Arcen Games
General Category => AI War II - Gameplay Ideas => AI War II => AI War II - Resolved Ideas => Topic started by: x4000 on August 30, 2016, 07:56:37 pm
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Hey guys,
I know this is a strange thing for me to ask, but I've got dozens of pages of specs to write (at bare minimum), and I'm trying to cut down on some of the prep work on my end for that as well as making sure I don't have oversights.
Basically what I'd like to do is get a comprehensive list of ships and plots and mechanics and so on, with brief descriptions of what they do, and then have folks also weigh in on their opinions on some of these things, potentially in other threads. Maybe have a "things we don't like" thread and a "things we like" thread.
I hate asking so much of folks, but I figure that many heads/hands are certainly better than one. Also I'm really trying to get a design document together as quickly as possible so that it can be discussed in depth, and every bit helps. I know the wiki has a huge amount of info on there obviously, but where the holes are is not always obvious, and it's easy to not realize that some ship was missed when there are so many ships!
I don't need things like balance stats or anything, but some subjective commentary on what the role or value of the ship is -- if in your opinion it has any at all ;) -- is also valued. Some of these things have been rebalanced so substantially since I last saw them that actually my own interpretation of them is very out of date. So I'm trying to counteract that and catch up fast.
Thanks for any help you can provide!
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Is this assuming all the expansions' material, or just base AI War? Or somewhere in-between?
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Is this assuming all the expansions' material, or just base AI War? Or somewhere in-between?
Everything would be fine.
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Absolutely everything. What I'm looking to do is to take the best of what people most want, and distill that down into the core features for this game partly based on what features most easily overlap, too. Aka, there may be a "meh" unit that just so neatly overlaps with a "yay!" unit that it gets included anyway, and then we can work on turning that from meh to yay in updates. But if there's an "ugh" unit that neatly overlaps with a "yay!" unit, then that one will just stay omitted. ;)
My internal deadline is trying to have everything ready for the kickstarter in 2 weeks. We probably won't make it, but that way we can make it within 4 weeks total, hopefully. Shoot for 2 so that there's buffer, otherwise I'm sure to be very late. Keith was talking about potentially needing to get part-time work outside Arcen, which is one reflection of how serious the situation is on his side. Maybe I shouldn't have said that, but I figure you guys have a right to know. That's part of the reason for my rush, but ALSO the reason I want to do this right.
The rush comes on getting materials together, NOT in evaluating them or implementing them. There's so much "busywork" that can really drag down the time it takes to do something like this, and I'm trying to streamline out those things as much as possible to then focus on the important bits.
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Shield Bearers
Tanky, good defensively or offensively to protect damage dealing or critical targets. Great for dealing with time-based missions.
( Can you give an example on how you want us to write it? Is this what you wanted? I'd be happy to do more, just need to know what it's supposed to look like.)
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That works for me! I suppose actually a page on the wiki could be created, or some sort of communal document.
Actually, you know what? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E78-KtgIKyAExd9VpIKe2aXEKFO14A8b9zRLwRENkRk/edit?usp=sharing
Anyone can edit that. We should be able to keep it in better organization that way, and also have some nice editorial comments in there as well.
Thank you!
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I'll have a list that's basically a translation of the "F1" ships menu thingy up in there as soon as I'm done writing it out (it's a huge list).
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That works for me! I suppose actually a page on the wiki could be created, or some sort of communal document.
Actually, you know what? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E78-KtgIKyAExd9VpIKe2aXEKFO14A8b9zRLwRENkRk/edit?usp=sharing
Anyone can edit that. We should be able to keep it in better organization that way, and also have some nice editorial comments in there as well.
Thank you!
Is this going to work if some of us have conflicting thoughts on different elements? Should we put our names before writing something about a given thing?
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Is this going to work if some of us have conflicting thoughts on different elements? Should we put our names before writing something about a given thing?
Given the one entry and Chris's own denoted comment:
Yes.
Also, this might work better as a Trello board...or something...where each item can have its own list of comments without making the entire document mind numbingly huge.
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I want to add something about Railpods or friendly enclaves/combat carriers, but I can't think of how to describe it well.
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I want to add something about Railpods or friendly enclaves/combat carriers, but I can't think of how to describe it well.
Railpods are beings of instant, global firepower (in terms of a world firepower). Set them on a world, they die, enemies die with them. As easy as tactics can get!
Enclaves / carriers are "squad" units. They are the basis of squads that can launch to anywhere in a system to attack. As long as motherbase is safe, the attacks continue. They are the opposite of suicide units, they thrive best when they have a ring of protection to protect them so they can project power throughout a world.
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Is this going to work if some of us have conflicting thoughts on different elements? Should we put our names before writing something about a given thing?
Given the one entry and Chris's own denoted comment:
Yes.
Also, this might work better as a Trello board...or something...where each item can have its own list of comments without making the entire document mind numbingly huge.
This is how Chris works here. If something needs to be discussed, it can be discussed here on the forum.
Also, I'm about to dump a WHOLE lot of units on the list.
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I reworded chemical art's Railpod description a bit and added it in, and added a comment-question on the drones further down on the list.
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I reworded chemical art's Railpod description a bit and added it in, and added a comment-question on the drones further down on the list.
Once I have put this up against the ship list in the wiki, I'm going to move stuff around so it makes sense. It's a WIP but I wanted to get that much up there.
Edit: In fact, I think I'll list them just as the wiki does.
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This is how Chris works here. If something needs to be discussed, it can be discussed here on the forum.
Oh I know, but now that you've dumped the list into the google doc, you can see how intimidating just the list is. 14 pages for just one line for each unit.
Dear god.
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This is how Chris works here. If something needs to be discussed, it can be discussed here on the forum.
Oh I know, but now that you've dumped the list into the google doc, you can see how intimidating just the list is. 14 pages for just one line for each unit.
Dear god.
Oh it should be longer! Stuff like Fabs that just have different contents have one listing. No marks or AI/Human variants.
I'll get it presentable tonight so it isn't that bad going forward. ;)
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I don't think that's a good idea.
I'd rather rework the units like proposed in wingflier's "let's remove hull types", because the discussion there just leads to a change in what units do and are.
About what units are "useful" and "not"... I think this approach and list is a waste of time because everyone can and will have his preference. Your focus should be in enabling modding to cover about 98% of what units can do, and creating maybe 30 "small" units, 10 "flagships" at most. If someone else wants "specific", he'll mod it and maybe, in the end of the dev run, you can ask forumers to build the remaining ones for you. Given what you made of the forum, it's a no-brainer that you'll find volunteers.
Basically, the only thing you need is the list of abilities to be modded in the game:
- direct damage,
- AOE damage,
- shield
- hitting
- decreasing health by time
- decreasing health by shot
- regeneration
- AOE damage divided by number of hit units
- eating other units
- immunity to shield
- damage resistance
- repair capability
- life stealing
- auto replication
- drone generation (by time)
- armor suppresion (acid whatever)
- teleportation
- carrier capability
- explosion on death
I think I forgot a few, but still. It's all that's really needed. You want to make modding a reality ? Then you should make use of it. Don't make yourself work MORE than you have to. It does not matter if someone likes ships or not. It's going to be moddable.
About game mechanics, well. I think basically it's covered in the "what makes AI WAR, AI WAR thread already".
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This is how Chris works here. If something needs to be discussed, it can be discussed here on the forum.
Oh I know, but now that you've dumped the list into the google doc, you can see how intimidating just the list is. 14 pages for just one line for each unit.
Dear god.
Heh, true. That's gonna be a lot to parse, yessir.
Though at the same time, I doubt Chris & Keith would be reading all of this in one go; more likely this is the sort of thing where they'd jump to the page for a specific unit and read some of the stuff about it, when they're ready to at all deal with that unit. So maybe it's not THAT bad. Maybe. Well, okay, it still rather is, hah.
Expected, though. AI War seriously has a TON of units. So... very many...
I wonder how long it'll be once people have really started adding their thoughts about the units? 2 squillion pages? 3?
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I'm sorry, but I sincerely don't understand what is the point of that.
If it prepares a balance of ships, that clearly fits into a later development period. Comments like Standard Fighters needing more speed or Shield Bearer less health isn't what is expected here, right?
If the point is just to list everything to prepare the skeleton of the XML document that will be parsed by the game's engine, some folks around here have been putting some effort to make nice lists on the wiki: Fleet and Starship, but also Golems (https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Golems), Turrets (https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Turrets), Guard Posts (https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Guard_Posts), Guardians (https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Guardians), etc, etc.
I really, sincerely and genuinely don't understand what you're asking, Chris. I'm sorry.
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I'm sorry, but I sincerely don't understand what is the point of that.
If it prepares a balance of ships, that clearly fits into a later development period. Comments like Standard Fighters needing more speed or Shield Bearer less health isn't what is expected here, right?
If the point is just to list everything to prepare the skeleton of the XML document that will be parsed by the game's engine, some folks around here have been putting some effort to make nice lists on the wiki: Fleet and Starship, but also Golems (https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Golems), Turrets (https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Turrets), Guard Posts (https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Guard_Posts), Guardians (https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Guardians), etc, etc.
I really, sincerely and genuinely don't understand what you're asking, Chris. I'm sorry.
Sigh. That list will be racked and stacked by what the community wants. Ships we want the most will get done first. Then those in middle and so on and so forth as time allows. It's pretty much how Chris is going to sort the workflow once this gets underway.
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I'm sorry, but I sincerely don't understand what is the point of that.
If it prepares a balance of ships, that clearly fits into a later development period. Comments like Standard Fighters needing more speed or Shield Bearer less health isn't what is expected here, right?
If the point is just to list everything to prepare the skeleton of the XML document that will be parsed by the game's engine, some folks around here have been putting some effort to make nice lists on the wiki: Fleet and Starship, but also Golems (https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Golems), Turrets (https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Turrets), Guard Posts (https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Guard_Posts), Guardians (https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Guardians), etc, etc.
I really, sincerely and genuinely don't understand what you're asking, Chris. I'm sorry.
He's asking us to break down the current version of AI War into its component parts, listed and labeled. Then he wants us to tell him what we think about those parts. Briefly. Like you said, the wiki is nice, but he needs a list of everything in the game. The wiki is for when he needs more than "activating all four of these begins an endgame scenario similar to Fallen Spire, except you are charged with defending four locations instead of one".
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Well the top half of the doc is readable now that it has been broken into pieces. I've put an example up at the top to make grabbing a copy of the format easy.
I'd like to ask that you hold off on the bottom half until I get all those items sorted out.
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He's asking us to break down the current version of AI War into its component parts, listed and labeled.
I see only units. And there is much more "things" in AI War than units. What about resources, AI behaviors, player's strategies, etc? I thought ship details and balance were due for much further down the development process.
Is this to make the skeleton of an XML file?
What about better organizing/defining unit families first?
Like Starships (https://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,18979.0.html), Sentinels (https://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,18976.0.html) and Devices (https://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,18977.0.html)?
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If the general idea is to 'distill' all the units down to a single core unit for each category (to cut down on the hundreds or so different ship types for players to try and understand) then I think going to the extreme of initially gutting all except ONE ship for each fleet category would be a interesting start.
Let me give a example. Fighter style ships would be classified as a Brawler ship, since they are expendable and are meant to get in and take the big hits at short range. As it stands this 'Brawler' catagory encompasses a lot of ship types. Acid Sprayer, Anti-Armor, Fighter, Laser Gatling, Youngling Commando, Youngling Weasel, Tachyon Microfighter, Vampire Claw and Vorticular Cutlass are all classified as a Fighter Brawler role.
So to simplify it you can remove all those ships and distill the Brawler down to just a Fighter ship, from eight different ships to one.
From there, if you want variety, you can then add two sub-fighter types that each take one aspect of the role in one direction at the sacrifice of another. So while the Fighter is the base brawler class, a Laser Gatling would be very weak in comparison but you can have a lot more of them.
(I'm basing the fleet roles off of the wiki list here. (https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War:Ships_and_Structures#Fleet_Ships)
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But that's content! I don't understand! I'm sorry but I'm genuinely lost. It has been said that content will be modable and therefore pushed back down the development process. Let's talk design of families of units (turrets, GPosts, starships, guardians, etc), not families of fleetships.
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He's asking us to break down the current version of AI War into its component parts, listed and labeled.
I see only units. And there is much more "things" in AI War than units. What about resources, AI behaviors, player's strategies, etc? I thought ship details and balance were due for much further down the development process.
Is this to make the skeleton of an XML file?
What about better organizing/defining unit families first?
Like Starships (https://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,18979.0.html), Sentinels (https://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,18976.0.html) and Devices (https://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,18977.0.html)?
One thing at a time!!!! Right now we're looking at units and mechanics. I've populated the list and I'm working on sorting it out to make it read better. I need time to do that :) The top half of the doc is sorted reasonably.
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One thing at a time!!!! Right now we're looking at units and mechanics. I've populated the list and I'm working on sorting it out to make it read better. I need time to do that :) The top half of the doc is sorted reasonably.
Well, okay, then why not listing mechanisms? Like RoF, armor, armor piercing, AoE, reclamation, engine damage, armor damage, cloaking, tractor, swallow, etc?
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One thing at a time!!!! Right now we're looking at units and mechanics. I've populated the list and I'm working on sorting it out to make it read better. I need time to do that :) The top half of the doc is sorted reasonably.
Well, okay, then why not listing mechanisms? Like RoF, armor, armor piercing, AoE, reclamation, engine damage, armor damage, cloaking, tractor, swallow, etc?
It takes time to get all that listed. I'm working on units. If you want to list Mechanics, there is a section at the bottom waiting to be filled up (it's below the ships list).
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One thing at a time!!!! Right now we're looking at units and mechanics. I've populated the list and I'm working on sorting it out to make it read better. I need time to do that :) The top half of the doc is sorted reasonably.
Well, okay, then why not listing mechanisms? Like RoF, armor, armor piercing, AoE, reclamation, engine damage, armor damage, cloaking, tractor, swallow, etc?
It takes time to get all that listed. I'm working on units. If you want to list Mechanics, there is a section at the bottom waiting to be filled up (it's below the ships list).
Okay, let's do this.
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Is this to make the skeleton of an XML file?
No, it's to make a list of everything in AI War. This list will be used to help decide what goes into design document for AI War 2.0.
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I for one am now more confused than I was originally.
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I for one am now more confused than I was originally.
You would be. ;)
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Not sure how exactly am I supposed to add notes there.
It's open to anyone making edits. I'm working on the actual unit listing. Take a look at what Zharmad did with the Zenith section. Just add what you want (seems like everyone else is going to).
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Not sure how exactly am I supposed to add notes there.
It's open to anyone making edits. I'm working on the actual unit listing. Take a look at what Zharmad did with the Zenith section. Just add what you want (seems like everyone else is going to).
I agree with pumpkin.
It's going to be an horrible 50 pages long unreadable mess, and a complete waste of time.
Utter waste of time.
Let's go a bit further, that kind of mindless excitement at following whatever crazy idea is proposed is IMO what got arcen into the SBR failure.
Sometimes you've got to say "it's stupid".
Listing mechanics would be smarrt because the game is supposed to be moddable. every can do what he wants later.
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Not sure how exactly am I supposed to add notes there.
It's open to anyone making edits. I'm working on the actual unit listing. Take a look at what Zharmad did with the Zenith section. Just add what you want (seems like everyone else is going to).
I agree with pumpkin.
It's going to be an horrible 50 pages long unreadable mess, and a complete waste of time.
Utter waste of time.
Let's go a bit further, that kind of mindless excitement at following whatever crazy idea is proposed is IMO what got arcen into the SBR failure.
Sometimes you've got to say "it's stupid".
Listing mechanics would be smarrt because the game is supposed to be moddable. every can do what he wants later.
And the one thing that no one seems to understand is, IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT YOU THINK OF THE LIST. It is for internal use. It's going to be one of many docs used to shape the way AIW2 looks.
What the game is and isn't going to be in the end does not matter right now. It's a wispy collection of ideas and thoughts that have to be put to paper (which is what is going on now).
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If no one understands it, there is some kind of reason for it. If you work to do something, its goal has to be reasonably clear.
You're making argument in favor of my point, Cinth.
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If no one understands it, there is some kind of reason for it. If you work to do something, its goal has to be reasonably clear.
You're making argument in favor of my point, Cinth.
No, I'm seeing a lot of complaints about how the list looks or about its contents. None of that should matter to us. What matters is how Chris plans on using it.
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Well, that's certainly an issue if does not matter to you. It should. It does to me. I really want AI War 2 to be a success, and I genuinely don't see how listing whatever is in AI War in a 50+ pages doc would matter. If there are complaints about how it looks and what's in it, then take in those complaints and even try to understand and improve them, instead of bashing others.
My main point is, if people do not understand WHY something is done, then it's going to be done badly. That's common sense really.
And you're missing a lot of feedback doing it that way.
I personally see a point in listing mechanics that make AI war great.
I see a point in listing the ambiance, the backstory, the customer service that makes Arcen forum a good place.
I see a point in listing "wishlists" about what could make AI war better.
I don't see the point in a list of units, and even more since it's going to be moddable. I'm not alone in this, probably. Now, do you want feedback from most people ? Or just some that do... without understanding the goal behind it ?
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I'd like to do is get a comprehensive list of ships and plots and mechanics and so on, with brief descriptions of what they do, and then have folks also weigh in on their opinions on some of these things, potentially in other threads. Maybe have a "things we don't like" thread and a "things we like" thread.
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Utter waste of time.
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Sometimes you've got to say "it's stupid".
Listing mechanics would be smarrt because the game is supposed to be moddable. every can do what he wants later.
There could be different threads/documents for ships and mechanics. Also what's going to prevent people from modding mechanics?
without understanding the goal behind it ?
some subjective commentary on what the role or value of the ship is
Some of these things have been rebalanced so substantially since I last saw them that actually my own interpretation of them is very out of date. So I'm trying to counteract that and catch up fast.
It's going to be an horrible 50 pages long unreadable mess, and a complete waste of time.
It is true there's probably going to be something like 50 pages of text. If it keeps the structure it has now it's not going to be unreadable though. It's certainly going to take some time to read and soak up but if Chris thinks it's worth the time then maybe it is for him.
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Okay, look. Let's calm down here....
One way or another, this is what Chris asked for, right? It's not like someone just came up with the idea to fling a huge pile of pages at the devs. And to be honest, for a complicated game like this, ending up with a document for reference that is as huge as this might be does make sense, particularly when it's specifically meant to be a reference to player feedback. Chances are, the devs are going to be dealing with other documents that are WAY longer than this one would be. Design docs can be like that.
But aside from that, why not just wait for him, and see what he has to say about this? Rather than just arguing back and forth, which isn't doing anything.
Let's just wait for him to perhaps give some input on just how he wants to have this laid out. His original post WAS a little vague about this.
But at least let's not clog this up with unnecessary arguing...
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There could be different threads/documents for ships and mechanics. Also what's going to prevent people from modding mechanics?
That's actually a very good point - (kind of a wishlist thing...) if it could be planned. It would be great to be able to mod waves / AI behaviour / events. Like if the core game could enable the whole of the golem sub-plots & minor faction to be directly moddable, or any other minor faction-behaviour. I think I read that Chris is not keen on minor factions but still.
@Misery: ok.
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Okay, look. Let's calm down here....
I'm just frustrated. We were asked a rather simple task and everyone is making it out to be some mystery here. On top of that everyone seems to want to derail what's actually going into the list with their own version of what the list should be. It's such a simple concept.
Basically what I'd like to do is get a comprehensive list of ships and plots and mechanics and so on, with brief descriptions of what they do, and then have folks also weigh in on their opinions on some of these things, potentially in other threads. Maybe have a "things we don't like" thread and a "things we like" thread.
And then he gave his reasoning.
I hate asking so much of folks, but I figure that many heads/hands are certainly better than one. Also I'm really trying to get a design document together as quickly as possible so that it can be discussed in depth, and every bit helps. I know the wiki has a huge amount of info on there obviously, but where the holes are is not always obvious, and it's easy to not realize that some ship was missed when there are so many ships!
All the cool things you might want in 2 need and the stuff we want to carry over need to be written down so we'll remember to go over it.
I don't need things like balance stats or anything, but some subjective commentary on what the role or value of the ship is -- if in your opinion it has any at all ;) -- is also valued. Some of these things have been rebalanced so substantially since I last saw them that actually my own interpretation of them is very out of date. So I'm trying to counteract that and catch up fast
He doesn't need Marks or Variants or stats or anything like that. He just wants to know what you think because he hasn't been involved in the development of AI War in about 5 years (Ancient Shadows on was all Keith).
I'm just trying to get people on point with what's been asked. I'm just a bit frustrated (and whomever it was arguing with me on the list... urg).
::)
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I don't understand what Chris really wanted, like several people out there. So I just went to the page, added mechanisms and cast some order in the lists of ships and units. I hope Chris will give us more details when he's back.
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All the cool things you might want in 2 [...] to be written down
Well at the moment everything is (being) written down. Maybe that's the problem? (If there actually is a problem).
Perhaps we need a thread/document where people would list only those cool things they want in 2. And another thread/document to those that need fixing and/or need to be removed. And so on. Break this whole thing into smaller pieces. Perhaps even leave some out completely.
EDIT:
Something that was said before:
It is also important to recognize that AIW2 is only going to make so much income for its base game, and so it is important that the game development time follows through. The logic of “It is guaranteed success” is simply not true, or at least relative. For this reason not everything can be incorporated. The more content is added in a game like this the QA increases exponentially. It is imperative to not try to include everything, it is not only ok but a matter of necessity to leave some things for later. The goal is for a new player to finish a game so some of the most difficult things can be held off for a time. Adding an extra few months to make the base skeleton “just so” and to add lots of extra content should be avoided, that way there is less pressure to have a huge number of players at the start.
9. Very much agreed on not including everything and the kitchen sink in the base game.
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All the cool things you might want in 2 [...] to be written down
Well at the moment everything is (being) written down. Maybe that's the problem? (If there actually is a problem).
Perhaps we need a thread/document where people would list only those cool things they want in 2. And another thread/document to those that need fixing and/or need to be removed. And so on. Break this whole thing into smaller pieces. Perhaps even leave some out completely.
EDIT:
Something that was said before:
It is also important to recognize that AIW2 is only going to make so much income for its base game, and so it is important that the game development time follows through. The logic of “It is guaranteed success” is simply not true, or at least relative. For this reason not everything can be incorporated. The more content is added in a game like this the QA increases exponentially. It is imperative to not try to include everything, it is not only ok but a matter of necessity to leave some things for later. The goal is for a new player to finish a game so some of the most difficult things can be held off for a time. Adding an extra few months to make the base skeleton “just so” and to add lots of extra content should be avoided, that way there is less pressure to have a huge number of players at the start.
9. Very much agreed on not including everything and the kitchen sink in the base game.
All things in due time sounds like it would be an appropriate thing to say right now.
There isn't anything stopping someone form creating new threads here on the forum. Right now we were asked for something specific and that will likely generate the discussion going forward. How are we to know what not to bring in from the base game if the simple stuff isn't handled first?
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Hm, you know, if you want to keep working on the thing for now, as you were, just keep doing it in the manner you originally intended. Whatever you were originally going to put in there. It's not like there's some pre-existing structure to screw up that would mess anything up. At best it'll be just what he was looking for, at worst you have something that just needs to be started over on or reformatted. As it's a separate document it's also not clogging up this thread.
Might be a good idea to copy it all down (like a backup) just in case though.
But yeah, I don't think there's any harm in it at all, so...
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What the heck happened in here while i was asleep? I thought this was a pretty simple question...
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Simple question ? Then why is there so many interpretation of it ? Anyway, I saw this in Chris thread:
Basically what I'd like to do is get a comprehensive list of ships and plots and mechanics and so on, with brief descriptions of what they do, and then have folks also weigh in on their opinions on some of these things, potentially in other threads.
Keywords: Comprehensive list. Then opinion in potentially other threads.
About comprehensive list: I then saw people getting enthousiasted by a word document that would end up being 50 pages long. My opinion is that concision would be the key there. For me, comprehensive list has to be reasonably short, organized, and clear.
Me => System failure.
About Then potentially opinion in threads: I open said word document. I read the very first page.
Example Ship (use this format please)
Basics: Quick and easy what the ship does and what it’s good for.
Editorial:
Cinth: Your opinion on the ship and usage. Yes, tell us how you really feel.
Me => System failure number 2.
I side with misery on the "Let's wait for what Chris really wants" part.
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I don't know how you think a complete; including all or nearly all elements or aspects of something list could ever be short . Clear and organized is a WIP...
That example was taken directly form Chris's first remarks on the list and cut down to be generalized (as an example for the format)
Shield Bearers
Basics: Tanky, good defensively or offensively to protect damage dealing or critical targets. Great for dealing with time-based missions.
Editorial:
Chris: having stacks of these with loads of shields all over the place is an enormous mess, and trying to keep them in just the right formation with one another is a huge PITA as well. I really hate the forcefield mechanics in general and want something more streamlined.
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Locking this thread so that a new one can be started fresh. Give me a couple of minutes and I'll have a better place for our conversation to restart. :D
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Okay, the new one is up! http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,18997.0.html
Thanks to everyone for responding and for helping so much already. Hopefully the new thread starts things off fresher and makes this easier.