GH2: Spaceship Mechanics

[Zereth]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Here's a thorny issue. The PC should have to allocate space for mecha and companions. However, if the PC were traveling alone on the world map, he could bring as many companions as will follow him and all of their mecha.

Actually, he problaby shouldn't be able to. How are the companions without mecha getting around in deep space? Transporting people who don't have their own space-flight capable mecha _should_ be a benifit of having a spaceship.

[The Lone Badger]

In the current version of GH2 I always travel by shuttle, which obviously allows you to bring as many companions as you like. Trying to move between spinners in a mecha takes a huge amount of time and has a high risk of becoming irrecoverably lost, so I never do it.

[Anticheese]

One suggestion I would like to put forward for the spaceships has to do with the cells.

I think that if cells are adjacent to each other they could be linked to be a bigger cell and thus provide bonuses.

I.E a 1X2 Kennel has space for 8 pets/robots and because it is a larger cell it gets an extra +2.

And also, say you have a linked mecha bay on one side of the ship but not one on the other, perhaps you could only launch mecha from that one side?

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: Zereth

Actually, he problaby shouldn't be able to. How are the companions without mecha getting around in deep space? Transporting people who don't have their own space-flight capable mecha _should_ be a benifit of having a spaceship.

True. Companions who don't have their own spaceworthy mecha should get left behind when the PC leaves town. But then, certain mecha should have passenger seats... that would then open up the problem of providing an interface to assign passenger seats to all the companions.

This still doesn't entirely solve the problem, though. If a PC has a lot of companions with mecha, he might find it more convenient to travel the world map on foot rather than dedicate enough cells to take everything. This is a bad thing- what's the point of having a ship if it's more convenient to go places without it?

There are two very easy ways I could solve this, but I don't like either of them. First, I could use the "Morrowind Horse" solution- companions never follow you when you explore the world map by yourself. Alternatively, I could use the "Cloud's Backpack" solution- any spaceship can hold as many NPCs and mecha as you want without dedicating cells to it. There can be a prop elevator somewhere labeled "To living quarters".

Here's another idea- always allow the PC's lancemates and their mecha to ride the ship, but require lodging cells for companions who are not currently members of the party. The advantage of this one is that it provides all the benefits of traveling on foot plus the convenience of having a spaceship. The bad part is that it could lead to some strange metagaming- when preparing to leave port, the PC might have to rearrange the party in order to take everyone he wants, then change back to his regular party roster at the destination.

Anticheese- that's a good idea. It'd be a lot more work, but it does have certain advantages. Certain cells, such as sick bay, could take up more than one cell by default.

Some new pictures of ship combat:


This one shows battle damage:


The meshes/textures need work. Everything is saved in Wavefront .obj format, so they can be easily edited in most 3D programs.

[SharkD]

Looking at the screenshots, here's some graphics suggestions:

Show a starry background that fills the whole screen (I can render some nice ones in POV-Ray for you); then, make the floor tiles use a plain grid texture--i.e., a 1 pixel colored (yellow?) border around the edge of each tile with the center transparent.

I.E a 1X2 Kennel has space for 8 pets/robots and because it is a larger cell it gets an extra +2.

In that case, the wall between them should be removed. Bonuses should only be applied for cells which are adjacent.

Also, are spaceships going to have weapon stations? You could assign a character to control the ship's weapons during combat. Maybe add a talent or skill for ship weapons.

[macksting]

Why can't lancemates take over crew positions and get crew quarters accordingly? Would make a good way to gloss over considerations, I'd think. Unless you've already taken this into account and I've missed it.
As to questions of party and lodging. Why would one have to constantly jiggy around with party composition to get everybody aboard? You could just have crew bunks and discretionary seating randomly assigned.
May I point out? In zero-G, sleeping bags can be mounted on what are ostensibly walls and ceilings. This would simply require everybody to be up and around come landing time so they don't fall out, and would certainly save space. Also, consider how many passenger flights take most of a day, yet require the passengers to spend the majority of their time in a bucket seat. Passenger seating might be pretty bad, and still get you where you're going. Or, for that matter, might be a dozen sleeping bags on the ceiling of a commissary.

I suppose, especially in anime, the journey can be just as important as the destination. If you deliberately put in a character as chatty as the Martian princess from GH1, it could make very a very long ride seated together in a mech, so that might be a reason to deposit said character deliberately in some mech other than your own. Even so, it should probably be enough to just assign the seating randomly, right?

[Keiseth]

If you deliberately put in a character as chatty as the Martian princess from GH1, it could make very a very long ride seated together in a mech

I vote for being able to open the airlock during flight. =)

[Anticheese]

Quoting: SharkD

In that case, the wall between them should be removed. Bonuses should only be applied for cells which are adjacent.

Thats exactly what I meant.

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

don't know how useful that would be. The ship won't be pilotable like a mecha- if it does appear in a battle, it will be as a stationary prop with the fighting happening around it. A skill to get to your destination quickly or to avoid unwanted encounters may be useful but I think it'd need more uses than just that to justify its inclusion

Thats disappointing, a movable spaceship would be a huge asset on the battlefield, even if they would be much slower with more strictly enforced turning rules, etc.

[Joseph Hewitt]

I'll see about adding a starfield behind the ships today. Way in the distant past I tried adding a skybox to the renderer, but it didn't work so well. I know a bit more now about OpenGL so I'll see if it works any better.

Quoting: macksting

Why can't lancemates take over crew positions and get crew quarters accordingly?

Good point. In most cases this wouldn't be an issue- if you have a lancemate who provides a certain service, there would be no need to hire a crew member to perform the same service. There are probably cases where it would make sense to designate a lancemate as crew, though- a lancemate doctor might not provide healing or cyberware implantation services, but a crew member doctor would be expected to. If you assign a lancemate to be a member of the ship's crew, the game should generate a new persona for that character which includes all the services provided by the position.

Quoting: Anticheese

Thats disappointing, a movable spaceship would be a huge asset on the battlefield, even if they would be much slower with more strictly enforced turning rules, etc

Well, the focus of the game should be the mecha; the spaceship is really a base of operations and mecha support system. The Bebop never really took part in fights in Cowboy Bebop, and while the White Base sometimes provided covering fire for Gundam most of the time it was just a big brightly painted target.

That said, I'm not entirely happy with the anti-spaceship arena mission that I've been working on. Quite simply, the enemy ship isn't impressive enough. One problem is that props don't usually dodge, making the ship extremely vunerable. I could change things so that props do not suffer critical hits, just like most other inanimate objects. This would have the double effect of making the ship more durable and also making the "Gate Crasher" talent far more useful.

[draconuszero]

I just thought of a somewhat ridiculous idea.  How about if instead of having standard turrets, you can just attach some mecha weapons onto your ship in gun modules, or even some mecha themselves?

[SharkD]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

I'll see about adding a starfield behind the ships today. Way in the distant past I tried adding a skybox to the renderer, but it didn't work so well. I know a bit more now about OpenGL so I'll see if it works any better.

I can render them using spherical projection if you prefer that.

[Anticheese]

Quoting: draconuszero

I just thought of a somewhat ridiculous idea. How about if instead of having standard turrets, you can just attach some mecha weapons onto your ship in gun modules, or even some mecha themselves?

Perhaps you could turn cells into weapon mount cells that have the potential to store X Y sized weapons?

This makes use of my expanded cell suggestion, a 1x1 cell certainly wont be able to use a very large massdriver and a 2X3 cell should hold plenty of smaller scale weapons.

Then you can also apply the suggested positioning = where it can shoot rule, so that people don't just convert one portion to a massive cannon and leave the rest for other things..

I know that it does not fit in well with the focus on Mecha, but spaceships should be far from sitting ducks.

--

"Repair Bay" sounds more like a workshop that handles repair. I reckon that "Engineering department" or whatever is more specific to shipboard maintennance.

--

Suggestion for a new cell type: Workshop

Can be used to fabricate items, repair things and so forth.

Many large ships have such workshops onboard for repair and fabrication, I may actually have a photo of one somewhere but dont hold your breath.

[macksting]

Quoting: Anticheese

"Repair Bay" sounds more like a workshop that handles repair. I reckon that "Engineering department" or whatever is more specific to shipboard maintennance.

Dock. Covers a lot of ground, that term.

Quoting: Anticheese

Many large ships have such workshops onboard for repair and fabrication, I may actually have a photo of one somewhere but dont hold your breath.

Huh. Sorta like the shop on the third floor of the Brotherhood of Steel's bunker?

[Machina]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Well, the focus of the game should be the mecha; the spaceship is really a base of operations and mecha support system. The Bebop never really took part in fights in Cowboy Bebop, and while the White Base sometimes provided covering fire for Gundam most of the time it was just a big brightly painted target.

I always pictured something like the SDF-1/Macross or Archangel (Gundam Seed) for big battleships used by the larger NPC forces. Not something you'd want to charge head-first into a small army of mecha with, but capable of backing up its forces with nice heavy support fire.

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

That said, I'm not entirely happy with the anti-spaceship arena mission that I've been working on. Quite simply, the enemy ship isn't impressive enough. One problem is that props don't usually dodge, making the ship extremely vunerable. I could change things so that props do not suffer critical hits, just like most other inanimate objects. This would have the double effect of making the ship more durable and also making the "Gate Crasher" talent far more useful.

I had been thinking about this in regards to super-heavy units like the Monstrous. A combination of a "heavy" flag for the mecha/prop and a skill/talent/computer software to increase the amount of firepower belched out per turn at the smaller and more maneuverable mecha to compensate for thier damnable tendancy to dodge.

"Heavy" would function in part like you thought for the ship props, preventing critical hits, with an added bonus of additional damage reduction and offsetting armorpiercing and armorignoring, with the tradeoff of reducing reaction time (Initiative and Mecha Piloting penalties). Thus the unit, be it mecha or ship, would be less "blow-uppy" in the face of smaller, lucky units.

The additional firepower per turn is something I struggled with, but would serve to level the playing field between heavy and light. Something granting multiple attacks per turn/fire action dependant on skill/talent/software, with a Mental Point cost like complex weapons have. Thus, a warship's turrets wouldn't just be limited to (hypothetically) firing thier big guns at the Savin charging the ship, their missiles/torpedos at that wing of BuruBuru, or the smaller CIWS in sub-turrets at that pesky Dora some jackass equipped with a custom nuclear missile (What? It was funny.) - they could do two, or all three. Being able to lob more heavy firepower at incomming mecha would certainly make assaulting a warship (or superheavy mecha) more of a challenge.

There's the problem of programming difficulty and the risk of unbalancing things in the other direction, but 'tis an idea.

[macksting]

Quoting: Machina

"Heavy" would function in part like you thought for the ship props, preventing critical hits, with an added bonus of additional damage reduction and offsetting armorpiercing and armorignoring, with the tradeoff of reducing reaction time (Initiative and Mecha Piloting penalties). Thus the unit, be it mecha or ship, would be less "blow-uppy" in the face of smaller, lucky units.

I like this idea. Even if it comes out to an extra million or five, that's a pittance vs. the Monstrous' cost, and this idea might do wonders for its survivability.
I suppose it could simply be more resistance to crits. Seems to me that crits were always what killed me. (To my irritating, the Monstrous is a hover vehicle; doesn't benefit from Hull Down.)