Ship design woes

[zgrssd]

Upgrade just needs much more detailed categories.
Instead of Standoff Weapons, it needs missile Standoff, Torpedo Standoff, etc.
Maybe even split by size and with extra lockouts against significant size changes.

If I had some way to add categories to the game, I could have done this via modding I think.

Exactly, but let's not go down the Bethasda road

If I could show it, they would see it works and then do it properly.
There is no greater goal then having your mod turned into a basegame feature.

[Almora]

Uhm, that is what I just said, in DW1 we had Auto Upgrade and Manual Upgrade, both auto created a new design and mark the old one obsolete. In DW2 if you haven't noticed we lost the manual upgrade. Leading to having to do the click click click click click click click stuff to get the same effect. It's not a good thing<tm> to make something take more clicks to do.

Not sure the auto upgrade can be fixed due to the complexity of the new hardpoints. Unless the firing arcs is just on the model to fool us users and doesn't actually work in game. Though most of the other auto upgrade quirks should be fixable at some point. They need to create better groups so Crew modules doesn't upgrade to Star Marines or Missiles to short range blasters.

Yes the firing arks are in the game, just watch a ship with direct fire weapons doing their little dance, trying to line up a shot.

And thank you for explaining what badly implemnted meant

I stopped using auto-upgrade and the option to create pre-equipped designs because the components are all over the place and I need a few minutes to check if everything I want is in there, sorting the components by type
and then retrofitting everything the way I want it.


In the beginning I thought filling all hardpoints with missiles was a good idea as well,
then came pirates with PD and my stations and ships did no damage at all.

So the big energy weapons and big shields is still the way to go.

As for a good solution ... bring back the upgrade ourself button.
Or add a way to "lock" components, so the upgrade option can't touch them.
And of course implement that only components of the same type get replaced ->
Missile by Missile
Laser by Laser
Transport by Transport

Upgrade just needs much more detailed categories.
Instead of Standoff Weapons, it needs missile Standoff, Torpedo Standoff, etc.
Maybe even split by size and with extra lockouts against significant size changes.

If I had some way to add categories to the game, I could have done this via modding I think.

Agreed, the main problem is that the ai doesn't have enough info to upgrade things effectively. More categories would probably fix most of the issue

[Emperor0Akim]

I am playing with the thought, if Armor Components could be removed as a Equipment Bay and had to be made as a basic decission for the hull.
Then I am thinking about how I still want to decide how thick the armor should be and I am looping around to it still should be a Component.

Any thoughts ?

[zgrssd]

I am playing with the thought, if Armor Components could be removed as a Equipment Bay and had to be made as a basic decission for the hull.
Then I am thinking about how I still want to decide how thick the armor should be and I am looping around to it still should be a Component.

Any thoughts ?

Having multiple Components encapsulates the tradeoff between heavy and light amoring perfectly.
If you got 3 Components of Armor, the clearly your reserved a lot more weight (Size) on thick armor.

[Almora]

I am playing with the thought, if Armor Components could be removed as a Equipment Bay and had to be made as a basic decission for the hull.
Then I am thinking about how I still want to decide how thick the armor should be and I am looping around to it still should be a Component.

Any thoughts ?

Having multiple Components encapsulates the tradeoff between heavy and light amoring perfectly.
If you got 3 Components of Armor, the clearly your reserved a lot more weight (Size) on thick armor.

Definitely, the gameplay decision of adding armor "components" is equivalent to adding any extra armor on to the hull. The more you add the thicker the armor, and the less space you have. I like how its implemented, especially with the different types of armor

[arvcran2]

A lot of discussion here about thrusters v vectoring engines.

They are actually the same beast in principle without going into what they are designed to accomplish and how they go about it.

Some of the woes to do with designing moving hulls are constrained by the DW2 Universal rules.

One major late decision was made in DW2 beta to halt ships to 0 speed instantly in order to solve combat issues related to being fun and have resolution. Immediate stops are not realistic, at least to my knowledge, and somewhat negate the need to have rapid weapon arc realignment, read: maneuverability. That decision made a huge difference in how combat resolved - there may also have been performance reasons as part of the line of thinking to have ships stop. I'd rather they continue moving and allow ships to have far better reorientation to maintain weapon engagement. There are also collision avoidance considerations that must have been part of that decision.

I've proposed allowing to add as many vectoring engines as there are possible thrust engines in a design as long as there is space, power, crew etc..., to allow for it. I would say let them, VEs, be internal components, under the maneuvering yellow section of the designer, to expedite implementation and 3d effects, but by all means let them be seen on the hulls if so be the desire .

Having decided that the only tech available to alter a hull's orientation in time was to have vectoring thrusters, is another concept worth considering, there are other ways and also fictional ways to do that.