to do this! The only thing, that we will have to take care of is, that it wouldn't be possible to buy the same energy generators for scouts and bombers!

[beni]

I like all the ideas and I see a good concept here.
To the bomber and scouter issue: A bomber has more weapon slots and can carry more rockets (of a better type?). Which can be easily explained with the size of the spaceship.
In Freespace every ship had a different number of weapon slots, some slots were for lasers, others for rockets. A scout in Freespace has 2 laser slots and 2 rocket slots. A fighter got 4 laser slots and 2 rocket slots and a bomber had 2 laser slots and 4 rocket slots.
Well, it wasn't exactly like that, but I think you see what I mean.

I still agree, we should do a lot with the energy system, but I wanted to tell you some other idea which worked good in other games.

[Marc]

Thats how I thought of the ship type idea.

Scout: Small, only few weapons, high agility, low armor

Bomber: large, many weapons, low agility, high armor

Both should feature the same reactor possibilities (as reactors are characterised by 2 attributes - output and capacity - different play styles are possible through them as well).

One thing where ship restrictions might be a useful option would be the upgrade slots or heavy energy / special weapons, or what can be put in there. (for example, an upgrade reactor won't fit into a scout but most likely into a bomber. On the other side, a rocket avoidance system does not make any sense in a bomber as he is too slow to leave the area where the rocket originally was flying to)

[nicolasc]

That was the basic idea....

I am only reading about 2 ship types... Was the "Heavy" Fighter left out on purpose, or do we drop to 2 models. Less to choose from, less to worry about!?

With the fighter I was thinking of Descent3: You start with the fighter, and at a later stage, 2 additional models become available. I was thinking that you should be forced to use each fighter at least once, when they come available, and in a mission, which can only be won with that ship (i.e heavy weapons to destroy a capital ship (cruiser alike) and maneuverability through a giant asteroid/mine whatever)
That way the player will become aware of his choices...

The fighter combine the better parts of both world, while not being able to get a maneuverable as the scout, or carry as big guns as the bomber. It should be the allround model - with all it's pros and cons..

cheers
nico