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Roguelazer said: This is a fun thread. Nine giant pages, a year and a half, two posts by a dev in the entire thing. Gotta love it.
Heh, I'm sure Inc. will get around to reading it and responding... soon™.
:)
Heh, I'm sure Inc. will get around to reading it and responding... soon™.
:)
The amount of processing, data download etc would grind the game to a halt.
Nah.
And check it... I think that you two are going too far with the twitch based, minigame idea of crafting. Where's the logic behind it? Besides, if I was really a rich owner guy of some fancy manufacturing place, I'd hire someone to click the pop-ups for me, kind of like they do in reality. Also, I don't think "Close the popups!" would make for a very interesting minigame. Now, even today people are hired to do menial tasks in a factory, tasks that would be pretty complex for a piece of machinery, but relatively easy for a minimum wage worker. I'm sure a machine could do it ( and right now I'm thinking about the workers in the beef jerky factory =) ) but simply it's cheaper to hire humans to work parts of it instead. This could be interesting; get home from work, relax, load up VO, and work at puzzles for another shift, pretending to keep another, albeit more interesting job. I enjoy a good bout of Puzzle Pirates as much as the next guy, but personally I'm for an all automated system o' crafting. Yeeeaergh, billions of blistering blue barnacles!
By the way LeberMac, shouldn't you be in a grave somewhere, or something? :3
Nah.
And check it... I think that you two are going too far with the twitch based, minigame idea of crafting. Where's the logic behind it? Besides, if I was really a rich owner guy of some fancy manufacturing place, I'd hire someone to click the pop-ups for me, kind of like they do in reality. Also, I don't think "Close the popups!" would make for a very interesting minigame. Now, even today people are hired to do menial tasks in a factory, tasks that would be pretty complex for a piece of machinery, but relatively easy for a minimum wage worker. I'm sure a machine could do it ( and right now I'm thinking about the workers in the beef jerky factory =) ) but simply it's cheaper to hire humans to work parts of it instead. This could be interesting; get home from work, relax, load up VO, and work at puzzles for another shift, pretending to keep another, albeit more interesting job. I enjoy a good bout of Puzzle Pirates as much as the next guy, but personally I'm for an all automated system o' crafting. Yeeeaergh, billions of blistering blue barnacles!
By the way LeberMac, shouldn't you be in a grave somewhere, or something? :3
Besides, after prossecsing the missiles 'history' it would be compilied into one item (the missile itself) it would simply make the custom-made item take only perhaps 2/10ths more server space then a regular item
Correct.
Well, this is how I see it: I like the "minigame" kind of crafting. Call it prototyping.
The engineer slaves away over his hypersonic xith lathe, making a perfect new weapon casing by "twitch" guiding the lathe's sonic beam according to a pattern. (Twitch skill: freehand tracing of a pattern with mouse.)
By adding his special formula of 20 cu of steel, 12 cu of purified xith, 2 cu of apicene, and 1 cu of plasteel, he forges the weapon inside the quantum forge, being careful to keep the temperature hot enough for the xith to melt, but not too hot otherwise the apicene will vaporize, ruining his metal mixture. (Twitch skill: application of heat in discrete quanta, avoiding runaway reaction but at the same time still keeping it "hot enough." for a set period of time.)
So , after these mini-games, our engineer now has a Great Neutron Blaster Mk. V (Which he can name whatever he likes and the design bears his signature), and the prototype is available to either USE or to "scan" into some kind of replication device for mass-production.
I think the "crafting" would only occur once, and then we have a datapad object that must be plugged into whatever machine churns out the Neutron Blaster Mk. V's, so they are only available at one station. Raw materials must still be gathered and such, but the tedious twitch processes would only have to be done once, for the prototype.
Anyway, that's how I see it.
The engineer slaves away over his hypersonic xith lathe, making a perfect new weapon casing by "twitch" guiding the lathe's sonic beam according to a pattern. (Twitch skill: freehand tracing of a pattern with mouse.)
By adding his special formula of 20 cu of steel, 12 cu of purified xith, 2 cu of apicene, and 1 cu of plasteel, he forges the weapon inside the quantum forge, being careful to keep the temperature hot enough for the xith to melt, but not too hot otherwise the apicene will vaporize, ruining his metal mixture. (Twitch skill: application of heat in discrete quanta, avoiding runaway reaction but at the same time still keeping it "hot enough." for a set period of time.)
So , after these mini-games, our engineer now has a Great Neutron Blaster Mk. V (Which he can name whatever he likes and the design bears his signature), and the prototype is available to either USE or to "scan" into some kind of replication device for mass-production.
I think the "crafting" would only occur once, and then we have a datapad object that must be plugged into whatever machine churns out the Neutron Blaster Mk. V's, so they are only available at one station. Raw materials must still be gathered and such, but the tedious twitch processes would only have to be done once, for the prototype.
Anyway, that's how I see it.
ilike.
Ah. That'd be sweet. =)
Alright. If I were going to set up a station to mass produce ships, I would *totally* go out with some of my buddies and lasso a Hive Queen. I can see a whole new venture for it, because, of course, depending on what time of the month you capture the Queen, and the conditions she was currently in at time of capture, she'll be stuck in a mood for breeding a certain ship type. So, an enterprising young individual like myself could very well go and out and take a Queen while she was running programs for constructing new Dentek Assault bots, and there I'd have a nice series of platforms ready to be modified into Hornet Mk III's for production. =)
A whooole new profession could be introduce to VO, one I don't think *any* game has introduced anything like yet. Thoughts?
A whooole new profession could be introduce to VO, one I don't think *any* game has introduced anything like yet. Thoughts?
what new profession? capturing critters from the environment?
"Big Game Bot Hunter"
That would be kind of cool, but what are you doing with the Denteks, selling them/their parts?
Using em to support you of course!
or having a queen pet would be so much fun too!
or having a queen pet would be so much fun too!
Yeah, but I thought that they would only protect the queen, they'd prolly just kill your ass...
You know this crafting thread kinda makes me wish that stations had real layouts, and you could walk in them. And they would have repair shops, gun shops, ship shops, commodities shop, candy shops... oh and Hangars of course! Man would that be fun!
Or not duno... How hard would it be to do this?
edit: (and yes I know this has been suggested a million times too, not really suggesting, just dreaming)
Or not duno... How hard would it be to do this?
edit: (and yes I know this has been suggested a million times too, not really suggesting, just dreaming)
Yea, no... would be cool, but no...
You know, while drawing up some binds to personalize my ship controls, I got to thinking how similar the process was to drafting up mechanical, ugh, machines. Something comes in, usually a button press, and something comes out, the finished product. All the complicated steps in between serve to determine the function being done, and there are multiple ways to produce the same function.
So, if there were a few more commands and restrictions available, then crafting a gun could be similar to writing a bind. For example, let’s say that you can have a gun fire any time, at any rate. However, doing so too rapidly wouldn’t be as effective due to physical limitations, such as overheating, or just that the gun’s equipment isn’t capable of firing too quickly. What you program the gun to do doesn’t necessarily have to match up with what’s actually possible, and in these cases malfunctions would occur, ranging from simply not working to full out explosions depending on how bad the creator fu- er, made a mistake.
The next part is that the actual commands written, like “wait 0.14 fire; recharge1; wait 0.07 recharge2” would have to be based on the components used in making certain equipment. The more requirements, (things like power, heat, space etc.) implemented for a weapon to work properly, the more complex these ‘binds’ would have to be, and that’s where the true genius of inventors would start to shine, since the fewer commands used, essentially the lighter the equipment would be. Especially if things like overheating and cooling were dealt with non-linear equations some pretty creative solutions could pop up to make the most efficient item.
Then, a nice pretty GUI could be put in, where someone designing a full item, maybe a ship or weapons would simply have to drag the designed equipment into the right spots, so that the leg bone is connected to the knee bone, so to speak. It would simply be up to the engineers to make sure that each separate component worked well enough to be hooked up with others. (I could forsee some similarities in design being developed for the sake of interchangeable parts, and also frustrations from machinery that's not compatible.) Someone could specialize in making just the muzzles of blasters, and craft nothing else, while someone else would take those muzzles, hook them up to a turret and power source, and use that design to manufacture Gatling Turrets. It’s like circuitry, so long as port A fits into port B, and port B fits into port C, effectively port A fits nicely into port C.
Edit: Furthermore, perhaps all aliases that are user designed should involve some sort of VO equivalent 'hardware' to go with it based on what the alias deals with. If that were the case, then certain potentially exploitable information could be made available up again, pending the appropriate equipment is equipped. A bind such as Hail Suite might just take a few kg for data storage, while some sort of intricate aiming bind that used /displayshippos would be heavy enough to make it a poor substitute for actual skill. Or if not something that extreme, then atleast things like a way to recognize which sector one's in, or the distance to a WH. (Yes, I'm thinking about marketing my autopilot-in-making bind.)
So, if there were a few more commands and restrictions available, then crafting a gun could be similar to writing a bind. For example, let’s say that you can have a gun fire any time, at any rate. However, doing so too rapidly wouldn’t be as effective due to physical limitations, such as overheating, or just that the gun’s equipment isn’t capable of firing too quickly. What you program the gun to do doesn’t necessarily have to match up with what’s actually possible, and in these cases malfunctions would occur, ranging from simply not working to full out explosions depending on how bad the creator fu- er, made a mistake.
The next part is that the actual commands written, like “wait 0.14 fire; recharge1; wait 0.07 recharge2” would have to be based on the components used in making certain equipment. The more requirements, (things like power, heat, space etc.) implemented for a weapon to work properly, the more complex these ‘binds’ would have to be, and that’s where the true genius of inventors would start to shine, since the fewer commands used, essentially the lighter the equipment would be. Especially if things like overheating and cooling were dealt with non-linear equations some pretty creative solutions could pop up to make the most efficient item.
Then, a nice pretty GUI could be put in, where someone designing a full item, maybe a ship or weapons would simply have to drag the designed equipment into the right spots, so that the leg bone is connected to the knee bone, so to speak. It would simply be up to the engineers to make sure that each separate component worked well enough to be hooked up with others. (I could forsee some similarities in design being developed for the sake of interchangeable parts, and also frustrations from machinery that's not compatible.) Someone could specialize in making just the muzzles of blasters, and craft nothing else, while someone else would take those muzzles, hook them up to a turret and power source, and use that design to manufacture Gatling Turrets. It’s like circuitry, so long as port A fits into port B, and port B fits into port C, effectively port A fits nicely into port C.
Edit: Furthermore, perhaps all aliases that are user designed should involve some sort of VO equivalent 'hardware' to go with it based on what the alias deals with. If that were the case, then certain potentially exploitable information could be made available up again, pending the appropriate equipment is equipped. A bind such as Hail Suite might just take a few kg for data storage, while some sort of intricate aiming bind that used /displayshippos would be heavy enough to make it a poor substitute for actual skill. Or if not something that extreme, then atleast things like a way to recognize which sector one's in, or the distance to a WH. (Yes, I'm thinking about marketing my autopilot-in-making bind.)
*bump*
I'm all for Leber's Post about prototyping. I think that the tedious manufacturing would be taken care of by automatic things, and only making the blueprint for the item would be twitch. You would go to a research station, and make your blueprint, then go to another station (we need manufacturing stations) to make the item to see how it comes out. Then you could copy the blueprint (or not, maybe they'd need to be churned out by people, making them more valuable) and sell them to other players to use to make their own items of the same nature. Or a blueprint copy which you license off the other player to make 400 valks with 1 L port, or whatever, and the data destroys itself after being put through 400 runs. I think the best way to make crafting entertaining, but not boring would be to twitch up the creation process, and be able to reproduce your twitch from a datapad.
Makes me think of prodigies in the field of making stuff who make uberweaps, and are so afraid of their weapon becoming mass produced by someone else, that they never make a blueprint, and make the item from scratch every time :o
My 2 cents
Makes me think of prodigies in the field of making stuff who make uberweaps, and are so afraid of their weapon becoming mass produced by someone else, that they never make a blueprint, and make the item from scratch every time :o
My 2 cents
thinking of Resources
i would say there could be more than ore...
say roid fragments of certain roids could be turned into soil.
you need a fragmenter ship to crush roids into smaller pieces...
with soil and a corresponding station with correct distance to a sun there could things grow...
-> food resulting in
-> Honey
-> meat
...
so besides ore, soil is another raw material combined with stations build to do aggriculture
also hunting hive could drop aromr pieces which can be turned into hulls, armor ...
and special processors needed to produce special engines or blasters...
no tpg XYARR blaster "capshippwner" without 7 Queen "whatever"
smaller hive drop other shit for lower level "recipies"
so no wonder even 16 16 16 16 16 players hunt artemis collectors for a while because they need some whatever they drop for building a whatever.
our scientists do not fully understand how the hive tech works and thatfore can't reproduce it, but we know how to use several components for building our own stuff...
(say you need leather in medival games in vo these are processors and relays and ... whatever)
so we have
- gathering (ore, fragments)
- hunting (hive components)
- farming (run a farming station)
- creating (combine stuff especially these strange hive relays combined with organic whatever kinda grows and is shapeable and ...)
perhaps this helps a bit just as thought...
another resource could be nebula streams which could be harvested in special ships as well.
i think actually it is just a bit of lacking in imagination on what could sound reasonable to build into the game without making stuff sound silly.
what i would wish for VO is a trading system like patrician II +addon
this is a trading sim playing around 1400 ad...
thing is you actually build farms and prodcution industry and ... whatever and the game knows about 16 diffrent materials you can trade and ship and deliver and use for building other stuff.
the sim did what i suggest a few times at the forums already...
city citizens create a demand for food mainly, but also for iron goods wool clothing ceramic the less they have the more they pay... cities normally good in producing stuff but missing the raw materials stop the production so even stuff that should be cheap gets expensive ...
all you guys should do is thinking about a few goods and their relation to each other, for building stuff, and where they could come from or how could they grow or be mined.
like ships do not only need ore ships also need glas and some armor is made of stone-metallic combination... and the heat from a engine needs to get absorbed in order the ship does not catch fire so even other material is needed...
just some thoughts though
i would say there could be more than ore...
say roid fragments of certain roids could be turned into soil.
you need a fragmenter ship to crush roids into smaller pieces...
with soil and a corresponding station with correct distance to a sun there could things grow...
-> food resulting in
-> Honey
-> meat
...
so besides ore, soil is another raw material combined with stations build to do aggriculture
also hunting hive could drop aromr pieces which can be turned into hulls, armor ...
and special processors needed to produce special engines or blasters...
no tpg XYARR blaster "capshippwner" without 7 Queen "whatever"
smaller hive drop other shit for lower level "recipies"
so no wonder even 16 16 16 16 16 players hunt artemis collectors for a while because they need some whatever they drop for building a whatever.
our scientists do not fully understand how the hive tech works and thatfore can't reproduce it, but we know how to use several components for building our own stuff...
(say you need leather in medival games in vo these are processors and relays and ... whatever)
so we have
- gathering (ore, fragments)
- hunting (hive components)
- farming (run a farming station)
- creating (combine stuff especially these strange hive relays combined with organic whatever kinda grows and is shapeable and ...)
perhaps this helps a bit just as thought...
another resource could be nebula streams which could be harvested in special ships as well.
i think actually it is just a bit of lacking in imagination on what could sound reasonable to build into the game without making stuff sound silly.
what i would wish for VO is a trading system like patrician II +addon
this is a trading sim playing around 1400 ad...
thing is you actually build farms and prodcution industry and ... whatever and the game knows about 16 diffrent materials you can trade and ship and deliver and use for building other stuff.
the sim did what i suggest a few times at the forums already...
city citizens create a demand for food mainly, but also for iron goods wool clothing ceramic the less they have the more they pay... cities normally good in producing stuff but missing the raw materials stop the production so even stuff that should be cheap gets expensive ...
all you guys should do is thinking about a few goods and their relation to each other, for building stuff, and where they could come from or how could they grow or be mined.
like ships do not only need ore ships also need glas and some armor is made of stone-metallic combination... and the heat from a engine needs to get absorbed in order the ship does not catch fire so even other material is needed...
just some thoughts though
Please excuse the wordiness of this post...
This isn't an explanation for a full crafting system just the basic idea for one.
Stations - Manufacturing (M), Refinement(R), Weapons Assembly(W), PowerCell assembly (P)
________________M_R_W_P
Commercial______D_D_D_C
Mining__________D_A_D_D
Research________C_D_B_A
Barracks________D_D_A_B
Capitol_________A_C_B_B
Different types of stations would have different areas of specialization
A - Top grade products
B - High grade Products
C - Above Average grade Products
D - Average Grade Products
E - Low Grade Products
Ex1. A commercial station does not have the weapons facilities a barracks would so even if it's given Grade A parts it would only be capable of producing a grade D weapon.
Refinement
Mining stations would have the best refinement facilities and would be able to perform the very highest level of refinement
Cost of refinement - carbonic silicate and aquean ores would be capable of absorbing impurities from mined ore. The premium variant of the ore would be more effective than station bought ore (say 1 premium does the work of 2 non premium).
Using premium ore in refinement would result in the station taking the left over ore and putting it on sale as the non premium variant of the ore used (Premium Carbonic ore would go on sell as Carbonic ore). Using station bought non premium ore would result in the ore being "spent" and not recycled.
________________D*_____P*_____N*
Denic EE________2______1______2
Denic DD________4______10_____20
Denic CC________8______100____200
Denic BB________16_____1000___2000
Denic AA________32_____10000__20000
*D is crates of Denic
*P is crates of refinement material applied in premium
*N is crates of non premium refinement material applied
EX. Making one crate of Denic AA would require 32 crates of Denic ore in addition to 10000 crates of silicate/carbonic/aquean(any combination that adds up to 10000).
EX2. Ex1. Purifying Denic at a mining station
Making 3 crates of Denic AA would require the player only to mine 20000 crates of refinement (we'll say silicate) ore. The 20000 crates of premium silicate used for the first 2 crates would be added to the station's stores as standard silicate ore. The player could be at fairly certain that there would be at least 20000 crates of silicate ore available for purchase. The ore could then be applied a second and final time to create a third crate of Denic AA, after this the silicate would be removed from the station stores as it would be "spent".
Energy Storage
Aquean - make fuel cell, cheapest, yet most inefficient of the storage cell materials, some energy will be "lost" while charging an aquean cell
Ishik - make super capacitor, mid range option, some energy loss due to being lower tech.
Apecine - make super conductor ring, high end option, virtually no energy loss during charging.
Generators
Van Azek - low end generator, cheap to build but has high mass - energy output ratio
Lanthanic - mid range generator, even mass - energy output ratio
Pentric - high end generator, high energy output for small mass
Hull
Carbonic - Low protection, radar absorbent
Ferric - Some protection no radar absorption, cheap
Ferric/Xithricite (50/50)- Standard protection (assuming all stock ships have this type of hull)
Xithricite - High end hull, more protection (replace ships hull with 100% xith to raise armor)
EX1. Xith is capable of taking 1.5 times the beating of a ferric alloy, if a ships standard issue 50/50 ferric-xith hull as replaced with a 100% xith one, its armor rating would be 125% that of the standard issue hull.
EX2. Replacing a ships hull with a carbonic one. While you would lose 75% of the original armor's protection the ship would be significantly harder to detect. We'll say a 100% carbonic hull would reduce a ship's radar signature by 75% (Only detectable within 1250m, which is right at the edge of current rail gun range).
Another possibility is making lighter hulls, by using higher grade materials a hull equal to the stock hull could be made at 83% the mass using xith
83% * 125% = 100%
Armor enhancers - have no protection value, they instead add resistance to the armors they are a part of
Denic - Replace some of the hull mix with Denic to raise resistance to energy fire
Heliocene - Replace some of hull with Helio to raise resistance to kinetic weapons (rockets, rails, missiles)
EX1. Replace 25% of a ships hull with Denic, while it loses 25% of its standard armor rating it would be able to take 2x its rating from energy fire if 25% of the hull alloy is denic.
75% * 2 = 150%
EX2. We have a ship with a standard hull rated at 10000 armor
We want to replace it with a 75/25 xith-denic alloy hull
Armor rating - (10000 x .75) x 1.25 = 9375
Rating vs energy - 9375 x 2 = 18750
(75% x 125%) = 93.75% of a standard hull against kinetic weapons
93.75% x 2 = 187.5% against energy weapons
Energy Weapons
Station bought, mass produced cores would be made from off the shelf, low grade materials, so building weapons with station purely bought goods would yield lower grade products.
Plasma weapons - high damage/non rapid fire/low velocity/long range/high damage per energy
Ion weapons - low damage/rapid fire/low velocity/short range/low damage per energy
Phase weapons - medium damage/medium rate of fire/high velocity/medium range/medium damage per energy
Major Components - Ion Core, Plasma Core, Phase Array
Low end weapons would require only a single type of core
EX1. Ion blaster MK I would require an Ion Core (station bought) as its major component
Ion blaster MK II would require an Ion Core Grade E as its major component
Ion Blaster MK III would require Ion Core Grade D as its major component
A high grade weapon can't be made from poor materials
EX. Grade E ore can only be used to make grade E Components, even if the station is capable of making Grade D components.
High end weapons such as the neutron and positron blasters would be made with multiple major components (hence them being more massive).
EX. a building a positron blaster would require both phase array (for higher velocities) and plasma cores (for more damage).
On the other hand a neutron blaster favors rapid fire over damage so instead it would require ion cores and phase arrays.
All current weapon / powercell variants could be created using grade DD or lower materials, the real purpose of a crafting system would be to make better items so Grades A, B and C materials would be needed
EX. Building a top of the line 100 recharge/1000 capacity powercell
3 Pentric AA = (3x32 Pentric ore) + (2x10000 Silicate/Carbonic/Aquean) + (purchase 20000 non premium ore)
3 Apience AA = (3x32 Apiecene ore) + (2x10000 Silicate/Carbonic/Aquean) + (purchase 20000 non premium ore)
Take 96 crates of Pentric and 96 crates of Apicene to a mining station
Take 40000 crates of Premium Silicate/Carbonic/Aquean to the mining station
Refine the Pentric and Apiecene
Take the (very heavy) grade AA Pentric and Apiecene to a Capitol station so it can manufacture Grade A power cell components
Take the Grade A Powercell components (superconductors and generator) to a Research station so it can assemble a *VERY* good powercell
*There would likely be other components needed as well but this is just a basic example
This isn't an explanation for a full crafting system just the basic idea for one.
Stations - Manufacturing (M), Refinement(R), Weapons Assembly(W), PowerCell assembly (P)
________________M_R_W_P
Commercial______D_D_D_C
Mining__________D_A_D_D
Research________C_D_B_A
Barracks________D_D_A_B
Capitol_________A_C_B_B
Different types of stations would have different areas of specialization
A - Top grade products
B - High grade Products
C - Above Average grade Products
D - Average Grade Products
E - Low Grade Products
Ex1. A commercial station does not have the weapons facilities a barracks would so even if it's given Grade A parts it would only be capable of producing a grade D weapon.
Refinement
Mining stations would have the best refinement facilities and would be able to perform the very highest level of refinement
Cost of refinement - carbonic silicate and aquean ores would be capable of absorbing impurities from mined ore. The premium variant of the ore would be more effective than station bought ore (say 1 premium does the work of 2 non premium).
Using premium ore in refinement would result in the station taking the left over ore and putting it on sale as the non premium variant of the ore used (Premium Carbonic ore would go on sell as Carbonic ore). Using station bought non premium ore would result in the ore being "spent" and not recycled.
________________D*_____P*_____N*
Denic EE________2______1______2
Denic DD________4______10_____20
Denic CC________8______100____200
Denic BB________16_____1000___2000
Denic AA________32_____10000__20000
*D is crates of Denic
*P is crates of refinement material applied in premium
*N is crates of non premium refinement material applied
EX. Making one crate of Denic AA would require 32 crates of Denic ore in addition to 10000 crates of silicate/carbonic/aquean(any combination that adds up to 10000).
EX2. Ex1. Purifying Denic at a mining station
Making 3 crates of Denic AA would require the player only to mine 20000 crates of refinement (we'll say silicate) ore. The 20000 crates of premium silicate used for the first 2 crates would be added to the station's stores as standard silicate ore. The player could be at fairly certain that there would be at least 20000 crates of silicate ore available for purchase. The ore could then be applied a second and final time to create a third crate of Denic AA, after this the silicate would be removed from the station stores as it would be "spent".
Energy Storage
Aquean - make fuel cell, cheapest, yet most inefficient of the storage cell materials, some energy will be "lost" while charging an aquean cell
Ishik - make super capacitor, mid range option, some energy loss due to being lower tech.
Apecine - make super conductor ring, high end option, virtually no energy loss during charging.
Generators
Van Azek - low end generator, cheap to build but has high mass - energy output ratio
Lanthanic - mid range generator, even mass - energy output ratio
Pentric - high end generator, high energy output for small mass
Hull
Carbonic - Low protection, radar absorbent
Ferric - Some protection no radar absorption, cheap
Ferric/Xithricite (50/50)- Standard protection (assuming all stock ships have this type of hull)
Xithricite - High end hull, more protection (replace ships hull with 100% xith to raise armor)
EX1. Xith is capable of taking 1.5 times the beating of a ferric alloy, if a ships standard issue 50/50 ferric-xith hull as replaced with a 100% xith one, its armor rating would be 125% that of the standard issue hull.
EX2. Replacing a ships hull with a carbonic one. While you would lose 75% of the original armor's protection the ship would be significantly harder to detect. We'll say a 100% carbonic hull would reduce a ship's radar signature by 75% (Only detectable within 1250m, which is right at the edge of current rail gun range).
Another possibility is making lighter hulls, by using higher grade materials a hull equal to the stock hull could be made at 83% the mass using xith
83% * 125% = 100%
Armor enhancers - have no protection value, they instead add resistance to the armors they are a part of
Denic - Replace some of the hull mix with Denic to raise resistance to energy fire
Heliocene - Replace some of hull with Helio to raise resistance to kinetic weapons (rockets, rails, missiles)
EX1. Replace 25% of a ships hull with Denic, while it loses 25% of its standard armor rating it would be able to take 2x its rating from energy fire if 25% of the hull alloy is denic.
75% * 2 = 150%
EX2. We have a ship with a standard hull rated at 10000 armor
We want to replace it with a 75/25 xith-denic alloy hull
Armor rating - (10000 x .75) x 1.25 = 9375
Rating vs energy - 9375 x 2 = 18750
(75% x 125%) = 93.75% of a standard hull against kinetic weapons
93.75% x 2 = 187.5% against energy weapons
Energy Weapons
Station bought, mass produced cores would be made from off the shelf, low grade materials, so building weapons with station purely bought goods would yield lower grade products.
Plasma weapons - high damage/non rapid fire/low velocity/long range/high damage per energy
Ion weapons - low damage/rapid fire/low velocity/short range/low damage per energy
Phase weapons - medium damage/medium rate of fire/high velocity/medium range/medium damage per energy
Major Components - Ion Core, Plasma Core, Phase Array
Low end weapons would require only a single type of core
EX1. Ion blaster MK I would require an Ion Core (station bought) as its major component
Ion blaster MK II would require an Ion Core Grade E as its major component
Ion Blaster MK III would require Ion Core Grade D as its major component
A high grade weapon can't be made from poor materials
EX. Grade E ore can only be used to make grade E Components, even if the station is capable of making Grade D components.
High end weapons such as the neutron and positron blasters would be made with multiple major components (hence them being more massive).
EX. a building a positron blaster would require both phase array (for higher velocities) and plasma cores (for more damage).
On the other hand a neutron blaster favors rapid fire over damage so instead it would require ion cores and phase arrays.
All current weapon / powercell variants could be created using grade DD or lower materials, the real purpose of a crafting system would be to make better items so Grades A, B and C materials would be needed
EX. Building a top of the line 100 recharge/1000 capacity powercell
3 Pentric AA = (3x32 Pentric ore) + (2x10000 Silicate/Carbonic/Aquean) + (purchase 20000 non premium ore)
3 Apience AA = (3x32 Apiecene ore) + (2x10000 Silicate/Carbonic/Aquean) + (purchase 20000 non premium ore)
Take 96 crates of Pentric and 96 crates of Apicene to a mining station
Take 40000 crates of Premium Silicate/Carbonic/Aquean to the mining station
Refine the Pentric and Apiecene
Take the (very heavy) grade AA Pentric and Apiecene to a Capitol station so it can manufacture Grade A power cell components
Take the Grade A Powercell components (superconductors and generator) to a Research station so it can assemble a *VERY* good powercell
*There would likely be other components needed as well but this is just a basic example