Doc Savage NDMF

Have you ever tried to aim lighting..? I do have to agree the "to hit" % is a bit ambitious... Cheers..!

I still miss this... I want the display back please. An option would be great. Regardless of those that like the open space look, I need my numbers right there. I hate having to stop the world and click just to see what/where I'm at all the time. It really disrupts the flow of the game for me. Cheers..!

A number of oddities with regard to salvage and mining. --Had an instance of hitting an invisible asteroid. Turned around and mined it as I could see the sparklers, but not the rock. (not sure if I got all of it) This was an asteroid that split apart, one of the chunks became invisible. --Multiple issues with ships that appear there but aren't. This has two sub headings: ----Ship really isn't there, the graphics just haven't caught up. The parts stay until everything gets wiped but you can't do anything to them. ----The ship IS there but the Salvage Laser targeting is off. This is new, if you target a row of blocks over or down the laser magically connects and you get your damage output. Visually the laser is hitting when on the part, but damage only happens if you aim below or off to the side. This does not happen every time. (manually targeted laser) --Ship parts magically appearing after it comes apart when salvaging. This one is also new. Many instances of a ship breaking up and the parts appearing after I've finished what's visible. --Ship parts being indestructible. This doesn't seem to be an issue with draw updates. The parts literally won't be damaged even though the laser is obviously hitting the part. Un-Targeting can actually allow some pieces that won't damage to take damage. It's only when a piece is specifically targeted that it acts indestructible. You can fly away, target something else, salvage it, fly back, target again and the piece still won't take damage. Come back and not target the piece and sometimes it takes damage now. --Targeting seems worse the closer you get. I'm wondering if this is intentional to help the AI not get bound up or fixated on targets that get too close..? --Had ship builder issues with pieces I deleted changing texture and then refusing to leave the room. Required a quit to the main menu and a galaxy reload to correct. Cheers..! clientlog_2017-06-13_06-04-16.txt clientlog_2017-06-13_02-25-52.txt

Yes please. But not as turrets. Torpedoes should work more like the hangers/fighters. Small "hangers" that need to face out that launch. The torpedoes themselves should never be mindless straight line fish. This is the future, basic direction and homing to cruise missile all the way up to homing missile/locked on/find a target all by themselves. And make them big enough to be targeted by advanced chain guns and defensive lasers... They also should be bigger than traditional weapons requiring cargo space for the fish or special blocks to even use them. Added to the list with big cannon/rail gun/energy weapons and we would have yet another strategy to defend against. Very much yes. Cheers..!

I have "people" that handle my materials and money. I have no issue using a little imagination to have that stuff moved into storage or be put into a system wide pool of materials that I can pull from. It's been suggested there should be a charge for this service. Something a kin to Operating Expenses. I like that. Especially when compared to all the time and space I'm going to have to waste trying to ferry materials to build my next ship. And what do you do with the first one..? Carry a couple plates in your lap at a time in your little rover miner thingie..? I think you should have to build by a shipyard. Your materials in the pool have to be made accessible. When you're near a ship or repair yard, or even a resource station you are in a place you can use your vouchers for all the stuff you put in and get the stuff out. I don't think that holds true out in some backwater sector with no stations. That breaks immersion for me... So, a monthly Operating Expense to take in, hold and release your materials and make it so you have to be near an appropriate exchange agent to get your materials and build when you need them..? Cheers..!

Um... no. I don't have an opinion of myself. I am what I am, that is all. My comments aren't based upon consideration of anything but reality. My personal opinion, YMMV: I don't see shields being something that can withstand massive facet collisions between two (or more) objects of massive Masses. Deflecting smaller projectiles or energy beams, sure. Deflecting asteroids bigger than the ship..? No. Not until you have a shield count so massive and a ship larger than the average asteroid full of generators and storage. Then you become the asteroid... It's not rocket science to me. Have you ever seen a car vs. a tree..?? Most times the tree wins. I like the comment above that the weight of the asteroid should factor in to damage etc. Because it would/should, same as the mass of your ship. Most cases the Asteroid is heavy. Like really really really really heavy. It's not moving anywhere because hooman captain forgets ships don't have brakes. Piloting a ship is an art. It's a skill. I don't want to play a game that removes all of that. Is the 100% damage too much..? Maybe. For some people, absolutely. I play with collision damage @ 25%, going to bump it to 50% next new galaxy. I don't want to blow up either. Get damaged for being a bone head..? Sure. Lose a good chunk of material because I forgot to pay attention when I gave the crew their paychecks..? Absolutely. As there are already mechanics and settings you can use to make collisions act any way you want them too, I don't see how this is even an issue TBH. As for games that don't blow you up, doesn't enter into my thought equation. That's them. Avorion isn't them. If we're going to make Avorion like them, why waste money here when I could just play them..? I'm sick of cookie cutter games because "everyone" wants that thing from this game and that thing from this other game till eventually we end up with just another game that plays the same as every other with different graphics. Just an aside... I can see all of the asteroids at the monthly sector meeting now. "OK ladies, gents and other(s)... We have a directive from the star here that says we can't wreck no more ships. It's hurting freight and tourism and it wants all of us to just cut it out. So... No more 'splosions, K..?" No offense intended. Cheers..!

Starting with the obvious... Agreed the enemies are just, well, salvage waiting to happen. When I can take my mid sized Sedan into Xanion territory and get jumped by 20 plus pirates and just sit there, and then walk away without having to employ actual, factual strategy... Yah. That's borked. Agreed also about variance in enemy types. So many games try to do this all complicated and specific. All that's really needed is some simple +/- in a few categories and you can have totally random enemies roll at you all day long that can be quite the challenge. In later stages towards the center this kinda sorts starts to happen. You start to see some of the weapon/speed/size/shield derivations, but many are still just light weights. I think we need to see more capital ships in the mix, especially in the realm of SP. In MP this is likely to be a non issue, but I don't usually play MP; at least not in a public server exposed to every cancerous troll with no life kind of way. I have had two or three really good battles so far. One upon finding a Pirate home sector 3/4 of the way in to the center and they started raining everything down on me including the proverbial kitchen sink. The other against the lightning ship of MAD. Both were fought with older ships, smaller ships and no stone. (don't like the look of the stone, and it doesn't fit any sort of space narrative IMHO) These battles were touch and go. I had to actually move, shoot, use some strategery, target specific things. I don't want EVERY battle to be this way, that's it's own special kind of tedium, but this does have to be an imminent threat and possibility for every battle. And once in awhile you should be faced with having to put your tail between your legs and run. It isn't survival if you never have the threat or possibility of losing a very important part of your life. Agreed as well that there need to be more diverse natures in the threat department. I think some of this will come as a natural extension of Boarding and Station development, so I'm withholding judgement for that at this time. I also think Modding will play a huge roll here as well, so if the base game lacks a little I won't worry about it; IF modding is made accessible enough for it to happen. If modding ends up being supported to the extent it is in Project High Rise, then it is going to become a game issue. Agreed the balance of weapon out put vs Shields seems off... But I don't think it necessarily is. What I think is actually missing are the larger weapons capital ships would bring to the party. The biggest guns/cannons we can bring to bear now are barely battleship sized at their highest tier. I also believe that these cannon types of weapons aren't really representative of what would actually be used out in space, at least in the upper tiers/tech levels. It's the same reason why there aren't many of these big guns and battleships after the WW2 era; technology has rendered them obsolete. We can get bigger, better, faster, more bang for the proverbial buck elsewhere. Rail Guns, Larger Lasers, Missiles and other tech in the game do support those larger weapon types, and we do need them in game if for no other reason than to keep us honest in our ship building. Ships get built a bit differently when there's the potential for a massive weapon to evaporate you on the other side of the sector warping in. As an added Bonus, this really ups the fighter/bomber game and elevates carriers into necessary plot points instead of mere "I like them" curiosities. You can outfit your capital ships with similar weapons, if you can... But more likely than not a Carrier or two will be far more flexible and maybe even cost effective when considering the time and resources needed to build those super weapons. As for progression... As a SP this is an important facet for me. Many of the things you mention are true, but some of them are just relative. How long you spend in a sector is inversely proportional to how fast you want to "finish" the game. In this way I believe we differ quite a bit. I'm one of those people that doesn't care if I ever "beat" the game. I'm not here to beat the game at anything. Except maybe Go Fish. I'm one of those players that just languishes around the sectors doing whatever. I take my time, explore, fight, build. I usually find a comfortable spot within a game, get there and then just have fun. Eventually I get around to beating the challenges and "winning", but honestly by then I've already "won" a hundred times over. I think gamers in general place too much emphasis on getting to the end, and usually way too fast. In my mind, this just serves to foster the game cheats, exploits and OP issues that plague and follow many a game into early demise. This is likely why I don't enjoy MP much, I'm just not into all the competitive me first look what I can do stuff. Nothing wrong with any of that, it just isn't for me. COOP may be a different thing, I haven't had the chance to really explore it in any of the games I play. But playing Sir Hammer Fist Thump A Lot is something I can do in SP without all the drama... But I digest... As things stand, if you're into the journey, the whole progressing too fast bit is irrelevant. It's a non factor, a non starter. I go at my own pace where and when based on what interests me. However, if I'm a "finisher", then yes, I see your point and raise you a dollar. You can get through each stage of materials hella fast and what few challenges you do have are here and gone and now what, am I done..? Is it worth another go..? As it stands, likely not. There isn't enough there for me to carry on ATM, so I can't see someone who wants to tear through and get there finding enough to chew on for repeated outings. As the whole Factions/Alliances thing is the next big step, I am left to wonder if the SP side of things is going to end up as an afterthought or if it's actually going to get some compelling game play to stand on it's own. I can spend many, many hours with the development of player controlled factories and trading. I can spend another bunch of hours fighting off the Alien hordes and the various Pirate factions. I can stretch that into many more hours laying waste to any AI faction that sees fit to hate my guts for no reason other than the fact I like Blue or Red trim on my ships. After that however, what story and quests we have are a bit on the lack luster side ATM. We shall see... Cheers..!

Again, you're thinking construction. I'm thinking Aesthetics... And again, Rabbit Hole. I'll wait to see what the next update or two brings before going further. It's obvious this has the Dev's attention, so trying to solve the world's mysteries when the facts are going to change is just string us along theory. Thanks for the discussion though. It has helped picture, clarify, rationalize and the like. Cheers..!

I am finding if I add too many different turrets on too many faces/facets to an AI captained ship it freaks out and spends all it's time trying to figure out which one to use and where to use it. I've gone to using weapons on top and bottom, and restricting weapons to similar ranges/types. This minimizes the time the AI spends trying to decide where it should be and what it should fire with, which lowers the amount of time it spends flying around instead of shooting at something. It still spends far too much time dancing, but at least it fires more often while doing it. The AI can cope with this pretty well, as long as it doesn't get too close to anything. If a ship explodes close to your AI Captain he panics and stops dead. If the offending piece of ship/asteroid is moved or blown out of the sky they will recover and carry on, but until then they will sit lost in nightmares of what will happen if they scratch the paint on their precious. Bottom line, try to give the AI fewer possible decisions to make at any given time. They're going to focus on one or two things tops, so any tools you give them to handle more than that are just wasted. I find making the firepower count when used and limiting the when and where help them be more useful. As always, YMMV. How ships are built, what weapons are used and all that will naturally make this better or worse. I have two AI ships that tag me now, and they fight pretty well. I can go off and do other things knowing they won't be scrap when I get back. I can go off in a Pirate sector and collect the good stuff while they mop up all the ships. In your case, you can play with weapons packages on ships to see which ones are most effective given your designs and weapon likes/dislikes. Instead of mixing weapons on "a" ship, mix the ships instead. Oh, shields. And Armor. It's been my experience they're going to tank it out going after one or two ships while getting fired on by many, so the more you can do to prolong their average lifespan the better. With many ships on your side this may not be the case, but I'd plan for all my ships going after the same target (because, well, AI) and taking a lot of fire. I am hoping future updates will allow the AI captains to focus on more than a few targets so we can mix and match weapons allowing the AI to actually use more than a simple move in and hit them with everything approach. Be nice to put all that dancing to some good use. Cheers..!

+1. I like that display all the time as well. Not having to stop and waste time to check my pockets was nice. I gave the whole hit any menu to see what I have a decent chance. I still don't like it. A toggle would be very nice to have. Especially if other supposed "useful" information is going to go in that spot. -If I want my resource info, I can has it. -If I want Faction info, I can has it. -If I want MP info, I can has it. -If I want space, the final frontier; well I can has that too. Everyone in this thread could be happy. All with a single hotkey. (now how much would you pay..!) Agreed that the way info is displayed could use some touch up. A simple +12345 for a reward is sufficient. A simple +123 materials is sufficient. It was nice when I had the totals up top, I didn't have to decipher anything. As an aside, can we get all the messages to display in one place as well..? PITA that we have to look at three different places on the screen and many of the messages overlap on the right side making them gibberish. Cheers..!

Which is why they're on a station, not on my ship. We have a robotic med bay for that... Cheers..!

I think we're using two different definitions of the word scale... Resources have nothing to do with visual scale. In game terms, in ship construction terms what you say is true, resources will determine how big my ship is. What I'm talking about isn't that. Imagine the first scene in the first Star Wars movie but with the sizes of the ships reversed because the model makers read the memo wrong and gave the little Corvette the big ships measurements etc. Bigger weapons like that wave gun and all take the phaser off stun. My fear is that people will complain they can't be scaled down to tiny, put on a tiny little ship and still do massive damage. That will be a thing, and if given the ability to make turrets any way we want it will happen. It'll look silly, be nothing close to realistic and break immersion in a big way. The flip side of that is I think we have some cannons and rail guns that are too small to be doing the damage they do, which makes me want that XL turret size/cost to get the higher damages. Small cannons and rail guns shouldn't be punching through 8 blocks doing massive numbers just because research. At any rate, the scale I'm talking about has nothing to do with what kind of stuff you have lying around. It's more to do with making what should be a tiny ship too big and then complaining the turrets look too small or there aren't enough of them. Or making a small ship, loading it with cards and super turrets to make it an OP all star. I dunno, maybe tis' just a rabbit hole... Cheers..!

You should be able to build or have both of those... The small gun doesn't change size because the ship grew, it stays the same based on an established scale. That's my point, that the gun size is NOT relative, but absolute. As tech level goes up, guns get bigger. As do the ships they get mounted on... Very big guns like your cannon or maybe a Rail Gun that runs down the center of a ship for use against heavy capital ships should be massive. They should look massive. And they should take up multiple turret slots based on size. They're a different animal though, one we may not get. I have to say I hope we do, as they represent a nice tactical alternative for both offense and defense. The issue to me is that all ships should share a common scale so that size isn't relative. I don't want to see a Corvette taking up the same space as your Super Carrier because bigger blocks got used or because someone couldn't tell just how big big actually is in game terms. I do like the way turrets scale now TBH. Higher level guns are bigger than low tier weaponry. We have a S/M/L system as is, maybe an XL would be helpful for some of the really big ships. I'd want some sort of minimum size requirement to mount them though. Hope that helps... Cheers..!

1: Yes and No. A system where I have 100% to use and I can allocate whatever to each of those areas maybe. This would allow me to focus on accuracy or shear fire power to fit my command style without being too complex. Final numbers should be within a range, some RNG added to account for variance in the ingredients. Not all copper/steel/components are of the same quality. Maybe make a 1-10 scale to allow the player to buy high grade ingredients to get better stats. 2: Most Definitely. I like a buffet/smorgasbord as much as the next guy/gal/other, but not on my ships. The Buffet works for a Pirate or Scavenger Role play, but not for a Dedicated Faction. 3: I don't mind the simple sizes we have now. Maybe if they were in S/M/L for each level..? My concern is player A's ship scale may be 10x mine, which would end up looking like Jack and the Beanstalk in space... I realize people like to make ships from other things, but not everyone understands scale. The guns being as they are actually do a good job of letting you know you're building too big or too small. 4: No. Lasers look like Lasers. Rail Guns look like Rail Guns. I'd like to choose the color of the Projectile/Beam, but that's about it. Cheers..!

I have previously suggested that you ought to be able to stay in hyperspace - that you'd have to jump in AND out - so while at the waiting screen with the 'Press Spacebar to continue' prompt, your ship wouldn't spawn in the destination sector. This is a common and much needed lament. Having to quit and reload every time my bladder needs emptying is getting as old as me... Cheers..!

Actually Remote Piloted Fighters and large Rail Guns would likely be reality for actual factual combat in space. So would Guided Missiles and Chain Guns. Lasers, Shields, Plasma Cannons. But also Grape Shot/Ball Bearings similar to the nails/glass in a suicide vest. I'm not going to sit back and just shoot at you with whatever. I'm going to move. Very fast. I'm going to have the targeting computers launch everything I've got at precisely the right time and then fly by to a safe distance. There will be no sitting still and standing around in my world; that's just a recipe for getting shot. While we're on the subject of fighters, pilots, crew and all that... AI would control so many things. The whole "Star Trek" level of crew for ships is ludicrous. If there were more than 10 or 12 actual people on board I'd be shocked. Two or three people for each department, a 2nd in command and a captain. AI and Bots would handle everything by this time in the future, people would be off at the beach or learning to paint with Interactive Bob Ross. (...such a happy little star there...) Ships won't be built in shipyards like they are now either. They'll be 3D printed. Some crews to add in electronics, most of them bots. Just compare an auto plant from the 70's to one now. Look at how many items are being prototyped and extend that to 3D printing getting the age old Bigger, Better, Faster More treatment. It won't be long before we're printing everything from sneakers to car parts to bird cages. Fighters would be stupid cheap and easy to assemble aboard ship. A 3D printed hull, some components and weapons bolted in. Those would be made on board as well, printed and machined by bots. We wouldn't need Turret Foundries if our ship is big enough, and that wouldn't be a massive thing at all for small or medium sized weapons. Really big guns, sure... Specialized or intricate guns, maybe. But not for run of the mill mid sized stuff. One pilot would handle a squadron of fighters or bombers, AI handling the heavy lifting, plotting course, flying. Heck, Drones should be a real option here. Who needs pilots when I can point to a spot and click and let loose a hundred advanced AI fighter/bomber Drones to go get 'em..? Seriously, why are Pilots even a thing..? No gunners either. Intelligent computer AI can find, aim and maintain cool downs for any target better than any gun crew. So for what then..? Ammo loading..? Hardly. Maybe you need old Gus to change out the Semi Truck Trailer sized Ammo cans once or twice a battle, but more than likely that's already covered by Wall-E. Or Mo... This thing we're playing isn't the future. It's old timey sailing ships and cannons and broadsides and pirates with lasers and aliens thrown in. I like it, I do... I like the whole space opera approach where men/women/other and machine work together for the common goal and where we have some sort of job or importance. But if we're going to go the realism route, there's a lot of stale, heartless AI in our future. And a lot of correction for how space battles would really be fought. I mean seriously, if you think I'm actually going to sit there and swap big gun stories with you and your fleet, you have another thing coming. Cheers..!

I don't think med bay when I think crew quarters in the same way I don't think cargo bay or engineering or anything else. I'm not against specialized crew vs simple ship component, but if we're going to go the need doctors route we might as well go all out and say we need cooks, receptionists and hall monitors as specialized people. (among others) That's the cool part about a base block w/ mod capabilities for adding in specialized crew... You could have all of that while someone like myself could just add a couple blocks depending on how many chances I want to take/speed of recovery. Move move move..! CLEAR...!!! Srceeeeeeeeeee.... Ca-chunk... "Can you de-dead him doc..?!?!" "It's too soon to tell... His heart is in a constant variable de-beatalating state and his lungs keep de-inflating..." Cheers..!

I think Ye Olde Med Bay Block covering X number of crew persons installed the same way as Crew Quarters would be sufficient. Any space fairing enterprise needs to have some sort of medical back up, it should be in the game as a necessity IMHO. Crew Doctors..? As long as it's open to modding Doctors as crew could be a thing to man said Med Bays. I would likely skip that TBH, but I'm sure there are a lot of players that would like/use that kind of thing. Cheers..!

That was the OP intent exactly. A base game mechanic that doesn't need a metric ton of effort to make that is believable and role play friendly with a touch of imaginative skill. Anything else is nice, but ultimately fluff. I'd rather see work to open up the game's pieces parts to modding so at the end of the day we have a bunch of options for extras instead of super detailing everything now and leaving little wiggle room for different interpretations of this mechanic. Cheers..!

Bless you my son/daughter/other/personage of chosen orientation/racoon or... It's still PITA, but it's a start. Many thanks for one half of one less hassle. Cheers..!

It's not just you... I have two escort ships now. One follows me just fine, the second simply refuses to go through gates. It's @#$% annoying to the point I'm going to destroy the second ship just so I don't have to mess with it. I recall a post I read awhile back about having the ship really close, but I can't find it now. Just a PITA to be honest. Hoping this and captained ships freezing anytime a piece of anything gets too close or they can't reach it gets fixed soon. Cheers..!

So much time to dodge/change course unexpectedly. Guns at 10 km in the game have trouble hitting a target, even with burst fire spreading the salvo out for improved hit chances. Rail guns would have a better chance, but at 40 KM away... In a primitive setting with no tech/sensors I could see it being done. With all the tech and sensors we *should* have, I'd have evasive maneuvers preprogrammed the second the first shot was fired and would have decent odds to to dodge the shots. I'd keep maneuvering to make sure you had a heck of a time trying to get a decent hit. There's a LOT of dead space to be in where you're not shooting... So, the question for me becomes "how does adding this make for more realism"..? It's impracticable and has lower chances of blowing you out of the sky. What's more realistic is me using guided weapons, closer range weapons where I can put a premium on accuracy and using fighters. Pretty much what we have in game now and the same things that killed the use of super huge, big gun battleships IRL IIRC... I have a couple long range cannon I mounted for fun to try this out. I was able to pick off ships between 9 and 10 km. It takes awhile, the enemy has to sit still like a dufuss and let it happen. It was satisfying in a way to be able to do it, but I didn't particularly find this to be as much fun as active strafing runs and up close combat. If the enemy ship moved and forced me to constantly fire, re-position and fire again in a cat and mouse sort of way, maybe. My mileage varied I guess... Cheers..!

..... What I'd like to see is the game reward me when I get within sight range of a turret and cut it off a ship. To me, that's within a range of 1.0, real up close and personal. Outside of that keep the RNG so you can't get stuck in any kind of laser turret loop. Best of both worlds that is, and something that should be programmable/feasible. ..... What I actually said. Which translated means: Up close and personal: Get the turrets you're shearing/cutting/blasting/surgically removing from enemy ships. You have the chance to get the good turrets this way rewarding taking chances, strategizing firing runs and the like. From distance: Get other types, but not just a couple spammed over and over which we have now. These should always be generic/base spec drops that have to go to the research labs to try and make something special out of. So yes, some RNG. Some is a good thing. This allows me to get some nice turrets but also allows me to get some basic other kinds of weapons without having to travel to other systems. If I want really good other weapons, then I'd have to travel to where they are or research, so again a reward for actually doing something. I'd do it this way because of what's happening in my current map. I'd have to travel through three systems to get "other" good weapons, and they'd be low level ones to boot. As I push through the last two stages inwards maybe I don't get another laser fest. Or maybe I do. TL;DR: Some RNG is good, but it has to be balanced with meaningful player actions that can circumvent or improve on what it delivers. As it is now, RNG is just that; everything is just luck of the draw with no rhyme or reason. Cheers..!

That's pretty much how I envision everything happening when I dock now. That's fine with me TBH for larger ships. If we're going that route it would be cool to have a shuttle you send out and have to wait for to get back before you could "undock" to get crew or rewards or cargo or what have you. If none of this happens and we have what we have, as I said I'm fine with that. I am hoping Boarding gets handled differently. Just a push button dispatch and a simplified RNG or straight up Number vs Number would be no fun at all, though it's likely to be just that. Wonder if Boarding could be made into a little mini game where you sit in the command chair with scanners and cameras and direct the assault ala Aliens 2. Readouts don't have to be terribly complex, just dots would work for me. Position your troops, run the corridors, storm the bridge, get wiped by chain gun traps in the wrong turns or dispatch explosives to blow interior walls and out flank the defenders... As long as the strategy layer is good, the graphics could rival Pong for all I care. But I digest... Cheers..!

That's the problem... In my latest galaxy I've hit three laser areas in a row. The last one is actually dropping some of the lasers the ships are using with more frequency than the last two, but I'm still getting disproportionate amounts of cannons, force turrets, repair turrets and mining lasers. If the system worked as I think it should, I would have to go to other sectors like you say to get cannons etc just the same as having to head to the center to get better metals. I don't have to do that now, I can get all sorts of things I really shouldn't be able to get because the RNG didn't pay attention in loot drop class. Cheers..!