New ship development. Have your say!

[33845533]

A - Topic is on target.  Topic is whether a major underlying software change to the ship trees to be a unified NODE tree.   

And I previously voted and stated NO.  — The post youre referencing is not off topic because its it giving Reasons and Examples as to why the NODE changes should NOT be implemented instead of just a generic NO response to a Poll, as another member pointed out previously, lacks enough information to make a valid selection in the Poll.  When you get to the point of understanding Software Development and Software Business Models as I do in the real world, youll get to the point of understanding why and how I phrase such things here on this forum as I do.

 

B - As with all forums, there are those that single out one or two users or posts and make such targeted replies directed solely at the original poster.  Dont be one of them.   If you wish to do so then you in turn give me an equal right to reply back, in the public arena.   Learn to read between the lines of what users post as to what the underlying issues are and do not focus on the wording or phrasing they use.   What Im saying is NO.   Fix the things broken before breaking more things, be it a Node driven Ship Tree or Conquest or Time calculations or whatever…   If you dont like my way of phrasing things, then dont read my posts.   But dont try to steer a topic or subject matter away from whats actually being presented or discussed because you feel a post is too wordy or not to your exactly liking or opposes it.   The reason were here in forum nature is to get the opinion of everyone, not just the nickpicky trolls or those that will say YES, DO IT (and mess up the code for everyone else because they dont have a grasp on Software Development or Business Models of that nature.   I for one am not fooled by Screen Mockups.  Theres more involved in whats being presented then a flashing GIF image of a silver ship Node Tree.   What is being asked of us is the go ahead to introduce major changes into a working software package based on the whims of a few.

 

 

 

 

 

[33845533]

Now let me present another scenario if the software design world of whats being propose. -   Lets go in this scenario as the YESes get their way.

Scenario Code Object will be just the register that tracks and manages Fleet Points. 

 

Lets say you pull up the Node Tree for empire, and the ship is an engineer.   There are many different types of engineers just within the Empire faction.   And by “type” I mean an Engineer can be crafted to serve in different types of engineer rolls, some are crafted tanky, some to max heal, some to defend, ect based on their current slot configurations and modules available to them as such).   So you add or subtract a few nodes and change an Empire Styx to now be a Garm.   Currently those two ships equal 2 Fleet Points because they are both maxed out.  But if you fiddle with nodes you are adding or removing ship features of the ships that drastically change both their natures and configurations.   If a Node system is in place you will loose Fleet Points since there is only one ship.  One ship equals one Fleet Point.   A Styx to a Garm is still just one ship, not two.   

 

Also the ability to take in both ships into battle is removed.   Lets say the Battle Mode is the 4 Lives and the Pilot is an expert Engineer.   Under the Node system, he cant take in both the Styx and the Garm by slotting them, he can only pre-node the ship to be one or the other.    Now that Pilot’s number of available Lives in 4-Lives is one, instead of 4 (assuming he slotted 4 different silver engineer ships vs the single 1 engineer Node ship).   What good is a single engineer in battle with only one available ship ?   I would target such right off and kill off all enemy engineers as I see them because I now know that Pilot cant return in any form of engineer ship again.    In 4-Lives you cant reuse a destroyed ship.  In the current method, that skilled engineer pilot may come back in yet another engineer ship, in the proposed Node method, the engineer facet of that Pilot has been totally removed from a battle field and he must select another type of ship he has slotted.

 

Where that same Engineer had many Fleet Points based on his previously hard work obtaining and leveling that Tree Branch he was good at, now he has but one Fleet Point and can not return back into some battle modes if that single ship is destroyed.   Also, during the conversion of this, the Fleet Points would require a “fix” to be run across the data bases to reduce the Fleet Point values to that of ship TYPES, and not the current number of actual maxed out ships in ones Fleet.   

 

The entire meaning of your Fleet now changes.    Again, its not just a simple change to craft or select ships.   Entire underlying processes that SC was designed under would require seriously thought out measures to either keep or scrap such Working Logic Objects.    

 

And what about the Spiral?   Engineer and Interceptor in one.   Will it present coding challenges that only result in more then one ship node tree?  one for the Engineer Spiral and node for the Interceptor Node?   That would be defeating the purpose of a unified ship tree by having two trees for one ship.   So from a design point of view you havent eliminated multiple ship trees at all. 

 

There will ALWAYS be exceptions to unifications.  Which is why such things never work on a Global Scale, no matter what the area of unification is.   

 

***

There is a Easter Egg in the above post.   It was put there for a reason based on previous posts.  Will you be the one to “discover” it?  

 

 

 

 

[DrDeath_ScD]

How about finishing the elidium tree and the last standard ships first before a rework?

I see this idea as another gold sink. I am pretty sure this is not a question or vote  but a warning of what’s to come. 

I had 280k gold I most traded for. Plus I had about a years worth of farming of materials for a head start. I put another $200 in gold to unlock one module on Zeta. Only to find out I had to farm 6000 iridium which I used the paid option to speed it up. I was still short materials I had to craft or buy to craft said weapon.

I say all this because it a lot of unnecessary BS just to get the weapon that’s going to be nerfed if its good and used too much.

I would rather just buy the weapon in the store for a few dollars be done with it.

The system is just too much. Us long term players fully understand the system. Over all if this was dumped on us all at once we would be lost. We got to see it grow gradually.  I see it as a lot of work.

Most new players dont have a chance. This system is just too much for the casual gamer. Unless you are hard core this sytem is going to scare you.

 

It looks cool and all, but once you get in close its like WTF??

NOW I NEED WHATTTT!!!

Come on man!!! God Dang It?!?!?!

 

3 months later just as you are close they change something else and now you are still 3 months more away.

[33845533]

9 minutes ago, DrDeath_ScD said:

How about finishing the elidium tree and the last standard ships first before a rework?

 

OMG, what a good point.   The Elly tree isnt even complete of ship TYPES to fiddle with nodes and they want to rip out whats working and put that in place over the types of ships they havent completed “Researching” yet.   

If you havent got it working completely in the Elly-prototype-software-model, how do know it will work across the entire Faction Line, every ship Type?

 

“duhhh, we didnt think that far in advance…We just want to rip out that inherited code and write new stuff.”  — Thats the problem with 99% of programmers.   Those with that type of thinking do not make it very far working for me in the real world.   I assign them to maintenance functions so they LEARN how something works before presenting new features that involving new logic to be written or revamping features already in place and clients familiar with.   Clients want fixes and enhancements to what they already have, not new applications they have to stop and relearn all over again, just to get to the point again in business that they were at prior to the rewrite.

 

Based on my time here in SC Ive learned that new Versions come out around the first quarter of the year (Near the February anniversary date of the package )  The proposed changes do not have enough time from now until then to understand all it would effect, design around some of the issues that would occur, write the code, Alpha test it, Beta Test it, Public Server Test it, take the results of all the testing back to the Analysis and Coders and come back with a viable Version Release Package.   Thats only 4 months give or take few days.  And these are not full 24 days of four months.   The average Coder only works about 5 to 6 hours a day on any given Project.  The rest of that 8 hour day is spent at the water cooler, web surfing, talking on the phone or just staring at their screen when the boss walks by pretending to be busy deep in analytical thought of solving some coding issue.   Others “assist” their coworkers by standing behind them two or three at a time “coding” one Project mile stone when they should be working on three of them concurrently.   

 

The point of the above is this…    It cant be done in the time frame and be acceptable.   It could be slam-coded in…in that timeframe but doing that just results in bugs and issues and more coding and overtime payouts and any thought of Bottom Line Gain of such Proposal goes right out the window for the other three Quarters of the Year.

 

 

 

[28090455]

it’s not a bad idea, when you actually take the time to examine the details…

Vu, the options players will have will vary from one ship like to the next, so there will still be uniqueness to each faction, and the ships will still be made of metal. they’re just looking into a simpler, easier to maintain system because every time they have to make a few minor adjustments to the game, they have almost 200 ships to make that adjustment to, and they have occasionally FORGOTTEN some (like the fact that Phoenix gains nothing when it “scales” to r17) this new set up looks to be easier for implementing changes, and I doubt it will be much more difficult to upgrade each ship down the line than in the current system, where you have to constantly buy a new ship every time.

it’s not a bureaucracy, it’s just more practical to consolidate things… it will give more choices to the players in how to build their ships, and potentially increase the uniqueness of each ship, as a player can customize, to an extent, the ship they make to their own playstyle. it will also negate some of the ship lines where stats from one ship to the next end up decreasing.

Thunderflame, Opting out would create a whole new issue of problems… it’s gonna be all or nothing, because if you try an opt out, it’s going to take a perilous balance, and shatter it.

the importnat things here is that this change will make the silver ships more competitive. a slightly competant thar’ga pilot won’t sweep the board against 3 equal pilots on his ship stats alone… (though a highly skilled pilot will still be able to make full use of those skills and dominate, as Adam West did in a Fox, schooling 3 manufactured ships back when there was just the first 9 special projects, and battles didn’t scale)
in other words, pilot skill is going to play a bigger role than just having a better ship. and this should be rejoiced by all!

Vu, the elly tree is the tree that the vast majority of end-game players enjoy… because we like customizeable ships and fine tunign the ship to fit our own needs. for example, I cannot fly over 500m/s and still shoot things… my PC keeps up fine, but my brain just can’t quite keep up with both the flying and shooting at high speeds, so I focus more on defense. my tai’kin is a little cockroach, tankier than average, but also slower, and it suits me just fine. I can nerf my inty lines so they aren’t so fast, but I can’t trade that loss of speed for defense, like I can with Tai’kin… 
what the end result will be from this, is more uniqueness from one player to the next

 

[88394944]

*Me parecería una muy buena idea ya que con ello las naves tendrían más opciones de jugabilidad así mi voto para para un sí, algo que agregar sería… solo a naves plateadas ? Sería otra muy buena idea argegar tecnología alienígena a naves moradas, ahora no necesariamente tendría que ser tecnología alienígena ya que al ser naves plateadas podrían cambiarle de nombre a tecnología… (por ejemplo: “Nanotecnología avanzada”), Las naves ellydium que sean tal cual “ellydium” y en el caso de otras naves se le podría cambiar el nombre pero con la misma rama de opciones que ellydium.
*algo adicional… ya que los nombres en el juego no son taaaaan largos a dicha tecnología se le podría llamar “Nanontec”, “Anonz”, “Nallom”, bueno son solo ideas se podría mejorar

[33845533]

8 hours ago, Zombie_Hunter003 said:

it’s not a bad idea, when you actually take the time to examine the details…

the importnat things here is that this change will make the silver ships more competitive. 

 

As was stated prior by another person that posted, there were no details.  

 

*** Bad Idea

Looking at an animated GIF of one screen can not possibly give anyone all the details as to what is to change.   

It is only showing some eventual outcome of what is desired. 

 

*** More competitive

The issue is not under powered Silver ships or ones that are unable to compete.

The Ellydium ships are simply over powered by software design since they are the child of the Business Merger.

The most simplest correction would be to go thru the Elly line and adjust the ship stats to compete properly, but that would not help the promotion of the Child Products nor would it comply with the Laws that govern where the Corporation owning the Product resides.

 

There is a reason for all these slowly removal of “Faction” items. 

All the Faction currency is gone.  The Facton Voucher system was removed.  Unique Faction items were distributed across faction lines.  and the very cores of SC design and story line is fading, that core design being the different Factions   There was a reason a new “faction” was introduced as the “Ellydium CORPORATION” and not the “Ellydium FACTION” after the merger and it had nothing to do with the Metagame.

 

If you design software internationally then you would know already the reason a company with a Hamburg office has to make such changes.  As a previous posted stated, its will occur regardless, and this thread is just the heads up.

 

Its the CONCEPT being changed and modified because it has to, based on corporate locale…it has noting to do with “this is a better ship tree”  or will make silver ships better.

Not everyone that logs in views SC as a “game”.   Some of us see it for what it is… a Software Package.    And not everything that changes in a software package is changed due to User Wants, Needs or Wishes.   Much of what changes have to be done due to things well beyond the scope of any User and Joe Player logging in after school or work to shoot down a few aliens may be distracted by the shiny new Elly Ship Tree, but those that log in for other reasons know better.

 

As I have for a few years now in SC…I will just sit back and watch things change as they always do whether the Users like it or not.   Because after all, the Product is not theirs, anymore then what I develop is my client’s.   

 

 

[34505766]

21 hours ago, _Vu_ said:

As I have for a few years now in SC…I will just sit back and watch things change as they always do whether the Users like it or not.   Because after all, the Product is not theirs, anymore then what I develop is my client’s.   

 

Sorry mate. If the developer goes lengths and asks players for proposed balance changes and then posts them on Public Test Server and implements only changes that no one had objections against, then yeah - players don’t have say in the process. Not a bit. As with actual topic - each “node tree” is about 2 Megabytes of source code. And they are asking if players want this change to be implemented or not - again - how is it not giving players a say in the process? 

If you are saying that Ellydium ships are OP - you are just wrong. Taikin is less agile than silver ships, Tharga loses against Wolfhound and Zeta can be killed the same way as Vigilant. So just stop posting nonsense.

I’m just worried that if they will change the ship tree to just basic few ships with a “node tree” they will screw up the whole delicate balance with such limited manpower they currently have. For me it’s just not worth doing so at the stage when the game is pretty balanced shipwise. 

[9415141]

How about letting players upgrade each individual ship like this instead, but with a smaller amount of options? So that players can either upgrade their current ship or buy a new ship that’s higher up the tree instead? All I ever wanted was the ability to fly 4 Anacondas at R15+.

 

IMHO that would mean you would only have to do a simple upgrade tree for each ship and create higher level duplicates of ship-unique equipment and call it a day. (And I would start playing the game more again ”) )

[92365998]

I also think unique mods should then be adapted so ALL ships of the class may use them, and their ranks should be expanded to encompass all ships. this would of course, negate the special “use all modules” perk of premium ships… a possible way to counter this shift would then be to allow premiums to equip a third unique module, or give them slightly higher base stats to the silvers. tubemate get-mobdro.com authorityapk.com

[112030723]

I strongly suspect that the real point to this is a way to raise revenue.  If the upgrade costs include Xenos and Monos, it’s  totally  a real-world money suck.  If this goes into effect, AND it include xenos and monos in the upgrade cost, it’ll almost assuredly mean the end of my Star Conflict days.