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[SuicideJunkie]

Definitely very strange.

Ship physics all show info based on the fragment that was docked, but if so, it should have just fallen out of the spacedock.

I'll be rolling back the turn and try to figure out what happened.

[Rabid_Cog]

How about this then? This design has a LOT more dakka but leaves me with large unshielded patches, but I hope that as the game progresses I can get a few more shields online.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Total Armamemt: 1 x Pulse Disruptor
                        2 x Heavy Laser
                        4 x Medium Disruptor
                        4 x Light laser, offset firing direction

Works out to about 94 forward damage every turn. Is that enough?

[Draxis]

Probably so; it wouldn't hold up to a dedicated battleship that cost but it would still be pretty strong.

I would recommend stripping off the emissive armor, and thinning out the armor protecting from aft attacks, in favor of a bigger reactor and more shields.  It would sacrafice some raw protection, but I found that shields and DPS are more important than armor, because shots will leak through your gunports.  Also, you have only enough power to last 14 turns of full combat expenditures, which might be fine for a fighter but certainly not for a flagship.  Removing the armor will also make you much faster and more manuverable.

[Rabid_Cog]

Let's see what I can do. Do I need a fabricator? Fitting that has been the biggest headache.

Edit: Actually, the power isn't so bad if you consider I will be switching off the fabricator if combat hits and I doubt my guns will be firing fully automatically. And still, what are the odds of enemy shots actually going through a gunport? And even if they do, I can close that gunport while the gun repairs. No chance of anything further getting hit.

[SuicideJunkie]

Switching off the fab does cost you $100 per turn in lost income
Needing a fab depends on the game.  In a battleship duel, you tend to not survive long enough for them to pay for themselves (~100 turns). 
On the other hand, in a fabber-base start, the fabber is used to build all of your combat craft.

I suggest an R1 or R2 contour shield to protect the guns while the ports are open.
The chance of any one shot going down the hole is small, but the enemy will be sporting lots of dakka too, so at least one of the shots will go where you don't want it to go

[Girlinhat]

Let's see what I can do. Do I need a fabricator? Fitting that has been the biggest headache.

Edit: Actually, the power isn't so bad if you consider I will be switching off the fabricator if combat hits and I doubt my guns will be firing fully automatically. And still, what are the odds of enemy shots actually going through a gunport? And even if they do, I can close that gunport while the gun repairs. No chance of anything further getting hit.

Space Shotgun will totally eat through all your gunports.  The Fennec was firing 6 turbolasers and 2 medium lasers, allowing for 6x4 + 2x2 = 28 individual lines of damage.  Chances are actually fairly respectable that some are going to slip through open gunports.  And if you close them, shots still hit the gunports themselves, which are armor items and cannot be repaired.  Shots will also be able simply pound against your armor, whittling it down while you keep your ports closed, allowing the Space Shotgun to continue damaging your armor.

Space Shotgun is really like a sandblaster.  No matter what protection you've got, sustained fire WILL begin dealing light damage to everything, and be able to slip through tiny cracks to hit exposed firing lines.  It's countered by emmisive armor and deflectors, mainly.

Pounding Guns, like heavy lasers and disruptors, are more like proper cannons.  No matter what protection you've got, a few solid hits will be able to penetrate and deal single bursts of damage to one location, able to overwhelm emmisive and deflectors and able to chew through shields and armor.  It's mainly countered by ablative armor and regular shields.

Of course, the best way to counter any attack is to not be attacked.  If you're taking damage, you should expect to take damage.  Being inside the enemy's firing arc is always a dangerous thing.  I'm beginning to take the view that offense matters more than defense, and that making the enemy worried to get close is more valuable than making the enemy frustrated by your armor.

[Rabid_Cog]

Ah, okay. I was wondering how the income and building stuff worked. Can I build bits onto my ship after the game starts? Or do I need a docking thingy of some kind? Basically, how does fabrication work?

[Girlinhat]

Fabricators allow you to build ships or individual components that fall under your current budget.  As long as they're Enabled, their budget goes up every turn.  Disabling a fabber causes it to stop gaining money.

To attach items to a ship, you need some form of docking.  Essentially, you want to SOMEHOW get the new item on the same ship view as your existing ship, and for it to line up with a valid hardpoint.  Explosive bolts are good for this, as they're cheap and can self-delete.  So make a string of bolts leading from your docking clamp to the desired location, and then blow all the bolts at once.

[SuicideJunkie]

Note that either your ship needs to have a clamp or dock component, or you need to build a base with a dock that can hold your ship and the thing to weld at the same time.

You can grab the string of bolts leading to your new component with your ship's clamp.  Any parts that are colliding with existing parts of your ship will be knocked loose into space.  Any remaining parts that aren't sitting at a valid connector location will also break away into space.  But if you've shaped your new piece right, then the new part will be sitting in the right location and weld to the ship.

You don't have to detonate the explosive bolts before docking.  In the case of a collision, your original ship's parts will stay and the new parts will break off.
You can use this technique to place armor in a spacedock and then dock your ship on top of it.  The fresh armor already in the drydock was there before your ship arrived, so it wins.  The damaged armor will be knocked loose from the incoming ship, and the remainder of the ship will be welded around the new armor

Alternatively, you could have your armor held on in sections via clamps.  when the armor slab gets too badly damaged, disengage the clamp, scrap the damaged armor for a 50% refund, and build a replacement slab to grab with the clamp.

[Girlinhat]

Suggestion for a part: Electromagnetic Clamps.  Very small, they function essentially like explosive bolts, with one hex and 2 connectors.  While active, it functions structurally and constantly drains power, and inactive it's no longer a structural point.  Essentially micro-clamps that consume power.

ALSO the docking screen is terribly laggy.  plz fix kthanx

[SuicideJunkie]

Hmm.  If they're more bolt-like then they wouldn't be dock components, and you'd have to weld things to them once the clamp is reengaged. 
If they're clamplike I'd want them to be a bit bigger.  Maybe 4 hexes in a Y shape.
If they're docking port like, with class 1 hull on both sides, then it would be best to need one on each of the ships.

I should probably redo the docking ports, since port 1's are way too large for practical use.


The main contribution to lag on the design screen is that it needs to show two ships in hex mode, and also has to do collision detection on all those hexes.
Graphics mode would make it more difficult to line things up precisely for welding purposes, but it might not be too bad.
I can do some caching of the collision points too.

[Girlinhat]

If the Docking Clamp 1 didn't have such large reach-around-bits it might work better.  As it is, you can only attach a Hull Strut 1 to a clamp.  If it didn't reach so far around it'd work easier.

The idea for EM Clamps was to make them smaller than normal clamps, but also cost energy and be more expensive.  What I'd basically like to see, is a whole other set of "militarized" ship components, which are smaller, tougher, and better, but more expensive and more of energy hogs.

[Rabid_Cog]

Where can you physically place new components? As in spend money to have them appear somewhere. Only in the dock type structures? If that is the case, there is no point for a fabricator since I can't  build anything anyway (no dock).

[Crowe~]

No, when you build items they appear the same Hex as you ships.
When you click that Hex you will see a separate list of items within that hex.

You do not require a dock to make use of a Fab. You can build designs, or single components. They all appear loose in space.

Ok:

1. You use a Fab to build fully functional ships. That could be fighters, drones, missiles. Fully functional meaning they are pre-built with cnc and power and the next turn they appear in the Hex and are ready to fly, fire - take orders. It just needs the $$$ required.

2. You can use a Fab to build loose items. Eg. a hull 1, a light laser, a hull strut. Those items are debris the turn they are built sitting in the same Hex as your ship. They are loose, on their own, have no power, no cnc, no orders or interaction possible. The only thing you can do with these items is grab them via docking/clamping with another ship.

Now, if you have a Dock of some sort. That means you have a nice big area to clamp in. So you can build up a ship piece by piece as GIH described above. If you only have clamps you are more limited, you can only grab items in the clamp. You could grab a light laser in your clamp facing south and it would be good to shoot next turn on your ship. But there is other options via "scaffolding/craning"......

[Crowe~]

http://i.imgur.com/ZyDTSlE.jpg

Ok thats my awesome pic of adding a light laser to your ship via clamping/craning.
The item in the white box is what you would design. A hull 1 with a light laser stuck on it, then a string of explosive bolts from that to the clamp.
You would design that, order it and then next turn it appears in your Hex of space. Turn after you would grab it correctly with the clamp and then the turn after that you would see it attached as per the awesome pic. Turn after you would blow the bolt nearest and detach the clamp and drop the rest & there you have your light laser stuck on that big hull. Sorry no awesome pic of the final phase


Or... not quite so awesome but maybe better:

http://i.imgur.com/soS3ywu.jpg

This is described quite well above already but this should hopefully clear up how to add parts for anyone else who is also reading and interested. Top to bottom attaching via clamps:

Ok you see; left to right:

1. The main map, showing the location of 3 occupied hexes.

2. I click A1 hex on the map, now we see the list of items in that Hex; A1, A5, A2... (my test game so just lame names), what is of interest is the bottom one, a newly built item that hasnt been named, it appeared there this turn after ordering it. Ship ID#34563463 blah blah.

3. I click that name, now we see the new built item for craning. A reactor to add to my ship to feed the new Fab I added in another turn. It has the Hull 2 which attaches to the reactor and will attach to the Hull 3 on my base & a long line of explosive bolts.

4. I click Fab Baseship in the Hex list, opens a new window of my Baseship.

5. I either press C over the clamp on the ship or use the mouse via the click and hold radial menus. This brings up another list of all items in that Hex. I pick the Ship ID# item.

6. This opens the Docking view in the right pic. As i move my mouse around the coloured hexes representing the part to be clamped will be moved around with it. I position into the clamp and click. Check its ok, yup the Hull 2 is next to the Hull 3 at the top where the connection point is I want. Job done.


Some points. You will notice the bolt line goes through the hull and the clamp in places. Yup, doesnt matter those bits will get knocked off. Since Fragmentation all happens at once (I presume) the dock wont fail. The bolts are knocked off that cross the hull but the hulls are attached at the top at the same time. Turn after i will blow the bolt nearest the hull at the top & drop the line of bolts to scrap.

The game is telling me there are structural faults on that clamp because it is seeing me try and hold from a Hull 2+Clamp -> Bolts (Lv1) -> Hull 2 which is a violation and would snap. In this case I dont care but i know the hull 2 is attaching to Hull 3 at the top and the end result isnt to hold the part via the clamp.