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[SuicideJunkie]

Most of those hull 1 struts don't seem to be used for anything, but other than that it looks good.

With a drydock, you don't need many small clamps, but it doesn't hurt to have them. 
Energy storage is a bit anemic; fighters will take a large chunk each time they land even though all that overproduction will quickly make you hit max again.  Extra capacitors can be welded on easily after the game starts.

[Draxis]

Removed those unnecessary hull pieces.  I think we're about ready to start, unless you want to make any mod changes before then.

Having thought about the armor more, I think adding a Light Armor piece would be the best solution if you're still considering them.  The sprite already exists, and while it would take some testing it's an easy change.  I think, as long as it is still significantly more cost-effective in protection than hard shields, light armor would be very appealing on fighters and drones.

[SuicideJunkie]

I'm going to have to check the math with some spreadsheets; perhaps shields should be costing a lot more energy than they currently do.

I could reduce the mass of current armor at least a little but I think it does need to remain denser than the hull to remain intuitive.  Perhaps just boosting the hitpoints instead.
Adding lighter armor with lower hitpoints couldn't hurt either.

[Girlinhat]

Ha ha this isn't dead

I'm going to have to check the math with some spreadsheets; perhaps shields should be costing a lot more energy than they currently do.

I could reduce the mass of current armor at least a little but I think it does need to remain denser than the hull to remain intuitive.  Perhaps just boosting the hitpoints instead.
Adding lighter armor with lower hitpoints couldn't hurt either.

Something that is the same weight and HP as Hull 1, but has 100% pass-through protection, wouldn't be an awful idea.

Also, I've had some time to ponder over things in this game, and reached a conclusion or two.  What I'm most effectively worried about, is field repairs and construction.  I'd like to see a few things.
1: A docking piece that destroys itself on docking.  Reason is so that you can make a wing of a ship, and be able to attach it without having to mess with elaborate struts and docking clamps.  1st size parts are easy enough to attach, but 3rd size parts, the explosive bolts are so large that you sometimes cannot position the docking clamps in a way that lets you make repairs.  So a sort of micro welding bot, which would attach items to a specific point and then dissolve, would be great.  Like an explosive bolt which also counts as a docking port, almost!  The problem is just that it's tricky to attach things sometimes!
2: Flatpack bits.  Being able to store armor, folded flat and condensed, and then able to deploy it.  It'd cost the same weight, but one tile could be activated to destroy the block, and make 3-5 free-floating armor hexes, which could then be attached in a hurry.  Same with hull 1 and hull strut 1.
3: Emergency fabricators.  Basically the same theory as flatpack, but in fabricator form.  They're charged, do not recharge on their own, and can be used as fabricators.  There would have to be a special way to recharge them, perhaps stealing energy from an existing fabricator.  They'd be small and consume little energy, but be able to produce items if you really need.

That basic problem has always been, to me, that if a ship loses a part, it's easier to recycle it and build a new one than to repair it.  Small fighters maybe, but anything with Hull 2 is really complicated to repair.  Ease of docking and welding would go a long ways to make ship design and upkeep a bit more... persistent.

Also, would still love to see afterburners and reactors that fit into the actual hex grid

[SuicideJunkie]

Well, I checked, and armor 2 is actually slightly lighter than hull 2.  So I've notched armor 1 down 40% to be the same mass as hull 1.  Still has 10hp, so way better than a solid hull1.

1) Would the docking piece be on the ship or the replacement parts?
If it is on the ship itself, then a clamp would seem to do the job just fine and be reusable.
If it is on the part, then your part would need power and CnC to do the docking.  Also, it would tend to result in a small piece of the ship being ripped off while you add the big piece you're adding.  There are ways to work around that but with side effects.  Getting the clamp to destroy itself while still working would also be tricky.

2) Blocks of material can be unwelded/shattered with a disassembler.  A poor man's disassembler can be made with a clamp, chomping off chunks of a block as they collide with the prongs but that takes longer of course.
Attaching any loose parts in a hurry would not happen unless you have a space- or drydock in the same hex to apply them with.   Grabbing a loose hull strut with a clamp doesn't tend to be very useful

3) This sounds exactly like a recycler to me   You can charge it from a regular fabber by building parts to recycle.
Small is a relative term of course.

The main limitation of recycling a whole ship is the strict cost limit before you lose a lot of money.
Drydocks make it easy to repair light gunships up to $20k if you designed them compactly.
Spacedocks cover the rest.


Solid rocket boosters aren't physically possible yet, but afterburners could be done as an add-on module for larger thrusters and engines.
Basically, a high thrust very high energy cost tube that can attach to a new type of connector found only on engines.

Can't go making it too easy to stick reactors on and make everything simple boring shapes now
I don't plan to make a reactor that fits inside a hull3.
(Technically you could make your own low efficiency reactor with a light disruptor and three tiles of absorb coating inside that hull3)

[Girlinhat]

The afterburners I was thinking of, were basically engines with very high thrust but very high energy cost, with small size, which means for the most part you'd want to deactivate them, and only activate them when you need the speed in a hurry.

I guess one thing you're really trying to go for here, is that if you want to build a large item, you're going to need a same-size item to be able to handle the docking.  And if you want to manipulate and easily tinker with a large item, you're going to need a larger item with a lot of docking options.  I'm just finding it slightly odd that there's no EVA robots with welding torches

[Draxis]

Game is up.

[SuicideJunkie]

I'm wiring up the thrusters and afterburners right now.
1) For medium and large thrusters only
2) 5x the thrust of the base thruster it is attached to
3) 22x the energy cost  (~25% efficiency)
4) shape is a tube that plugs into the thrustpoint of the thruster
5) Same price as the base thruster

For example, a basic gunstick design with a single medium thruster for forward thrust gets 1.08 N for 11e
With the afterburner enabled, it gets 6.19 N for 211e.

Note: There are no refunds on unused thrust, so you might as well boost on the turn you disable the afterburner.

[Girlinhat]

So is this the first modifying item?  Could we get other items that attach to, say, shields or weapons, that improve/decrease some form of efficiency/range/power/etc?

[SuicideJunkie]

It operates the same way that capacitors sticking to reactors works.  It doesn't modify the original engine, it is an engine itself that only sticks to engines.

You could also have something like a gun with a set of connectors for ammo clips.  Then the ammo clips would be the actual weapons and fire a bolt while destroying themselves.  Reloading would be a matter of docking more shells into the clip points.

[SuicideJunkie]

Ok, debugging and graphics look solid.

Note:
You'll need to SVN relocate your mods and graphics folders before you can update them.
Change dyndns to duckdns in the URL when the popup asks.


PS:
Something else to consider for the game, is making a few more pseudoplayers in the game setup, and giving them a start location near the center with a bunch of random debris for starting ships.
That'll give scavenger drones a use, and provide a target to fight over that isn't someone's base.

PPS:
Be sure, when you are designing your vehicles, to disable the afterburners so they don't blow your energy away until you want to use them.

[Girlinhat]

So wait, if you could make weapons that destroy themselves on use, that means you can make like, 'missile pods' that fire some sort of light speed projectile...  It's a one-shot weapon that hits hard.

Is it possible to make items that cannot be repaired?

[Draxis]

Something else to consider for the game, is making a few more pseudoplayers in the game setup, and giving them a start location near the center with a bunch of random debris for starting ships.
That'll give scavenger drones a use, and provide a target to fight over that isn't someone's base.

That's a good idea.  Any way to load an existing PLR file in buildInitPlr?

Is it possible to make items that cannot be repaired?

Yeah, armor is like that.

[Girlinhat]

Is it possible to make items that cannot be repaired?

Yeah, armor is like that.

Oh yeah, derp...
So missile pods should be totally possible.  Firing damages them 10%, and they cannot be repaired.

[Draxis]

Sure, but why? We've already got something like that.  I'm beginning to think afterburners, at least in their current form, won't work out.