Poll: Are the Changes to Ship design good?

[Jorgen_CAB]

I never liked the completely free design in DWU as it was... I like the current version allot more than the old.

This way we have more differences between species and ship types are different too where hulls have more specializations.

[cornfed]

I voted undecided. My initial reaction was poor because I like to design fast and mobile missile ships for my escorts, balancing the diminishing returns of adding more engines vs the added mass. I was unable to do that with the new system because of the limited engine slots. I don't like that.

But I'm still not too far up the tech tree, so I voted undecided because I want to give it a chance to see how the changes manifest as I unlock new hulls and tech.

My suspicion though is that the limitations will make it less fun to design ships because they end up being largely the same since I am no longer balancing thrust vs mass. Thrust is capped and my only decision is what type of weapons to put on.

Could be wrong though. Maybe that's addressed higher up the tech tree.

[Stormy Fairweather]

I like it, but there is one thing i think should be changed. all internal bays should be compatible with 'general' components. external ones being weapons/sensor/engine exclusive makes sense, but general components should be able to slot anywhere inside there is room.

[Ranbir]

I don't mind it. Only thing I've noticed is the visualisation slots don't care what component you put in there, it's the same visual item.

In terms of actually designing the ship with components from the list; I prefer DWU. All the information was displayed on one screen without me having to do endless scrolling on the right-sided info panel. That is really annoying. I also want the ability to open the pedia entry for each component with an easy click, which isn't possible either.

I get with the 3D model that takes up the space in the middle of the screen but I'd happily decrease that so I get more actual textual information available in one go without me having to scroll a lot.

[Emperor0Akim]

I voted undecided because, oh boy, Ship Design in DW2 just sucks.
As a fan of micromanaging one of the most important parts of DW:U was the ship designer,
because pre-designs were just the worst.
And the option to save a list of designs and load them on game start to work from there was just brilliant.

Funny enough for me the hardpoints everybody is getting on and on about are not the problem.

DW:U had in general the same Ship Design as Space Empires IV only worse, but still good.

DW2 removed the good parts and changed them to worse. Like Space Empires V


Narrow Scrollbars are less informative than a full screen info dump and more work.
Moving only my eyes is still easier faster and more intiutive than moving the mouse across the screen
to than scroll and search until I find what I need to then scroll back ..

Colorful Bubbles to show me where components go are great .. if I could drag components there .. with my mouse..
I am playing this game on a PC after all.

Moving components from a narrow scrollable list to a narrow scrollable list below is just bad design, I see no objection why those lists could not have been next to each other.

The Hardpoints at least remove in part the DW:U Problem of the component build order-
Still an option to replace components instead of .. remove component, add new component,
fuckup the build order, remove all components and build ship from scratch .. , would be nice.

Space Empires had this option, thats one reason it had better design options than DW:U

What I don't like is the option on Hard Limits, like Designs can only have 2 Engines. Thats gamey and stupid.
If I want 5 Engines on an escort and the tonnage allows it .. then there will be 5 engines.
Or to put in in technical / RP / ingame terms : I want my escort to have an engine with the equivalent thrust of
five standard ion engines.

Ship Design/ Ship Class Design is choosing a design philosophy and then building the ship around this philosophy within the physical constraints of my current ability.

Read a text about Ship Class Definition, those are pretty fluid.

The discussion about thrust and vector so far was stupid : It's Space, Thrust and Vector are both essential in a ship, the comparison with ships and planes is stupid. There is no drag or lift. Both systems fullfill completely different roles. As does the component hyperdrive. What they do compete for is Hullspace for Armor and Weapons, because the are on the outside of a ship and vectoring engines are never ever on the back of a space ship.
Question : I am not far enough in research , can I still use 2 Hyperdrives to get both max speed and minimum jump time ?

The A-10 Warthog is a prime example for Designing around a Single Feature.
Yo Smart Dude, we have this big f..g gun. Make it fly.

Another one is we want all the guns and all the armor on this ship. Let's call it MS Dreadnought.
oops we totally redefined the Ship Class of the Main Battleship .. lets rename it after our ship ..

The second reason why SE had better ship design options and the reason why I build 1000kt Escorts :
DW:U has not enough ship classes.
For me It was not cheese, it was not names.
It was the Retrofit Button. If I wanted to use the retrofit button to upgrade my ship to the next design in its Class/Namespace I had to get creative.

I have about 10-15 Ship Military Ship Classes I use in DW:U, each with different roles in mind,
3 different exploration ships
2 types of escort
3 types of frigates 1 with a civillian purpose
2 or 3 types of troop transport
and so forth ..

and one unthinking click of the retrofit button ( fleet or ship ) could disable a fleet
for a while

In Space Empires there was the option to create individual ship classes which then described the retrofit path and could not be changed into another shiptype.
This was based on hull types which carried over the restrictions and allowances of the basic hull.
And it was good.


I think those are enough ramlbings for now.

[Kruos]

The changes are good yes. In DWU it was really too easy to make OP design the IA would have no chances to beat. Now with the added design constraints it is more difficult to exploit the system. The UX of the ship designer could be better through, as noted just above.

[LordMM]

I think the changes make a lot of sense, DWU design of fitting 20 engines into an escort felt sort of weirdly gamey and forced you to always build the largest possible ship. Though, I understand why people would love it. I feel the change is positive and people will grow into this in time.

[rxnnxs]

I voted for undecided because I hope it will change in a way that makes designing easier.

The old system was really hard to use. and finding components was not easy. it is also not that easy in the new one, but even there are some things you have to find out and is not documented (but I also do not like to read those intros, they are too long).
When I am not knowing what I do or have questions, I take that intro for that screen..
But also the pop up help annoys more than it helps. When i need an explanation for a thing that i do not understand, the help text is not there, for others it comes and block the sight on a place I would like to see...
take for instance the engines. uuuh, they have to be, if you have three, symmetrical, and therefore if you click the second one, it goes to the bottom. then the help popup block this engine and you do not know if you havew a vector or a trhust engine there.. while we are speaking about that. hey, a vector engine uses the slot of a main thruster?
WHAT? nah, please, we need a vector slot also..

but back to topic:
when you press a second time to the left top explorer with all the components, the colors change. is that documented?
it switches also in a different mode.
in the first mode, it fills the bottom left part of the screen with (if applicable) the components that are selected in the top left component explorer.
if you are in the different mode, the empty component bays of a ship habe a drop down if you press and hold the left mouse button. then you can select all fitting components.
it even work in conjunction of the filter from the component filter.
If you have just filtered for the latest stuff, only that comes in the dropdown menu.
I think this is awesome!

but like described earliler about vector slots.
You know Polaris Sector where some people complain about the tetris style playing components?
Personally, I think this is very very thoughtthrough, because late, better compoinents fit better into it than older, and therefore newer components can be placed in other ship designs or even more, but not always.
So I felt, almost knew, that it was exactly designed that way NOT to be able to rotate those components.

But here, the ship designer makes me feel like:

they decided to take a bay size system just for the sake of it, and then, the size is not that thoughthrough.
I mean, I have a sensor bay or two with a size of 125 and 25 (I am doing it now out of my mind) and then you place in there a sensor that has 15 and in the other one with lets say 25..
now I build my ship and it days: design is too big.
WHAT? What will happen when I have a component that is as big as 125? Do I have to throw everything else out?
I don't get it, but I have not playing that long to know if this is really an issue.

But my first feeling was: I take a destroyer, give him nothing really special, normal weapons, thrusters, vecor engines (well.. very limited amount you know..) and before I even can decide between armor or shields, the design is too heavy.

WHAT???

I really did not expect to have a mini game that is so hard to solve - with no fun and all.
yeah, that is work and I want to have fun with this game.

DWU had unlimited engines to place?
Ok, I did not know it, even when I played it for years.
Maybe I did not wonder about it because Space Empires V handels it the same..
But somehow it always in my eyes was not that smart to build in that much, because you had to use other stuff more, reacotrs, fuel, crew, apartments.. and then the weight increased and so on..

[Almora]

I like that different ships are forced into different roles, But I really do not like how certain module types are restricted.

-Why can't I make a ship that has 8 engines strapped to it and its only job is to go fast and scan things?
-Why can't I slap as much armor on something as size allows?
-Why can't I add a whole bunch of point defense/more small weapons vs a large one?(this one makes more sense but still
-Why can't I put shields or sensors in place of weapons?

I understand and support certain limitations, but for most of the designer (if not all) power draw and size limitations alone are good enough. I'm not sure what the best method is but I can speculate

-Better specialized modifiers to ship types (like cost, or some sort of fleet bonus) could encourage variety and specialization
-differentiating between external and internal module slots make sense, and that can work as a limit to shields/ weapons, while still allowing other modules to go there with debuffs(or vice versa)
-increasing the size of major modules (like engines or weapoms) and tweaking that balance could also keep things balanced well while preserving more freedom

Space is a vacuum, so all sorts of wacky designs can (and dhould) show up, I really enjoy the spirit of the designer, but I do think its too constrained as of current

[Almora]

What I don't like is the option on Hard Limits, like Designs can only have 2 Engines. Thats gamey and stupid.
If I want 5 Engines on an escort and the tonnage allows it .. then there will be 5 engines.
Or to put in in technical / RP / ingame terms : I want my escort to have an engine with the equivalent thrust of
five standard ion engines.

Ship Design/ Ship Class Design is choosing a design philosophy and then building the ship around this philosophy within the physical constraints of my current ability.

Read a text about Ship Class Definition, those are pretty fluid.

The discussion about thrust and vector so far was stupid : It's Space, Thrust and Vector are both essential in a ship, the comparison with ships and planes is stupid. There is no drag or lift. Both systems fullfill completely different roles. As does the component hyperdrive. What they do compete for is Hullspace for Armor and Weapons, because the are on the outside of a ship and vectoring engines are never ever on the back of a space ship.
Question : I am not far enough in research , can I still use 2 Hyperdrives to get both max speed and minimum jump time ?

The A-10 Warthog is a prime example for Designing around a Single Feature.
Yo Smart Dude, we have this big f..g gun. Make it fly.

Another one is we want all the guns and all the armor on this ship. Let's call it MS Dreadnought.
oops we totally redefined the Ship Class of the Main Battleship .. lets rename it after our ship ..

This sums up my point pretty well, currently it's hard to design a ship around a certain philosophy, as you can only really design around the hull type. The restrictions of tonnage, and managing essential systems like crew and power already provide decent restrictions, so leaving the rest up to the player isn't too unbalanced, and makes sense, as physical restraints still apply

[zgrssd]

What I don't like is the option on Hard Limits, like Designs can only have 2 Engines. Thats gamey and stupid.
If I want 5 Engines on an escort and the tonnage allows it .. then there will be 5 engines.
Or to put in in technical / RP / ingame terms : I want my escort to have an engine with the equivalent thrust of
five standard ion engines.

Ship Design/ Ship Class Design is choosing a design philosophy and then building the ship around this philosophy within the physical constraints of my current ability.

Read a text about Ship Class Definition, those are pretty fluid.

The discussion about thrust and vector so far was stupid : It's Space, Thrust and Vector are both essential in a ship, the comparison with ships and planes is stupid. There is no drag or lift. Both systems fullfill completely different roles. As does the component hyperdrive. What they do compete for is Hullspace for Armor and Weapons, because the are on the outside of a ship and vectoring engines are never ever on the back of a space ship.
Question : I am not far enough in research , can I still use 2 Hyperdrives to get both max speed and minimum jump time ?

The A-10 Warthog is a prime example for Designing around a Single Feature.
Yo Smart Dude, we have this big f..g gun. Make it fly.

Another one is we want all the guns and all the armor on this ship. Let's call it MS Dreadnought.
oops we totally redefined the Ship Class of the Main Battleship .. lets rename it after our ship ..

This sums up my point pretty well, currently it's hard to design a ship around a certain philosophy, as you can only really design around the hull type. The restrictions of tonnage, and managing essential systems like crew and power already provide decent restrictions, so leaving the rest up to the player isn't too unbalanced, and makes sense, as physical restraints still apply

Where does that "2 Engine" limit argument come from?
Sure, a Frigatte only has 2. But then it does not have a lot of mass to move around either!
And with a Patrol Escort, it is 3 Engines.

A human Patrol Escort with almost 400 Space used makes a solid 10/78/89 with 11 deg/sec.
If you want to go fast, 3 Engines +30% is a solid baseline.

[Almora]

What I don't like is the option on Hard Limits, like Designs can only have 2 Engines. Thats gamey and stupid.
If I want 5 Engines on an escort and the tonnage allows it .. then there will be 5 engines.
Or to put in in technical / RP / ingame terms : I want my escort to have an engine with the equivalent thrust of
five standard ion engines.

Ship Design/ Ship Class Design is choosing a design philosophy and then building the ship around this philosophy within the physical constraints of my current ability.

Read a text about Ship Class Definition, those are pretty fluid.

The discussion about thrust and vector so far was stupid : It's Space, Thrust and Vector are both essential in a ship, the comparison with ships and planes is stupid. There is no drag or lift. Both systems fullfill completely different roles. As does the component hyperdrive. What they do compete for is Hullspace for Armor and Weapons, because the are on the outside of a ship and vectoring engines are never ever on the back of a space ship.
Question : I am not far enough in research , can I still use 2 Hyperdrives to get both max speed and minimum jump time ?

The A-10 Warthog is a prime example for Designing around a Single Feature.
Yo Smart Dude, we have this big f..g gun. Make it fly.

Another one is we want all the guns and all the armor on this ship. Let's call it MS Dreadnought.
oops we totally redefined the Ship Class of the Main Battleship .. lets rename it after our ship ..

This sums up my point pretty well, currently it's hard to design a ship around a certain philosophy, as you can only really design around the hull type. The restrictions of tonnage, and managing essential systems like crew and power already provide decent restrictions, so leaving the rest up to the player isn't too unbalanced, and makes sense, as physical restraints still apply

Where does that "2 Engine" limit argument come from?
Sure, a Frigatte only has 2. But then it does not have a lot of mass to move around either!
And with a Patrol Escort, it is 3 Engines.

A human Patrol Escort with almost 400 Space used makes a solid 10/78/89 with 11 deg/sec.
If you want to go fast, 3 Engines +30% is a solid baseline.

Its not just the engine limit, but what if I want 4 engines on my patrol escort? I think external hard points and internal space works pretty well for balancing, but not being able to put a shield in place of a weapon, or limited armor, or only 1 slot for sensors, etc. Theres no reason for most of these restrictions and I'd just rather they weren't there

[zgrssd]

This sums up my point pretty well, currently it's hard to design a ship around a certain philosophy, as you can only really design around the hull type. The restrictions of tonnage, and managing essential systems like crew and power already provide decent restrictions, so leaving the rest up to the player isn't too unbalanced, and makes sense, as physical restraints still apply

Where does that "2 Engine" limit argument come from?
Sure, a Frigatte only has 2. But then it does not have a lot of mass to move around either!
And with a Patrol Escort, it is 3 Engines.

A human Patrol Escort with almost 400 Space used makes a solid 10/78/89 with 11 deg/sec.
If you want to go fast, 3 Engines +30% is a solid baseline.

Its not just the engine limit, but what if I want 4 engines on my patrol escort? I think external hard points and internal space works pretty well for balancing, but not being able to put a shield in place of a weapon, or limited armor, or only 1 slot for sensors, etc. Theres no reason for most of these restrictions and I'd just rather they weren't there

What if you want 4 engines?

I do you one better:
Why do you want 4 Engines?

How much more speed do you need to get out of it?
Why are 2-3 not enough already?
What actuall, practical use does the 4th engine have that was not fullfilled by Nr2 or Nr3?

[Spidey]

I am increasingly content with the new slot limitations, but one thing I really think could be improved is information display in the ship designer.

DW2 Ship Design screen.png (1.47 MiB) Viewed 1784 times

This picture is a bit blunt, but I do think it showcases the issue. What is the range of this ship? Speed, acceleration, turning rate? Weapons abilities? Defensive abilities? Other abilities? Those things are really interesting when doing ship design and they're not visible unless I scroll down in the right pane. Meanwhile, there's a ton of screen space that isn't helping me design a ship quickly and efficiently.

And of course right pane has "junk information" that isn't really all that relevant. I very strongly doubt anyone has calculated the exact amount of energy they want the ship capable of generating on a full tank. It's a nice thing to display but does it have to be at the top of a scrolled list? And those "ratings" are not very valuable either.

I would much rather look at less constructed numbers that tell me how much shield strength, how much armour, how much dodge, how much point defense, how much alpha strike and DPS over various ranges. And of course how long the ship can keep firing while sprinting.

As a start, it would be much better if the ship display was a toggle and when not shown then a lot more of the screen is used to display actually useful information. Secondarily, it would be nice if the weapon slots had their angle coverage on hover.

[rxnnxs]

That is a question I never like to hear: "Why do you want that?"
The answer should always be: "Because I want to do it" or "Because I want that freedom of choice".

If you are selling a product and a consumer asks why that product can not do this or that, the seller always is teached to ask
"Why do you want to do that? It works so good this and that way.."

We want to have the freedom of choice.
If you now have a design that allows you to put in a third, 4th 5th engine and so on.. let us do it, but with a programmed drawback.
It just adds a given percentage to the lets say off-limit thruster number.
up to three thruster add without a drawback. all after that number, increase it only to lets say 30% or whatever.
scout: 5 engines,
frigate 4
destroyer 3 and so on. and after that always 80% less effective than the engine before that. So it never does nothing, but it always does less than the ideal amount for this design.

The same would work for sensors and shields.

By the way, Star Ruler had an awesome Design System.

P.S.: And what is even worse is that message:
"You design is slower than a comparable class of this design" and I wonder, how can this be?
Is there only one design choice that is right?
If I max out speed, the turn rate is too low compared to other ships in that class, if I want a decent turn rate, the top speed is lower than average... HMMM

[Almora]

Where does that "2 Engine" limit argument come from?
Sure, a Frigatte only has 2. But then it does not have a lot of mass to move around either!
And with a Patrol Escort, it is 3 Engines.

A human Patrol Escort with almost 400 Space used makes a solid 10/78/89 with 11 deg/sec.
If you want to go fast, 3 Engines +30% is a solid baseline.

Its not just the engine limit, but what if I want 4 engines on my patrol escort? I think external hard points and internal space works pretty well for balancing, but not being able to put a shield in place of a weapon, or limited armor, or only 1 slot for sensors, etc. Theres no reason for most of these restrictions and I'd just rather they weren't there

What if you want 4 engines?

I do you one better:
Why do you want 4 Engines?

How much more speed do you need to get out of it?
Why are 2-3 not enough already?
What actuall, practical use does the 4th engine have that was not fullfilled by Nr2 or Nr3?

My point is simple, I don't care about how practical it is in game, I want the Ability to do less optimized designs, even of they are stupid and unoptimized, and my other points still stand. There's plenty of reasons you might want different setups, right now or in the future, and unnecessary restrictions are never a good thing

[rxnnxs]

I am increasingly content with the new slot limitations, but one thing I really think could be improved is information display in the ship designer.

DW2 Ship Design screen.png

This picture is a bit blunt, but I do think it showcases the issue. What is the range of this ship? Speed, acceleration, turning rate? Weapons abilities? Defensive abilities? Other abilities? Those things are really interesting when doing ship design and they're not visible unless I scroll down in the right pane. Meanwhile, there's a ton of screen space that isn't helping me design a ship quickly and efficiently....

Yeah, and where is the Name of the Ship and the Class?

[Almora]

That is a question I never like to hear: "Why do you want that?"
The answer should always be: "Because I want to do it" or "Because I want that freedom of choice".

If you are selling a product and a consumer asks why that product can not do this or that, the seller always is teached to ask
"Why do you want to do that? It works so good this and that way.."

We want to have the freedom of choice.
If you now have a design that allows you to put in a third, 4th 5th engine and so on.. let us do it, but with a programmed drawback.
it just adds a given percentage to the lets say off-limit thuster number.
up to three thruster add without a drawback. all after that number, increase it only to lets say 30% or whatever.
scout: 5 engines,
frigate 4
destroyer 3 and so on. and after that always 80% less effective than the engine before that. So it never does nothing, but it always does less than the ideal amount for this design.

The same would work for sensors and shields.

By the way, Star Ruler had an awesome Design System.

P.S.: And what is even worse is that message:
"You design is slower than a comparable class of this design" and I wonder, how can this be?
Is there only one design choice that is right?
If I max out speed, the turn rate is too low compared to other ships in that class, if I want a decent ruen rate, the top speed is lower than average... HMMM

100% this, give us the physical limitations and restraints, but let us do what we want with that framework

[zgrssd]

It is realy hard to make a discussion if the argument of the other side boils down to "I want it becasue I want it".

If there was at least a instrumental goal in any of that, we might have a basis for a discussion. Even better if there was a terminal goal.

[rxnnxs]

..
Narrow Scrollbars are less informative than a full screen info dump and more work.
Moving only my eyes is still easier faster and more intiutive than moving the mouse across the screen
to than scroll and search until I find what I need to then scroll back ..

Colorful Bubbles to show me where components go are great .. if I could drag components there .. with my mouse..
I am playing this game on a PC after all.

Moving components from a narrow scrollable list to a narrow scrollable list below is just bad design, I see no objection why those lists could not have been next to each other.
..

Everything you say makes 100% sense, but those snippets above were not talked about enough.
I have the same thoughs and many other think the same, I am sure, and others did not think of it but would welcome it, for sure.
All those components would have more place, when they could go down to the bottom, use the whole height so to speak. the next vertical line would be the place, the ship offers.
So you could drag all you want from left to reight. it would be the shortest way and it would be at the same height already.
If there would be more system than would fit in the vertical line, the systems should be closable.
the 3D-View in the middle is really not that helpful.
I try to let a screenshot speak:

Design3.jpg (103.88 KiB) Viewed 1742 times