The Case for a mid tier destroyer class.

[TruculentTonka]

First off, I share these thoughts because this game imho has some overlooked potential.
The ship progression is far too aggressive.
Personally I find the absence of such a mid-tier aerial class puzzling. Not only would it offer better and more measured progression and (a feature the game is in desperate need of), since as it stands things move far too rapidly considering the potential) more diverse and interesting options for load outs than the standard SV (and more readily take out those stubborn base towers), but it could assume the role of actual planetary space travel that the original SV should NOT be capable of, of course that first tier of aerial ship's name could be more accurately called something like FV, fighter vehicle. It is intuitive that the destroyer would have a hanger for the FV, btw.

The destroyer class (DS) would also fill the gaping void between the present conceptual magnitudes of SV to CV. A capital ship is immense by historical nautical definitions and so should be worthy of significant material and time efforts. Their remains and wrecks should similarly not be so bloody easy to find scattered about the surfaces of planets either.

IN short:
Land; HV (stays the same)
Light air and restricted to earth's or planetary orbit FV, Fighter Vehicle
Destroyer built on home-planet and can travel between planets but cannot make system jumps
Capital Vehicle (CV); now only built in orbit but still is only class to be able to achieve interstellar travel.

Thoughts?

[The Big Brzezinski]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2799463626

These are all CVs. They all have different capabilities, roles, and costs. They are not interchangeable. They don't even all work on planets. But they are all CVs.

Pigeonholing ship types into particular sizes and roles would restrict ship design choices without adding anything in return.

[hastatus]

I dunno man, as long as a CV can be made into a destroyer, there is no point of adding new vessel starters. The price of a ship and it's availability is totally up to you.

As long as each current vessel can be truly made into anything you want, I don't see a reason to add a new vessel type that doesn't bring anything new. I guess what you're trying to say is that the developers should add more guns which are destroyer like, but are so expensive that you can't put much else on the ship in which case you'd be better off building another ship specialized for different roles that a destroyer cannot fulfill as efficiently.

The only jump between HV/SV and the CV is that the latter needs advanced resources that you might have to travel outside your home planet to get to, or if you're lucky you will obtain some in your starter planet. It's situational though. The other 2 classes need them too but for more advanced kit only, whereas a CV if I remember right needs advanced resources just to build basic thrusters. not to mention the warp drive.

The devs could add wheels and tracks for HV, obviously it would no longer be a HV, but it helps with immersion and add depth to the game, and add water propulsion engines and shafts to make ships based on water only, which again, it won't be a hover vessel anymore, but it would be a cool thing to mess around with. I saw some people do actual naval ships and this idea occurred to me, so I decided to share it.

You could potentially build a mini subnautica game scenario if there was a proper way of travelling in water in your ship. Endless possibilities.

[piddlefoot]

Proper classes for ships comes down to giving starter blocks special flight control abilities and Empyrion did not want to add any more flight controls so we are stuck with just 3 classes, CV, SV and HV thats it, the only true class of ship in Empyrion,

Your drop ship is just a CV.

A drop ship with new flight control would have 4x the thrust to any thruster pointing down making those flight controls that starter block SPECIAL , Empyrion does not have this.

Ship class comes down to flight controls for that class. We only have two for ships, CV and SV, very very narrow range of flight controls. Its the games biggest disappointment I think.

What Empyrion could have been with Dropships, and real corvettes and real destroyers and real battle cruiser etc we really missed the mark when it comes to flight controls and ship classes.
My biggest regret, was not being able to convince Eleon of the true value of ship classes, my biggest failure, or theres, or both, either way Empyrion still to this day has no proper ship classes that are defined in stone, like flight controls are.....

This is a detriment to the game, anyone who has played Homeworld with all the ship classes knows it.

A proper flight controls / class , MOD would be incredibly popular giving the game real ship classes. I wish I could program to that level.

If every ship below had its own set of unique flight controls, like the dropship example I gave you, they all end up unique, just let your imagination run wild for a second.....


Every one below with its own unique flight controls.....

HV scout
HV light armoured attack recon
HV medivac
HV heavy battle tank
HV utilities
HV stealth scout

SV scout
SV fighter
SV bomber
SV stealth recon
SV dropship
SV medivac
SV utilities

CV light cruiser
CV corvette
CV Frigate
CV Destroyer
CV Battleship
CV Carrier
CV Super Carrier

And so on and so forth, they are just basic examples.
But imagine the options we could have had with real ship classes rather than this current imaginary class system where its all in your head, nothing is defined in stone.......

More flight controls are always better than less in a game where 60% of everything is flying........
Remember, currently in Empyrion we have just 3 sets of flight controls, that are then punished by CPU rules, SV, CV and HV also the CV flight controls are a copy of the SV with a couple of tweeks...

Its never to late to fix this ship class mess, if people want to take the time to do it.
Should be Eleon but......

[TruculentTonka]

Originally posted by piddlefoot:

Proper classes for ships comes down to giving starter blocks special flight control abilities and Empyrion did not want to add any more flight controls so we are stuck with just 3 classes, CV, SV and HV thats it, the only true class of ship in Empyrion,

Your drop ship is just a CV.

A drop ship with new flight control would have 4x the thrust to any thruster pointing down making those flight controls that starter block SPECIAL , Empyrion does not have this.

Ship class comes down to flight controls for that class. We only have two for ships, CV and SV, very very narrow range of flight controls. Its the games biggest disappointment I think.

What Empyrion could have been with Dropships, and real corvettes and real destroyers and real battle cruiser etc we really missed the mark when it comes to flight controls and ship classes.
My biggest regret, was not being able to convince Eleon of the true value of ship classes, my biggest failure, or theres, or both, either way Empyrion still to this day has no proper ship classes that are defined in stone, like flight controls are.....

This is a detriment to the game, anyone who has played Homeworld with all the ship classes knows it.

A proper flight controls / class , MOD would be incredibly popular giving the game real ship classes. I wish I could program to that level.

If every ship below had its own set of unique flight controls, like the dropship example I gave you, they all end up unique, just let your imagination run wild for a second.....


Every one below with its own unique flight controls.....

HV scout
HV light armoured attack recon
HV medivac
HV heavy battle tank
HV utilities
HV stealth scout

SV scout
SV fighter
SV bomber
SV stealth recon
SV dropship
SV medivac
SV utilities

CV light cruiser
CV corvette
CV Frigate
CV Destroyer
CV Battleship
CV Carrier
CV Super Carrier

And so on and so forth, they are just basic examples.
But imagine the options we could have had with real ship classes rather than this current imaginary class system where its all in your head, nothing is defined in stone.......

More flight controls are always better than less in a game where 60% of everything is flying........
Remember, currently in Empyrion we have just 3 sets of flight controls, that are then punished by CPU rules, SV, CV and HV also the CV flight controls are a copy of the SV with a couple of tweeks...

Its never to late to fix this ship class mess, if people want to take the time to do it.
Should be Eleon but......

That would be a dream. Personally, I would merely take the ship classes alone, though controls and better (read: not actual) mass effects would take it to another level.

[hastatus]

Originally posted by piddlefoot:

Proper classes for ships comes down to giving starter blocks special flight control abilities and Empyrion did not want to add any more flight controls so we are stuck with just 3 classes, CV, SV and HV thats it, the only true class of ship in Empyrion,

Your drop ship is just a CV.

A drop ship with new flight control would have 4x the thrust to any thruster pointing down making those flight controls that starter block SPECIAL , Empyrion does not have this.

Ship class comes down to flight controls for that class. We only have two for ships, CV and SV, very very narrow range of flight controls. Its the games biggest disappointment I think.

What Empyrion could have been with Dropships, and real corvettes and real destroyers and real battle cruiser etc we really missed the mark when it comes to flight controls and ship classes.
My biggest regret, was not being able to convince Eleon of the true value of ship classes, my biggest failure, or theres, or both, either way Empyrion still to this day has no proper ship classes that are defined in stone, like flight controls are.....

This is a detriment to the game, anyone who has played Homeworld with all the ship classes knows it.

A proper flight controls / class , MOD would be incredibly popular giving the game real ship classes. I wish I could program to that level.

If every ship below had its own set of unique flight controls, like the dropship example I gave you, they all end up unique, just let your imagination run wild for a second.....


Every one below with its own unique flight controls.....

HV scout
HV light armoured attack recon
HV medivac
HV heavy battle tank
HV utilities
HV stealth scout

SV scout
SV fighter
SV bomber
SV stealth recon
SV dropship
SV medivac
SV utilities

CV light cruiser
CV corvette
CV Frigate
CV Destroyer
CV Battleship
CV Carrier
CV Super Carrier

And so on and so forth, they are just basic examples.
But imagine the options we could have had with real ship classes rather than this current imaginary class system where its all in your head, nothing is defined in stone.......

More flight controls are always better than less in a game where 60% of everything is flying........
Remember, currently in Empyrion we have just 3 sets of flight controls, that are then punished by CPU rules, SV, CV and HV also the CV flight controls are a copy of the SV with a couple of tweeks...

Its never to late to fix this ship class mess, if people want to take the time to do it.
Should be Eleon but......

This actually sounds truly interesting

[The Big Brzezinski]

I don't understand. Every vessel needs attitude and impulse control. It doesn't matter if it's a giant death star or a thruster with a seat on it. This doesn't fundamentally change with the size of the vessel. A nuclear submarine moves through its fluid medium in basically the same way a bush plane does. There's even less difference between spacecraft. The difference in magnitude does change things like structural engineering, but not the underlying principles of bodies in motion.

Terms like scout, fighter, bomber, corvette, cruiser, battleship, these aren't classes. They're roles. They're defined by function rather than size. Just as South Africa does not have the same requirements for a destroyer as the United States does, neither do two different players when they make a CV. One player may want a simple flying box they can park somewhere to ferry their SVs and loot. Another might want a fighting ship with a hangar they plan to fly into battle after their friends have gone out in fighter SVs. Both of these players probably call their CVs "carriers" They're both right. They just have different requirements, and therefor different definitions.

The system we have now is capable of accommodating this disparity. The term "capital vessel" is unfortunately a bit of a red herring, but here we are. The endless possibilities we enjoy in Empyrion shipbuilding would not be improved by shoving them in little boxes.

Instead, these possibilities should be expanded with new control options. Imagine every seat getting a customizable toolbar you can assign devices to, so you can jump into a turret or trigger a lever right from a passenger or pilot seat. Or how about more fire control options, so you can control multiple turrets even when piloting. Maybe add aerodynamic lift to HVs, so they can function as airplanes with lower performance than SV, but lower construction costs as well. These are just three old ideas, but they show my point. More possibilities, even if they just come from tweaking existing systems and assets, are what really benefit players. They can come up with their own missions, roles, and classes of ships to fill them on their own.

[TruculentTonka]

Essentially, the way I see it, we are all after the same thing: immersion. Whether that is a gradual progression to more specialized craft or command and control, they all amount to increasing immersiveness.

[Br0wn3y3]

just a thought here... but why have set classes why not just have the flight controls adjusted based of size class.... the larger the size class the more ridged the flight controls get and instead just like the advanced cores have modules that give ships bonuses to things like downward thrust.

[rphillips1986]

I'd love to see a class between SV and CV that uses blocks that are sized in between SV and CV. Then take it further with Piddlefoots idea about ship classes and let it share some of the class options of CVs and SVs plus a couple of it's own.


The devs have teased about a new class for water which seems neat but much less useful.

[The Big Brzezinski]

What kind of ship exactly do you want to make that won't work in existing large or small blocks?

[TruculentTonka]

Support. first and foremost, for what I call fighter vehicles (aka, SV).
Secondly, but of equal utility, would be a more tanky mid-range batterer.
Of course, such a class would hold virtually infinite opportunities for players to exploit.
My only request is that the only class to retain interstellar travel is the CV.
But the Destroyer Class would be designed for logistics, support and solar system duties.

[hastatus]

I dunno man

[piddlefoot]

Empyrions flight controls are directly linked to the starter blocks.
So for new flight controls, we need new starter blocks, its flight controls that define a ships class.
This is the only way to get new, true, flight controls into Empyrion.

With this system, ANY ship of any class can be directly programmed to have special abilities, the amount of combinations are huge compared to the 2 sets of flight controls we currently have.
As players we would gain new ships and classes to build on, with real abilities, a stealth ship will actually be a stealth ship, not just a CV named a stealth ship as it currently is........
A Dropship could land carrying heaps of cargo, being it has x4 thrust to any thruster placed downwards, small special abilities like this are what make games unique and fun, this system gives people a HEAP more options to build on and fly with and it would change the tactics of the game for the better, especially in MP.......
Can anyone even imagine the game Homeworld with no ship classes, where every ship has the same ability but a different shape, welcome to Empyrion.

Empyrion could have had a much more realistic level up system to, had propellor planes been included....Combustion engines in the tech tree etc, progress up through that to get to rocket tech and advanced space tech....etc

Game could have been way more popular with diverse flight controls, I think the idea was to overwhelming for a small team like Eleon to handle to be honest, so we got CPU to butcher the current flight control system instead.... LOL !

Never mind cant have everything !!!

[The Big Brzezinski]

If ship design is feeling stale and generic, I strongly advise turning off block limits and relying on CPU instead. See what happens when you don't have to dump your CPU into superfluous thrusters, cargo containers, and secondary turrets in lieu of anything useful. You'l be able to fit a LOT more primary weapons. You'll want to get in more fights. You'll want more armor to survive them. You'll want more cargo to carry ammo. You'll resent the cost of overbuilt propulsion systems and try to minimize and optimize them.

Capability with compete with expendability. You will learn to engineer ships for maximum performance at minimum cost. You will become willing to risk more wealth than just your personal inventory and a few free respawns to achieve victory. You will weave steel and sathium and burning hatred into interstellar nightmares for your enemies, and you will not stop until nothing remains of them but hollowed wrecks drifting silently in the frozen darkness.

[XLjedi]

Originally posted by piddlefoot:

This is a detriment to the game, anyone who has played Homeworld with all the ship classes knows it.

I genuinely like the idea of creating ship classes.

As the game stands now, I have made such an attempt for my designs which I base on block dimensions as opposed to function. I have played games with "Repair Corvettes" and "Medical Frigates". So it's not all about function.

I have a road map now based on block size that helps be determine whether or not my creation falls into the category of corvette, frigate, destroyer, battleship, etc. based on block dimensions. I can build in whatever functionality I need for each ship. I was really the most interested in setting dimension scale guidelines for my designs.

Defining CV/SV Class Size
https://steamcommunity.com/app/383120/discussions/0/3191369524224909491/

The Homeworld analogy falls a bit flat for me because that game relies entirely on the use of combined forces and fleet tactics. If Empyrion had any sort of an AI block that could allow for fleet maneuvering then it would be a game changer. As it is now, you can't do too much at the tactical fleet level except switch ships via teleporter. Which is why I always install them on the Bridge like Star Trek.