Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2394

GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #22 - Improving the Ship Design Screen

We currently have a challenge when it comes to designing ships in GalCiv. Most players are less into the cosmetic aspect and more into the functionality of ship design. And some players are really into the cosmetic design of ships.

For GalCiv IV: Supernova, we are going to give up on trying to have one UI to rule them all and instead begin to have two different UIs. One for those who want to design the look of the ships and have a lot more tools available and one for players who are more focused on configuring a ship.

Ship classes and how they work

We have gone through a lot of theory craft on how the different classes should work. When the player chooses to design a ship they should get this:

However, in OPTIONS we want to add a button called “Enable Freeform Design” which would unhide a button in the middle here that would let players design a ship without having to deal with any rules at all.

This UI needs to eliminate the Combat Role as that’s confusing.
Equipment Slots should be renamed Equipment Space.
Tactical Speed should show the actual speed in KM/s (we have this under the covers)
Acceleration should be added as well (we have this too) in KM/s^2 which tells you how maneuverable they are.
If they don’t have weapons, targeting priorities should be hidden.
If they have weapons a new section should be a section called Combat Abilities which describes, in text how they work (which I’l l describe below).

The classes of ships for GalCiv IV: Supernova are intended to be:

Probe. Probes are also ignored by monsters and pirates btw and this should be added to our description.
Miner. No one will really change this except for modders who want to create a custom look.
Flag. We need to add a late game tech that lets people build ships with Survey Modules.
Fighter. Fighters should be updated to get a 50% evasion bonus and they should target Bombers->Fighters->Capital Ships->Cruisers->Frigates (note that we need to update targeting priorities to get away from the old combat role naming).
Bomber. Bombers should be added to the game and also get a 50% evasion bonus. They should target in this order: Capital Ships->Cruisers->Frigates->Fighters.
Frigate. Frigates should get a 50% Accuracy bonus and target in this order. Bombers->Fighters->Frigates->Cruisers->Capital Ships.
Cruisers wouldn’t get any special bonuses but target Capital Ships->Cruisers->Frigates->Bombers->Fighters.
Capital Ships also don’t get any special bonuses but target the same as Capital Ships.
Supply Ships. Generally won’t be adjusted by players but are needed to be there for people wanting to make cosmetic changes.
Siege. Some players will want to add engines to these to make them faster.
Invader. Same.

Now, let’s say we pick a Cruiser…

(ignore the little propulsion box in the UI, that’s from a thrown away idea)

The game should pick a random hull to start with and go right to the Equip mode with these 4 options:

Weapons (default tab – not drives as it is now for some reason)
Defenses
Propulsion
Special (combine “modules” and “support”)

There’s a currently a bug where Helios Rockets and Gauss Cannons show up as enhanced Kinetic weapons. I’m not sure why but we need to fix this.

There are NO hard points shown in this mode. Instead, players simply drag and drop components they want (or double click on it or press the “Place” button).

Now, if they do want to cosmetically change the ship, they can press the Visual Edit button in the top right which will take them to the Appearance, cosmetic pieces area.

And this screen should be set up so that people who want to really go town on the creative aspect of ship design have all the tools they need to do whatever they want.

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This is great! I really like the decoupling of Cosmetic and Equipment. Feels a lot more intuitive and natural; much more accessible to new players as well. I suspect this will please a lot of people.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

For GalCiv IV: Supernova, we are going to give up on trying to have one UI to rule them all and instead begin to have two different UIs.

Great, I wished this since GalCiv3

Quoting ,

quoting post

Bombers should be added to the game and also get a 50% evasion bonus.

Bombers with the same evasion bonus of Fighter? Maybe it's better to give them 25-30% instead.

Quoting ,

quoting post

Capital Ships also don’t get any special bonuses but target the same as Capital Ships.

What do they target?

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Frogboy like the idea of the UIs.

As for Bombers IMHO they and fighters should be placed on Carriers (starbases, yada, yada) and another name be assigned to the smallest warships.

Never believed that Skywalker's fighter could handle a FTL drive.

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Illauna

Join Date 09/2006

+74

Good stuff.

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in OPTIONS we want to add a button called “Enable Freeform Design” which would unhide a button

Why does it need to be hidden? New players and people coming from Stellaris might not even know that this is an option. I worry that then a year from now, it'll be determined that hardly anyone uses this feature and in GC5 it'll be eliminated. Decisions like this make my heart drop into my stomach

Probes are also ignored by monsters and pirates btw and this should be added to our description.

I thought so too until an (apparently very bored) space monster ate my probe. It was weird lol

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The classes of ships for GalCiv IV: Supernova are intended to be:

Probe. Probes are also ignored by monsters and pirates btw and this should be added to our description.

Miner. No one will really change this except for modders who want to create a custom look.

Flag. We need to add a late game tech that lets people build ships with Survey Modules.

Fighter. Fighters should be updated to get a 50% evasion bonus and they should target Bombers->Fighters->Capital Ships->Cruisers->Frigates (note that we need to update targeting priorities to get away from the old combat role naming).

Bomber. Bombers should be added to the game and also get a 50% evasion bonus. They should target in this order: Capital Ships->Cruisers->Frigates->Fighters.

Frigate. Frigates should get a 50% Accuracy bonus and target in this order. Bombers->Fighters->Frigates->Cruisers->Capital Ships.

Cruisers wouldn’t get any special bonuses but target Capital Ships->Cruisers->Frigates->Bombers->Fighters.

Capital Ships also don’t get any special bonuses but target the same as Capital Ships.

Supply Ships. Generally won’t be adjusted by players but are needed to be there for people wanting to make cosmetic changes.

Siege. Some players will want to add engines to these to make them faster.

1. I'm guessing for now Capital Ships refers to battleships and dreadnoughts

2. Currently the only difference between bombers and fighters seems to be targeting priority. While this is okay, I feel like Capital Ships will need a large HP increase to avoid being taken out relatively quickly. Fighters can already overwhelm Capital Ships pretty quickly, and bombers will be able to eliminate larger ships at range without much issue. Would love to see more differentiation in the future such as dramatically reducing the range of a bombers weapons, but increased damage as compensation so that the bombers need to be escorted to their targets while the opposing team is trying to destroy them with Frigates.

3. I like the changes to targeting priorities. I would've targeted by hull size, as it leaves room for more ship classes in the future, but this works as well.

4. In my experience Capital Ships will need another pass in the future. Namely, I'm not sure how they're supposed to function and I don't know that other players understand either. We don't have all the extra fleet bonuses equipment yet from what I can see. I need time though to put into words what I mean. I'll try to post something on this to the Combat System Discussion later in the week when I have time to do some testing.

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I'm one of the people who plays the game with the intent of making new cosmetic designs every game I play. The Ship Designer is what drew me to the game in the first place.

While I understand the plan to split the UI, I don't like the idea of hiding the free form design button in Options as I don't know if new players will be able to find it.

Other than that splitting the UI should be fine.

I'm not sure how much effort this would be, but if you guys find that it's costly to make new ship cosmetic parts, sharing the process with modders could be a way to bring in new parts without cost to Stardock.

I mostly know Blender, I'm not sure which programs Stardock uses to create new parts.

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peterh1979

Join Date 05/2014

+10

The separation of the visual design and ship config is a great idea. I really like the direction that fleet design is going in.

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Why can't we set our own targeting priorities for each design?

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In item 8 you mention that "Capital Ships also don’t get any special bonuses but target the same as Capital Ships." Did you mean they target the same as Cruisers since that was the subject of item 7?

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I worry that it is possible to game the classes to make the AI go after the wrong ships. For example, many classes prioritize attacking capital ships over cruisers. So I make a capital ship that is pretty much nothing but defense, no offense. Then I make some cruisers that are almost all offense, little defense. Almost everything beats up on my capital ships, which are not a threat, and can easily take the punishment. Meanwhile my cruisers, which are a threat, and would be easy to kill, are not molested.

I win! But it is a cheat.

It feels, instead, like targeting priorities should be based on ship size and the ratio of offense vs defense on the target. In other words, ships should balance between attacking their preferred size of target with preferring to attack targets that do lots of damage but can be taken out quickly.

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