I'm going through all the ship mechanics and ships today.

[chemical_art]

How has the progress on this going? I am reading through the notes and I am not sure...

[PokerChen]

I'm assuming Chris will come back to it after another round of everything else that needs to be done for the kick-starter.
Also, I wonder whether the eventual final ship list will be constrained by the time to implement mechanics, the time to implement art, or the time to balance them all.

[Cinth]

I'm assuming Chris will come back to it after another round of everything else that needs to be done for the kick-starter.
Also, I wonder whether the eventual final ship list will be constrained by the time to implement mechanics, the time to implement art, or the time to balance them all.

 

[PokerChen]

I'm assuming Chris will come back to it after another round of everything else that needs to be done for the kick-starter.
Also, I wonder whether the eventual final ship list will be constrained by the time to implement mechanics, the time to implement art, or the time to balance them all.

*Does not reveal Chris's plans to turn AI War 2 into a space pilot sim like Eve Online.*

FIFY. ;P

[Cinth]

 

[tadrinth]

Hrm, I think the following kinds of attrition are missing from the doc (and Chris already went through that section):

* attrition on hostile wormhole transit (transport, spirecraft scout)
* attrition while on high-mark planet (spirecraft jumpship)

Also, the concept of 'build points' is used by things like the Dire Guardian Lair, where build points accumulate when the planet is on alert. Not sure if anything else works like that, H/K factories maybe?

[Cinth]

Hrm, I think the following kinds of attrition are missing from the doc (and Chris already went through that section):

* attrition on hostile wormhole transit (transport, spirecraft scout)
* attrition while on high-mark planet (spirecraft jumpship)

Also, the concept of 'build points' is used by things like the Dire Guardian Lair, where build points accumulate when the planet is on alert. Not sure if anything else works like that, H/K factories maybe?

Somethings in due time...

* attrition on hostile wormhole transit (transport, spirecraft scout) - Fuel should account for this rather easily.  Fuel should limit how far you can go with the transports and feel better than attrition.

* attrition while on high-mark planet (spirecraft jumpship) - Jumpships are probably not going to look like their AIWC counterparts.

Also, the concept of 'build points' is used by things like the Dire Guardian Lair, where build points accumulate when the planet is on alert. Not sure if anything else works like that, H/K factories maybe? - There's probably a better way to make these function that feels natural and nasty.

[tadrinth]

I brought them up not because I think they need reimplemented, but because those mechanics were there to solve certain problems.  If those problems need to be solved in AIW2, and if those solutions come in the form of new mechanics, then those mechanics need to be in the design doc, even if they're not the same mechanics. 

Well, that and just for the sake of completeness; Chris did ask for every single mechanic in AIW1.

I would be much happier if transports just refused to go more than X hops out, rather than attritioning, assuming they return at all.   I'm not sure how the currently planned 'fuel is like energy except you have a separate pool for mobile units' system solves the transport issue; did that change again? 

I think DG Lairs and any other build point-based units will work really well as ship bays, actually.  A DG lair could be nicely implemented as a ship bay that contains 3 dire guardians, and periodically builds and releases dire guardians when alerted. That's basically how it works today, except the ship bay version lets you see what's going to spawn.  You'd still need a way to say 'this ship bay doesn't get reinforcements but instead builds X when alerted', ideally in XML for the modders, and perhaps specified in time units rather than build points for clarity.  I think Preservation Wardens and Roaming Enclaves and Neinzul Nests use a vaguely similar system, as well.  I don't think these need to be implemented very differently under the hood, they just need a better UI that shows what they've built and how long you have until they build more.