Mind helping out Chris a bit? Lists of features and their basics - V2!

[x4000]

Okay, there were too many conflicting things that I and others said in the other thread, and it was becoming a spiraling mess of discussion that was becoming quickly unhelpful to anyone, so let's try again.   Most of the blame on that was mine for not being clear and for giving conflicting requests from the start.

Chief Organizer: Cinth/b]
Cinth is the chief organizer of this document, so I want people to actually listen to him.   It's very useful to have a specific person in charge of organizing anything that is created by a group, and in this case I don't want that person to be me (since that kind of defeats the point).  I'm doing my best to clarify what I want out of the document from my end, and then I'm leaving Cinth in charge of actually "making it so."  Thank you to everyone!

The Document Link
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E78-KtgIKyAExd9VpIKe2aXEKFO14A8b9zRLwRENkRk/edit#

My Overall Goals (Meta)
I'm describing these as meta-goals, because there are any number of ways to get at these.  But these are the core intents of what I'm trying to set up, and I think that this is important to establish.

1. I want to have a comprehensive way of viewing everything from AI War Classic (ideally ignoring expansion status or origin history but including everything, since everything is equal for our purposes here regardless of when it was added or why).

2. I want to have a way for people to give me subjective feelings about units (and thus the related mechanics) that they like or hate, and why.  This is NOT A PLACE TO ARGUE WITH EACH OTHER.  Not yet.

3. Based on that list and the related feedback, plus my own feelings and knowledge of underlying structure of the game code (which units share code bits and bobs), I'm going to work on the design document.

4. I'm looking to have wider game mechanics in here along with the units, because I don't really care about units.  Really this document is meant to be a "What's in AI War Classic (and let's not forget Kevin in the attic)" list.  Speaking about things in terms of how you felt about them in AI War Classic is useful to hear because that's how you think about them historically.  That said, ultimately I'm looking for cross-connections and mechanics.

What I Will Do With This (Concrete)
By parsing all of the commentary, and looking at the common themes and so forth, I'll be working on the design document from a features-standpoint.  Or rather, a mechanics standpoint.

The design document will contain no ship designs, AI type designs, or specific plots or whatever else along those lines.  Those things are data that can easily be haggled over in a moddable game such as this, during the early access period and before.

My goals in the design document are the following
1. To make sure that all of the TOOLS are there so that people can create all their favorite things, or so that we can create them for you.

2. To make sure that I'm not missing any tools that you/we will need to do that, so that our scope is complete and understood from a coding standpoint.

3. To make it clear what tools and mechanics are going to intentionally be left behind either permanently or for AIW2 v1.0, either because of coding complexity, bad interactions with other features, redundancy, weight on the CPU that isn't worth what you get out of it, or simple dislike by players.

Therefore, things you can skip commentary on...
I don't need to know how you feel about laser gatlings, or how you feel about bombers versus frigates versus fighters.  Honestly those are just numbers juggling things with art.  All of those could be modded in or out at will.

THAT said, things like the hull types discussion here on the forums (or other ways of creating triangles of ships) are really useful, and my feeling is that simply being reminded "oh yeah, that thing exists from expansion 5" might spark some thoughts from someone that then leads to useful discourse here on the forum in one of those mechanics-focused threads.

About organization
1. I would like to have this all in one document, because then it is easier for me to peruse and react to all in one place.  A trello is infinitely more daunting to me, because I have to dip in and out constantly and I can't tell what is updated and what is not, etc.

2. Having this all in one document also encourages people to keep their thoughts brief.  You don't have to sell me on anything.  If I disagree with what you say in a way that would impact the design document, then I'll make a topic and we can discuss that in more depth.  What I need right now is "just the facts m'am" in such a way that I can most efficiently create the design document core.  I am attempting to be similarly brief yet clear there.

3. The reason I don't care about expansions is that I really want to be expansion-blind.  So organizing it by that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.  I should have said that upfront.

4. If there are units of like types, then grouping those together is good.

5. If you want to make a section of "ships that are just variants of other ships with different shooty values," then that might help with organization and lower the intimidation factor for everyone.

[chemical_art]

I certainly enjoy the salvage mechanic, however I will say that it is a in the big picture like a band-aid for netflix time. An evolutionary update. So if a newer, more efficient mechanic that is revolutionary in nature occurs then the salvage mechanic may not be necessary.

Edit: So Chris structured like this?

[Aklyon]

This explains it much better, Chris.

[x4000]

Awesome, glad to help.

[chemical_art]

Hacking is a really obscure mechanic including how it is obtained and how it is executed. I would want it to be refined to be far easier to understand and to discourage hoarding it until the end game.

Journal entries are an excellent way to provide narrative, so the code structure to allow them to be used in creative ways is ideal, including from its potential use in mods.

[x4000]

Let's keep the discussion of specific mechanics to their respective threads, particularly if they are going to be large and theoretically contentious, if you don't mind -- I've got separate threads for those two things for you.

[x4000]

Added note in the above, relating to this document:

Chief Organizer: Cinth/b]
Cinth is the chief organizer of this document, so I want people to actually listen to him.   It's very useful to have a specific person in charge of organizing anything that is created by a group, and in this case I don't want that person to be me (since that kind of defeats the point).  I'm doing my best to clarify what I want out of the document from my end, and then I'm leaving Cinth in charge of actually "making it so."  Thank you to everyone!

[chemical_art]

Trying really hard to format this thread correctly (I am trying to stay organized the best I can). Thanks for the guidancce:

While I enjoy boosting units (armor boostings, munitions boosters, shield bearers) What I find annoying is how to keep full use out of them unless ALL ships stay together. Wish there was a way they could stay attached together with a "mother" unit.

[x4000]

Wish there was a way they could stay attached together with a "mother" unit.

THIS IS FREAKING BRILLIANT.

Thanks for that!

[Cinth]

Wish there was a way they could stay attached together with a "mother" unit.

THIS IS FREAKING BRILLIANT.

Thanks for that!

Actually I think something like the formations from Homeworld might work.

[chemical_art]

Yes scaling things up formations in general would be great.  You could build upon that and give units stances that dictate behavior. So for example carriers are static, suicide units are aggressive, etc.

Would overall allow a streamlining of units that ultimately cuts down on micro.

[x4000]

It's been a while since I played Homeworld, and I kind of bounced off of it.  I've played other games with stances, though, and frankly things like attack-move and FRD and so on are based around that concept.  What's the difference here?

[Cinth]

I was more thinking in terms of Control groups actually moving at group speed and such.  That would keep specific units together all the time.

Formations in HW were just a pretty way to show that in 3d.

[chemical_art]

I really don't want to get into the weeds for something like this (could use its own thread) so I will just say that new options to control units on the control group level would be great. The actual how should be fleshed out elsewhere.

[Pumpkin]

Thanks a lot for clarifying your goals.