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The Trouble With Guns


Zistack
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Hello everyone!  I've mostly enjoyed my time with the game so far, but I've definitely noticed where the game is made almost entirely of placeholders a little rough around the edges.  I understand the thrusters are the most broken thing right now, and they're being fixed, so I'd like to focus on another important part of the game that I think desperately needs attention: Turrets.  I have read several suggestions on improving this subsystem already, but I don't think that any of them really address all of the issues it suffers from, so I've taken the time to come up with a sketch of a solution that should cover all of the bases.

 

Now, before I go further, I'd like to note the way the turret system is currently set up is somewhat unique for a space game like this.  I have to wonder if there is a reason for this beyond `that's just what the dev came up with at the time'.  If there is, then my proposal is likely incompatible with such reasoning, as my proposal is for a system that is completely different than what is currently implemented.  I wouldn't mind an official statement on that.

 

 

What's Wrong With Turrets Now

 

More or less everything.  They do shoot, and you can destroy enemies with them, so there's that at least.

 

I don't particularly like trusting the RNG.  I wouldn't have a problem with it if I were just upgrading one weapon on one ship, but I'm not.  I, like some other players, like to have a little uniformity in my fleet.  In addition to that, some ship designs are good for some kinds of weapons and not others.  I don't really wanna go slapping a bunch of short range weapons on the quarter-scale Death Star I just built, simply because I don't have anything else.  (I haven't built this - this example is just to make a point.  Kudos if someone does this though.)  Neither do I want my support fleet of TIE fighters to have a random bag of weapons on them, like dumb little lasers on one, and a triple-chaingun on another.

 

I also don't want to have to go to turret factories to manufacture my uniform set of turrets - after all, shouldn't the turrets be part of the ship's design?  I mean, if we can build a hyperspace core, I think we can build a chaingun.  I'm still trusting an RNG to give me a decent factory, too, which isn't a safe bet. When I create a new vessel from a blueprint, it should really be armed already - that way, I don't have to go through each one and put turrets on it in all of the places.  This would become rather tedious for a fleet of any real size.

 

On top of that, it is frankly true that the disparity between turret factories and turret drops is a problem.  With that said, I don't think the answer is to somehow rebalance the stats so that they agree more.

 

In fact, I think the whole `turrets as an item that you slap on' thing is wrong to begin with.  This brings me to what I think is the most important flaw in this system.

 

I now direct your attention to exhibit A.

 

5bQAFuSh.jpg

 

This is the Eye of Zorg - my primary space vessel.  Allow me to further direct your attention to the turrets on said craft.

 

zrnPbp6h.jpg

 

The Eye of Zorg only reluctantly installs these ugly gray warts as the only means of conquering space defending itself.  These turrets do not at all match the desired aesthetic - and there's nothing I can do about it.  Ideally, I'd just have a mega-laser hiding behind that great big eyeball (for obvious reasons).

 

There is clearly only one solution to this problem.  We players need to be able to build our turrets block by block.

 

 

The Proposal

 

If you think about it, this approach stands to solve many of the problems that we see in the turret system right now.  For one thing, we no longer have to worry so much about using modules and module slots to limit how many turrets a ship can have.  I expect that the average turret will get quite a bit larger if players have to build them.  They'll also be heavy, and you won't want to load your ship down with expensive heavy guns that don't serve as very good armor.  With that said, we can really make them any size we want, since we get the same arbitrary scaling that we have for blocks.  It should also be easy to add projectile coloration, by basing the projectile color off of the color of some of the weapon blocks.

 

For another, I always thought it was odd that the guns could aim independently of your craft's orientation be default.  It seems to me that turrets that can turn would be a more advanced feature to be earned.  And then with this comes the turret lock block, so that you can add a little complexity to the system to take away that ability - because that makes sense.

 

This also gives players something they've always wanted - spinal mount weapons.  I mean, what's the point of being a giant battleship if you can't blast the thing you're facing with the energy of a moon crashing into a planet?  Sure, the recoil will shove you into the next sector (granted, still at sublight speeds), if not rip the gun assembly out of your vessel and shoot it out the new hole in the rear, but it'll have been worth it.  If you'd like a more down-to-earth example of this awesome technique, I point you to the Warthog.

 

Of course, what's an idea without a little discussion about implementation?

 

 

Shooting

 

So how would one build a turret?  Well, turrets shoot right?  So how do we build something that shoots?

 

 

Base Weapon Blocks

 

Basically, we've got projectile weapons (chainguns, railguns, missiles), energy weapons (lasers), and particle weapons (plasma), right?  Technically, there's also lightning weapons, but those actually aren't possible in space (no medium for the lightning arcs to form in, among other things).  Even if we included them anyways, the approach would be much the same.

 

How about we define some base blocks.  One for each kind of weapon.  We'd have firing chambers for the projectile weapons, energy emitters for the energy weapons, and particle emitters for the particle weapons.  The size of these blocks will determine the amount of mass/energy that can be fired per unit time.

 

 

Modifiers

 

I expect that these weapons will generate heat.  They'll also need to be fed energy/munitions.  We also probably want to put barrels on some of them, or some focusing lenses on others.

 

Long barrels help with accuracy and a bit with bullet speed in the case of projectile weapons (not just railguns).  Many barrels might just help with firing speed - or maybe just redundancy in case one gets shot off.  For lasers and particle weapons, you'd add a base emitter (or several), and the area of the emitters would determine how much energy could be discharged per unit time without melting something important on the firing end.  You could add a focusing lens on a laser to get some armor penetration, or a particle accelerator to a particle weapon to add some range/damage.

 

You could also add more interesting modifiers, like a block that arms the munitions with charges that explode on impact, or something that replaces the usual slug with a package of pellets (shotgun adapter).  Perhaps a block that installs seeker modules on the missiles?

 

Cooling is a fascinating issue in its own right.  Something that many of you may not realize is that it is actually really hard to cool things effectively in space.  This is because you can't dissipate heat into the atmosphere.  There is no atmosphere.  You basically have to rely on blackbody radiation.  The more heat you can dump into what you're ejecting at the enemy, the better.  With that said, you're probably still gonna have some heat to take care of.  One option is to eject gasses that run past the hot parts and into space, but the gasses need restocked periodically (I note that ammo seems to be infinite here, so this might not really matter).  Another option is to put radiator panels on your ship somewhere, and have a cooling system pump heat to them.  Depending on how detailed you wanna get, you could either have an entire heating/cooling subsystem to the ship, or just add some kind of cooling blocks as weapon modifiers.  I note that requiring that your ship has sufficient surface area to cool itself would discourage the cubeship designs, so this may be a desirable design constraint to add.

 

I am thinking that this is the way to get your weapon variety, without having to come up with a bunch of different weapons with different stat tradeoffs.  Let the players choose.  It should also be nice and extensible, due to the separation of functions into separate blocks.  It should be easy enough to add a block to either add a new base weapon type, or add a modifier to some of the existing weapons.

 

This will probably require some reworking in the way the game thinks about ship designs, as adjacency matters here.

 

 

Aiming

 

Of course, having all these blocks is great, but since we aren't dealing with magic turret entities that we slap on the outsides of our vessels, we now have to worry about making the turrets point at the enemies.  I suggest two primitives here - Rotors and Rails.

 

 

Rotors

 

These are what you expect.  You place it, and it allows you to build blocks off of it that can rotate.  I do wonder about the most reasonable implementation of this, as it seems that putting a little rotor block to one side of something that aims up and down isn't right, and I doubt that it would be easy to have the game detect when multiple rotors are aligned correctly.  My thinking is that you'll want to additonally have something like a rod/sleeve block, where the ends are one part, and the sleeve around the center is the other part.  Which you attach to the ship and which you attach to the moving part shouldn't matter too much.

 

Figuring out the acceptable range of motion on a rotor is probably impossible to automate.  There will need to be some way of letting players configure this.  I don't know what should happen if the players lie get it wrong and the moving piece collides with something.  Possibly explosions and death.

 

I would expect that the rotor's ability to rotate mass would be proportional to its size somehow.  This could limit the speed at which a turret may rotate into position, especially if it is large and heavy.

 

I note that rotors might not be useful for only turrets, although a way of figuring out what position they should be in and when would be necessary.  I've ideas for this, but those are suggestions for another time.

 

 

Rails

 

I know it seems like rails would be inferior to rotors, but I think for some designs, it would make a lot of sense.  Think broadside cannons.

 

The trick with rails is making them flexible enough that you can do neat things, without making them so flexible that it becomes an implementation nightmare.

 

The most obvious constraint would be to enforce that a rail can only be built such that it specifies a path within a plane.  Let's look at that another way.  Imagine a ship.  Now imagine a plane intersecting the ship.  Suppose you want turrets to move about the surface of the ship, but only so long as they're on that plane that intersects the ship.  That's what rails should let you do.

 

Now, arbitrary planes might be a little much (although, not necessarily impossible).  In all likelihood, you'll want to stick to planes aligned with the axes.  Basically, adjacent rail blocks (of possibly a variety of shapes) will form a rail, but all blocks have to intersect this common plane.  Only one thing may be on a given rail.  This rail might use slopes to wrap around the ship, totally, or maybe just partially.  The outer surface of the rail blocks must be exposed (of course).  Things may slide along the rail blocks on the outside surface.

 

 

Control Blocks

 

Even for such aimable turrets that one would want to be in direct control of, the game needs to know that there's an aimable turret.  I think the easy way is to use some kind of 'turret control block'.  This can be thought of as a block that contains targeting and firing control for the turret, but for the implementation, this really just marks which bits are turrets, and can aid in figuring out which rotors/rails are involved in aiming it.

 

It makes no sense for a turret to have more than 2 degrees of freedom.  Since the projectiles move away from the ship, that effectively allows you to target any point in space (assuming that the 2 degrees allow for arbitrary rotation).  Unfortunately, just having 2 rotors between the turret control block and the ship it is attached to does not guarantee that there are 2 degrees of freedom.  If the rotors are both aligned to the same axis, indeed, there will only be one degree of freedom.  I would expect that the control block will only take control of 2 rotors/rails if they grant independent axes of motion.  If not, then stop at one.  This should be something that can be done automatically.  I note that this scheme will prevent players from stacking many weak rotors to gain rotational speed from cheap parts (although that shouldn't be a problem anyways as long as the stats make sense - take a lesson from thrusters).

 

A note to the implementer - you would want to work from the control block in.  There may be other reasons to use rotors and rails that don't directly involve aiming guns.  If they become part of the game too, then you cannot guarantee that there will be at most 2 of these things between the ship and the control block.

 

The control block would have an orientation, which would allow the player to effectively specify which way the guns are pointing.  Alternately, one could require that the control block be touching the base blocks for the guns.  This could allow the game to automatically determine the correct orientation for the player.  It could also make it easier for the game to enumerate the weapons that a given control block is actually controlling.

 

Once a control block knows which weapons it can fire, and which motion blocks it controls, all you need is an algorithm for aiming the turret at the target.  For rotors, this is easy.  For rails, it's less easy, but still not too difficult.

 

 

What d'y'all think?

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So I've been watching this thread for a while now and I'm starting to feel that a statement from my side on this whole thing would be beneficial.

 

Right now, I do not have plans to make fully customizable weapons, in terms of stats.

 

There are very simple reasons for this, and it's not because of doability or performance:

1. It would make the entire current looting system obsolete. This loot system is a very important aspect of Avorion that makes it fun, you can always find a better weapon.

 

"Makes it fun" is subjective.  "Makes it frustrating" is also subjective.  Personally, I find that this aspect of Avorion is entirely the latter, and not the former (for anyone that has English as a second language, that means that it's only frustrating, and not fun at all).  Your perspective may vary, of course, but given the frequently repeated request for customizable weaponry, I think that more players find it frustrating than find it fun.  This game has more in common with Elite: Dangerous than it does with Borderlands.

 

2. It would be hell to balance, we're already running into issues where players say the game is too easy because the AI ships can't beat them, even on the highest difficulty. Players build their own ships, meaning that the difficulty is basically set by yourself and your ship. But that's a completely different point and I won't get into this any more here now.

 

This is a much more legitimate and supportable concern.  However, I have a rebuttal here too.  The game's too easy not because of weapons, but because of shields.  Getting millions of shield hitpoints is trivial at higher tier materials, and the way shields work means you're almost totally immune to weapon damage as long as you have even a single hitpoint of your shield bar active.

 

The early game where you have to rely on armor for damage mitigation is plenty challenging and requires you to plan your engagements with enemy ships ahead of time, especially on higher difficulties.  The fact that the late game is nowhere near as challenging is purely because the shield block makes you functionally invulnerable for a significant period of time during any fight.  Any fight where you're not taking any damage at all is trivial and completely devoid of challenge.

 

This balance concern is not about weapons, but about shields.  Your balance focus is misplaced.

 

So when I say I don't want you to be able to completely, freely choose your weapons stats, I'm not doing this because I want to annoy you, but because I think that it leaves more balancing control in my hands and it will be healthier for the game in the long term.

 

You're right about it keeping more balancing control in your hands.  But in my opinion, you're wrong about it being healthier for the game in the long term.  I'll guarantee you that the majority of the players of this game came here because of the amazing building system.  Your "bloxel" system is pure genius, and that's what drew me here.  Given the repeated threads I see in the various forums, it's what drew the majority of players here.

 

They're Minecraft players, Space Engineers players, Starmade players, From The Depths players, Robocraft players, Galactic Junk League players, Besiege players... in short, they're players of games that focus on building, but who have as yet been unable to find a game that let them build the spaceships they want to build.  That is, until Avorion came along.

 

With a game this focused on PVE or cooperative play, balancing is much less of a concern that a purely PVP game like Fractured Space or Galactic Junk League.  Especially since the modding capability is so broad, by design, and mods can be run from the server, and custom servers can be created and maintained.

 

To be honest, you have no functional control over balance already.  As with something like Skyrim, the balance, or lack thereof, is in the hands of the end user.  Thus, whether you intend it or not, the inability to freely choose our weapons is, in fact, annoying instead of healthy.

 

That being said, there are plans to make weapons (and fighters) more customizable. I'm planning:

- Custom models for weapons (and fighters on that matter)

- Custom models for turrets

- Better scaling for turret sizes (the current turrets-not-scaling-issue is actually a bug, but I want to address it at the right time so I don't have to change it twice)

- Turret templates so you can copy turrets you've built or looted

 

I hope this clears some things up.

 

All of these things are steps in the right direction, but they don't go far enough.  I've been pondering this subject extensively and I think I've come up with a system that's a happy medium.  That's something for another thread.

 

I recognize that there's basically only one developer of this game.  You're completely free to develop it as you see fit, make it conform purely to your vision, and ignore any concerns of the playerbase.  But, as someone who's actually worked in the game development field in the past, I'm of the opinion that a game works best when it meets, or at least accommodates, the expectations and desires of its playerbase.  The challenge then comes in determining who the playerbase is, and what they want.

 

From what I've seen, the playerbase for Avorion is not gamers who love RNG mechanics, but gamers who love building and creating.

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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.

 

 

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  • Boxelware Team

Concerning overpowered shields:

That's on the radar and I agree that this is the point that's problematic. As I stated here in the "Further down the road" paragraph, I'm working on solutions to this.

 

Concerning customizable turrets:

Please everybody who has a strong opinion on this answer me the following questions. Don't take them too literally, it's about the principle of why you want something. I'm looking to fix the problem and not treat the symptoms. Please also tell me which of those is the most important for you.

 

1. Do you want to configure a turret's stats (as in Damage, Range, etc.)?

2. Do you want to create more of the same turret (so your ships look less random)?

3. Do you want to adjust the size of turrets?

4. Do you want to change the appearance of turrets?

 

1. is already possible at a turret factory, and the rest will be coming later on. If you don't like the turret factory then please tell me why (and don't just say "it's buggy" because I know very well that there are some issues).

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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.

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1. Do you want to configure a turret's stats (as in Damage, Range, etc.)?

2. Do you want to create more of the same turret (so your ships look less random)?

3. Do you want to adjust the size of turrets?

4. Do you want to change the appearance of turrets?

 

1-2 are must haves for me, 4 not so much, nice to have but not mandatory

3 is a different topic, i would prefer if turrets scale with their hardpoint (yes dedicated harpoints with scale based modifiers for dmg, range etc., different mounting types (fixed, independent targeting) would be nice too

 

in short, i don´t want to have the final turrets but more of a template. A template that scales with its harpoint and one that can be used on multiple hardpoints.

Acquiring this templates from loot or turret factory (think not of manufacturing but designing a turret) would solve above points

 

 

For me it´s important to design a ship together with and for its weapon systems. So, especially early game this is very difficult without lots of resources and a dedicatet cargo ship/manufacturing station. Would be nice to be, at least, able to buy different low level guns in the starting sector for every reasonable weapon type (no energy suckers because no way to provide enough energy with iron)

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The idea of rails might be a nice idea to look into, as that alone(placing rails and then placing turrets on it)could provide an easy to understand (and fun) layer of customisation, provided its not too hard to code (I imagine the hardest part would be to make turrets dynamic and not static) and could be intigrated in generated ship designs.(lets say there are no loops in the rails, so when pressing a button the turret would travel from one rail end to the other)

 

As an example, one could build a ship with tunnels going through its main body, so you could switch all guns from the right to the left and vice versa.

 

 

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1. Do you want to configure a turret's stats (as in Damage, Range, etc.)?

2. Do you want to create more of the same turret (so your ships look less random)?

3. Do you want to adjust the size of turrets?

4. Do you want to change the appearance of turrets?

 

I think most of this is already possible with the exception of #4.

 

1. I think is difficult because of the nature of turret factories and the investment required to produce 1 let alone 40 of a turret that fits your requirements.  The important things I look for may be a slow firing rail gun or a burst fire chaingun that overheats.  That stuff isn't possible in the turret factory.

2. I like the loot collecting and excitement of getting an upgrade to one of my 40 same-type turrets.  I'd hope it wouldn't be too easy to just pop 40 of the exact same turret on my ship and switch types whenever I wanted.  Instead I have a collection of turrets that I build on.  This i think is balanced really well right now.

3. Yeah I do want bigger turrets.... muuuuch bigger.  My ship right now keeps growing but my turrets do not.  Using block-middle snap the space around them keeps getting bigger and bigger.  I'd like maybe multi-slot turrets that were much bigger that you could showcase on your ship.  Maybe if a turret took up 4 slots it could be 2x as big and do 2x the damage but retain stats like tracking that balance it out.  Maybe optionally choose how many slots you want a turret to fill?? =P  This would actually help #2 as well since the more slots one turret takes the fewer matching turrets you'll need to find.

4. Right now?  No.. but if #3 became a thing then #4 might end up becoming more important.  A big turret that was very noticeable might become a sore spot if it wasn't customizable.  Especially since that's such a huge aspect of the game.

 

One thing I sort of wish for right now is tracking speed.  Or maybe that's just something that'll get smoothed out later.  But if my turrets are capable of tracking 90deg in 1 sec they should be able to aquire a target and keep that target while i swing my hulking battleship around to face.

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Concerning overpowered shields:

That's on the radar and I agree that this is the point that's problematic. As I stated here in the "Further down the road" paragraph, I'm working on solutions to this.

 

Concerning customizable turrets:

Please everybody who has a strong opinion on this answer me the following questions. Don't take them too literally, it's about the principle of why you want something. I'm looking to fix the problem and not treat the symptoms. Please also tell me which of those is the most important for you.

 

1. Do you want to configure a turret's stats (as in Damage, Range, etc.)?

2. Do you want to create more of the same turret (so your ships look less random)?

3. Do you want to adjust the size of turrets?

4. Do you want to change the appearance of turrets?

 

1. is already possible at a turret factory, and the rest will be coming later on. If you don't like the turret factory then please tell me why (and don't just say "it's buggy" because I know very well that there are some issues).

 

None of the items in this list address the most pressing, and frustrating, part of the problem for people who are playing this game primarily for its build mode.  And that is this:

 

You cannot equip your ship with weapons when building it.

 

There's not a class of ship, airplane, armored vehicle or any other combat-capable craft put in operation by any fighting force today doesn't come off its assembly line fully armed and ready to fight from day one.  There's not a single piece of military hardware that enters the field weaponless and relies on weaponry bought or salvaged after the fact to equip itself.  In many cases, the A-10 Thunderbolt II or "Warthog" being an iconic example, a particular craft is built around its specific weapon or weapons, not the other way around.

 

This is even more the case in science fiction, where many iconic spacecraft carry a signature weapon that's the most important thing about them (The Death Star's superlaser, anyone?  The Shadow battlecrab's cutting beam?  The Wave Motion Gun?  The MAC cannon from the HALO universe?)

 

I'm working on a longer post for a new thread discussing this and offering possibilities that will try to offer solutions that will both make creator-focused players happy and leave the looting system intact, but for now, please consider the following:

 

Your entire list is important, but the most important thing about it, and the most conspicuously absent, is that all of them need to be available in the ship creator.  Until we can build our ships with their weapons (in whatever forms those weapons ultimately take), the designer is always going to feel incomplete.

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1. Do you want to configure a turret's stats (as in Damage, Range, etc.)?

2. Do you want to create more of the same turret (so your ships look less random)?

3. Do you want to adjust the size of turrets?

4. Do you want to change the appearance of turrets?

Oddly 1 is not that important to me, the Turret Factories provide that ability well enough already.

 

I am interested in 2/3/4 though. All three would help with making ship designs more cohesive and with the incredible ship remakes from Homeworld, BSG, Star Wars etcetera, it'd go a long way to getting those ships looking right.

 

I would add a number 5 though, a request to have configurable colours for the weapons. So you can recreate those Turbo Lasers from Star Wars or those Blue Beam Lasers from Homeworld...

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I too want as much control over the look of the my weapons as possible.  I actually prefer not having control over my weapon's stats.  Because as someone who played From the Depths I found that when I built my weapons I ended up building the same weapon over and over again.  With a loot based weapons the game can surprise me and I'll try things I wouldn't normally go for based on the stats of the weapons I'm given.

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1. Do you want to configure a turret's stats (as in Damage, Range, etc.)?

2. Do you want to create more of the same turret (so your ships look less random)?

3. Do you want to adjust the size of turrets?

4. Do you want to change the appearance of turrets?

 

 

It seems like 1 and 2 are already (mostly) possible/adjustable with as default and mods if a player or host chooses.

4 seems like it covers question 3, so I vote for number 4. 

 

I humbly suggest that whatever you decide to have in game by default that you continue on making these features moddable or at least able to toggle when creating a galaxy.  Every player/group is going to have different ideas about balance and what is fun, as you can see from the modding section of the forum. 

 

Thank you!

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First post for me in Avorion, Hi Folks!

71 hours in and having lots of fun, love most of the Builder; great work, much better than SE or Empryion.

 

to koonschi's four questions;

 

1) Yes, kind of. Basically fine with as is, where we can configure within a range. So a Cannon should stay as a long range heavy hitter while a Chaingun is for mid range and a Laser for knife fights.

1.a) I'd vote for an TF/Build option for players to be able to choose if turrets are Independent or not.

2) Yes!!

3) Seems like they should auto size to me... But yes to multiple sizes.

4) Hmm... Would like to be able to Paint, yes. But not the whole thing; let barrels always be a set color, so whole turret can't 'hide' due to paint job.

 

Simple (maybe Patch level?) Turret Factory Weapon suggestion:

 

What if all Turret Factories allowed the player to craft 'Common' lvl turrets, out of the factories built-in

inventory of parts?

 

To be clear, these would -not- require user provided 'parts'.

And, of course, the factory would use it's distance based matieral tier.

 

Maybe, throw in Faction Standing to be able to get better than 'Common'? Not all the way up to Legendary,

just one or two above common...?

 

This would allow standardization for ocd folks. Allow explorer or speed run types to get common, but higher

matieral tier weapon, mining & salvage turrets instead of being basically dependent on drops from kills.

 

Second Stage or 'Later Feature' to this could be the ability to "refit" your turrets in -any- Turret Factory.

Take your six 'Common' Nanite Chaingun turrets to a factory, choose "Upgrade Turrets" add in more Servos,

presto, higher fire rate & possibly higher Rarity.

Note that this keeps -in- the benefits of the complex/grind of the 'supply chain' for turret parts; you want the best? Work for it!

 

So, from what I can tell, the above (1st stage) wouldn't require changes to RNG ships, drops, the existing turrets or supply chain stuff, only to the Turret Factories...?  Maybe works for a year or so, until bigger & better stuff comes around  ;)

 

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Personally I don't think we need a super complex weapon system. The system we have now fits a good balance between complexity and simplicity. The only missing things are these

1. Do you want to configure a turret's stats (as in Damage, Range, etc.)?

2. Do you want to create more of the same turret (so your ships look less random)?

3. Do you want to adjust the size of turrets?

4. Do you want to change the appearance of turrets?

 

This is my first post but if you ask me these 4 will make the turret system perfect :P The only thing that's missing are gigantic spinal mounted weapons, and AFAIK those are planned.

 

Of course there are a few weapons I'd like to see adjusted in role. But being able to configure a turret's stats basically makes those roles irrelevant. I'd like to see more options for customizing weapons though. For example, burst fire on lasers(like a high intensity beam that lasts for 1 second). I kind of want to be able to adjust projectile speed and size as well

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1. Do you want to configure a turret's stats (as in Damage, Range, etc.)?

2. Do you want to create more of the same turret (so your ships look less random)?

3. Do you want to adjust the size of turrets?

4. Do you want to change the appearance of turrets?

 

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..!

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1. Do you want to configure a turret's stats (as in Damage, Range, etc.)?

2. Do you want to create more of the same turret (so your ships look less random)?

3. Do you want to adjust the size of turrets?

4. Do you want to change the appearance of turrets?

 

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.

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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.

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.

 

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..!

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wave motion gun

 

Oooooooh.  Want.  I don't care if it takes 10 minutes to charge up and it drains all ship power except minimal shield and life support during that period.  I want something that will blow a big hole through everything in the sector that's in the line of fire, with one shot, if I actually managed to get it fully charged before someone tore my ship apart.

 

I wonder if you could sort of fake that now with a deep pit in your ship's bow and a bunch of rotation-locked max-tech lasers?  You wouldn't get the distance, of course, but for short range you could get the look and a good hunk of the damage.

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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.

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.

 

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.

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1. Do you want to configure a turret's stats (as in Damage, Range, etc.)?

2. Do you want to create more of the same turret (so your ships look less random)?

3. Do you want to adjust the size of turrets?

4. Do you want to change the appearance of turrets?

 

1. I would enjoy changing a turrets stats, but not directly. I'd rather be able to adjust the size, so that the stats will scale accordingly

 

2. I think we should be able to reverse engineer a turret, in order to get a blueprint from it. From this blueprint, we can then create multiple versions of the same turret at a factory

 

3. See #1

 

4. The appearance isn't as big of an issue for me. However, if we were to get blueprints like I suggested in #2, this wouldn't be an issue since they would be the same.

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1. Do you want to configure a turret's stats (as in Damage, Range, etc.)?

2. Do you want to create more of the same turret (so your ships look less random)?

3. Do you want to adjust the size of turrets?

4. Do you want to change the appearance of turrets?

 

Yes to all.

 

I mostly want to build weapons the shape i want tem to be. Slim super long laser, builky massive double-barrel cannon, agile fast turning amti-missiles machine gun, and so on.

 

I want to be able to adjust shape, color, effect, stats, according to my ships and needs.

 

Just look at Starmade, or Sky Wanderers, or From the Depth, and for me it seems obvious they do weapons better than Avorion. Avorion basically only needs this and some rotating parts to be as good. And "human sctale" with interior, walking, planets... but well, can't have all. If we "only" have this Freenlancer-Starmade-XUniverse feeling, then it's fine.

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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 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..!

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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 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?

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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..!

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Concerning overpowered shields:

That's on the radar and I agree that this is the point that's problematic. As I stated here in the "Further down the road" paragraph, I'm working on solutions to this.

 

Concerning customizable turrets:

Please everybody who has a strong opinion on this answer me the following questions. Don't take them too literally, it's about the principle of why you want something. I'm looking to fix the problem and not treat the symptoms. Please also tell me which of those is the most important for you.

 

1. Do you want to configure a turret's stats (as in Damage, Range, etc.)?

2. Do you want to create more of the same turret (so your ships look less random)?

3. Do you want to adjust the size of turrets?

4. Do you want to change the appearance of turrets?

 

1. is already possible at a turret factory, and the rest will be coming later on. If you don't like the turret factory then please tell me why (and don't just say "it's buggy" because I know very well that there are some issues).

 

My answer would be #3 - but with a stat scaling system that's multiplicative/exponential.

Requirements should scale also such as crew amounts...and perhaps even turret slots amounts increase after a threshold***

 

***A more granular system for the turrets would work well for this.

Example: If you were to multiply the turret systems by 100. Instead of 1 system = 1 turret. You now have the option of:

1 system = 1x100 sized turret

1 system = 2x50 sized turrets

1 system = 4x25 sized turrets

and so on...

 

A little bit of math-fu to get from A to B would be needed, but it'd be robust enough to satisfy the turret needs for scaling - and introduce a large aspect for the modders to get their hands on.

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