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Bump for prosperity.

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..! If guns far too large on a ship far too small is your issue, the game already has limitations to that built in. Energy usage. You can't fit a fuckhuge gun on your little ship if you need a capital sized reactor to power it. I'll say it again, resources determine scale. Iron, avorion etc aren't just resources, energy is a resource, crew are a resource. In a way, crew space too. All these go into determining what you can build given a certain amount of each. If you can put a wave motion gun on a fighter, then you've found various problems with your game design and balance. Why can it move at all with one? Why can it power it?

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..! The only thing that determines scale, is cost and viability. If someone's corvette is the same size as my super carrier, what that means is that resource abundance is far too high, and someone's "Small" ship can be the same size as my "Fuckhuge" ship. Bigger ships are nearly always better, and the only reason you don't (Or didn't, in real world scenarios such as WWII) see more bigger ships, is because of the cost of building them. If you want to enforce scale, you need to limit resources. A super-capital type ship should be a pain in the dick to build, because it should be extremely expensive. So basically, scale is determined by cost. The more resources you give players, the more ships they can build at larger sizes.

I think the game just needs more content in the simulation department all round. It's missing some of the core elements of basically every other space game, that being a living, dynamic universe. I keep bringing up these examples, because they're probably the best in the genre. Elite, Freelancer, X. These games offer tons of replayability just because of what you can do in the universe, such as trading, fucking with factions, having impacts and being impacted by the universe, etc. Elite: Dangerous is probably a pretty good example, although not relevant to Avorion. The devs are involved with the story of the universe and how it develops, and that adds a lot to the game.

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..! To respond to number 3, what do you mean by too big or too small? Those are fairly relative terms, and what happens when I decide to build a super carrier? I want turrets the size of small ships on it, or in another case, what if you decide to do something like a, lets say, wave motion gun, or a Warhammer Macro cannon? Those are fairly large weapons.

I map out the general size, and then I just wing it. I'll usually make an X of framework to get the overall size down.

Yeah, neither. I only know a little bit of C#, Lua is beyond me entirely.

Sable, is that a roundabout way of asking for a Wave Motion Gun? I'd be cool with those. But yes, please let us add guns in the designer.

I say yes to all. I think it would be a great idea, especially if combined with the current RPG mechanics as I said above. At the very least, 2 and 4 would be great to have. Variants of the same weapon are a good thing, even just for some flavor.

I think rear thrusters should aid in pitch and yaw to be honest. It'd also look cool.

I like this guy, he seems to be on the nose for a lot of things. Capital ship speeds need to be severely tweaked, a 2KM hulk should not go from 0 - 800m/s in 3 seconds, then boost up to 2000m/s. A fighter or bomber should not be slower than any capital ship ever.

Agreed. I like to play at around 100Fov, I'd love to edit it.

I have to say, I really don't want to read the 50 odd posts that came before mine, but i'll just be talking about the OP. I agree with what you say on what's wrong with guns. Total RNG is a bad thing, you're forced into playing a specific way if you roll the dice wrong, and end up with things you don't want, when realistically, you could probably just buy a decent gun, or build your own. Turret factory turrets generally being worse, as well as obnoxiously hard to acquire, is terrible. I think going the way of customizable turrets like so many other games have is a good idea, but the way you're attempting to implement it is far too complex for Avorion. One of the most complex games of this style, is probably From the Depths. So I'll use that as a comparison. From the Depths is obviously known, and quite fun, because of it's high complexity and depth in designing. You have to deal with so many different factors, even just the basics such as buoyancy, mass, thrust, center of mass, and how they react with each other, is a lot. Then you have the engines, which I don't even understand beyond basic engine designs. Then you have Avorion, there's no respect to realism in this game. You have basic blocks that abstract things, such as the Generator, Thruster and of course, the guns. In Avorion, you have one single block that handles power generation, no strings attached. More generator = more power, while on the other hand, From the Depths has something like 8 or more blocks just for engines, which all interact in different ways. It's the same with the guns, which is the direction you're attempting to take it. My point is, Avorion is a game that values simplicity and abstraction, while FTD values complexity and depth. So, while I think going towards customizable turrets is a good idea, I don't think implementing it in such a complex way would be healthy for the game. Instead, the current building style should just be used for turrets, while still giving players the freedom of designing it however they want. In a way, a compromise between Starmades 1 block type per gun, and FTDs 15 block types per gun style. So you want to build a turret, for say, a cannon, you have 5 or 6 types of blocks you can put onto it. They each do a thing, and interact with each other in basic ways, but no where near the deep interactions of FTD. So what sort of blocks would a cannon have, aside from basic hull blocks? Well, basic cannon stuff. You have a barrel, which determines the size and speed of a projectile. Heatsinks, for increasing overheat capacity. Radiators for dumping heat faster. Some sort of stabilizer for increasing accuracy. A "Loader" block that increases fire rate, but decreases accuracy. Maybe another block that lets you trade one stat for another. Overall, it's a very simple design that still offers a large amount of freedom, and fits within the scope of the game, i.e a simple building system. In comparison to FTD, where you can spend literal hours tinkering away at a single turret. As another user has said, this could take away from the RPG mechanics of the game. And I have to say, that's an entirely valid point. But there's an easy way you could fix that. Add RPG mechanics to the custom turrets. Now, this could use some discussion, but I think a good idea would be something like this. You build your turrets like you do with ships, they're generic, basic, un-rpg'd blocks. But rather than random guns being part of the drop table (Although they still could be, but rarer), you get random parts. They have random stats, and a random size, and you can whack that onto your gun. But then comes the issue, either you can resize them and that'd be severely overpowered, or you only have one block and it's just, why? So why not do something like this. You can resize them, but it costs a special resource that can only be acquired from deconstructing parts that also have their own random stats and effects, with cost varying based on those. The cost of resizing it would also scale with the stats, so it would be much harder to make your +15 Spreadshot 2x Speed Homing Splitting Projectile barrel larger compared to a +1 10% slow barrel or a +2 Accuracy-Scales-With-Firing-Time stabilizer. Now to respond to some things Koonschi has said, along with some of the things Sable Pheonix has said. The looting system definitely does not have to be obsolete, just read above. You can easily re-use a loot drop system for a custom weapon style. I also have to disagree that the current system is in any way fun. It's mostly frustrating because you are forced into specific play styles because no good type of weapon X will drop, if it drops at all, while you will also be able to find better weapons and parts with the above system. It's literally the current system reworked for a part-based system, rather than a whole turret one. I also have to say this, what matters is your implementation, not the feature itself. You've implemented the current system terribly, it's not fun. The "Enchantment" system is entirely random and in no way fun, as compared to ones you have more control over in every other RPG/MMORPG. It would be fine to balance. First off, the most glaring issue. As Sable Pheonix says, the biggest issue in game balance right now is shields, and to a lesser extent, integrity fields combined with shields. You can get absolutely insane HP buffers because you have 3 million + shields, which with the relatively low DPS of most weapons in the game, puts your time to kill up to insane amounts. Sure, shield penetrating weapons exist, but an integrity field makes this point all but moot. Your 10,000 EHP hull blocks do not care for the few bullets that get through. Shields need to be either utterly nerfed, or removed entirely to even begin thinking about weapon balance. If anything, I think something where shields have an overall high HP, but are cut up into segments (Also is a bubble that you can fly inside, so bomber-type ships become immensely useful.). The only difficult stage of the game is the very early game, and that's only if you take the time to fight ships, as I went over in my own thread, progression and combat in general is very poorly implemented. As for enemy difficulty, that's something I also covered in my own thread, but I may as well go over it here, too. First off, I don't know how the random enemy patterns are done, but I'd really like to know, because it sounds like it could be fun for players to tweak. Enemy ships are always long, spindly skeletons, rather than anything beefy, which doesn't help. But the actual issue, aside from their overall design, is the ratio of parts. For some reason, every single ship within the AI's possession moves at an astounding 100M/s and has very little, if any, turrets. The tankiest ship I ever saw was a mining ship, which I watched for a solid 10 minutes as an alien fleet attempted to kill it. It got to 50% HP and I eventually warped out, see above issue with shield balancing. The player, on the other hand, is completely able to deck their ships out in turrets, and move at a leisurely 600M/s or more, putting anything the enemy ever hopes to field somewhere behind in the last million miles. So in short, the issue is that you're not attempting to rework the current system in a way that would work with a custom turret build style, and instead are just saying it won't work. Balance will be entirely in your hands. But also, that the weapons are not the balancing issue of the game, it's the shields. There is an immense gap between the strength of shields and weaponry, it, frankly, makes the game incredibly unfun. But lastly, as Sable also said, you need to remember who your audience is. You gave us a game where you're able to freely design a ship however you please, and obviously, that's what we like. So why would you say we wouldn't find it fun? The game is quite literally founded upon that, and that's what your selling point is. I love all those mechanics. I love RPG loot mechanics, I love building my own tools, ships and weapons, and I love crafting and surviving in an unforgiving world. Avorion is the closest game I've played in that regard, and I'd really like to see it reach the full potential of that.

I think there's good real world analogies for this. Your cannons, i.e weapons fired with propellant, would be your cheap, easy and slow weapons. They're good for up close combat, i.e point defense or ships designed to be all up in your face. But then you have railguns, they're much more expensive to use, and tend to degrade faster than a cannon, but are capable of speeds upwards of several km/s, and would be viable for long range combat. Aside from that, the use of torpedoes can work at long range.

Personally, I wouldn't mind this being an option. I love the cool looking style of ships trading fire over massive distances. After Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, just god. I need more of that in my life.

Boarding would be cool if it was like that. Giving some sort of interactivity, either through a sort of ship map you can command units with, or if you're too caught up in battle, a basic interface with numbers/strength and probability readouts, and some basic commands like attack X room, do Y command within X room. Eject the warp core, overload the warp core. Eject and overload the warp core, or even just set engines to max/off for shits and giggles.

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..! I must have misinterpreted what you said, because you said keep the RNG.

Enemies and factions need to be improved in general, but we'll see what happens with the faction/alliances update. To respond to someone else above, I do think pirate attacks are actually random, they seem to be on a timer rather than actual fleets warping from pirate territory to your current sector. Infact I think that's quite likely, because the game doesn't simulate anything outside of your current sector currently, iirc.

I support this idea. The colors of engines should be customizable, while the effects are tied to the material type. Stronger thrusters leads to a bigger and longer trail.

In a thematic sense I don't think physically docking making any sense. These ships are kilometers long, you'd most likely handle things with cargo transporters, because >2km ship

I don't use Salvage yards. The whole timed license thing is huge turn off for me. I can make my own dead ship parking lot out any pirate sector whenever I want, and get the fun of actually making it so. Trading is good. Asteroids are OK. Selling turrets and extra resources and cards and whatever. Hang out and vaporize a few pirates for fun and profit. Take on a mission from any station that's asking. There are more than enough ways to make a buck, all of them viable. You can have a veritable fortune from Titanium, Iron if you want to work a few minutes at it. Maybe the game needs to trim the Government Cheese and make us go work for our money instead of handing out Asteroids and Salvage Yards so you have to do something besides abuse the two items you mention..? As always, YMMV. Cheers..! I went over the cheese in the thread I made on game progression, I think. Because I agree, you're just given infinite amounts of money for no reason. Even the combat, enemies are incompetent and poorly designed.

If you do get stuck with a "laser turret loop", why not just change areas? If you want something that you can't get from somewhere, clearly you should just go to the place that does, i.e one of the factions that uses cannons. No need to simplify things and add an annoying mechanic. It's the same with resources, if you need a different resource, you go get it.

Of course. If you screw up, and have your materials in your ship, and either haven't bothered or haven't been able to store them/sell them, you get punished for it. Like you would in any Space sim. Elite Dangerous, X games, Freespace, EvE Online etc. To an above comment, the game has no micromanagement. Research is purely putting 5 of your 680 turrets and repeating that until you get some epics. The rest of the game is... I don't know. Spending half an hour getting to Trinium/Orgonite, then beginning the annoying grind to get Avorion. You need to have something to manage to micromanage it, the game completely lacks anything to manage. Granted, some of this may be getting added. But you don't need to manage cargo, units, diplomacy, or even combat.

Well, my thinking behind this was, if you want to start really getting into building you would gear yourself towards it. A combat ship shouldn't be mining, but it should be making cash and weapons off of enemies, using the cash to build itself. A miner may be able to hire escorts because it's 85% cargo, so it can mine a large amount and make a decent amount of cash, or even just keep expanding itself. Same with a trader, hire escorts. So even without supporting infrastructure you'd be able to do your playstyle, but you wouldnt' be a combat ship holding 80,000 trinium I'm fine with the way the game is set up, and it would require a ridiculous amount of change to bring that around. Every time you removed a block on a ship with full cargo space, whoops! Lost your materials, and you can't replace the block you just removed because the material is floating there in space. Or if your hold was full of gold and you needed more space because a freighter carrying neutron accelerators just got ganked in front of you and you want his cargo, no dice, you have to go dump the gold somewhere and go mine something so you can build the cargo bay and then come back and hope it's still there. Gee, what fun! There are plenty of other games that feature this, and it makes logistics intensely boring and the game slower as a result. EVE, Space Engineers, etc. It all revolves around having established places to constantly return to, and in this game that would be exceptionally restrictive since you're required to explore and push the boundaries. (Most people who make factories and mines do so closer to the core anyway, which would be far, FAR beyond when you would first need your storage station.) I mean it takes like 30 minutes reach the outer edge of the core. Then you just have the grind to actually get in.

Well, my thinking behind this was, if you want to start really getting into building you would gear yourself towards it. A combat ship shouldn't be mining, but it should be making cash and weapons off of enemies, using the cash to build itself. A miner may be able to hire escorts because it's 85% cargo, so it can mine a large amount and make a decent amount of cash, or even just keep expanding itself. Same with a trader, hire escorts. So even without supporting infrastructure you'd be able to do your playstyle, but you wouldnt' be a combat ship holding 80,000 trinium