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[Mephansteras]

Not a bad idea.

Also might work as a way to balance ships a bit. If some particular ability, say firing rate, is too powerful you could have the higher firing rate abilities cost more of the rare materials.

It would also allow for some ship specialization decisions. Do you put all your rare resources into a few ships to make them really powerful or do you spread it out? Maybe it makes sense to have some Fast, Armored Frigate type ships that don't do much damage but screen your more slower, more fragile ships that dish out the damage.

[Draco18s]

I'm hesitant to use it as a balancing mechanic, as I have no way to determine that "X ability is powerful" and "make it cost more" as the balance is supposed to be determined by the triangle ships, that any one of them is better than one and worse than the other.  By making their costs different, then it becomes a "three of these is two of those and four of these" kind of balance (as the ones that are "two of" have a cost that is "twice" that of the "four of" ship).

But the various costs would force a balance on the player's fleet by not letting them (easily) stack a hundred of the same unit type (whereas a fleet composed of a mix of resources would be more powerful).

[RedWarrior0]

Also, I think the max possible max HP should be based on armor. Just a thought. Basically, how do you make armor piercing better? Make more armor.

Another thing would be that, after it absorbs a certain amount of damage, it decreases. So you start with 8 Armor and take (GENERIC) hits, each having min(8,enemydamage) damage removed from their strength and added to Armor Damage Counter. Once Armor Damage Counter hits (OTHER GENERIC), it resets and you now have 7 Armor.

Just a couple thoughts. By no means do you need to do these.

[Aklyon]

Or perhaps piercing the armor lowers its value by how many layers it penetrated.

[Draco18s]

Basically, how do you make armor piercing better? Make more armor.

Uh.  No.  The problem was that raw damage was besting high-armor, not low-damage armor piercing.

Another thing would be that, after it absorbs a certain amount of damage, it decreases. So you start with 8 Armor and take (GENERIC) hits, each having min(8,enemydamage) damage removed from their strength and added to Armor Damage Counter. Once Armor Damage Counter hits (OTHER GENERIC), it resets and you now have 7 Armor.

Ehhh...too complex.

Or perhaps piercing the armor lowers its value by how many layers it penetrated.

That's how it works at current, but it was more advantageous to have 40 damage hit 20 armor (20 damage) than it was to have 10 damage with 20 AP hit 20 armor (10 damage).

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

Spoiler: My thoughts on resource collection and Unit Cap (click to show/hide)

   A way to do resource collection is having to control
buildings or something of the like and getting a constant
resource tick from them. This would allow you to have
things like a resource spot that while providing a constant
stream only provided small amounts and another that
while taking a while between its ticks would dump a lot
all at once.
   As for Unit cap have a universal tick that when it happens
all ships use up an amount of resources for upkeep and if
you run short ships get destroyed till you have enough started
with those farthest from your resources collection points.

   Also for armor piercing have it protect from a percentage of
a shot with a min of the defense value or such.

[Draco18s]

Spoiler: My thoughts on resource collection and Unit Cap (click to show/hide)

   A way to do resource collection is having to control
buildings or something of the like and getting a constant
resource tick from them. This would allow you to have
things like a resource spot that while providing a constant
stream only provided small amounts and another that
while taking a while between its ticks would dump a lot
all at once.
   As for Unit cap have a universal tick that when it happens
all ships use up an amount of resources for upkeep and if
you run short ships get destroyed till you have enough started
with those farthest from your resources collection points.

No.  Nor does it actually answer the question of "what types of resources" or "how many different types."

Also for armor piercing have it protect from a percentage of
a shot with a min of the defense value or such.

Considered, but rejected.

[Draco18s]

Alright.

Really bare bones GUI mock-up.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Buttons in the lower right are as follows:
Build (structures), Construct (ships), Research, [top row] Move, Clear selection, [bottom row] Stop, Free Roaming Defense, Scrap.

"Crystals" need a little more explanation, after some discussion with a friend of mine (who's very gamer savy).
Crystals will be finite and are used up in ship construction.  When ships die, they leave behind a indestructible harvest-able crystal object, returning their full value to the harvesting player.  Essentially, you need crystals in your ship engine cores, which functions as a ship cap, but losing ships doesn't give you an immediate return for building new units (don't waste your fighters attacking the walls!).  Similar to the "souls" resource in Sacrifice.

[Hugehead]

That's a cool idea, how many crystals do you plan on having in the average map?

[Draco18s]

That's a cool idea, how many crystals do you plan on having in the average map?

100-400.  It'll depend in the end on how well Flash can handle the number of objects, as well as difficulty level and other things.

Generally speaking Flash 10.1 can handle about 1000 objects without significant slowdown.  10.2 is a bit faster, due to improvements in basic operators.  See this thread.

[Draco18s]

I'm up to a point at which the interface is at least semi-functional.

I don't have any structures yet, nor an AI, but all in all it's pretty solid.

One thing though.  FRD isn't going to be like AI War, as ships will seek out any enemy, which doesn't work if I plan on having a single battlefield space (like classic RTS games).  So instead it's more of a "guard here" function.  Ships in FRD will seek out any target within 300 pixels of the designated location, rather than units within some distance of themselves.

It also seems like I can get a hundred units on the screen at one time with very small amounts of CPU time.  Which is a plus.  Means I have plenty of room to build the AI.

I'm curious as to the usability of the design screen, however.

[Aklyon]

If the build units screen is going to be the same or otherwise fullscreen-y, you might want to add a counter, since I clicked them each a bunch to try it and ended up with a lot of ships more than I thought I had.

[Draco18s]

If the build units screen is going to be the same or otherwise fullscreen-y, you might want to add a counter, since I clicked them each a bunch to try it and ended up with a lot of ships more than I thought I had.

I'm going to have a build queue, so they're not built instantly, but I want to get the "mothership" in first, as that's where they'd be built from.  As well as a counter showing how many are in operation.  Both of these require doing a bunch of back end work (for instance, when a ship dies, knowing to decrement that counter).

Next step is getting the economic ships classed and spawned so that I can start working on those things.

[Korbac]

Perhaps AP could just be a toggleable quality. Having AP on your weapon would either (depending on how you want to play it)

-Reduce the effective armor of the defending unit by half when calculated damage from the attacker's shot
-Deal half its damage regardless of armor, and deal half normally.

You could also have a "Super AP" ability, which costs a bomb but completely ignores armor. Would serve a niche role if the enemy loves stacking pile upon pile of armor on his ships.

[bowdown2q]

If the build units screen is going to be the same or otherwise fullscreen-y, you might want to add a counter, since I clicked them each a bunch to try it and ended up with a lot of ships more than I thought I had.

I'm going to have a build queue, so they're not built instantly, but I want to get the "mothership" in first, as that's where they'd be built from.  As well as a counter showing how many are in operation.  Both of these require doing a bunch of back end work (for instance, when a ship dies, knowing to decrement that counter).

Next step is getting the economic ships classed and spawned so that I can start working on those things.

Waaaiiiiittt.... You just made a 2-D, procedurally generated version of Homeworld.

....SWEET