| Author |
[ Idea ] Alternate modding brainstorming |
Diabo|ik
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 16, 2002
Posts: 327
From: Quebec, Canada
|  Posted: 2005-09-26 20:20
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I feel ya m8ey...
This could only happen if ship modding mechanics radically change ( like according say 1000 "equipment" points on a cruiser that you could then choose to put on say a front firing torp tube for "40 points", the same torp tube but firing on all could cost more by an X factor... say 3x more points ) Now we'd see some original setups that can only be balanced. Even if you have 3x less total torps firing at the same time, having thme on full creates more opportunities to hit consistently while dodging as efficiently as possible, whereas the same cruiser with the exact same setup but 3 times more torp tubes all facing forward would have a lot of punch ( great for a kluth ship ) but could not deliver it efficiently and with good dodging capabilities...
You could also restrict the specialisation by putting a threshold as to how many points goes into X kind of fitting/guns. No more than 60% of the points could be allocated to say reloads, or torps or beams, as to avoid the OLD mistake of letting everyone use whatever kind of guns they wanted without any restrictions ( anyone remember the uber beam/missile ships and ships with multiple cloaks/jump drives/automated repairs )
This would also make assault vessels inherently more powerfull if you are facing them while broadsiders and full arcers will have reduced firepower. The factor could change depending on the faction ( say a front arced weapons of any kind would cost less to fit on a K'luth ship than any other faction, but the full arced weapons will cost the MOST out of any factions... as a way to prevent strange, ICC like ships within K'luth ranks and VERY strange MD torp type assault ships for ICC... ).
You could even prevent uber ships, like giving reloads a considerable cost ( want 3 reloads on that cruiser? ok, but you won't have much left for guns/special slots/armor layers. Essentially creating a balanced cruiser supply ship. Same could be done for bomb launchers. Heavy beams would cost the most out of any guns, followed by torps, missiles and lastly cannons ( and have the damage per second/minute/hour with nonstop firing reflect this accordingly ). That way you could even avoid overpowered ship setups.
I bet that this will never happen tho.
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To make a long story short, I expand on the theme I mentioned above.
Giving ships « equipment points » for modding, adding some hard coded restristrictions and modifiers.
Each ship class spawn as a barebone « scout » or « frigate » or « cruiser » class ship, with the basic setup of each specific faction. An ICC cruiser would therefore spawn with : 3 IE drives, 1 JD, 4 standard armor layers ( one on each side ), 4 reactive armor layers ( one on each side ) and 1 pulse wave generator. A K’luth dread would spawn with : 4 IE drives, 1 JD, 1 cloak, 1 repairdevice, 8 organic layers distributed evenly around the ship ( note : as guns get added, the armor layout of all factions dread will « adapt » in order to put more layers where there is the most firepower ), in the case of a K’luth dread fitted mainly with front firing guns, the bias would be 1 rear, 2 on each side and 3 front. If it ever happenned that someone distrubted the firepower evenly on all the arcs, then the layout would switch to 2 on rear, 2 on each side and 2 on front, etc…
Alternatively you could propose presets at ports to « refit your armor layout » to different presets ( from broadside setup to assault or from assault to all rounded, anda gain from all rounded to minelayer setup, etc…) much like the layouts we have now, of course someone could mix and match at will and find what they like best…
All this barebone equipment could then be swapped for anything of the same slot type without any effect on the « equipment points » pool. You could still mod for AME drives, etc… The races restrictions would apply to all equipment as is it now and proposed by Arcanum’s modifications in a previous suggestion.
Now, we’re done with the « fixed slots ». Why you say fixed slots you guys are thinking? Because they’re the only slots that will appear empty on your screen as you remove all the parts. There won’t be other slots that can be seen… So where do I put my guns and special gizmos? Don’t fear, they will « appear » as you will expend « equipment points » at your nearest SY/port. You will BUY slots. Each slot type will have it’s price and specific slots will be restricted by faction and ship class. Specific purposes slots ( like bombs, reloads, builds ) will cost a lot more than gun slots and some slots like fighters/heavy beam/reactors will have similar prices. The order would then go on like : heavy beams, torps, missiles and then the cheap but weak cannons. Note : Factions modifiers would still apply and instead of giving bonus on each type of gun based on the faction I suggest moving those modifiers to the cost of the component itself, so an UGTO ship could carry more cannons on any setup than any other faction and we could even add a threshold for the maximum points expanded on a specific type of slot that could vary depending on the slot/faction/class of the ship ,say 60% , but UGTO could mount 65% of all guns as cannons and each gun would be cheaper, hence giving them a clear advantage with a specific type of weapon… while the ICC could only mount 50 or 55% of all guns as cannons and they would cost more per unit etc... as to promote faction specific tactics and go away with the Torp Mds type of ships.
Each slot type cost would then have a modifier based on the which factions ship it is fitted on. As well as specific classes from specific factions...
Each class of ship would begin with a predetermined amount of points to spend.
Propositions :
ICC Scout class : 200 points ( special features : beacon ( cost 200 points stock but... reducing it to 40 ) fitting costs reduced by 80%, ECM/ECCM/Scanner fitting costs reduced by x%, all other faction modifiers apply ). Note : notice the fitting costs reduction scheme helps control abuse of some modules on some ships by giving them a very high cost as to make a Dread owner think twice about spending this much on a beacon rather than 8 front firing torps... But, he COULD still do it. ( as it right now, the trade-off is too cheap ).
UGTO Frigate class : 400 points ( special features : beacon fitting costs reduced by 40% ( tripling the cost of a beacon on a scout... as to match the growth and make it less desirable as well than on a scout but can still be done... "other special features to promote specific usage of some modules" )
K'luth Destroyer class : 800 points ( special features : reduced standard disruptor fitting costs ( effect is then stack nerfed with the faction tendency to already lower the cost of all beams ), reduced cost of fitting torpedoes on a full arc ( effect is then calculated according to the faction modifier that says that K'luth prefer front firing and that full arcs are costlier than any other faction, one could cancel the other as to allow SOME specific factions class to have the possibility for an unusual fighting style as well as to still be able to simply go the front firing way all the way like a good K'luth should.
ICC Cruiser class : 1600 points ( special features : reduced missile fitting cost, reduced full arc fitting costs etc... )
UGTO Dreadnought class : 3200 points ( special features : reduced fighter fitting costs, reduced cannons fitting costs, increased energy recharge rate by x%, etc )
ICC Station class : 6400 points ( special features : VASTLY reduced cost on full arc fittings, VASTLY reduced cost of missile fittings, reduced reloads fitting costs etc.. )
So with this in mind, we take our ICC cruiser class barebone ship.
ICC is a missile happy faction, or so we are told, so, we could fit a lot of missiles on full arcs and then some smlbeams for PD and maybe some other guns of your liking to finish the setup, unless you need more special ( reactor ) slots.
Or with the same ship, create an old fashioned full arc torpedo ship without tapping into the all the specific bonuses but still a good ship to fly as ICC... )
Or a supply cruiser, or a cruiser with a weak WH generator and 1 reload, but NO weapons or only weak PD... ( you could take the idea of beacons and put special bonuses on each factions specific classes as to be able to create some ships we already know... as well as some new ones, all of this controlled by the modifiers and the points system as well as the hard coded faction modifiers and barebone setups ).
I could go on and on with this. But I think Tael and everyone else will agree that it would be an elegant way to bring back modding, adding variety and usefullness, the scanner role could be changed to scan the enemy ships setups...) as well as keeping most of the obvious exploits in check and giving the player all the liberty he ever dreamed about as well as keeping this dream on a leash using the various tools this system gives us.
Specific factions ships/classes and overall all the factions modifiers and hard coded specifics toward promoting a specific type of gameplay.
As well as keeping it simple to address issues and exploits... modify this threshold a bit... modifiy the cost there so he cant mount more than X torps on full on his dread... Modify the dreads points amount, change the 200/400 to 200/800/1600 or 200/300/450 etc or just modify specific points to adjust specific issues. Each hotfix would require a garage wipe, or you could alternatively only wipe them on the BIG changes like we do now. And my bet is that each hotfix would be pretty easy to do if you write a program to present the info on each ship with an UI with their special abilities and tools to change them and adjust the strenghts, could also adjust the factions a bit like the old redalert programs did with INI files to control everything in the game. This way, you could easily boot up a test server and ask for some combat people to testt the changes and give their feeling about it, a few hours later the fix could be ready and applyable.
Also such a scheme could allow for the server to actively scan for uber/roc breaking ships by checking their loadout and calculating their point count and by comparing it to the maximum of such a faction ship and class. If one is found, it could issue a warning to dock the ship and remove it in the garage, then the player would have X # of minutes, if the player disconnects, when he will reconnect, the server would "recognize" the player and scan the ships in the hold, if a uber ship is found, garage is wiped, as to prevent circumvention of the system, if the order isn't followed and the ship is still in space, it could manually detonate it or make it crash into the nearest sun using the captured ships code  .
Anyone else thought of something similar or akin as to replace the current system with a more elegant and more flexible as well as fun ( you gotta admit that the prospect of creating the ship of your "dreams" that perfectly match your playstyle AND while still remaining in the realm of not uber because of the system would be very nice. ( contrarily to the very old FREE FOR ALL modding scheme that spawned the dread all beam or all cloak, etc ships. ) and easy to adjust scheme?
PS.: Most numbers are theoretical and/or suggested to heavy field testing... Do not take them as is but rather relatively to each other.
PS2.: Sorry for all the typos/mismatched words  , will correct them tomorrow after some well deserved sleep.
[ This Message was edited by: Diabo|ik on 2005-09-26 21:06 ]
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Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2005-09-26 20:43
Or...instead of a whole new complex system of modding again, we could just go back with enough restrictions, and do something like this farther on when DS is better off...
-Ent
P.S. *Edit - This is also a very well thought out idea, I just don't think DS is ready for it just yet.
[ This Message was edited by: Enterprise on 2005-09-26 20:55 ]
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Koda
Marshal
Fatal Squadron
Joined: August 29, 2002
Posts: 1384
| Posted: 2005-09-27 02:52
Great Ideas, Ive always been fond of "mech" style of modding. And having preset varriants to choose from very quickly.
Over the years ive been here ive come to realize, by repeatly hitting my head against my computer, that the best thing for DS is for everyone to get into their ships as soon as possible, no matter how bad or good they treat them.
I do enjoy modding and having new gadgets that make game play interesting. I also really liked 1483 up to .3 , The high cost of modding kept everyone from having lvl 10 everything, but in the same respect i can also see how new players were probably left out on the joys of having an High level Assult Dread be Feared. All i can say on that is Ive been here for 3 yrs now, wouldnt you expect me have a high level ship by now by looking at my stats?
And in alotta ways I agree with Ent, In a more perfect, heavily funded DS, Faustus would have time to set up a Alternate Beta Version of DS, and more than 15 regular DS'ers would come in and test it out. I hope that Faustus knows that by now he shouldnt have to walk that Fine line of fixing and offering new content with Each new update. I think alot of us out here have made ourselves pertty Vocal about "we want The Fixxes". At least I hope we been Vocal enough.
-Charz
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2005-09-27 15:56
fix game, then worry about adding stuff in to make modding better.
or is modding that much of a problem?..
eh, I'm just going to clone ent's post.
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Diabo|ik
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 16, 2002
Posts: 327
From: Quebec, Canada
| Posted: 2005-09-27 16:27
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On 2005-09-27 15:56, Fattierob (x2 Pistolet Makarov) wrote:
fix game, then worry about adding stuff in to make modding better.
or is modding that much of a problem?..
eh, I'm just going to clone ent's post.
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What I'm proposing is to complement the upcoming fixes as proposed by Arcanum, such a system could be implemented much later on ( 1484 or 1485 ). And as CharAznable said, such a system where you could create and store variants and be able to just choose your variant later on and go rock the house instead of remodding everytime while having rigid boundaries for modding is exactly what would bring the best out of a few suggestions I saw back then that almost everyone was very enthusistic about as well as give powerfull tools for the devs to make quick and specific adjustments to the game without having to rebalance verything everytime. Follow Arcanum's suggestion, make sure the game is mostly fixed than maybe we could work on creating a better game through such improvements.
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The races restrictions would apply to all equipment as is it now and proposed by Arcanum’s modifications in a previous suggestion.
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[ This Message was edited by: Diabo|ik on 2005-09-27 16:39 ]
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Thorium
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 05, 2004
Posts: 185
| Posted: 2005-09-27 16:47
love it... but ya fix first... dreams of makeing my oun setup
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