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[alexm]

Disabling engines, guns, shield generators and other external and internal systems individually adds quite a bit to a game like this. GSB, for example, or that Stars Wars game. Hope you consider it. It's always fun to focus on blasting the engines of a fleeing freighter and board it, or take down the shield generator of a capital ship, heh.

Yeah, I'm still considering it. Some similar mechanics are already in, by the way - you can overload a ship's generators by forcibly bringing down the shields (hitting them with enough power to raise ship flux levels above maximum).  This simulates various systems shorting out, etc.  The ship can't use shields or fire until flux levels go down, which can take quite a while. Some weapons (such as Ion Cannons) also contribute to overloading the target ship's generators. Hadn't mentioned it before because I think I took what you meant by "damage model" a little too literally

Hmm.  Something similar for engines could be interesting.

Can you damage a foe's infrastructure so badly that he forgets tech advances? EFS allowed this loss of research when destroying labs, and it was quite fun to bomb rivals back to the stone age.

Too early to say, though that sounds like fun and fits in with the overall "downward spiral" theme.

Back to more questions and this one may not be ingame yet. But I remember you saying defensive fleets. Now will players be able to build defensive structures such as static defense? Maybe turrents that sit in space around your assets.
And how far will the outpost building actually go. Will it go into colonies? and having to supply it with resources and management? Or is just only mining operations?

Oh, it's definitely not in the game yet   But yes, static defenses are planned. Outpost building should be more than just mining, but I don't want to get into the details yet.

AlexM, Sword of the Stars is a turn-based 4X game similar to GalCiv and the likes but it is much more focused on ship customization and combat (the planet management aspect is very streamlined). The vessels in this game have a lot of different roles, which would I feel should work as well in the real-time environment Starfarer offers. I would suggest to find some videos on YouTube to get an idea of the game's features and various ship roles. Who knows it might lead to new ideas to be integrated into your current ones. 

Thanks, I'll check it out. Ships in Starfarer can already be fitted for very diverse roles, by the way - the properties that are determined by the hull serve to give it personality, rather than pigeonhole it into a role.

[Zangi]

You know what...?  I'm gonna pre-order this now.  Dang well better deliver.


B12 Other Games Forum: Best durned place to PR your space games.

[Flare]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

AlexM, Sword of the Stars is a turn-based 4X game similar to GalCiv and the likes but it is much more focused on ship customization and combat (the planet management aspect is very streamlined). The vessels in this game have a lot of different roles, which would I feel should work as well in the real-time environment Starfarer offers. I would suggest to find some videos on YouTube to get an idea of the game's features and various ship roles. Who knows it might lead to new ideas to be integrated into your current ones. 

Thanks, I'll check it out. Ships in Starfarer can already be fitted for very diverse roles, by the way - the properties that are determined by the hull serve to give it personality, rather than pigeonhole it into a role.

The idea behind most military designs is for the vehicle to function really really well in the gap they are designed to fill, and let the other vehicles pick up the slack where it falls short. This way, not only is it going to outclass other vehicles in it's area, but also encourage better synergy between the other vehicles in order to survive.

[Deon]

About modding... It would be nice if you left some code in a DLL with source intentionally, which had info on AI/basic elements of the game. This is what made Civilization 4 so popular: its DLL sdk was accessible, and thus tons of mods appeared which made the game much more famous (and many people buy it for mods only).

I hope you consider it in a long run.

For early modding: being able to create mods with specific maps (scenarios, with fixed planet placement) and to mod factions and their AI is the key to the early modding success.

Let me explain. If you allow us to make total conversions, even simple, like replacing factions with specific "races" and ships/weapons for them with the ones we want, it will lead to a wave of "fan" mods (Star Wars, Star Trek, Bablylon 5, Lexx, many others) which should greatly increase the playerbase and modders base. I see that you place your soul into this creation, but the more players you have, the more money and ability to work further you get .

Just sharing my ideas as a modder of many games.

[hemmingjay]

please listen to Deon, he makes some of the best mods I have ever seen.

[alexm]

You know what...?  I'm gonna pre-order this now.  Dang well better deliver.

I'll do my best

The idea behind most military designs is for the vehicle to function really really well in the gap they are designed to fill, and let the other vehicles pick up the slack where it falls short. This way, not only is it going to outclass other vehicles in it's area, but also encourage better synergy between the other vehicles in order to survive.

Hmm... that's certainly true in some cases, but I don't know that I'd go with that as a general rule. Look at a typical WW2 tank - you've got anti-vehicle, anti-infantry, and anti-air capability rolled into one. In addition, it's highly mobile - but it can also be surrounded by an earthwork and turned into a defensive hardpoint. It seems like the bigger a vehicle is, the more likely it is to be versatile, or at least capable of being fitted for different mission profiles.  There are sure to be some good counter-examples, though.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

About modding... It would be nice if you left some code in a DLL with source intentionally, which had info on AI/basic elements of the game. This is what made Civilization 4 so popular: its DLL sdk was accessible, and thus tons of mods appeared which made the game much more famous (and many people buy it for mods only).

I hope you consider it in a long run.

For early modding: being able to create mods with specific maps (scenarios, with fixed planet placement) and to mod factions and their AI is the key to the early modding success.

Let me explain. If you allow us to make total conversions, even simple, like replacing factions with specific "races" and ships/weapons for them with the ones we want, it will lead to a wave of "fan" mods (Star Wars, Star Trek, Bablylon 5, Lexx, many others) which should greatly increase the playerbase and modders base. I see that you place your soul into this creation, but the more players you have, the more money and ability to work further you get .

Just sharing my ideas as a modder of many games.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying it would be a good idea to have the game be a zero-day mod, so to speak - have as much of it as possible (ideally, all moddable functionality) be implemented using the same tools available to a modder. That way, someone making a new mod has a fully-working example to go by and can dive right in.

That's actually what I'd like to do - even this early on, I've already started adding some new functionality as scripts... though it'll be a bit of an effort to convert some pre-existing stuff (such as ship AI) into scripts too, where it really belongs.

Excellent point about modding factions, and actually, that sounds like it would be the simplest thing to make moddable - aside from the creation of a huge pile of content it involves on the part of the modder, of course.  Bah, I'm excited about a Star Wars mod now - talk about putting the cart in front of the horse Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

[TwilightWalker]

Got a friend interested in this, but he tends to like his games multiplayer, to share the fun. So, are there any plans on the eventual drawing board to bring more than a single player into the game at a time?

[Deon]

Bah, I'm excited about a Star Wars mod now - talk about putting the cart in front of the horse

I actually know a few communities (Mount & Blade, Civilization 4) which made quite a lot of effort to make Star Wars mods (sadly Civ4 never hit the release, but M&B had a great Star Wars total conversion) which will most likely eat a sweet pie you deliver and ask for more .

Great to see so much feedback, thank you!

[Flare]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The idea behind most military designs is for the vehicle to function really really well in the gap they are designed to fill, and let the other vehicles pick up the slack where it falls short. This way, not only is it going to outclass other vehicles in it's area, but also encourage better synergy between the other vehicles in order to survive.

Hmm... that's certainly true in some cases, but I don't know that I'd go with that as a general rule. Look at a typical WW2 tank - you've got anti-vehicle, anti-infantry, and anti-air capability rolled into one. In addition, it's highly mobile - but it can also be surrounded by an earthwork and turned into a defensive hardpoint. It seems like the bigger a vehicle is, the more likely it is to be versatile, or at least capable of being fitted for different mission profiles.  There are sure to be some good counter-examples, though.

I don't think that's the case with tanks. Some tanks are designed to fight infantry as well as other tanks this part is true, but I suspect for some tanks, anti infantry equipment is only put on them due to the basic necessity to do so, not because they were designed for it. For instance, the Firefly tank, it's not supposed to fight infantry, but the option is there. What the tank aims to do is to defeat opposing tanks though.
Compare this with artillery pieces and vehicles designed to fight in an urban setting. Long range fire support, anti-air, and combat in certain types of terrain are factors that are extremely hard to roll into on vehicle well and have the vehicle do well in all of these roles. Spending resources to build a vehicle that is both capable of indirect fire and capable of direct combat and you're going to get a mediocre artillery piece and a vehicle that can't take punishment in direct combat for example.
There are some factors and capabilities that can't be separated though, and this is where the tank must have them simply to function long enough to excell at whatever it was designed to do best.

[Zangi]

In short:
Try to make your uber-tank do everything and it'll be good at none of em. 
Or be rightly expensive for its status as uber-tank...

Would be nice to make some incentives for a mixed fleet of various specializations and jack-of-trades.  (Albeit, typically harder to manage and control... then using 1 or 2 jack-of-trade ships...)

[Flare]

In short:
Try to make your uber-tank do everything and it'll be good at none of em. 
Or be rightly expensive for its status as uber-tank...

Oh yes, like those boss battles in those top down shooters, except instead of blowing up the huge gigantic war ship with your puny fighter, the boss obliterates your entire navy in the opening salvos.

[alexm]

Got a friend interested in this, but he tends to like his games multiplayer, to share the fun. So, are there any plans on the eventual drawing board to bring more than a single player into the game at a time?

No plans for multiplayer. Briefly, it's a ton of work - to a point of being a brand new game, really - and design goals for MP and SP often are often conflicting. Starfarer is all about single-player, and eschewing multiplayer completely lets me do more with it, both in terms of time spent on it and design choices that can be made.

I actually know a few communities (Mount & Blade, Civilization 4) which made quite a lot of effort to make Star Wars mods (sadly Civ4 never hit the release, but M&B had a great Star Wars total conversion) which will most likely eat a sweet pie you deliver and ask for more .

Great to see so much feedback, thank you!

Cool! I hope some of them would be interested. I think I'll take a look at the M&B Star Wars TC, sounds like it would be fun, and I still have M&B installed... well, Warband, anyway.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I don't think that's the case with tanks. Some tanks are designed to fight infantry as well as other tanks this part is true, but I suspect for some tanks, anti infantry equipment is only put on them due to the basic necessity to do so, not because they were designed for it. For instance, the Firefly tank, it's not supposed to fight infantry, but the option is there. What the tank aims to do is to defeat opposing tanks though.
Compare this with artillery pieces and vehicles designed to fight in an urban setting. Long range fire support, anti-air, and combat in certain types of terrain are factors that are extremely hard to roll into on vehicle well and have the vehicle do well in all of these roles. Spending resources to build a vehicle that is both capable of indirect fire and capable of direct combat and you're going to get a mediocre artillery piece and a vehicle that can't take punishment in direct combat for example.
There are some factors and capabilities that can't be separated though, and this is where the tank must have them simply to function long enough to excell at whatever it was designed to do best.

Tanks were initially designed to break through entrenched infantry, though Anyway, I'm just saying, sometimes it's more practical to have one vehicle that can do a medicore job all around than it is to have, say, 5 to do each job perfectly.

Would be nice to make some incentives for a mixed fleet of various specializations and jack-of-trades.  (Albeit, typically harder to manage and control... then using 1 or 2 jack-of-trade ships...)

Yep, certainly. There are several fairly well-defined roles, and making sure you have the right ships to fill them is important. But yeah, coordinating specialized ships well is more challenging than sending in a few general-purpose ones. There's more potential for spectacular failure

[BuriBuriZaemon]

About ship roles, I kinda like the balance in Homeworld II. The big ships must be supported by smaller ships (i.e. interceptors and flak frigates to fight off enemy bombers). This means every ship has a function, no matter its size or weapon loadout. Larger ships will not make these smaller ships obsolete.

[Flare]

So long as I can mod some things, I'm happy .

[alexm]

About ship roles, I kinda like the balance in Homeworld II. The big ships must be supported by smaller ships (i.e. interceptors and flak frigates to fight off enemy bombers). This means every ship has a function, no matter its size or weapon loadout. Larger ships will not make these smaller ships obsolete.

There's some of that in play in Starfarer, and there are a couple of other reasons why small ships won't be obsoleted by large ones - those mostly having to do with mobility.

So long as I can mod some things, I'm happy .

You can count on that.