List of Things to Add to WCU

Heltarawa · Post by **Heltarawa** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 1:56 am

I have been asked to come up with a list of items needed to be added for us to be able to get to the point of being able to control and own a system and control ships from afar.

First item on the list: Interface Screens

I will start out with small ships and work up to stations/planets. Each room will be described as a system and anything inside that system will be listed as a subsytem inside that system (example system = Cockpit a subsytem of Cockpit would be the NavComputer which you can access using Ctrl N)

Ok I will be making very basic MS Paint graphics of how these will work

Small Craft: (Anything smaller than a galaxy)

Cockpit:
Subsytems: Nav Computer
Turrets:

Medium Sized Craft: (Galaxy to Draymon Sized)
Bridge/Cockpit
Subsystems: Nav Computer
Passageway: (Leads to other rooms ships)
From the passageway you are able to get to other places like Nav Center ; Flightdeck ; turrets.

Nav Center:
An addition to the Nav Computer allows you to control your ship, launch fighters and control them from this room. Will be limited but has more commands and avalibility than activating the Nav Computer from the Cockpit
From here you can switch to specific turrets or fighters with a click of the mouse. You can also give specific instructions to individual ships.

FlightDeck:
If your ship can hold fighters you will have the option of instaling a flight deck. When you dock with your craft you will be placed here. You can also make limited repairs and rearm your craft from stores inside the main ship *edit* also able to customize load of AI ships you can launch

Turrets:
An alternate access point to your turrets

Will finish more later im putting alot of thought into it so it takes awhile. Plus plaving thoughts on paper is always difficult

Heltarawa · Post by **Heltarawa** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 2:38 am

Large Ships: All ships bigger than a drayman

Ships of this size should to large to control with a flightstick. As Capt. You give orders and the crew carries them out for you. So no direct interaction as far as attacking and flying. (You may take direct control if you wish)
Ships of this size shoudl also function as a base of operations where you can get missions, view news, save your game, pretty much what ever information you have on a station you should be able to get here.

Bridge:
Give your orders from here. Have access to your navigation computer here as well.

Passageway:
Same as medium ships provides access to other parts of the ships.

Command Center:
Works same as Nav Center on smaller ships but upgraded to allow you to control other capitol ships in your group several systems away.

Flight Deck: same as smaller ships.

Communications Center: A place where you can view news take missions save your game.

Turrets: An alternate way to get to your many turrets

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 3:01 am

Heltarawa wrote:Large Ships: All ships bigger than a drayman
Ships of this size should to large to control with a flightstick. As Capt. You give orders and the crew carries them out for you. So no direct interaction as far as attacking and flying. (You may take direct control if you wish)
Ships of this size shoudl also function as a base of operations where you can get missions, view news, save your game, pretty much what ever information you have on a station you should be able to get here.

Just a suggestion: we could save this degree of sophistication for a carrier. I think that, typically, a capship, like say a Paradigm, is for squadron command. Inter-system and even system-wide, "fleet"-command is more the function of a carrier, I think, according to canon. Now, Spirit has traditionally opposed the player owning anything larger than a Drayman, but I seem to sense a change coming...

Bridge:
Give your orders from here. Have access to your navigation computer here as well.
Passageway:
Same as medium ships provides access to other parts of the ships.
Command Center:
Works same as Nav Center on smaller ships but upgraded to allow you to control other capitol ships in your group several systems away.
Flight Deck: same as smaller ships.
Communications Center: A place where you can view news take missions save your game.

All good. Just a detail, if we allow to save game from a capship or carrier, then the positions of the ships would have to be written to the save file; which would involve a lot of new code and new problems. Anything else is fine.

Turrets: An alternate way to get to your many turrets

It just ocurs to me: We've had many polemics in the past about how good or bad the aiming of automatic turret fire should be. One way to address this would be to hire npc's for your turrets. If you don't have gunners, you have to fire them yourself. If you have rookie gunners they shoot not very straight; if they are 'experienced' they shoot straight; if they are 'veteran' they auto-lead the target; and if they are 'elite' they fire straight at the target when it is making corkscrews, and lead it when it's flying straight, say. And they gain experience by, say, 1 point per engagement; 5 points per kill; and the thresholds could be set at 25, 50 and 100. Maybe add an 'ultra-elite' at 500 that avoids hitting friendlies.

Heltarawa · Post by **Heltarawa** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 3:08 am

Can you treat the capitol ships when you are in the Comm Center as if you were in a station. Plus if we get to where I can see us being, Flight group positions will have ot be saved.

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 3:18 am

I'm not sure what you envision, but one thing I could suggest is a conditional save: If there are no hostiles, and all small ships are docked, and all cap ships are in a formation, *then* you can save the game; so that all that has to be added to the save game is your carrier position and the type of formation. Writing the positions of all your deployed escorts AND enemy ships to the savefile, I think is a tall order.

Heltarawa · Post by **Heltarawa** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 3:43 am

vision

Your missions could be as follows head to planets and stations of the systems where the kilrathi came through to get to earth picking up loads of refugees taking them back to another system your system where they can start a new life. You can choose which faction to be listed under weather you want to be a part of borderworlds confed even kilrathi if ya want. each one gives you certain perks and bonuses such as different ships and equipment avalible. Confed gives you high tech toys borderworlds gives you weird put together ships with special weapons like leech and stormfire. Kats will give you cat ships. The system can be its own entity. You purchase militia fighters to defend the system agaisnt attacks merchant ships that will automaticly go out *under your name and flag* and perform merchant missions and somehow have part of your defence force fly with and defend the merchants through the whole journy. You could even go so far as to build up an army which you cna use to wage corperate warefare or warefare against the kats with capitol ships and what not. *Would be neet if we had the ability to use assault shuttles to accually capture ships and add to the fleet*

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 6:13 am

Heltarawa wrote:*Would be neet if we had the ability to use assault shuttles to accually capture ships and add to the fleet*

Amen. Specially Nephilim...

B49: In what system did the TCS Midway disable a Nephilim Kraken Shipkiller and acquire its Capital Plasma Weapon in 2681?
Answer: G'Mar System

Why can't we do that 11 years earlier?

Heltarawa · Post by **Heltarawa** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 8:01 am

I wasnt thinking that far I was thinking capturing pirate draymons small capitol ships and such