Morbo513

As a returning player I've yet to build a decent ship, but one of my main criticisms of the game was how building your ship for speed and maneuverability was far less rewarding (mechanically) than a slow, hulking borg cube. It was certainly a lot more fun to play with a nimble ship and run circles around your targets, but incredibly frustrating when your damage output was negligible compared to your opponents' shields and hull, just because of the size differential. If the ability to avoid getting hit through maneuvering and agility is practically nullified by the game's mechanics then it becomes a soulless stats game. I don't know exactly how the recently-changed mechanics affect the viability of evasive action or building ships for speed, alpha-strikes and not getting hit but I digress - having ships be slow and lumbering by necessity undermines the creativity afforded to the player in designing their ships.

I agree that changes to turret mechanics would be nice. You're already plenty limited by how many crew you can accommodate imo.

I think a first-person view and tighter flight controls would be necessary to fully take advantage of it though. With turret locked weapons it's difficult to tell where your exact point of aim actually is.

Yo I'm stoked

Is auto-aim its own distinct thing from independent targeting? Regardless, if fixed forward, a turret is no longer a turret. I'm sure I made a similar suggestion before, but something I'd really like to see is a block that you "imbue" with a turret, the number you can depending on volume vs turret size. Larger X/Y scale would add more barrels in the same fashion as thruster ports, but Z would let you have multiple weapons firing out the same "cluster". This is what I've been doing I'm not sure if you're referring to the suggestion, or the current state of things

I'd like for the system to stay as it is, but for the swapping to take time. It'd be cool to have "sets" of upgrades that you can quickly toggle between, but takes time to reconfigure. Imo ideally it'd be based on presence of enemy ships to determine if it does take time, because it might be tedious if you're in an empty sector and just mining.

Simply enough, I suggest that placing a turret on a rotation lock reduce the number of gunners required to man it by one. Logic: Presumably, the gunnery crew of each turret has one person aiming, the other(s) monitoring/maintaining/loading etc. With the turret fixed in place, the aiming part is up to whoever's flying, because wherever the ship's pointing, the turret is. That's by no means the most compelling reason I make this suggestion though: Fixed forwards weapons are a disadvantage, especially if they have the independent targeting trait. For one, it means you're almost always going to be facing front and travelling directly towards the enemy when engaging, which results in a more linear damage pattern and guaranteed windows of opportunity to get accurate shots off (due to not having to lead). Generally, the game design as it currently stands discourages small, fast and nimble ships, where fixed-forwards weapons make the most sense. Due to crew constraints, it can often be difficult to achieve reasonable firepower against the sacrifices to other systems and stats you need for speed and maneuverability. This would put it on the level in my opinion.

Thanks. It's also pretty frustrating that build mode doesn't save whether you had mirror toggled - Had it a few times now where I've gone to build up or modify parts of my ship, but only done one half cause of this.

This is a quick suggestion to print the dimensions of the block you're about to place, probably included with the tooltip indicating cost. Helps keep things consistent when using small scale-steps.

I'm disappointed that this is still the case. The extreme cost-effectiveness of shields, and how they're practically necessary instead of a choice with drawbacks, is my single biggest complaint with the game's mechanics. I made a (very obnoxiously worded) series of posts addressing how the combat could be made more interesting by varying the weapons' properties, and how they interact with shields, with some being able to bust them down efficiently, some being able to penetrate depending on distance, that sort of stuff. Shields being a universal barrier against all damage except collision is simply a bad design choice in my opinion, and the degree to which you can inflate their stats, as OP says, makes combat trivial and uninteresting.

+1, projectile weapons are difficult to consistently aim and hit with if there's relative motion between you and your target, especially considering lag in MP.

Bump. I've not played Avorion since around the time I made this thread, and it's between this, shield dynamics (or the lack thereof) and AI as to whether that changes. I'd like a straight answer from the devs on how they feel about this or the many other wastes of time I wrote up on this forum back then; yes or no to specialised weapon/damage types instead of just delivery, yes or no to making shields a compelling choice over foregone conclusion or necessity, yes or no to having the AI be challenging in their behaviour in addition to firepower, shield strength and numbers. These are questions the answer to which will determine whether your game is exciting, compelling and supportive of diverse design philosophy, or whether success in combat revolves around "More of everything", ie whether a ship's stats surpass a certain threshold rather than their design and player skill playing a significant role. Apart from AI, one way to achieve those things is right there in the OP. Forgive me for sounding entitled - this game's potential is vast and I'm worried it won't be fulfilled.

On point

That's a good question, the answer depends on AI development, which I imagine would follow rather than precede establishing how they perform in gameplay.

That's the idea. Nothing would stop someone from equipping multiple turret types to be the jack-of-all-trades type though.

I'd like to see the way ship building is handled changed completely, for the "normal" non-creative mode at least. So to build a new ship, you'd need to dock with a shipyard or repair dock - The station will house, store and protect an incomplete ship, and provide you a safe space to build it in without having to be concerned about degradation by lack of crew, pirate or hostile faction attack in poorly defended sectors etc. Once you've launched though, any modifications to your ship become much more expensive (excluding turrets) and take time to perform, each new block/turret being placed as a "blueprint", with framework as a placeholder until completion. A new tech block would allow "instantaneous" construction at normal cost in the vicinity of the ship housing it. It'd need a minimum size to perform the function 100% though, with anything smaller providing a reduction in cost and time-to-build. There could even be roaming AI ships offering the service in the same fashion as mobile turrent merchants.

AI in general, not just on your own ships, is one of this game's least developed aspects, and it's been brought up a fair number of times. Specifically, the only real behaviours they have are "Close with target" and "Move to point". Even if they could just use engine boost, combat would become a lot more engaging, just because their ignorance of that ability might mean you're necessarily able to outrun AI ships. This is another opportunity, as ever, to insert my rambling about shields. If they don't end up with dynamics beyond "Damage taken vs hitpoints regenerated vs capacity), the mobility of (typically weaker) AI ships won't present much more of a threat for most players. Some further "relatively simple" AI could be done by weapon type - Cannon-armed ships attempt to keep the target just under their maximum range, teslas try to close to point blank, plasmas circle-strafe the target to death etc Of course, if the AI could factor in maneuverability, armour/shield/health, weight and speed as well as the weapons into their routines and work it out from there it'd be better.

Absolute madman

Agreed on all. I didn't even know turrets got beyond 0.5 size

An expansion of a concept I briefly touched on in another thread: So, you've got chainguns, plasma, cannons, all this good stuff. Right now the only differences between them are their stats - damage, rate of fire, projectile velocity/hitscan, overheating and all that. What I propose is no small change: Give each weapon class a different purpose. For now, let's say: Chainguns/Bolters are effective against shields, decent against hull and components, but fare extremely poorly against armour - able to do raw damage, but with a diceroll to be deflected. Some chainguns/bolters could have an "AP ammo" trait reducing this chance by a large degree, ensuring more of the shots do damage to armour. Cannons are the anti-armour. Their shots can penetrate X units through the point of impact, doing damage to all components it intersects with. It doesn't damage armour much, so against cannons, armour acts as a buffer against that penetration and nothing else. Very thick armour will defeat a cannon round, but this'd come at a huge expense in speed/maneuverabilty. Spaced hull/armour pieces would be a thing too. As for their performance against shields, I think they should be the primary defence against cannons, but with a chance for the shot to penetrate or something, using the shield as the point of impact, meaning sometimes it'll only reach as far as the outmost hull/armour bits, but still giving them a means to punish otherwise unprotected tech components. Plasma is the dependable all-rounder; at the expense of its slow projectiles, general inaccuracy and poor performance at range, and energy consumption, it does equal damage to shields and melts individual blocks - Thick and layered armour would be the primary means of protection, with maneuverability and speed being an alternative. Lasers take the role of a supporting weapon: Low DPS, but long range hitscan and near-perfect accuracy (But still dependent on gunnery ofc). Lasers would slowly sap shield and hull alike, and be a good means of defence against small, and fast, but lightly protected ships, helping keep them at bay. They'd help swing the qualities of the target ship leaving them more open to the vulnerabilities of your main armaments by draining the shield and slowly stripping away armour blocks and rubbing salt in the wound. Lightning becomes a special-purpose weapon: Instead of dealing raw DPS, its purpose is now screwing with the target's energy production, essentially eventually rendering it unable to fire or recharge its shields. Armour would act as insulation, meaning the lightning needs to be focused on the target longer to have an effect, but firing it on exposed tech components would increase their energy drain on the target ship, and as they drain more energy, they also do more damage to those components, upon destruction of which the target ship's energy systems are much less taxed at the expense of having lost a shield generator for example. Tesla, I'm not sure on, I kinda see it as superfluous. Feel free to fill this in for me Railguns become dual-purpose. They generally have a good chance to negate shields entirely, but when it fails to do so, it does no damage to the shield or what's underneath it. However, when they do hit hull, they take a good chunk out, dealing hefty damage to blocks in a small radius, with armour able to withstand the splash but not a direct hit. Missile launchers, well. Further diversification! The warheads of each launcher's missiles would inherit the properties of one of the above weapons: Ballistic missiles have the same effect on targets as chainguns (good v shields, bad v armour, alright v hull), Anti-Armour the same as cannons (penetrates, does linearly falling damage to each block it intersects), Plasma the same as Plasma (Good for hitting weak points and tearing away at layers of blocks), you get the picture. It gets more complex. Missile launchers are then split up into three categories: Rocket launchers, Missile launchers and Torpedoes. Rockets can be either guided or unguided, but are generally slow (Still faster than current missiles though, they're awful for that) and do a small amount of damage. They are fired in large salvos with a medium reload time, with a successfully connecting salvo doing a fair bit of harm to the target. Some could have a dicerolled quality of trading damage for speed and/or tracking, to perform better against faster/smaller ships. Missiles however would be taking that role. Typically missiles will always be guided and fast with a medium payload, about equivalent to near a full rocket salvo. Against fast ships, the missile will stand the highest chance of getting there and delivering the warhead's damage, while it will typically be inefficient against bigger, more heavily protected ships, however with the highest guarantee of hitting the target. They'd have a pretty long reload, making the timing of their use essential if the target's vulnerability is enough for it to be decisive. Torpedoes are anti-capital-ship. Slow and weakly, if not un-guided, they are nevertheless the most powerful, delivering a large payload to the target. They have two further qualities: A large splash, which may damage the firing ship, and a diceroll for a minimum arming distance - Proximity to the target becomes a big factor in their use, meaning your target has to be immobilised or otherwise sluggish to be vulnerable to them. Their reload is very slow, meaning you have a limited number of opportunities to put them to use against the target. As with missiles, timing and target choice are key: A ballistic torpedo can potentially cripple a target's shields, but if its shields are down and there's armour underneath, you've missed the opportunity to put it to its greatest use. Likewise, you're going to have to wait for the shields to go down to use an Anti-Armour torpedo effectively. (Note: Maybe swap the railgun's properties with those of the cannons - considering hitscan, the cannon's properties may be more appropriate) The diverse properties of how these weapons interact with the different defences they're to overcome will result in weapon choice being truly meaningful, making a comparison between two ships much more granular, but also wider-ranging - An armoured box with railguns and no shields against a shield-generator with chainguns and an engine strapped to it? Ship design would be so much more involved with accounting for the different types of damage you are or expect to be facing, and your choices in weaponry will help further define your methodology in combat. That about sums it up.

Agreed on all points

Very well done. I was planning on doing some more homeworld-based ships myself, and the destroyer was up there, you beat me to the punch and probably did a better job of it than I would've

Yeah, I build my ships the same way. A "core" of whatever components I can afford at the time and framework to be later transformed into them, wrapped in armour with the ship its self built around it. It's not illogical since it does do a very good job of making sure those components don't get destroyed, but the current power of shields make the importance of doing so minuscule.

I've transplanted this from another thread, the focus of which moved very quickly away from this. I currently don't like the way thrusters work. Their power/weight/size/energy/crew ratio is insufficient to be able to incorporate them elegantly into a design, without resorting to stacking 0.05-thin ones - If thrusters' thrust is to eventually be blocked by adjacent parts, without addressing the balance of the factors governing their efficiency, it'll exacerbate the problem. I instead suggest an alternative way of dealing with thrusters. Mono-directional blocks, much like an engine, provide thrust in a single direction. They would each be a number of times more powerful than an equivalent regular thruster block for that reason. These blocks can be rotated and re-scaled as one likes. The housing for these thrusters can be edges or cubes (Maybe as a separate piece requiring adjacency, for the sake of fitting form while still being able to dictate its stats through scale). There could also be vector thrusters, capable of providing thrust within 90-135 degrees of a direction, while having weaker output or higher crew/energy demands. There could also be thrusters that serve as a half-way between an engine and a normal thruster, possibly with and without vectoring. These options would allow for some exceptionally maneuverable ship designs, and the aim is to overall reduce the visual footprint of current thrusters. It seems thruster mechanics are already being addressed: http://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php/topic,1797.msg8850.html#new However, I'd still like the options of powerful mono-directional and vector thrusters