I didn't like the idea of a "building" that you need to build in a system to build ships, so I'm scrapping that system.
I considered different new options for this:
A system where you're required to establish an base on a planet (don't have to have people there) in order to build ships
A special component that you can add to a ship that allows it to "build" ships, or in other words, be the place where you assemble new ships at (mobile construction platforms)
A friend told me to just make the game work, then deal with balance later. So that's what I'm doing. I'm going to implement both systems above, then deal with balance later.
The idea is that if you've selected a ship that has a construction special, when you finish the new ship, it will spawn where that ship is. Those kind of ships will be massive and expensive, so you wouldn't want to put them in front of the battlefields. They will be prime targets for your enemies!
Planet-based ship construction will follow the classic 4X system, you build a ship at that system with that planet, and presto! A ship spawns there.
This upcoming week and next will be very busy for us (Christmas), so things may be a bit quiet around here for a bit, but don't worry, I'm still devoted to this project.
Meanwhile, here's a screenshot of a couple of new stars that I've added to the game!
Sounds good. Maybe both could be good. The mobile construction ship could be flavored to have lots of complicated construction equipment that is easily damaged. Maybe not to the point that it destroys the ship, but maybe taking even a bit of damage will take a long time to repair. Although, I don't know how you are dealing with partial ship damage. - Maybe construction ships never stack and then could be damaged partially.
ReplyDeletePerhaps in single-ship system, each "construction equipment" increments the size of a ship that can be built from the current ship. So if a ship have 10 "construction equipments", it can build ships that are size 10. In battle, one or more equipment could be destroyed, so if it lost two, it can only build size 8 ships.
ReplyDeleteAnd in the stacked ship system, it just adds up all the construction equipments in a stack to determine the max size? So if you have 10 ships with 1 construction equipment each, you can build a size 10 ship from this stack.
So in the single-ship system, the "construction equipment" will be smaller and cheaper than the one in the stacked ship system for balance purposes
My cousin recommended this blog and she was totally right keep up the fantastic work!
ReplyDeleteShip Building