[Mod] Playership Drones v2

[Amariithynar]

For those who have played Playership Drones, what are your ship preferences? By that I mean, what sort of playership you pilot, and what drone escorts do you use and how many? In my case, I find myself piloting a gunship like a Wolfen or Centurion, and my escort is one big ship that can hold at least a thousand tons of cargo.

In a future release, the rest of the ships, with few exceptions, will be playable provided the player can find the parts to (re)build a ship. Even if the ships are tiered like they are now, there is no way to make them all balanced. All I care is to make it fun despite some imbalance, but not empower the player so much it becomes a godmod. I may scrap the CPU tier system and let the player have either one or two escorts regardless of type. I will decide on one of the following playership plus drone escort setups:
1. Any one ship plus two ships smaller than an EI200. (Modified tier system.)
2. Any two ships.
3. Any three ships.

I prefer some sort of attack ship (originally was a Wolfen, but have been using the... crud. It looks almost like a angular headless Superman, two stubby arms forward with the engines the legs) and a heavy cargo ship (currently EI7000) for autolooting when the furor dies down. Wish I could get my hands on the Ares Polar Freighter, as it has a much larger storage capacity. For preferences of the tier system, perhaps have it be any two ships, and then a CPU combination between the two to determine if you can have a third? So you could say have two EI7000 Freighters, combined total CPU usage of 8, which means under the current max (7) that it simply gets rounded down to 0- Or the limit gets expanded to 10, and you can pick up a little 2-pointer like a Zulu.

[Drako Slyith]

Hey, congratulations on joining the very exclusive double digits rating on a mod club.

[PM]

(To shanejfilomena) It broke verisimilitude that the Antarctica can sell Aquilas and Britannias yet not deploy them themselves. I did not notice that until recently. Thus, the change. They sell ships the Rogue fleet use.

(To Amariithynar) The "headless Superman" would be the Manticore. As for the rest of the ships, they will all be in, someday. I just need to make the armor and shield graphics for the rest of the ships and write the code. Unfortunately, they will not be ready anytime soon. I have another game project to work on at the moment.

(To Drako Slyith) Yes, I just noticed. I would not be surprised if more reach double digits later.

[RPC]

"headless Superman"

That's an awesome way to describe the Manticore.

I'd like to be able to buy more CPU's, if that was possible. Maybe order them at a Corporate Trading Post, or get more of them if you have a quantum CPU installed?
This is annoying though, because as wingmen, they are pretty expensive to maintain (as in keeping them alive) throughout the game.

2. Any two ships.
3. Any three ships.

I thought they were drones so that you could have a drone army, money permitting
So it could be any X ships, as long as you are able to afford them.

[PM]

The point of limits (CPU tiers or maximum number of ships) is to set an upper bound of power. With unlimited drones, a munchkin can grind away until he can acquire and outfit numerous ships and crush everything that stands in his army's way. The game would degenerate into a godmod. One player ship with superior equipment is already powerful enough. Three more similar ships (or one capital ship with the power of three) makes the game even easier. Sure, it takes work and resources to pull it off, but the payoff is an easier (yet more fun) game.

Maximum CPUs will not change during a game, and I intend to keep it that way as long as the mod uses a tier system. CPU in Playership Drones is an acronym for Control Power Units. They need not be computer hardware. (That said, I used CPU precisely because people would associate it with Central Processing Unit.) Think of CPUs as how many ships the player can control, in which some ships are worth more than one.

[Amariithynar]

The point of limits (CPU tiers or maximum number of ships) is to set an upper bound of power. With unlimited drones, a munchkin can grind away until he can acquire and outfit numerous ships and crush everything that stands in his army's way. The game would degenerate into a godmod. One player ship with superior equipment is already powerful enough. Three more similar ships (or one capital ship with the power of three) makes the game even easier. Sure, it takes work and resources to pull it off, but the payoff is an easier (yet more fun) game.

Maximum CPUs will not change during a game, and I intend to keep it that way as long as the mod uses a tier system. CPU in Playership Drones is an acronym for Control Power Units. They need not be computer hardware. (That said, I used CPU precisely because people would associate it with Central Processing Unit.) Think of CPUs as how many ships the player can control, in which some ships are worth more than one.

Honestly, i don't see a problem with that- if you put the effort into it, getting the result out, I mean. I mean, you can have how many autons active at any one time? i'm quite sure their simplistic AI isn't by design, but for simplicity's sake....Though, perhaps that's how you can manage it? use the CPU as a variable, set by the player, that determines just how effective they are at controlling the ship in drone state? Always allow guarding, for selling/trading; Otherwise, one point allows auton-like behavior (stay or follow); two allows looting; three allows patrolling/break and attack; four allows autolooting (fix it so they don't ignore enemies while looting though, please?) and five gives its base stats (mobility, top speed, etc) a boost. Make the cap be 8 points instead, and every ship costs one CPU to own. To make an effective fleet out of that would require hours of work and a lot of micro-managing; Something that someone if they were in the Pilgrim's position would actually benefit from.

[shanejfilomena]

the cpu oitem i think is because two flying drones will obey the SAME command: operating on the same string : as in two drones trying to loot the same wreck , result is two drones looking to get killed by one grenade : never put all your eggs in one basket.

If a Drone is Armed it will Not ignore or try to evade an enemy : it is a combat weapon. take for instance the Mining Auton: it tries to avoid hostile stations because it can not fight: i only lost two of those since I got that Mod : the 380Packer is Awesome, but I beefed it up because it looses it's mind and wanders on me: so now it plays orbiting defender just to let it do something useful until I need it.

[RPC]

The point of limits (CPU tiers or maximum number of ships) is to set an upper bound of power. With unlimited drones, a munchkin can grind away until he can acquire and outfit numerous ships and crush everything that stands in his army's way.

.... You're saying hard, grinding (in both senses of the word) work is a godmod! D:
Just kidding. I do get your point, but the thing is Trans forces people to "move on" when systems have been exhausted of credit sources, and I guess you're trying to replicate that effect with your mod. Keep up the good work!

[PM]

(To Amariithynar)
The player can command as many autons as he can find, but there is a limited number of them unless you play with mods that increase their availability.

Varying CPUs by AI is a can of worms I do not want to open. Also, in case you do not know, the ship the player is piloting also uses CPUs. The more CPUs the playership uses, the fewer escort drones the player can control.

How many CPUs a ship uses varies by a combination of size, mass, number of armor segments, cargo space, and possible secondary weapon slots. They were assigned on a ship-by-ship basis, and few ships could go either way, especially the EI200 and T55 ships.

Another note on the tier system. If no tier system was used, all I would use when I play is one fast gunship for the playership, and every drone would be a capital ship with lots of cargo space and secondary weapons. The result would be a reduced number of useful ships the player can choose from.

(To shanejfilomena)
What is your point? Do you want a feature the drones do not have?

(To RPC)
Grinding is a means to an end. If the end results in game breaking power, then steps should be taken to avoid it. It does not matter how many hoops the player needs to jump through to obtain unlimited power. If there is a way, the player will exploit it.

I thought naught of economics when I wrote Playership Drones. All I wanted was to pilot more 40 facings ships and boss some disposable and/or upgradeable wingmen around.

[quils3]

I want to have more CPUs, or at least buy CPUs because then the game is easer. The reason why this is OK is because you worked for it.
Its like farming ferians--- you or your wingmen can die looting, but it's worthwhile. Buying wingmen is a risk. The credits you spent on them and the cargo you place is in the hands of an AI.
Therefore, buying extra wingmen is balanced.

[PM]

Buying wingmen is a power up. It is not balanced compared to the standard game because it raises the baseline of power. The trick is to avoid raising the maximum power level so high that dying in combat becomes impossible. It does not matter if a godmod gives that power to you immediately or if the player needs to work for it.

Aside from setting an upper bound of power, another point of maximum ship limits/CPUs is to force the player to decide what role the playership and his drones play. With limited ships, the player and his drones cannot do everything.

There is no need to buy CPUs. It would be a stupid tax that adds unnecessary cost to more ships. So far, it seems everyone who wrote about ships limits would rather have them removed or raised high enough that they no longer matter, which is effectively the same as removal.

[Amariithynar]

PM: There's still something on the order of 50 autons or so easily obtainable. I've gotten about that much in the four game's I've played now, and I haven't gotten to the end in any of them so there may be more. Honestly, if I could get a decent low CPU ship that's basically just a giant, nimble cargo container, not even that many armor segments, I'd be fine. But sadly only the EI7000 is of any real use for cargo carrying, which basically means either a) set up caches at gates, or b) get a transwarp drive and store your crap in Elysium. And even then you can only move around minimal amounts, again, unless you have an EI7000. Why do you think I wanted a Polar Freighter? Not for the damage capacity, nor for the armor or mobility; For the cargo capacity (though seriously, drives need to increase mobility. I'm gonna probably recommend that to George... Or amybe finddle around and actually learn some code to make it so. Long freighters w/o directional nose jets to help with turning? Bah).

To new post while I was typing: I highly doubt anyone actually uses the drones for actual combat. They're basically just another wingman like Rama or Volkov, except they can loot. It's a common line of thought here- Need a cargo ship to move your junk. I dunno about others, but I'm just asking for better ability to do so without having to rely on a single ship, whose mass of armor I don't care about, or device slots either; I just want a big cargo hold that's portable, to follow my proper ship. EI7000 carries 2K tons at 4 CPU, next highest is the.. EI200? at 500 tons for 3 CPU. That imbalance just means that it gets dumped down to an EI7000 and the best gunship that the remaining 3 points can control. As such, there already isn't much variety in choice that I can see; while the actual ships chosen for the gunships may, I don't see their purpose changing. Combat already is pretty much to the point where you don't die anyways, so long as you're smart about it. Genera;;y people tell wingmen et al to stay out of combat anyways.

As for buying CPUS: I think he means additional CPUs on top of what's already available.

[Atarlost]

This is not a trading game. You do not need that cargo. It is possible to get through the game with a no hold Wolfen without setting up caches or using and have enough cash. That's 30 tons and you're complaining about having only 2000 tons of cargo. In the normal game the best you can do is a tenth that and you have to sacrifice the maneuverability and firepoower of your primary ship to get it.

[Amariithynar]

*sighs* There's that attitude again. But, you do raise some points I feel like rebutting.

This is not a trading game- Says... you? almost all your cash must come from either looting asteroids of their mineables or destroying enemies and selling the salvage. If you don't trade, you are merely purposefully gimping yourself of much needed resources- And while that may seem fun to you, that's not the case for everyone by a long shot.

Can finish the game with a no hold Wolfen- Certainly, making trips to enemies' wrecks and back to stations, carrying that super-low cargo weight to sell so you can actually get the items you need to advance a tier is perfectly doable with only a 30 ton hold. Reasonably feasible or efficient, let alone intelligent? No, unless you're specifically trying to challenge yourself to the smallest weight restriction you can manage.

Complaining about 2000 tons of cargo- Why yes, I am. I'm complaining that the ships go from 500 to 2000 tons without anything in between, and that the 500 costs but a single point less than the 2000 ton. I'd gladly take a 1K ton ship if it could handle better/actually use a propulsion drive properly and not go into wide orbit because of it. Even then, it's not -necessary- as I could just move caches, and pick them up/sell them as need be. But the convenience of having that mobile cargo container is high, as you don't need to lug around your stuff via annoying time-waster caches otherwise.

Sacrifice maneuverabiliy and firepower: Only sacrificing weapon slots for non-weapon device slots, which really isn't that big a deal. One bunker buster, one ship killer (Omni generally). All you really need for weapons, and that leaves device slots open for say autocannon turrets and the like. Combine that with the heavy armor that only the Freighter can equip (like say the dwarg autochroal or w/e the Behemoths use) and a thruster and you can maneuver relatively well while also being able to take any of those hits that you can't dodge easily. You don't have an on-a-dime turning radius, certainly, but you aren't THAT slow.

[PM]

[Amariithynar] Do you have the latest version of Playership Drones? In the latest update, the EI200 is cheaper, but it loses a device slot so that the EI500 is not totally obsolete. CPUs are halved such that all ships fit within one of three tiers. (There are four tiers, but there are no tier 4 ships yet.) Most ships, the EI200 and everything smaller than it, is a tier 1 ship.

Comparing limited and tiered ships versus unlimited ships, I think limited ships is the lesser of two evils. I explained my reasoning in previous posts.

As everyone can see, some ships are better the others. I can use a finer tuned tier system with bigger numbers to mitigate this, but the trouble (I think) is more than it is worth. I want to keep the numbers low and simple so the player has an easier time with the numbers. I doubt balance is possible, so the next best thing is to prevent things from degenerating too much.

With the current tier system and ship (im)balance, I expect players who want extra carrying capacity will use one of the following party setups: two tier 1 ships and one tier 2 ship, two tier 2 ships, or one tier 1 ship and one tier 3 ship. Players who care less about cargo and more about combat may use four tier 1 ships, but that will probably happen rarely.

The EI7000 is very good at what it does. It has a powerful combination of agility and carrying capacity. Its weakness compared to other ships of its tier is it has no omnidirectional or secondary weapon slots like the Xenophobe defender or the larger Sung ships. It also has less combat power than two tier 1 ships.

Do not underestimate the power the three fully twinked out gunships or one Aquila. A twinked out player is powerful. Having multiple ships with similar firepower will steamroll fights even faster than the player alone. If one ship is enough, the player can tell it to kill something while he does something else.