Incorporating an in-game Ship design element into the real-time MMO, and abolishing a separate Creative mode
- Thread starter Jetthetank
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I want to add that if there was a very limited sandbox mode strictly for building ships and possibly testing them (maybe that would be too much for those who are worried it'd keep people out of the MMO), maybe it'd be beneficial for everyone if such a mode existed before the game released so that way people could get their builder fix on and have ships ready for when the game does come out and they can get to work immediately on resource gathering to put into their blueprints.
You both solve the problem of people spending less time in-game because they've spent all the time before the game was even playable learning shipbuilding and you immediately have a huge incentive to dive into the world because those ships are going to need lots of resources thus everyone has similar goals starting out and a big community race starts to get their ships made.
It sounds like a pre-game sandbox mode won't be possible though since it was mentioned to be post-EA. Maybe some limited part assembler mode that doesn't even allow testing of physics?
You both solve the problem of people spending less time in-game because they've spent all the time before the game was even playable learning shipbuilding and you immediately have a huge incentive to dive into the world because those ships are going to need lots of resources thus everyone has similar goals starting out and a big community race starts to get their ships made.
It sounds like a pre-game sandbox mode won't be possible though since it was mentioned to be post-EA. Maybe some limited part assembler mode that doesn't even allow testing of physics?
Also, there will be a pre-alpha testing phase I read so, most likely people will have had their share of testing ship designs before that anyway.
I can see that happening I guess. While I'd be totally occupied with tons of ship ideas and possibly the length of time it takes to put them together piece by piece like some sort of model kit or lego set (especially since the smallest dev made ship is ~300 pieces), I can easily see people demanding "MORE!" instead of being content with something remotely playable.
I don't have personal experience in game development and programming so I couldn't tell you if it would be a lot of work to disable features but I imagine it could be really tedious to have to alter everything to maintain a limited player access build and a full dev build. It'd probably be even something that delayed EA which overall I really wouldn't wish for unless it was necessary to make it a stable first release. Although I will say the game's intended form, from the start anyways, was to include a sandbox mode since they mention it in the unofficial FAQ doc.
Oh, I didn't see the mention of a pre-alpha testing phase. That could be interesting so thanks for sharing!
I don't have personal experience in game development and programming so I couldn't tell you if it would be a lot of work to disable features but I imagine it could be really tedious to have to alter everything to maintain a limited player access build and a full dev build. It'd probably be even something that delayed EA which overall I really wouldn't wish for unless it was necessary to make it a stable first release. Although I will say the game's intended form, from the start anyways, was to include a sandbox mode since they mention it in the unofficial FAQ doc.
Oh, I didn't see the mention of a pre-alpha testing phase. That could be interesting so thanks for sharing!
I'm not sure how the sandbox will work out atm, there's a lot of discussion about it in this thread and another similar one and Lauri (CEO of FB) chipped in on it and he was questioning how/if they were going to do it
Heres his earlier reply that I'm referring to
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Heres his earlier reply that I'm referring to
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This is indeed very good discussion and it has made me realize that sandbox indeed includes a risk of players doing all meta development in sandboxes as that's infinitely faster to do there than in the game world. It's not completely bad, but inside the world it would have more meaning. In the other hand not having a sandbox at all might emphasize strong factions even more, as they would have the resources to be spent on research. But then again, smaller factions might just want to focus on espionage/stealing inventions. 
I'm still not sure about splitting the player base, but maybe we should do some polls around that. What I mean is that my understanding is that some people simply don't want to play MMO, but just build things. Granted, those people could just stay inside hangars in the MMO and never see a soul, but I don't know do they feel it this way.
As we haven't put much work to sandbox yet it would be smart development-wise to postpone sandbox and see if people could live without it. But before I'm making any commitments to any direction we'll need to somehow get some polls up and running.
I'm still not sure about splitting the player base, but maybe we should do some polls around that. What I mean is that my understanding is that some people simply don't want to play MMO, but just build things. Granted, those people could just stay inside hangars in the MMO and never see a soul, but I don't know do they feel it this way.
As we haven't put much work to sandbox yet it would be smart development-wise to postpone sandbox and see if people could live without it. But before I'm making any commitments to any direction we'll need to somehow get some polls up and running.
It's amazing seeing devs ask for input on things. It's crazy that sandbox mode has been talked about up to this point and there's still a possibility to not even include a sandbox mode at all but that's the nature of early access I guess.
My main concern in the end though is that learning to build an experimental ship through trial and error (possibly with some tutorials in between) will end up being more of a chore for most players that won't pay off long-term thus reducing the number of people creating interesting ship ideas due to burnout.
I definitely want to play an MMO and build things so some sort of in-game test environment for reverting changes on a ship without spending credits/insurance would probably be the best of both worlds for me. But if that's not something the devs think would be healthy for the game I guess I'll adapt and deal with it
My main concern in the end though is that learning to build an experimental ship through trial and error (possibly with some tutorials in between) will end up being more of a chore for most players that won't pay off long-term thus reducing the number of people creating interesting ship ideas due to burnout.
I definitely want to play an MMO and build things so some sort of in-game test environment for reverting changes on a ship without spending credits/insurance would probably be the best of both worlds for me. But if that's not something the devs think would be healthy for the game I guess I'll adapt and deal with it
It's amazing seeing devs ask for input on things. It's crazy that sandbox mode has been talked about up to this point and there's still a possibility to not even include a sandbox mode at all but that's the nature of early access I guess.
My main concern in the end though is that learning to build an experimental ship through trial and error (possibly with some tutorials in between) will end up being more of a chore for most players that won't pay off long-term thus reducing the number of people creating interesting ship ideas due to burnout.
I definitely want to play an MMO and build things so some sort of in-game test environment for reverting changes on a ship without spending credits/insurance would probably be the best of both worlds for me. But if that's not something the devs think would be healthy for the game I guess I'll adapt and deal with it
My main concern in the end though is that learning to build an experimental ship through trial and error (possibly with some tutorials in between) will end up being more of a chore for most players that won't pay off long-term thus reducing the number of people creating interesting ship ideas due to burnout.
I definitely want to play an MMO and build things so some sort of in-game test environment for reverting changes on a ship without spending credits/insurance would probably be the best of both worlds for me. But if that's not something the devs think would be healthy for the game I guess I'll adapt and deal with it
design advance in to strategize in advance to
Preliminary design work is carried out to determine the initial sections of the main structural elements.
Only six statements are needed to define the mission specification and initiate a preliminary design study for a civil aircraft: type (private, business, or commercial), powerplant (reciprocating, turboprop, or turbofan), passenger capacity, cruise speed, cruise altitude, and maximum range in cruise. The information sought in a preliminary design study is described in the following list:
1.
market survey: an assessment of the competing aircraft that have characteristics similar to those of the concept aircraft,
2.
initial sizing and weight estimate: development of preliminary weight information based on range requirements and empirical data,
3.
fuselage design: development of cabin design layout based on mission specification,
4.
engine selection: terminal operations and cruise requirements set the range of engine possibilities and the wing size,
5.
wing design: wing planform and airfoil selection, high lift devices, maximum lift capability, cruise drag including compressibility effects,
6.
tail design: tail surface planform and airfoil selection, longitudinal and lateral static stability considerations
7.
landing gear design: loads on landing gear, clearance issues, shock absorbers, tires and wheels, braking systems,
8.
refined weight estimate: center of gravity location, control surface sizing, final layout of aircraft with all components properly placed,
9.
drag estimation: careful analysis and accounting of the drag contribution of all components throughout the contemplated speed and altitude envelope
10.
performance analyses: take-off, climb, cruise, descent, and landing performance of the final configuration,
11.
economic analysis: capital cost of the airframe and engines, direct operating cost, and revenue generation,
12.
final report and presentation: synthesis of the preliminary design in a report suitable for management, customers, and technical staff, version for oral presentation.
Preliminary design work is carried out to determine the initial sections of the main structural elements.
Only six statements are needed to define the mission specification and initiate a preliminary design study for a civil aircraft: type (private, business, or commercial), powerplant (reciprocating, turboprop, or turbofan), passenger capacity, cruise speed, cruise altitude, and maximum range in cruise. The information sought in a preliminary design study is described in the following list:
1.
market survey: an assessment of the competing aircraft that have characteristics similar to those of the concept aircraft,
2.
initial sizing and weight estimate: development of preliminary weight information based on range requirements and empirical data,
3.
fuselage design: development of cabin design layout based on mission specification,
4.
engine selection: terminal operations and cruise requirements set the range of engine possibilities and the wing size,
5.
wing design: wing planform and airfoil selection, high lift devices, maximum lift capability, cruise drag including compressibility effects,
6.
tail design: tail surface planform and airfoil selection, longitudinal and lateral static stability considerations
7.
landing gear design: loads on landing gear, clearance issues, shock absorbers, tires and wheels, braking systems,
8.
refined weight estimate: center of gravity location, control surface sizing, final layout of aircraft with all components properly placed,
9.
drag estimation: careful analysis and accounting of the drag contribution of all components throughout the contemplated speed and altitude envelope
10.
performance analyses: take-off, climb, cruise, descent, and landing performance of the final configuration,
11.
economic analysis: capital cost of the airframe and engines, direct operating cost, and revenue generation,
12.
final report and presentation: synthesis of the preliminary design in a report suitable for management, customers, and technical staff, version for oral presentation.
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It's amazing seeing devs ask for input on things. It's crazy that sandbox mode has been talked about up to this point and there's still a possibility to not even include a sandbox mode at all but that's the nature of early access I guess.
My main concern in the end though is that learning to build an experimental ship through trial and error (possibly with some tutorials in between) will end up being more of a chore for most players that won't pay off long-term thus reducing the number of people creating interesting ship ideas due to burnout.
I definitely want to play an MMO and build things so some sort of in-game test environment for reverting changes on a ship without spending credits/insurance would probably be the best of both worlds for me. But if that's not something the devs think would be healthy for the game I guess I'll adapt and deal with it
My main concern in the end though is that learning to build an experimental ship through trial and error (possibly with some tutorials in between) will end up being more of a chore for most players that won't pay off long-term thus reducing the number of people creating interesting ship ideas due to burnout.
I definitely want to play an MMO and build things so some sort of in-game test environment for reverting changes on a ship without spending credits/insurance would probably be the best of both worlds for me. But if that's not something the devs think would be healthy for the game I guess I'll adapt and deal with it
I am envisioning implementing something more engaging as a whole, where it wouldnt have to be trial and error, due to building your prototype and being able to run it in a simulator-esque environment.
maybe have it so you can design the core frame of your ship, which then you have to build the rest, such as manually wiring or cabling the ship for usablility.
^not maybe this literally, but adding things like it to make it engaging to the point it feels like you are actually designing that ship in that space.
So if a separate sandbox mode would to be scrapped, would ship designing/testing jobs be acceptable solution? Ie. factions would offer the resources to design and test the ships, and there would be areas/stations dedicated to ship design/testing. I always imagined I'd be building the Empire this way, and there would be great need for a lot of ship designers (and not just warships, all public transport, mining etc. ships also need designers), and the large design/test ranges and factories inside the game world would indeed add up a lot to the universe. But if we would be to scrap or at least postpone sandbox that might guarantee the labor needed for massive progress ...
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So if a separate sandbox mode would to be scrapped, would ship designing/testing jobs be acceptable solution? Ie. factions would offer the resources to design and test the ships, and there would be areas/stations dedicated to ship design/testing. I always imagined I'd be building the Empire this way, and there would be great need for a lot of ship designers (and not just warships, all public transport, mining etc. ships also need designers), and the large design/test ranges and factories inside the game world would indeed add up a lot to the universe. But if we would be to scrap or at least postpone sandbox that might guarantee the labor needed for massive progress ...
If you guys are going to be actively directing the actions of Empire & Kingdom through jobs, then yes, not having a sandbox mode will greatly increase your workforce and encourage players to get involved with the universe without having to be directly involved in the universe. You'll just have to manage wasted resources. I am not exactly sure if what you're saying will be a game enforced job thing or just like one player doing a job for another player where it's up to you to monitor and control.
So jobs might be having players build the module sections, then another job would be to assemble them into ships, then open up designer jobs where players can freely build ships to test, but either have to pay to actually use outside the test area or take the blueprint and build it with their own resources. This might work really well. The best solution to me is to always have players in the online game even if you offer them the ability to do things completely inside the safe zone.
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So if a separate sandbox mode would to be scrapped, would ship designing/testing jobs be acceptable solution? Ie. factions would offer the resources to design and test the ships, and there would be areas/stations dedicated to ship design/testing. I always imagined I'd be building the Empire this way, and there would be great need for a lot of ship designers (and not just warships, all public transport, mining, etc. ships also need designers), and the large design/test ranges and factories inside the game world would indeed add up a lot to the universe. But if we would be to scrap or at least postpone sandbox that might guarantee the labor needed for massive progress ...
But the more dynamic and life is added to the game I would say the better.
Having jobs that contribute to shipping designs and such would be really cool to see, and having these blueprint editors within stations in the MMO settings buildable by players. Would be amazing
EDIT:
And then these ship testing yards too, maybe you could use a larger computer room to run "simulations" in the game of your blueprint designs moving you into a smaller "program" like a window where you can test your ship before beginning construction.
So first you go into a blueprint editor that is buildable, like consoles that have to be placed down in a large enough room for projectors of said blueprints where everyone who has permission can come in and look as the blueprint is built, next part of the design process of the ship being to move it over to a simulation room where you have the program like window that opens up where you can test how your ship performs, then you can build it in the main world knowing your design is functional.
Gives more function to items in the game and would be a really cool RP feature for those who enjoy it too.
So if a separate sandbox mode would to be scrapped, would ship designing/testing jobs be acceptable solution? Ie. factions would offer the resources to design and test the ships, and there would be areas/stations dedicated to ship design/testing. I always imagined I'd be building the Empire this way, and there would be great need for a lot of ship designers (and not just warships, all public transport, mining etc. ships also need designers), and the large design/test ranges and factories inside the game world would indeed add up a lot to the universe. But if we would be to scrap or at least postpone sandbox that might guarantee the labor needed for massive progress ...
I imagine Empire and Kingdom could offer jobs for ship building, and also offer access to resources. This means a ship builder wanting to get ahead in the world might offer their services to a faction; it incentivizes players to join a faction and to remain a part of it for a while, at least until they finish their job of creating the ship for example. This also means Empire and Kingdom can incentivize technological progress - if the pay attracts a lot of ship designers, then they will be working together to hash out the best solutions to problems. With a lot of people, with access to resources, working to make the dev factions stronger, the dev factions will have the best tech in the game. An arms race and a technological war develops immediately. This might eliminate any form of offline ship designing and even allows for piece-by-piece designing of ships in the live game (as in... always). Even though ship designing might be complex, having to do it online, frame piece by frame piece, leads to massive shipyards full of parts and activity and ideas. You'll see shapes and ideas and incorporate things into your own designs and have a lot of people around you doing the same thing to ask for help from and so on. This means production factories which piece together ships start to be a thing; the best designs, players will want everyone to have that good fighter ship, and now you have people working on manufacturing plants and the best way to 'factorio' all the resources into parts, and parts into ships. This amount of gameplay is a nuclear explosion of possibility. Only possible if the networking tech (and frame rate) allows it.
The downside to this is it might be a massive undertaking to manage this, and would require a lot of time on the devs part, but that might be good as you'll have to play your own game more. It could also be bad, as you get influenced by people who suggest game changes due to quality of life concerns they have which might actually be good for the game (difficulty is good). The upsides are very large however, as you develop ship design teams, have jobs for resource collection and transportation, and so on, incentivizing players to do things, they all interact and you get an explosion of activity around shared goals. As things get complex, you will have to delegate responsibility and so on and people will push hard to achieve 'ranking' or whatever. This can be dangerous, so perhaps you have to set a term of service that expires and the players get kicked from the faction. This is all super complex, wishy stuff that has no programming systems required behind it. It's like managing a mega-guild in an MMO, so it has great upsides and downsides. Some of the upside includes the presence of sabotage, thievery and so on; natural drama that would occur. Sometimes this can be negative, as people take others' parts and so on (secured, group only building bay perhaps?). People accepting a job to transport resources who then just head off into the void of space, never to be seen again. I am unsure how this could be managed. It's massive. Maybe I am over thinking it and you will just have people produce some flyable ship as a job and they get paid and you get the blueprint as a faction blueprint, and if it is good it gets used and if its no good no one uses it.
The gameplay that can stem from this is immense and that excites me. This also solves somewhat of a problem with MMOs with dev factions where people often just spread out and the dev factions are small and ineffective - if the resources, best tech and convenience to build are focused somewhere, people will gravitate to those locations. Future pirates will have learned to fly in the Empire or Kingdom ranks. They'll have stories of their military career. It kind of becomes an online sandbox for a ship designer - why waste time mining all your own resources when you can join the Empire for a while and build to your heart's content and learn all the game systems cheaply? It's like having online cheat mode for access to resources and things to shoot at, except in doing so there's a crazy amount of gameplay generated as everyone seeks these same conveniences. Likewise, knowing there's expensive ships and sometimes inexperienced pilots, this draws a lot of pirating and gives natural gameplay through supply and demand. I would just mention again how difficult this is to manage, because too much resource and you have inflation and no one valuing the resources, so if at all possible, having a large stockpile of resources that deplete, where resource gathering jobs are required to replenish a stockpile; you'd be able to offer no pay for ship designing for a while and only on resource gathering and direct gameplay through in-game means.
I could be way off in how you're thinking this would occur. Maybe it's just 'create a flyable ship blueprint in this testing environment where resources here never reach the outside real game world' - like a large test arena in the middle of a station. Not sure how that would work. So it could be as simple or complex as you envision, but keeping all that action available for people to see would incentivize cooperation and make players invest into the success of the faction. Just don't let all that dev power go to your head and artificially alter the outcome of events in the game!
Lastly I'd have to point out again the main topic; none of this matters if there's a single offline server to accomplish any of this in. If a player spins up their own 'Empire' in their own private server, it devalues the one and only Empire that would otherwise exist in the live game. Games in the past have had to do this, because networking 100's of players together one one server was impossible. SpatialOS developed and showed even then, with multiple servers handling interactions, it can still be problematic. You guys have developed tech that turns every player into a server, and this seems like an obvious solution that every MMO game will incorporate one way or another in the future. This means we might get 100's of players together in one location, all processing all their own actions, and just telling everyone else around them what happened. It might work. As such, you have the opportunity no one else really had, to bring together players in a large universe like this. EVE used time-dilation; a single server just processing every action in sequence no matter how many actions were occurring, and it worked overall. So if the tech can support it, it would be a great loss of potential if there was ever a 0/32 player Starbase server out there. You guys controlling the tech seems much more valuable in crafting the future of the game and making it something unique; gameplay you cannot get anywhere else, not on StarCitizen, not on Elite, not on Space Engineers, nowhere else. Only in Starbase, online, in this one game universe, can you experience this gameplay. That seems so powerful and exciting. Again... if the tech allows it. If you can pull it off. If instead, like Worlds Adrift, it just cannot handle the numbers... we're back to square one. But I have a feeling this works, which is why I'm pouring a lot of attention into Starbase. I see it.
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I feel that having ship designer jobs is escaping the bounds of what these job are for. These jobs should fill the role of training the player IMO. Also there are alliance built around ship design and selling those ships are you just going to make a job that replaces them?
My suggestion is teach the basic of ship building but do not have players design their own custom ships. so you have a series of jobs where a player helps build a simple fighter ship. these jobs might include stuff like building the frame of the ship, adding panels, adding thrusters, wiring the FCU, building a control panel, assembling the generator, piping fuel, yolol coding the controls, adding weapons, or a short test flight.
the whole idea of this is to act as ship building tutorial and as a job. by the time the player is done they should know all they need to to at least build a working ship. after that tutorial you have taught them enough about ship building where they can go off and do their own thing.
there are already several ship building and designing factions out there there is no reason to make a job specifically so player can build. no matter what happens players will build and players will design new ships.
Failure make success sweeter. IMO building a new type or style of ship should be risk.
Is everyone so scared of build a ship with a few problems that they need a sandbox to take away the risks? With the FCU and MFC systems in game you can make almost anything fly well enough to function as a ship. if you at least try to build a functioning ship then the ship you build will function. There maybe problems with the ship and it may need a few iterations before it works great but is that a huge problem?
if it is too easy to iterate ship designs most of the people that are here for the ship designing will be done with it in a week. the player will come back after a month to fix their designs up because of feedback. but then they will leave again just as quickly.
also there is a great deal more player interaction if your researchers need resources.
FCU= Flight Control Unit
MFC = Main Flight Computer
My suggestion is teach the basic of ship building but do not have players design their own custom ships. so you have a series of jobs where a player helps build a simple fighter ship. these jobs might include stuff like building the frame of the ship, adding panels, adding thrusters, wiring the FCU, building a control panel, assembling the generator, piping fuel, yolol coding the controls, adding weapons, or a short test flight.
the whole idea of this is to act as ship building tutorial and as a job. by the time the player is done they should know all they need to to at least build a working ship. after that tutorial you have taught them enough about ship building where they can go off and do their own thing.
there are already several ship building and designing factions out there there is no reason to make a job specifically so player can build. no matter what happens players will build and players will design new ships.
Failure make success sweeter. IMO building a new type or style of ship should be risk.
Is everyone so scared of build a ship with a few problems that they need a sandbox to take away the risks? With the FCU and MFC systems in game you can make almost anything fly well enough to function as a ship. if you at least try to build a functioning ship then the ship you build will function. There maybe problems with the ship and it may need a few iterations before it works great but is that a huge problem?
if it is too easy to iterate ship designs most of the people that are here for the ship designing will be done with it in a week. the player will come back after a month to fix their designs up because of feedback. but then they will leave again just as quickly.
also there is a great deal more player interaction if your researchers need resources.
FCU= Flight Control Unit
MFC = Main Flight Computer
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So if a separate sandbox mode would to be scrapped, would ship designing/testing jobs be acceptable solution? Ie. factions would offer the resources to design and test the ships, and there would be areas/stations dedicated to ship design/testing. I always imagined I'd be building the Empire this way, and there would be great need for a lot of ship designers (and not just warships, all public transport, mining etc. ships also need designers), and the large design/test ranges and factories inside the game world would indeed add up a lot to the universe. But if we would be to scrap or at least postpone sandbox that might guarantee the labor needed for massive progress ...
This means that the small solo player out there mining isnt just collecting resources and dropping then into a selling point to generate credits, it adds meaning to all these interactions. Factions need ships, they will need them from shipbuilders, shipbuilders need all the resources to build the ships, the individual miner knows that every voxel he is mining out is influencing the game because it is those resources that the ship builders need to build the ships that the factions want.
it generates this circle (live economy actually) that brings meaning to all these interactions.
and knowing that all of this is taking place in the same world make players feel like they are actually emulating another virtual existence.
I feel it adds soo much more to the game, because say someone wants to build a giant behemoth spaceship to travel to a moon or planet at some point, that generates the actual need to build a massive station, to create trade routes for the resources, and builds that gameplay within.
i feel like even something as "simple" as a ship builder being ingame or out of game, is a critical piece of the wheel that alot of all these prospective gameplay aspects depend on,