I miss something

from Sins Forums
hey,

I played 3 games now and got owned by the AI in the first 2 and in the third I kinda annihilated him. So I must say the game is off to a good start I like it when an AI is able to beat me. But on to my title. The game is almost everything I would wish MOO 3 had to be BUT the one thing that isn't here that really bugs me. The research of different weapons. We can upgrade our lasers and research missiles with TEC ok granted nice. But the ability to research different kind of weapon techs like a tachyon beam or something and then putting your own ships together like gal civ and the master of them all MOO 2. I really feel like it should have been in this game to make it complete. Now it just feels well not completly done. It's ok don't get me wrong but not bang on.
15,730 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
The ability to build ships in-game was rejected because it would be difficult to implement into the real time nature of the game.

Alternatively, we could try and pressure the devs to come up with a nifty and balance-maintaining ships design program out of game, but that runs the risk of people designing an all-in-one cheap ship that can be spammed, especially if weapons of different types and roles can be mounted.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
The ability to build ships in-game was rejected because it would be difficult to implement into the real time nature of the game.
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I see but I fail to see the difficulty tbh. Would it imply to much overhead in the network code ? Desync problems or something. Can you give me a link or dev log where this is explained why it is cut ?

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
I would think it has to do something with the time that it might take to build a ship plan, and then actually deploy it.

Personally if all of the chassis are basically the same look like in SE5, IMHO the code and the size of the information going across the wire would be relatively trivial. All of the techs are based on data files loaded in at game/mod start, and then each 'ship' simply becomes a map of this item id, at this level, at this location on this size ship. Of course, I don't know how they have things implemented and that is a rather simplistic view of what information would be required to be sent.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I would think it has to do something with the time that it might take to build a ship plan, and then actually deploy it.
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exactly. go into galciv, and design a ship with a stopwatch on. you will most likely be very surprised.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Personally, what I'd like to see -- for the sequel, not this game! -- would be to have the basic ship graphics "nailed" down, then be able to slap weapons, shields, armor, etc etc onto various hard points to "create" our own ships. Maybe include the GC2 editor style thing as an out-of-game option. Obviously we can't do this now, but for Sins 2 (or an expansion... yeah right...) that'd be nice.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
It would, but it would also make it a nightmare to balance
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
nightmares can be turned into good dreams with the right incentive ...

This is something I like to discuss with one of the programmers tbh. Just to get a grasp if it's a programming problem or a design problem.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
I rather like how Earth 2150 did it's unit designs. Quick, easy, and designed in a pinch (with the pace this game keeps, theres usually some time to do this).

HOWEVER, I think this should be in a sequel or expansion. Adding it to this game would change too much too quickly.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

It would, but it would also make it a nightmare to balance
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I will admit, sometimes balance seems over-rated. I always loved min/maxing my designs in Master of Orion II to get maximum effect -- and the same thing applied in Space Empires and its mods
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

I will admit, sometimes balance seems over-rated. I always loved min/maxing my designs in Master of Orion II to get maximum effect -- and the same thing applied in Space Empires and its mods
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hehe same here, don't forget the look on your opponents face when you blast him to pieces with a newly developed antimatter beam he doesn't have yet.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I see but I fail to see the difficulty tbh. Would it imply to much overhead in the network code ? Desync problems or something. Can you give me a link or dev log where this is explained why it is cut ?
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Sorry about the delay in replying :)
Tbh, I have no idea about the network code or anything like that - I just assumed that it was because, as a real time strategy, it would be hard to fit a ship design thingy in there and maintain the pace of the game...

It also proved too time consuming to allow players to design their own ship models during gameplay. We even tried reducing this to a simplified "drag and drop" slot design system but it still proved unfeasible in a real-time environment.
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That's from: http://www.joystiq.com/2008/02/01/joystiq-interview-ironclad-talks-4x-strategy-with-sins-of-a-sol/

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
I can see another problem. In a real time environment, the designers have to take care, especially with a game like this, to make sure that players can't easily gain a large advantage by simply being *faster* at a given task.

This game is slow enough that having much faster reflexes is not a supreme advantage, although it can be one of course, especially when managing a really large map.

Adding a ship designing screen would mean that the players who can design ships the fastest would have an increased advantage over those who can't afford the time to do so, especially if the designed ships are significantly better than the vanilla ones.

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
as mentioned, tinkering over a new design takes time, which is an essential resource in any rts game. and dont forget you just dont design a single ship, you will design various ships and continue to upgrade them as new technology comes available.

relic's second game after homeworld was called incredible creatures and employed something like it. you could splice genes of different animals and create your own choice of units, complete with an advisor pointing out strenghs and weaknesses in your self made army. all that was done offline and you accessed those self made units during the game.

that said, I'm still highly sceptical it can work. if it would, I'd definately go for an offline disign shop, since it want to be rushed when putting the pieces together.

on the other hand, it could be an area where races can be differentiated. war statistics will tell you about the learning curve etc, present in producing a lot of units of the same design. especially the tec as the industrialist faction could gain a discount depending on the amount of ships produced of a certain type. that would make a nice little trade off, when to switch to a better design, given the higher costs (which of course would go down over time).