Prerelease 3.030 (Riot Starship, Munitions Boosting Updates)

[keith.lamothe]

The only important consideration, as has been alluded to already, is to be consciously aware of avoiding the slide toward homogeneity; every star ship line needs to jealously guard its shtick, IMHO, and any areas of cross-over functionality should probably remain very minor indeed.

Very much agreed, part of the point is to give individuality to individual units of a given mk&type, and definitely not to blur the lines between marks or types.

One potential idea is to have "vanilla" base hull types that are more flexible in terms of what modules are available, but that would be more fitting in a naval combat game where the norm is that you produce and outfit hulls rather than build specific ship types.  For AI War it's best to stick to the distinct lines with their distinct personalities and roles.

[keith.lamothe]

MMB scrolling is nice and smooth, and very useful.  Could perhaps do with a scroll speed slider (or base it off the existing screen edge scroll speed slider), maybe.

Yea, I thought about the slider, was trying to make sure I was using a decent scrolling algorithm first (you'd be surprised how complicated that can get when dealing with screen coordinates, game coordinates, zoom scaling, etc).  Are both the MMB and shift-MMB useful?  I wasn't sure which one should be the shift- modified one, or whether we even need both.

[vince0018]

  I like where you're going with the whole module thing though it does have potential to unbalance the game, at least temporarily until it's re-balanced. I think the best idea would be to have several modular ships but that each of them have only a few choices of modules, so that you could choose what situation they'd be good at. I don't know if you want to add modules to starships that already exist but that would probably require lots of rebalancing. What I would suggest is the following, should you be willing to listen. Remember though I am just a regular gamer and am only giving my opinion and am just trying to help.
  Have several modular ships but limit the modules for each one so you can choose between several specialities for each depending on the situation. Each 'slot' on a modular starship holds one item/equipment but there can be several different types of modules on a starship.
 Example:
   Riot Starship: Specializes in taking out numerous smaller ships I believe.
      Slot 1,Weapon: Shotgun/Lightning or some types of short/medium range for taking out smaller ships
      Slot 2,Engine: None(regular), Shield Recharging(ship moves slow but can take more damage), Fast(ship moves faster but takes more damage)
      Slot 3,Special: Shielding, some other type of item that could be equally benefiting as shields.

  This is only an idea but I thought I'd just throw my thoughts out. I thought maybe if there were several modular ships you could choose between limited specialities for each. So for the above riot ship you could choose a shotgun, plus shield recharging engines, plus maybe heavier shields to specialize in taking out a lot of smaller ships. I just threw lightning in there but I'm sure there's something else that would be more realistic for an alternative. Also the reason I put the modules for the Riot Starship as close range is because I thought it might be cool to have other modular ships where one might have several longer range weapons but less shielding options and another might be better for taking out bombers.
 Also something seems funny about the whole shield over the ship. For one the shield looks to large within the fleet. Also how none of the stronger ships such as flagships don't have them seems weird. I do have another suggestion about this that may be viable. If instead of having a full forcefield animation you could also make it so when you add a forcefield it adds maybe some kind of glow or smaller graphical circle effect around the ship. Another thing you could if possible is make the current forcefield you're doing for the modular ships smaller so it just fits around the ship, but also if it were possible to make it shrink much slower. So it still has the same hp but looks smaller and shrinks slower.

  Anyways sorry if I'm bothering, offending, or just annoying anyone entirely. I've always had a passion for RTS's as well and to me this game completely revolutionizes them. I just want to help in any way I can so if you think either that these ideas won't work in the current game or are just plain crap, don't hesitate to tell me, I won't take it the wrong way.

EDIT: I also realized when I built turrets on the riot starship they seems half in the ship and half above it, a little messed up and not pleasing to the eye whatsoever. I apologize because I know this is prerelease and still of course nowhere near finished. I was just going to suggest maybe if there was a way to make the turrets always on top. On top as in like when a starship flies over another and you see it completely on top. But then as long as you can make it so you won't see the turrets on top of everything, ie if a regular starship flew over the riot ship and you could still see the turrets over both.

EDIT: Also I have a side question while I'm here, I hope I'm not disobeying any rules or anything just thought I'd ask while I've posted here. One thing I don't understand about the AI in general is how certain planets can be alerted and some can't. I would understand if they were humans but aren't their cores, the main centers you have to destroy, kind of like their main brains, like skynet from terminator. If that were true once you attack one AI planet wouldn't all of their planets know you were there? I don't quite understand this.

EDIT: Sorry one more thing, I promise. Is there any way to set formations for your ships? I saw a control node that had some sort of formation setting but couldn't figure out exactly what it did. Like is there a way to make fighters always in front, then bombers, frigates, starships, and long range ships?

[I-KP]

MMB scrolling is nice and smooth, and very useful.  Could perhaps do with a scroll speed slider (or base it off the existing screen edge scroll speed slider), maybe.

Yea, I thought about the slider, was trying to make sure I was using a decent scrolling algorithm first (you'd be surprised how complicated that can get when dealing with screen coordinates, game coordinates, zoom scaling, etc).  Are both the MMB and shift-MMB useful?  I wasn't sure which one should be the shift- modified one, or whether we even need both.

TBH I haven't used the Shift-MMB one!

*fires up the game to see*

Okay, ignore me.  Shift-MMB and MMB are good together: fast and finnesse.  Only thing is tho, if you hold the MMB while pressing Shift on and off (using Shift only as a kind of temporary scroll boost option) the MMB controls suddenly reverse!  You have to release the MMB and re-apply it in order to reset the control.

[keith.lamothe]

I like where you're going with the whole module thing though it does have potential to unbalance the game, at least temporarily until it's re-balanced. I think the best idea would be to have several modular ships but that each of them have only a few choices of modules, so that you could choose what situation they'd be good at. I don't know if you want to add modules to starships that already exist but that would probably require lots of rebalancing.

It would have to be done thoughtfully, but I imagine that, for example, if we halve the normal attack of the fleet starships and remove the munitions boosting but add a selection of modules that could either bring it back to 125-150% what the attack power used to be OR provide the previous (or better) munitions boosting OR some middle ground OR some weapons that are favorable in a a particular situation, etc...  it could work without totally messing up balance.

Also something seems funny about the whole shield over the ship. For one the shield looks to large within the fleet. Also how none of the stronger ships such as flagships don't have them seems weird.

Yea, eventually they may get the same thing, lot of questions to answer first.  I liked the idea of the forcefield module because it kinda gets the normal sci-fi idea of starship shields that are actually, well, force fields   The current graphics are placeholder for that, in any event.

Anyways sorry if I'm bothering, offending, or just annoying anyone entirely.

Don't worry about it, we're grateful for the feedback

EDIT: I also realized when I built turrets on the riot starship they seems half in the ship and half above it, a little messed up and not pleasing to the eye whatsoever. I apologize because I know this is prerelease and still of course nowhere near finished. I was just going to suggest maybe if there was a way to make the turrets always on top.

Yes, it is planned to fix the draw ordering, though as you say it's a bit tricky because we can't just draw all modules last or you'll see ships flying between other ships and their modules, etc.

EDIT: Also I have a side question while I'm here, I hope I'm not disobeying any rules or anything just thought I'd ask while I've posted here. One thing I don't understand about the AI in general is how certain planets can be alerted and some can't. I would understand if they were humans but aren't their cores, the main centers you have to destroy, kind of like their main brains, like skynet from terminator. If that were true once you attack one AI planet wouldn't all of their planets know you were there? I don't quite understand this.

Normally you could ask that in a new thread in the main forum or something like that since it is a bit off topic, but it's fine for this time.  "Alert" just means that the AI knows you are right next to that planet and thus it is reinforcing it.  Even if you send 1000 ships 10 hops to their homeworld if they lose and the homeworld is still 10 hops from the front it's not going to reinforce it as if it was a border world.  The "unaware of your presence" wording seems a bit misleading in this regard.  Of course, I could be misunderstanding it.

EDIT: Sorry one more thing, I promise. Is there any way to set formations for your ships? I saw a control node that had some sort of formation setting but couldn't figure out exactly what it did. Like is there a way to make fighters always in front, then bombers, frigates, starships, and long range ships?

If you want the ships to maintain their relative position to each other, use J+right-click instead of just right-click; if you issue a normal move order later on they will break out of formation mode UNLESS you build that control node, which makes the formation mode apply to subsequent normal move orders.  Basically some people live by formations, some people just use them every now and then, thus the node.

Another thing you might be interested in is the arc move, shift-Q-right-click (yes I know that's an insane combination, we're out of keys) a point, hold the keys, and move the cursor some distance away and release; it will form the selected ships into a circle around the first point at a radius of the distance between the first and second point.  I find it useful for setting up formations and then use J+right-click to get them to keep that arrangement.

[I-KP]

Did someone say battle shielding..?  Well it just so happens that...

[keith.lamothe]

Excellent! (I particularly like the first one)  Hmm, how is the current force field effect handled?  Is it purely rotation of a single image with some glowing and blending on an oscillating step, or are there actually frames of animation?  Though these new effects might do better with a little animation either way.

How were you thinking the animation would work?

[I-KP]

Chris did something clever with slow rotation and luminosity intensity pulsing and tinting.  The above (below) aren't animated, they're just PNGs.

PNGs: http://www.btinternet.com/~shotgun.anaemia/shields.rar

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm, I'll have to give it a try at some point, hopefully for 3.031.

[I-KP]

Really..?  Kewl!   

[RCIX]

every star ship line needs to jealously guard its shtick, IMHO, and any areas of cross-over functionality should probably remain very minor indeed.

*lightbulb* (why oh why cant SMF get a few more emoticons? ;) ) *runs to suggestions forum*

Chris did something clever with slow rotation and luminosity intensity pulsing and tinting.  The above (below) aren't animated, they're just PNGs.

PNGs: http://www.btinternet.com/~shotgun.anaemia/shields.rar

That reminds me: i also did something cool with that setup, i just don't know where the thread went...

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Thoughts:

I like the munitions boosting mechanics now... but then again, I would.  

mostly though, the riot starship

-modules are nifty
-the ship can do ungodly amounts of engine damage..  
-IMO, the ship needs an overall range reduction. And a bulldozer on front. Or maybe a chainsaw. I'm not picky.
-the way the modules work is a bit messy, but that is expected
-if you select a starship constructor after building riot starship modules, you have to re-enter the starship menu
-module health balance is maybe questionable. the modules in toto have more HP than the starship does, and the modules are pretty cheap. dunno about that. this is something hard to get a feel on until the AI uses module ships against me...
-the laser modules seem much better than the machinegun... ? just my impression
-IMO, ideally the riot shotguns would have AOE cones, rather than just simultaneous shots.
-"Riot" role thoughts: the ship could use modules which reduce the ability of enemies to do damage, or modules that control movement more directly than engine damage. Tractor/gravity turret modules that improve with research into the relevant turrets?
-Module suggestion: Grenade Burst - fires a pattern of 6-7 grenades, long reload.

[Kjara]

N'thing the idea that having limited customization within each line(such as the suggested fleet can either get bigger guns or better boosting), is a great idea.  I think that having a few common modules(say the force field module and 1 or 2 other more general purposes ones), and then 1-3 specialized modules per unit might be the way to go.  I do like the idea of (semi-minorly) better modules being available as candy techs too.

Just a comment though, might want to relook at the engine damage it does(and/or the engine health that ships have).  I mean doing 110 engine damage looks better than doing 100, but its pretty much the same in almost every case since such a large percentage of ships have only 100 engine health.  I'd love to see some ships(say like forcefields which when I was fighting spiders always got left behind due to taking spider shots for other ships), to have quite a bit more engine health.

[keith.lamothe]

I've already nerfed the riot's engine damage for 3.031 quite a bit, just hadn't posted about it, here are the testing results:

5 Riot MkIs in 2M-2L-2S vs 2000 Bomber MkIs exiting wormhole at around 17000 range, results by the time the bombers were able to fire:

Pre engine damage nerf:
25 bombers destroyed
600(!) bombers engine-dead

Post engine damage nerf (shotgun from 110 to 20 ed, all other modules ed halved) :

60 bombers destroyed
140 bombers engine-dead

Needless to say things went downhill fast in both tests when the bombers started shooting.

I've re-buffed the shotgun engine damage up from 20 to 35 per shot (was 110 in 3.030), so the numbers will be somewhat more favorable than the post test.

[keith.lamothe]

Chris did something clever with slow rotation and luminosity intensity pulsing and tinting.  The above (below) aren't animated, they're just PNGs.

PNGs: http://www.btinternet.com/~shotgun.anaemia/shields.rar

I-KP, it looks like the game has 3 pngs to form the force field effect; you can see them in {game_directory}\Images\ForceField ; 1 and 3 are 768x768 and may be the only ones used (I need to just step through the code and figure it out myself), 2 is 1024x1024.  I'll do some testing with just plugging yours in but since it's 512x512 it may be necessary to make a 768 version.  Please don't feel obligated, but these shields look really cool, and hopefully that will translate well into the game

Thanks,
Keith

Edit: of course, since it will be handling different cases than the normal force fields maybe 512 is fine.  I'll test it.

Edit 2: ok, 1.png is used for normal forcefields, 2.png is used for counter shot stuff, 3.png is used for very strong forcefield; I think I'll add your fractal one as a probationary 4.png and see how things go.