[WIP] Modular Ships

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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by Hicks »

Reactor changes i've done, Increase the max output by 10, increased the weight by a fair amount, but decreased the size.

Will look at adding a few larger SPEC capcitors, maybe up to lvl 10, and fuel tanks while the stuff for the SPEC drives gets worked out

Edit:Forums won't display the formatted data, and can't upload a csv, will upload somewhere
Edit2:http://www.mediafire.com/?ipzxkjqjzaxwjbm
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by TBeholder »

Hicks wrote: Will look at adding a few larger SPEC capcitors, maybe up to lvl 10,
Currently, no point, unless you'll also set maximum slots for them low enough. One, they don't change a lot. Two, they're additive as is. Also, if they're just a variety of normal capacitors, energy density shouldn't vary much, giving less variation than e.g. with reactors.
Hicks wrote: and fuel tanks
That, yes.
Hicks wrote:Edit:Forums won't display the formatted data, and can't upload a csv,
What formatted data? CSV lines are just text, and forums allow to attach diffs or diffs.gz or even paste text if you need only a line or two.
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by Hicks »

TBeholder wrote:
Hicks wrote: Will look at adding a few larger SPEC capcitors, maybe up to lvl 10,
Currently, no point, unless you'll also set maximum slots for them low enough. One, they don't change a lot. Two, they're additive as is. Also, if they're just a variety of normal capacitors, energy density shouldn't vary much, giving less variation than e.g. with reactors.
Add the variety , cause SPEC is going to cost a lot more, current SPEC capacitors will be engouh for small ships now, but ships weight a few million tons are going to need a bit more energy.
TBeholder wrote:
Hicks wrote: and fuel tanks
That, yes.
So far its just a small, medium and large fuel tank, 1, 10 and 100 tons repectively, you get better effciency from the large tanks.
TBeholder wrote:
Hicks wrote:Edit:Forums won't display the formatted data, and can't upload a csv,
What formatted data? CSV lines are just text, and forums allow to attach diffs or diffs.gz or even paste text if you need only a line or two.
I copied the data from my spreadsheet into the text box and the columns are alligned, but when i post, it stacks everything up together like this
Old New
Name Cost Weight Size Output Weight Size Output
reactor01 500 1 2 15 3 3.5 15
reactor02 1000 2 3.5 30 5 7 30
reactor03 2000 3 6 44 8 11 50
reactor04 4000 4 11 57 15 17 68
reactor05 8000 5 18 69 23 28 92
reactor06 16000 6 32 80 33 43 151
reactor07 32000 7 60 90 72 82 280
reactor08 64000 8 100 99 100 130 440
reactor09 128000 9 175 108 131 187 607
reactor10 256000 10 310 115 150 224 782
reactor11 512000 12 540 120 176 265 910
reactor12 1024000 14 950 125 200 291 1071
reactor13 2048000 16 1650 130 242 321 1220
reactor14 4096000 20 2890 140 283 376 1320
reactor15 8192000 24 5050 145 312 408 1450
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by TBeholder »

Hicks wrote:Add the variety , cause SPEC is going to cost a lot more, current SPEC capacitors will be engouh for small ships now, but ships weight a few million tons are going to need a bit more energy.
I mean, since it's an additive upgrade, you can buy 20x SPEC cap 1.
Maybe, bigger caps should have cost and size|mass noticeably less than an equivalent in low-value ones. After all, it gives reliability.
Justified because, to think about it, the storage itself and its interface and armature should add up to something like ( V = v * E + w * E^2/3 + z ). 2/3 because it's proportional to the surface while E is proportional to the "clean" volume. If z is comparable to the smallest (v*E), bigger ones grow significantly more efficient; great differences dwarf component z, but then power 2/3 kicks in.
E.g. with (v=w=z=1) 8x 125 vs. 1x 1000 is 8*(125 + 25 + 1)=1000+200+8 vs. 1000+100+1, i.e. 1208:1101, so on this precaution we waste ~1/11 of the necessary size. With v/w = 2, it's almost twice as bad, ~ 1/6 (1408:1201) - easy to set. And if we have more expensive caps with greater energy density, this only reduces v. Again, easy.
Of course, the same is appliable to any components with constant density. Reactors are different and may be much more nonlinear.
Hicks wrote:I copied the data from my spreadsheet into the text box and the columns are alligned, but when i post, it stacks everything up together like this

Code: Select all

			Old				New		
Name	Cost		Weight	Size	Output		Weight	Size	Output
reactor01	500		1	2	15		3	3.5	15
reactor02	1000		2	3.5	30		5	7	30
reactor03	2000		3	6	44		8	11	50
reactor04	4000		4	11	57		15	17	68
reactor05	8000		5	18	69		23	28	92
reactor06	16000		6	32	80		33	43	151
reactor07	32000		7	60	90		72	82	280
reactor08	64000		8	100	99		100	130	440
reactor09	128000		9	175	108		131	187	607
reactor10	256000		10	310	115		150	224	782
reactor11	512000		12	540	120		176	265	910
reactor12	1024000		14	950	125		200	291	1071
reactor13	2048000		16	1650	130		242	321	1220
reactor14	4096000		20	2890	140		283	376	1320
reactor15	8192000		24	5050	145		312	408	1450
Code tag uses fixed font, but counts tab as so many spaces, not as positions, so it's either padding or replacing.
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by Hicks »

hmm... i only half answer my previous statement, i am adding the bigger ones due to larger ships, and to stop people having to hunt round for a few hundred small capacitors. It is a lot easier to buy 1 x 50,000,000 mj unit then 100 x 500,000 mj ones.

Now with the reactors, i went off the assumption that there will a limit to how many can be installed, so at the moment, the smaller ones are more efficient, volume and mass wise, but less output. Can some ships have unlimited reactors installed? should i scaled them so the large ones are more effiecent?
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by TBeholder »

Hicks wrote:Now with the reactors, i went off the assumption that there will a limit to how many can be installed, so at the moment, the smaller ones are more efficient, volume and mass wise, but less output. Can some ships have unlimited reactors installed? should i scaled them so the large ones are more effiecent?
My consideration is that for anything with an extensive parameter as output (like power or capacity), whenever N x SomethingSmall put together is more efficient than 1x SomethingBig with the same output, there's no much point (in-universe, too) for the latter to exist. It's better to set up extensible bateries and enjoy reliability of sectioning and hotplugging.
Conversely, the aposteriori conclusion is that if someone makes and uses big ones, they must give a significant advantage.
For reactors, there are losses we don't see (such as cooling system performance), but these are likely to be about directly proportional to the total power output and thus don't affect the net reasult much. It's back to cost, mass and volume for us.
Anyway, to actually get more than one working reactor, they should be converted to "add_reactor..." additive upgrades.
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by travists »

Many small reactors = more weight, heat, and fuel consumption but less cost and better resistance to damage as you can loose one or two completely and still have power.

One large reactor = less weight, better heat management, and better fuel efficiency but cost a small fortune and more prone to leave you stranded. (Which does not mean that you can't have an auxiliary reactor: power is concurrent not additive, but will show up if main is destroyed)

Weight comes from the housing. as each reactor has a housing the weight of a smaller one is less than a big one, but load several and it adds up fast.

Heat is because big reactors are designed to produce that much power and have better heat reduction. A single small reactor does not create much excess heat, but again all of it's features are additive.

Fuel to power is an odd one. Small ones have a better fuel to power ratio, but big ones have a better power-weight ratio. As a reactor needs to hull its own bulk around, bigger is better!
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by riftroamer »

I've been following the thread for a while and actually really like the approach a lot.

Now, I'm coming from a pen&paper rpg background where that kind of flexibility is king (design-wise) and one is often comparing to real world examples to get a feeling of how things should relate to each other to be convincing.

I know this might be raising a discussion about whether starships should be viewed as being comparable to airliners or oceangoing ships, but thats probably a completely different topic. I like to compare to commercial oceanliners.

Thinking about the modern 13000+ TEU Containership Emma Maersk with only one single 80 Megawatt diesel engine versus the Queen Mary II with 125 Megawatts of power from 4 diesels and 2 gas turbines show that there is quite some variation possible and necessary when taking operating routes, cost, range and speed into account.

The single large power plant is more efficient regarding cost of operation, and probably very reliable too, as these are the main operating parameters for a cargo ship.

Multiple plants make up for their redundancy and prestiege.

Not to mention nuclear aircraft carriers...

A side node on SPEC efficiency. The proportional surface area of a larger space distortion bubble is lower on larger bubbles compared to it's volume than on smaller bubbles. Fighters would need proportionally more energy for their bubbles than super carriers, I would say.

But that only applies for linear functions, of course.

I like the direction into which this is heading :-)
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by pheonixstorm »

For the QM2 v a container ship. Its more about actual power needs than using a single engine plus the need for redundant systems (since the cargo is people and no one wants to be stranded in a oceanliner in the middle of nowhere). As for a nuclear carrier.. well, think of it this way, modern super carrier were designed to stay at sea for very long periods of time and to be resupplied at sea. Same with nuclear subs. Conventional diesal powered warships cannot compete with the endurance of a nuc boat and must either have an oiler nearby or head to port every so often. Also I think modern super carriers were designed with 4 reactors? Its been awhile since i've read up on any of the latest carrier designs.

Whiever you decide on though air or sea, the ships have 2 things to consider: Power output and thrust. With a fission or fusion reactor (or even anti-matter) refueling doesnt play too big of a role, if the fuel used to create thrust that we constantly have to resupply.

Back in I think it was the 90s I read up on a nuclear powered rocket motor. While I do not remember if it was just a rocket of also provided power for whatever spacecraft it would have been attached to I do remember than it used the same propelant that the space shuttle used to provide the thrust. You might be able to google the design as its probably listed on wikipedia if you want to read up on it.

Anyway.. i'm rushed on this so not sure if it made any sense.. hope it did. Till later!
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by riftroamer »

pheonixstorm wrote:Anyway.. i'm rushed on this so not sure if it made any sense.. hope it did.
Yeah, me too. Just my thoughts on the topic. I wanted to support the approach to have the option to purchase more than one power plant if the owner of a given ship sees the purpose of that and to support the option of having different types of power plants or thrusters in the same vessel. While having only one should suffice for simple cargo ships.

I should have pointed out that I was basically portraying the validity of the approach discussed here with real world examples ;-)

Sticking to my examples here. The thing is that the vessels mentioned actually do have quite similar energy requirements for propulsion (the relation to thrust comes to my mind).

The four electric motor "pods" driving the Queen Mary 2 draw 86 MW, while the one propeller of the Emma Maersk is driven by 80 MW with optionally using generators and a gas turbine to produce another 18 MW via electric "booster" motors. Nimitz Class aircraft carriers on the other hand have two fission reactors totaling about 190 MW both sharing and driving four steam turbines which conventionally drive four propellers. Being a war ship she has totally different requirements.

Well, I'd rather not be required to have to manually deactivate or activate such additional drive systems or power plants in VS to save on fuel or add to top speed, but I think it's worthwhile to point out that the modular approach is a good one :-)

All this shows that being able to combine different reactors, capacitors, thrusters, afterburners and SPEC drives not only give a great (optional) flexibility, but also has it's real world reference designs, which I think pays towards immersion (gameplay). It's just plain convincing to know that this approach has it's uses in reality too. Thanks.
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by Hicks »

TBeholder wrote:Of course, feeding/power/coolant/whatever parts should differ in size too, but since big reactors simply don't fit on small ships, we could assume they're made for the biggest reactor a ship can carry. To make it explicit, we'd need several "Reactor Mounting" upgrades, in turn enabling upgrade slots for classes reactors. Probably, going not even in Upgrade space, but Equipment space.
Whether normally changeable or not, reactor slots can be different for some milspec versions.
And ships could have several, depending on their construction. E.g. Llama: 1 light reactor + 2 medium reactors.
Any chance this will get implemented? Having certain slots for equipment with certain sizes (Reactors, engines, SPEC drives?, and of course weapons already have this). If someone knows how and it can be implemented i will hold off doing the reactors for the moment, and upload a new units.csv with just the fuel tanks.
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by klauss »

Reactors have it too. Ships can have "forbidden updates", so forbidding certain reactor categories would result in the simulation of connector types.
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by Hicks »

I was thinking that by setting them up with mount sizes like weapons, it would be easier to manage. You would just have to add a few mounts to each ship rather then ban all the ones it can't use, and it will be easier if we do new mount sizes for new ships, as we won't have to go through and ban all the new sizes
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by Hicks »

riftroamer wrote: A side node on SPEC efficiency. The proportional surface area of a larger space distortion bubble is lower on larger bubbles compared to it's volume than on smaller bubbles. Fighters would need proportionally more energy for their bubbles than super carriers, I would say.

But that only applies for linear functions, of course.

I like the direction into which this is heading :-)
so you reackon change the mass*SPEC speed*Log natural (1+SPEC speed) to maybe the square root of mass or something like that?
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by klauss »

Hicks wrote:I was thinking that by setting them up with mount sizes like weapons, it would be easier to manage. You would just have to add a few mounts to each ship rather then ban all the ones it can't use, and it will be easier if we do new mount sizes for new ships, as we won't have to go through and ban all the new sizes
First, I don't consider the forbidden upgrades mechanism so bad. It's not difficult to maintain at all, because you can group stuff in categories rather freely, and so keep the required changes to the bare minimum when you add categories.

Furthermore, the forbidden categories mechanism can be refined to allow more broad exclusions, like upgrades/reactor/!light (meaning anything other than light is forbidden). Just an idea.

That said, I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of "system mounts", ie, reactor mounts, shield mounts, etc... as you propose. They would be a hassle to implement, although maybe not that big of a hassle. I think something akin to this would be the incarnation of the "system bounding boxes" feature: system mounts, where upgrades may be placed, perhaps with specialized mounts that can only handle some category of upgrades.
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by riftroamer »

Hicks wrote:so you reackon change the mass*SPEC speed*Log natural (1+SPEC speed) to maybe the square root of mass or something like that?
Possibly, but in the end it's more important to play test to see if the approach works out fine or if it could use a review.

As of now - and as the presence of the SPEC bubble was mentioned before - the fact that there is a bubble and it's size currently has no effect on the proposed calculations which are based on Mass and Speed if I understood correctly. The energy field itself currently does nothing in terms of thrust, it just needs to be there for thrust to have any effect, which is perfectly okay for speed calculations.

We have two components that require each other and it's perhaps wise to define whether we can ignore one component for speed calculations or not. It's no big deal, but since I started to wonder other might also do.

The SPEC field should have an effect on energy drain off the power-grid, So for me the questions is how much power does the field proportionally draw from the reactor or capacitors (power-grid) in comparison to the spec thrusters, or if it's based on it's very own power source (the SPEC capacitors) and thus has no effect on the thrust power requirements and speed calculations.

I assume the "SPEC Field Projector" component (I just made that up) draws no energy at all during SPEC flight because the SPEC capacitors are charged before going into SPEC and the field draws energy until the capacitor banks are empty, so the ship falls out of SPEC mode. This also defines the maximum range of one single continuous flight-leg.

Now. don't get me wrong, this is not to actually code in yet another upgrade component, but to calculate / define it's supposed drain on SPEC Capacitors and the resulting recharge cycles based on the performance of the power-grid. So buying more powerful SPEC capacitors actually means to upgrade the whole SPEC bubble generation components to a more efficient setup which is finally only represented by lower drain and faster recharge cycles.

With more powerful "SPEC Field Projector" components allowing for longer in-SPEC time and thus range and possibly quicker recharge cycles. This could mean that ships with tight power-grid reserves might need some time to be able to go back into SPEC while - if defined that way - others might recharge the SPEC capacitors continuously while in flight or at least quicker between SPEC flights.

Hope this all makes sense :-)

It's in the game already if I observed correctly but the usage of SPEC capacitors does not seem well defined in regard to SPEC flight, or is it?

We can hardly argue about the validity of SPEC theory. But even for pseudo technology and pseudo science it's probably good to define certain key aspects to help with consistency and gameplay balance.

There might be a person trying to invent a SPEC-torpedo one of these days. And it would help to find out wether that could actually work or not. :-)
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by Hicks »

riftroamer wrote:
Hicks wrote:so you reackon change the mass*SPEC speed*Log natural (1+SPEC speed) to maybe the square root of mass or something like that?
Possibly, but in the end it's more important to play test to see if the approach works out fine or if it could use a review.

As of now - and as the presence of the SPEC bubble was mentioned before - the fact that there is a bubble and it's size currently has no effect on the proposed calculations which are based on Mass and Speed if I understood correctly. The energy field itself currently does nothing in terms of thrust, it just needs to be there for thrust to have any effect, which is perfectly okay for speed calculations.

We have two components that require each other and it's perhaps wise to define whether we can ignore one component for speed calculations or not. It's no big deal, but since I started to wonder other might also do.

The SPEC field should have an effect on energy drain off the power-grid, So for me the questions is how much power does the field proportionally draw from the reactor or capacitors (power-grid) in comparison to the spec thrusters, or if it's based on it's very own power source (the SPEC capacitors) and thus has no effect on the thrust power requirements and speed calculations.

I assume the "SPEC Field Projector" component (I just made that up) draws no energy at all during SPEC flight because the SPEC capacitors are charged before going into SPEC and the field draws energy until the capacitor banks are empty, so the ship falls out of SPEC mode. This also defines the maximum range of one single continuous flight-leg.

Now. don't get me wrong, this is not to actually code in yet another upgrade component, but to calculate / define it's supposed drain on SPEC Capacitors and the resulting recharge cycles based on the performance of the power-grid. So buying more powerful SPEC capacitors actually means to upgrade the whole SPEC bubble generation components to a more efficient setup which is finally only represented by lower drain and faster recharge cycles.

With more powerful "SPEC Field Projector" components allowing for longer in-SPEC time and thus range and possibly quicker recharge cycles. This could mean that ships with tight power-grid reserves might need some time to be able to go back into SPEC while - if defined that way - others might recharge the SPEC capacitors continuously while in flight or at least quicker between SPEC flights.

Hope this all makes sense :-)

It's in the game already if I observed correctly but the usage of SPEC capacitors does not seem well defined in regard to SPEC flight, or is it?

We can hardly argue about the validity of SPEC theory. But even for pseudo technology and pseudo science it's probably good to define certain key aspects to help with consistency and gameplay balance.

There might be a person trying to invent a SPEC-torpedo one of these days. And it would help to find out wether that could actually work or not. :-)
At the moment there is no values in the units.csv that will tell you the size of the ship, only the mass, so the cost cost increases with the mass of the ship, as the only way to estimate the size of the ships would be from the mass anyway.

The SPEC drive is seperate from normal thrusters, they have no effect on SPEC speed. The drives draw energy from the SPEC capacitors, which are recharged by the reactors, so if the reactors produce enough energy, the capacitors will always be full untill you run out of fuel, otherwise your time traveling in SPEC depends on the size of the capacitors and the reactor output.

Cost will increase with the size(mass) of the ship, and with the speed you travel at.
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by riftroamer »

Hicks wrote:At the moment there is no values in the units.csv that will tell you the size of the ship, only the mass, so the cost cost increases with the mass of the ship, as the only way to estimate the size of the ships would be from the mass anyway.
Yeah, you're right. But shouldn't there be size related values (dimensions and volume)? In my opinion that's the only way to really define what can be fit into a ships hull and what not. But then there are good approaches to "guesstimate" the volume. Or use a Blender script as mentioned before.
Hicks wrote:The SPEC drive is separate from normal thrusters, they have no effect on SPEC speed. The drives draw energy from the SPEC capacitors, which are recharged by the reactors, so if the reactors produce enough energy, the capacitors will always be full until you run out of fuel, otherwise your time traveling in SPEC depends on the size of the capacitors and the reactor output.

Cost will increase with the size(mass) of the ship, and with the speed you travel at.
Regarding "thrusters": Well, I wasn't sure how to call the SPEC drives component that actually propels the ship (which the bubble isn't I suspect). So I should have better used SPEC thruster, since I wanted to refer to SPEC related components only.

Common thrusters could be a different affair completely and that was beyond my focus. I should have pointed that out.

Thinking about that, using mass makes perfectly sense in most cases. Except where something powerful made out of energy is meant to enclose something else ;-)

Okay, so SPEC capacitors are implemented the way I thought they should be. However, there does not seem to be a situation where they run "dry" in flight. At least i never saw it happen while trading or on my sight seeing tours through the VS universe (well I wanted to see our solar system so I went there). But I hardly stressed my ship in a combat situation, anyway.

Just for my personal reference and to satisfy my curiosity: Is the SPEC "drive" - per definition - the propulsion system including the space distortion bubble and it's support systems? See, there is a field that rips a hole into the fabric of space, bends, warps and possibly ruptures local space time as well as holding everything together at the same time, so our speed requirements could be met. A bit dull for such a powerful part of the SPEC drive not to have a well defined effect on the ships power-grid, isn't it?

Making things easy, one could define the field as an inevitable side effect of normal drive operation and the whole thought/ matter I brought up is solved by definition. :-)
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by Hicks »

riftroamer wrote:
Hicks wrote:At the moment there is no values in the units.csv that will tell you the size of the ship, only the mass, so the cost cost increases with the mass of the ship, as the only way to estimate the size of the ships would be from the mass anyway.
Yeah, you're right. But shouldn't there be size related values (dimensions and volume)? In my opinion that's the only way to really define what can be fit into a ships hull and what not. But then there are good approaches to "guesstimate" the volume. Or use a Blender script as mentioned before.
If you want to help we can go through the list of ships and try to estimate the dimensions of each ship, or if you know your way around blender you can grab the dimensions from there and i will use them, i am only using mass because its all i have to work with at the moment
riftroamer wrote: Okay, so SPEC capacitors are implemented the way I thought they should be. However, there does not seem to be a situation where they run "dry" in flight. At least i never saw it happen while trading or on my sight seeing tours through the VS universe (well I wanted to see our solar system so I went there). But I hardly stressed my ship in a combat situation, anyway.

Just for my personal reference and to satisfy my curiosity: Is the SPEC "drive" - per definition - the propulsion system including the space distortion bubble and it's support systems? See, there is a field that rips a hole into the fabric of space, bends, warps and possibly ruptures local space time as well as holding everything together at the same time, so our speed requirements could be met. A bit dull for such a powerful part of the SPEC drive not to have a well defined effect on the ships power-grid, isn't it?
Thats why i am trying to rework SPEC travel. It will cost a lot more and the speed will be upgradable
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by riftroamer »

Hicks wrote:If you want to help we can go through the list of ships and try to estimate the dimensions of each ship, or if you know your way around blender you can grab the dimensions from there and i will use them, i am only using mass because its all i have to work with at the moment
Sounds like a good idea to me. I will look to see if I still have a "complete" Blender 2.49 installation. I think that's the version with the volume calculation script.

If not, we take the dimensions from the models in the current Blender version.

Someone should then add the dimensions and if available the volume to the wiki (there is a list with the current state of each model which might be convenient location) and of course append or integrate the info to units.csv (if that could be done.

I can't promise to invest a fixed amount of time per week into this, but I will do what I can. My blender "experience" should be enough to grab the dimensions .

Are all models available in vs mesh format only or are OBJ or BLEND files readily available? Well, taking the models from the game has the advantage that the dimensions are consistent to what we see in the game. I can start tonight (+14 hours).
;-)

I noticed a list model scaling factors in Privateer PU. Is there somethig similar in VS I need to be aware of?

Each model has an original designer or contributor, I'd be surprised if he didn't know the dimensions of his model. Are there possibly dimensions stated in the individual review threads? If available?
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by Hicks »

There is a scaling factor, its column i (in excel) in the units.csv, its about 1 for most ships. And this would be a good time to go therough the wiki and update the info on each ship as we do this.
Should try and add:
-Mass
-Dimesnions
-Cargo Space
-Upgrade Space
-Average cost
-Weapon Slots
-Description
-Picture(s)
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by riftroamer »

So, I started looking into the models by first loading each bfxm into unitconverter.py, then the resulting OBJ into Blender 2.59. That was unnecessary for the dimensions, since the exact same numbers are presented in unitconverter.py (Unit Tab) and possibly derived directly from the mesh.

The scale is way off in some cases and probably needs to be adjusted for this to make any sense. BU is Blender Units, Scale was 1 for all models shown inside "unitconverter.py" which differs greatly from "data/units/units_working.sxc" where the scale comes from. Here comes a short intro:

Code: Select all

Vessel         Length/z      Width/x     Height/y  Unit_Scale
Admonisher      30.9531      47.5644      38.1295      0.76
Agasicles       21.7845      16.3740       5.5000      ?
Agesipolis     131.9150      30.8571      12.8177      ?
Anaxidamus    1980.0000    1320.0000     696.0000      ?
Ancestor        21.5569      57.3387      14.7160      3.00
Archimedes    2502.1587     845.2500     239.9366    175.00
Areus           31.1479      24.0884      10.6050      ?
Ariston         27.9408      23.3006       8.0625      ?
Beholder        36.9564      10.7069      10.7069      ?
Bell             6.9113       1.9404       6.2590      ?
Charillus       14.3112       3.9944       2.6304      ?
Clydesdale     258.6501      61.8068     126.9893      9.44
Convolution      9.9550       7.2246       2.5014      3.00
CT2000          10.6125       6.1750       1.3748      ?
Cultivator      17.3254       5.1561       5.0731      ?
Derivative      51.0296      58.6577      50.9821      3.00
Determinant      8.6211       9.5154       3.6348      3.00
Diligence       19.9704       7.1796       5.3893      ?
Dirge           22.3659      11.0959       7.2043      0.10
Dodo           269.9095     444.0450     110.2980      1.00
Dostoevsky      17.0576      10.4224       3.7372      1.58
Emu             14.7221      17.6699       3.7416      ?
Entourage        8.0451       6.1280       1.6343      ?
Franklin         4.0633       3.1873       0.7453     10.00
Gaozong         27.6896      31.4081      15.8558      ?
...
Kahan           13.7660       5.7920 	   2.4420     63.00
...
Llama (.begin)   5.7940       6.8030       1.7670      7.00
...
Vigilance       22.1147       9.4704       3.5780      ?
These Are A to F derived from unit converter.py. Can anybody confirm or correct the values or perhaps suggest a scaling factor. I haven't checked the roles or other sources, but some units could use a scaling factor. Can anybody confirm that the Unit_Scale is a simple multiplier?

I need to look up some vessels that have been renamed again (e.g. Vark or Vitik). So to get consistent models in game there is probably some rescaling discussion due. :-)

I'll stop here since the numbers should be in a csv or OpenOffice Table and not polluted with blank spaces to get it look right here. Any further extracts will be appended as a csv file or what ever seems more convenient.
Last edited by riftroamer on Mon Dec 12, 2011 2:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
And on the eighth day the Lord went riftroaming...

IMTU tc+ tm+ tn+ tg ru- ge+ 3i c+ jt au+ pi+ he+
OTU 42% au+ br- cpu- fs- ge+ j- ti+ tv+ uwp+
Tarlon Rhaan 0201 C88885A-9 S hi as+ va- so- zh vi+ da 723
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by TBeholder »

Hicks wrote:I was thinking that by setting them up with mount sizes like weapons, it would be easier to manage. You would just have to add a few mounts to each ship rather then ban all the ones it can't use, and it will be easier if we do new mount sizes for new ships, as we won't have to go through and ban all the new sizes
Mounts are hardcoded. Subunits aren't, but they are buggy. A proper slot system (allowing "X is connected to Y") is desirable, but needs thinking through.
Right now "Prohibited Upgrades" can do. Possible improvements:
  1. A config variable to set the default "Prohibited Upgrades" value other than <unlimited> - set default to 0 and enable what's needed.
  2. Modification with add_ upgrades, to set requirements explicitly. This also allows to set up a few "archetype" packages (typically Rlaan ships don't support jets, human fighters got 1 reactor, everyone got 1 shield generator of a specific variety, etc) and apply them to ships.
  3. Goods having multiple categories: this would allow more flexible trade setup (e.g. X, but not Y, ACL-style) and untie it from the technical part.
pheonixstorm wrote:Back in I think it was the 90s I read up on a nuclear powered rocket motor.
Here's a site full of these.
riftroamer wrote:Yeah, you're right. But shouldn't there be size related values (dimensions and volume)? In my opinion that's the only way to really define what can be fit into a ships hull and what not.
Upgrade_Storage_Volume (accessory bays) and raw Equipment_Space (empty hull space).

BTW, one of the simplest changes would be to set both cargo and upgrade volumes explicitly with cargo bays and accessory bays set into equipment space. Currently the latter eat equipment space and the former is only implemented as buggy "more equipment volume" trying to do the opposite.
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by Hicks »

http://www.smartconversion.com/unit_cal ... psoid.aspx
Can use this to calculate the size of the bubble that would need to be created, unless you want to base it off the volume of the bubble.

Might try and set up a online spreadsheet with all the ships where we can log stats on all of them.Stuff that we don't need in the units.csv but things that we might want to know, and preformance ratios etc.

Edit: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... zRSTGc3WGc
Anyone can edit it, so fill in the data when ever there is time, still more columns to add, put any in you can think of
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Re: [WIP] Modular Ships

Post by TBeholder »

riftroamer wrote:A side node on SPEC efficiency. The proportional surface area of a larger space distortion bubble is lower on larger bubbles compared to it's volume than on smaller bubbles. Fighters would need proportionally more energy for their bubbles than super carriers, I would say.
But that only applies for linear functions, of course.
And if it's proportional to the bubble volume, this volume itself is likely to be proportional to the ship's volume. Currently, Warp_Usage_Cost and Outsystem_Jump_Cost can be set to arbitrary values - including calculated as an arbitrary functions of mesh, of course.
Hicks wrote:Stuff that we don't need in the units.csv but things that we might want to know, and preformance ratios etc.
How to set fixed power for a jump drive? Now it's more interesting question.
Assign to hulls Jump_Drive_Delay proportional to its Outsystem_Jump_Cost (these values do nothing until some drive is installed, since hull doesn't have Jump_Drive_Present enabled), then "mult_" jump drives modify it by the specific upgrade's power.
riftroamer wrote: even for pseudo technology and pseudo science it's probably good to define certain key aspects to help with consistency and gameplay balance.
SPEC to-be-revised should work with gravity. As in, whether it eases delta-V budget and thus whether long-range travel is simplified or complicated even more. The current version is so rough-and-tumble it doesn't care about things like momentum preservation or equivalence at all.
But that's another topic.
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