Forums » Suggestions

Ship specific engines?

May 29, 2006 overm4n link
The old system of engines as a seperate parts was cool.
The system got canned because it limited the amount of difference between ships.

Why not reintroduce engines in "classes" that limit what ships they can be installed in. They could be vauge classes (heavy ship engine) or specific clasess (vulture engine)

This would offer the custumization of the old system while maintaining the diferences between ships.

Comments?
May 29, 2006 moldyman link
Anything to make racing better or more varied

(b^.^)b
May 29, 2006 Lord Q link
i'm agains this sugestion unless much larger changes to the variant system is put in place.

after all varients generaly differ in Armor, Mass, and Engin stats (turbo, thrust spin torque etc.) so if engins are made an add-on, that removes one of 3 main points of variation between ships with the same hull. and i think would see a massive reduction in the use of the "lower end" varients.

for example, the infiniboost engin is the only reason to use a hog mk2 over the higher numbered varients ot the TD. so if i can drop a mk2 engin in a TD hull why wouldn't I? i still get my infiniboost but i get a reduction in starting mass.

however if you took this idea a setp further, and eliminated varients enteirely, and instead had Armor and Engin slots, so that a "varient" would actualy be a perticular comination of armor and engins on a set hull. the armor and engins would both have mass. this idea however would take a lot of work to implement, and test, and even more work to balance, so while i think it might be cool i don't really want to see it hapen that badly.
May 29, 2006 roguelazer link
[stamp of rejection]™
May 29, 2006 overm4n link
Lord Q: The ship varients with infini-boost also have lower thrust and top speed compaired to other varients. If you put a "low mark" engine in a high mark ship, it may give you infini-boost, but it would also brick your manuverablity.

It is true that the lower mass of high end ships gives them an inherent advantage to the hull but consider this:

If a low mass ship is manuverable with an "effeciency engine" how much more manuverable would it be with a "performance engine"

After all, the less mass you have to move the more dramatic the difference between 300n and 310n
May 30, 2006 MSKanaka link
Having seperate engines is now moot anyway, what with ship variants and all. The variants do *exactly* what you're looking for these engines to do.
May 30, 2006 Person link
Inc posted on changing turbo/energy requirements for motion somewhere a while back. Different types of engines would have different ratios, etc... I'll try to find the link.

-Calder

[EDIT]
HERE: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/13242#166688
That's Inc's description of how energy will be consumed by ship movement in the future.

and HERE: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/13242#166725
There's Leber's idea for the implimentation of different engines.

[DISCLAIMER] Considering that both of these ideas require radical game-play redisign, neither of them will be implimented soon, and might even be stretched to the limits of Soon&Trade. [/DISCLAIMER]
May 30, 2006 LeberMac link
I like Incarnate's idea for the speed "powercurve".

Even better, I'd like the potential to craft a new "engine" with a different powercurve, as long as the curve is "less than" a certain equation that depicts an asymptotic arc for energy usage vs. speed.
May 30, 2006 Lord Q link
overm4n,
you missed my point, if i was willing to fly a hog mk2 for the infiniboost, but i could put the engin from a mk2 in a TD i could get the inprived mass of the TD while maintaining the infiniboost of the mk2. the result would be a more manuverable mk2. there is then no reason to go back to flying a mk2 hull with a mk2 engin. the global effect of this would be the low mass variants and the high cargo capacity varients would be the only ones used with either an infiniboost engin or the engin with the most thrust (depending on prefrence). this would esentaly make 4 variants of every ship, no more, no less.

the truth is engins used to be a configurable add on, and the devs found that integrating them into ship varients resulted in more veriety and more controle over balance. (this was before my time, but i've heard the story retold in other threads)