Ship Rationalisation / Balancing Project

[Disembodied]

My point was actually rather the reverse -- what makes elite good is that it was created in a time when it was limited, when the best had to be squeezed from what was available, not just flash graphics, and feature bloat.

"The only art is to omit" – Robert Louis Stevenson

There's definitely something in that. In making games especially, there's a terrible temptation to add just one more thing ... and then that spins off and wouldn't it be cool if we could do this as well? and that? and this with that? and that to these and those? and so on, in what becomes a never-ending and ultimately self-defeating attempt to simulate the universe. Far, far better – but much harder – is to restrict the game within itself, and make it do what it's supposed to do, brilliantly.

Which is not to say that things can never be expanded: you just have to be careful, is all. This is where the "art" bit comes in: deciding where the boundaries should be. This is where, in my opinion, games like the X series went wrong: I wanted to play a merchant space-bum, but great big chunks of the game revolved around owing multiple ships and setting up trade routes and running stations and factories. Sure, there's the argument that nobody was forcing me to be anything more than a merchant space-bum: but the problem was, because the authors had put in all this stuff about stations and trade routes, the game was bent out of shape at the space-bum end. It wasn't a very good space-bum game. Sadly, it wasn't a very good space-station and trade-route management sim, either.

[Cmdr James]

Well, you know what they say. The only way to make the Mona Lisa better would be if she were animated. In 3d. And maybe with a soundtrack.

Note for the humour challenged: This comment is a joke. I dont have a problem with RS, or EVE come to that :p and new features are fine by me.
I do think there is a serious point about minimalism versus neoism (? is that a word), but its been made, by me, and others, I dont want to argue any more. Once more for the record, Im making a joke relating to the post prededing this one.

(I edited this a couple of times because I cant type!)

[Cody]

You are entirely correct about the X series. It just didn't know quite what it was meant to be. Same for Darkstar - very glossy, great ship but...

[Sendraks]

I tried to like the X-series games, but failed. The experience was a curiously empty one that, despite the various attempts at interaction with other vessels, left me feeling alone in a galaxy where it took forever to go anywhere and nothing happened without me around.

Oolite feels more interactive than the X-series to me, despite the wealth of options in the X games. But all the options in the world are no good if they don't make for a satisfying whole.

I'm reminded at this point of Hard-war, which I recall did make the whole owning stations (garages I think) and trading from those an enjoyable experience, from what I remember. Being able to own a station in Oolite, while not a feature of the original Elite or later versions, is a cool idea and it doesn't feel at odds with the core premise. But what you do with that itself and how complex you make it, may or may not make for an enjoyable experience, because as the non-bodied one says, once something is included it drives game play. Still I think it is something that is better explored than not so we can find out what works and what doesn't.

Is just owning a space station and having revenue generated from that enough? Is it more or less enjoyable to expand the management aspects of this - paying for security, maintainence, advertising etc etc. Will the game become more enjoyable for station owners, but less so for those who want to play space bums? Could there be more bum related features in space stations for those who don't want to own one, but just bum around?

Going back to the original premise - rather than talking about bumming in space - the issues revolve around:

1 - Should there be ships that are better than the Cobra MkIII in every respect? Some of us think no and that other ships should perform better in specific respects rather than every respect, others think there should be direct/linear upgrades on the Cobra MKIII. Neither approach is right or wrong, although the history of Elite games seems to favour the former.

2 - When you have direct/linear upgrades to the Cobra MKIII - how do you balance the game to take account for the fact that it makes almost all the other existing (core and many of the OXP) ships obsolete? I do find it frustrating when I look at some of the OXP ships and think "did no one think about what this means for x, y and z" ships.

3) By comparison there are OXPs out there where the designer has, bless them, provided alternatives rather than upgrades or designed a ship that fits into a niche of stats not presently occupied. This approach avoids making the existence of other ships redundant, although a certain degree of obsolesence is unavoidable.

4) While we're not quite there yet, some of the more potent OXP ships are wandering towards being the best all round ship of all types. I'm not even pointing at the more recent OXPs here (the Kirins and the Caduceus's), but some older OXP ships that are decidedly suspect. These ships are probably, to my mind, the start of the path towards the space dominating uber ships.

Finally a plea really - I think the super powerful OXP ships could still work in Oolite if they were handled differently, rather than just being made available via shipyards (although increasing the rarity of certain vessels wouldn't hurt). Ships available as one time offers through missions or other scenarios. Some of the newer OXP ships are wonderful designs, with great backstories and deserve a more grand appearance in game than simpy appearing on the ship market screen.

[Commander McLane]

Is just owning a space station and having revenue generated from that enough? Is it more or less enjoyable to expand the management aspects of this - paying for security, maintainence, advertising etc etc. Will the game become more enjoyable for station owners, but less so for those who want to play space bums? Could there be more bum related features in space stations for those who don't want to own one, but just bum around?

Not knowing how the station owning feature is implemented, I wonder whether there is a certain chance scripted that somebody has destroyed your station, and your whole investment is lost. And what happens if you go there and blow it up yourself? Also in this case it should be lost forever. I know that if I was to script a feature like a player-owned station, I would include this possibility of total loss.

4) While we're not quite there yet, some of the more potent OXP ships are wandering towards being the best all round ship of all types. I'm not even pointing at the more recent OXPs here (the Kirins and the Caduceus's), but some older OXP ships that are decidedly suspect. These ships are probably, to my mind, the start of the path towards the space dominating uber ships.

Actually, a ship so uber that it probably hasn't been matched since was at the very beginning of the uber-line. It is only so obscure that most people here on the board may never have heard of it. It's called Uber Mk.1337 (the NPC Uber HAX0R) and came in the imaginatively named uber.oxp. Its original download link is lost in the debris of Oosat 2. (Actually, it is not: Here is the description-page. You can use the download link contained in it, but you have to manually change "oosat" to "oldsat".) And even back then its author didn't mean it seriously:

This is Uber, elitest ship in the hizzouse. It's fast & furious, with purple running lights, a big cargo hold and military laser comes standard. Excellent choice for teenagers who mistook Oolite for a twitch shooter game.

It should be noted that its hull and dimensions are just taken one to one from an Adder. So just guess yourself how much sense big top speed, big cargo hold, 13 missile slots, etc. etc. make in this ship.

Finally a plea really - I think the super powerful OXP ships could still work in Oolite if they were handled differently, rather than just being made available via shipyards (although increasing the rarity of certain vessels wouldn't hurt). Ships available as one time offers through missions or other scenarios. Some of the newer OXP ships are wonderful designs, with great backstories and deserve a more grand appearance in game than simpy appearing on the ship market screen.

This is how Cataclysm works already. At the end of this looooooooooooong series of missions you get the one-time-offer to buy a fairly good ship. It is better than the CobraIII, but I didn't want to make it too much of an ubership, so probably somebody who flies let's say a Caduceus will respectfully turn down the offer for fear of downgrading from what he already has.

[Cmdr James]

I think its worth stating that mostly its player ships that are contentious. I dont think most people have any issue with powerful NPCs like rattlecutters or behemoths etc.

[ClymAngus]

4) While we're not quite there yet, some of the more potent OXP ships are wandering towards being the best all round ship of all types. I'm not even pointing at the more recent OXPs here (the Kirins and the Caduceus's), but some older OXP ships that are decidedly suspect. These ships are probably, to my mind, the start of the path towards the space dominating uber ships.

You wait till I get started on the king cobra with self regenerating sub-entity armour plating or the Shard ships with magnetic sub-entity "blade storm" technology. Your really going to hate me after those ones.

but I didn't want to make it too much of an ubership, so probably somebody who flies let's say a Caduceus will respectfully turn down the offer for fear of downgrading from what he already has.

Well that would depend on what type of game you want to play. Both add different dimensions to a game. Both have merit in their own way.

Might I suggest instead of getting all McCarthy on specific oxps that a rating system would be more appropriate? I certainly don't mind my work being X rated, it adds to the mystique. I have the solace of knowing that people will still use the maps (even though they are extremely powerful). Quick! Make them more cryptic! We loved not knowing where the hell we were from one moment to the next! It was part of the good old fashioned fun!

Oh darn, I screwed up again....

[Ramirez]

I remember the Uber HAX0R - that was one tricky ship to kill!

Some hopefully-constructive thoughts:

Firstly, I doubt anyone would disagree that balancing the ships in general is a Good Thing. Many times now I've praised Wolfwood's previous work on this to come up with basic guidelines that all authors could follow so as to keep things as balanced as possible.

Secondly, ship balancing isn't easy. Even when all the statistics look reasonable, it's only in-game when you really get a feel for how a ship behaves. Does it appear to roll too quickly for its size? Does its acceleration look unnatural? Sometimes it can take days of effort to get even a single ship to handle just right, let alone taking on the whole set of ships that make up the current set.

To complicate things, in order to make the game challenging enough for new and experienced players alike, NPC and player ships often have to be treated very differently. We're limited in our ability to create new performAttack AI routines, so the only way to make a ship more dangerous to the player is to significantly increase its stats, usually the max energy. This compensates for the fact that the player has a special set of shields (fore and aft) that NPCs don't have (as discussed in another thread) but it does mean you really need to have two sets of balancing guidelines, one for player ships and another for NPCs.

Thirdly, I don't see the link between needing a general approach to ship balancing/rationalisation, and the need to create huge OXPs containing replacement ship sets. All authors are keen to make sure their OXPs reach a wide audience, and most will happily make changes in response to comments so that as many people as possible can enjoy the shared experience of a particular OXP. Of course, people are still free to make any tweaks to their own installation if they really want to, but for the rest of the community there is a single, clear view of the OXP, what it does and who's responsible for it.

Really I think some of this discussion is veering towards the 'OXP manager' debate in the Suggestion Box, as it's all about how best to manage lots of different OXPs, some of which may conflict or overlap with each other.

[Sendraks]

Secondly, ship balancing isn't easy. Even when all the statistics look reasonable, it's only in-game when you really get a feel for how a ship behaves. Does it appear to roll too quickly for its size? Does its acceleration look unnatural? Sometimes it can take days of effort to get even a single ship to handle just right, let alone taking on the whole set of ships that make up the current set.

I agree, although I think you can tell how much effort the author has put into giving a ship a distinct feel that fits with the design. This is apparent not only when you're flying a ship, but when you're fighting one as well. They fly the way they look, for want of a better word.

This in itself represents one of the inherent problems with ship balancing, in that this is all very subjective and what one player may perceive whilst playing is different for the designer or another player. So I know it is going to take me a while to get the first set of ships to where I want them. Which might not necessarily be where anyone else thinks they should go, so discussions will be had (hopefully).

*edit*

Commander McLane

Yes, if I was designing stations to be included, I'd also want to have the scope for total loss included, as well as options for a player to help mitigate against that loss (upgrades in security/defenses etc etc).

[Killer Wolf]

The uberness of ships is a kinda flaw of ship designers. when you've spent yonks creating and skinning and shaderising a ship etc, you naturally want it to be a *good* ship, not something that Adders stand a good chance of killing etc. you can't help but think in some cases that a ship you've seen has, eg, 5 energy banks, so you give yours 6 cos you think your ship's better. i suppose it's down to the designers to show some logical restraint, otherwise we get a virtual arms race developing, and next time you download an OXP you find your beloved ship has been outdated by a new ship that has 7 energy banks. good or bad, depends on your point of view i suppose. however, a point i made before, my thought is that overruling shipyard type OXPs are a slap in the face to designers. it's my choice to install them or not, and i don't, but i still feel that someone else telling me that MY spec for MY ship is wrong is just pretentious and insulting, and somewhat against the community spirit of designing and sharing : what's the point in designing and producing a ship if someone else is just going to go and change it?

[Telengo]

1 - Should there be ships that are better than the Cobra MkIII in every respect? Some of us think no and that other ships should perform better in specific respects rather than every respect, others think there should be direct/linear upgrades on the Cobra MKIII. Neither approach is right or wrong, although the history of Elite games seems to favour the former.

I just wanted to share my thoughts on this point if I may. I would imagine that building star ships is very similar to the 20th/21st century motorcar industry on that planet at the back end of the galaxy. No matter how good something is, there will always be something that is better! As time goes on, new technologies arrive and improve on old ones making new products better.

So a rival to the Cobra MKIII manufacturer will of course make a ship to compete that is better. It might go a tiny bit faster, it might also have a slightly bigger boot...err cargo hold and it might handle a wee bit better. But will it be uber and so massively better? Well no not unless the Cobra was made about 200 years ago and is sooo old and outdated.

Just my small insignificant thought on this matter.

[Sendraks]

Telengo - your thought is neither small nor insignificant, it is a valid example of linear progression. As I said, this is neither a right nor wrong way of doing things.

Taking your car analogy (which I like), cars today are vastly more potent than the cars at the start of the 20th century, no argument. In my lifetime, I wouldn't say that cars have radically improved that much and the market is still clearly divided into performance vehicles, utility vehicles, general all round use etc etc. While the Volvo's of today (as an example of a small cargo hauling vehicle) are better than those of 20 years ago (my family has a history of Volvo ownership), the differences are not that great. The cars might be a little faster, more fuel efficient, handle a little better, be a little safer, a little more comfy, but they don't have much more space if any (my dad grumbles that he had to buy a smaller dog box to fit in his new turbo volvo).

The long and the short of it is that today's modern Volvos do not perform like a 1980s sports car and have the carrying capacity of a transit van. The performance increments are small and not necessarily in all areas. Much as you've said with regard to the upgrade on the Cobra MKIII.

Again we're back to the two schools of thought, where one school is that the Cobra MKIII is the cutting edge of all round performance and the other is that it isn't, that the Cobra MKIII is clearly a more venerable vessel and ship development has had time to move on. In essence to some, the Cobra MKIII is the Model T Ford of the space ways and the ships they are developing are the equivalent of the Ford Escort Cosworth, or something.

Killer Wolf - the actual stats for ship design are more granular than that and it is possible to give a ship an upgrade without going for gross increases such as an entire extra energy bank. For example.

Standard Cobby MKIII

Flight Speed: 0.35LM
Cargo Capacity: 20
Energy Recharge: 4
Energy: 256

And upgrade on that ship could be:

Flight Speed: 0.355LM
Cargo Capacity: 25
Energy Recharge: 4.25
Energy: 300

That is an improvement in all of those areas, just a bit more subtle than some of upgrade options available via OXPs. Going back to the car anaolgy, improvements in performance between different versions of a car, (say a 1990s ford mondeo and a mondeo in 2010) are relatively minor in overall performance.

[polyh]

The performance increments are small and not necessarily in all areas.
[...]
Going back to the car anaolgy, improvements in performance between different versions of a car, (say a 1990s ford mondeo and a mondeo in 2010) are relatively minor in overall performance.

I'm sorry, but that's wrong. The differences between now and then are huge. And there are even Volvos that can outperform a Ferrari 308 or Porsche 911 SC while carrying five passengers and their luggage. Or the Alpina B5s station wagon: comfy family car but can outperform a 964 911 in every performance aspect (cornering, acceleration, braking).

Even my VW Golf will outperform most 1980's supercars in terms of handling, cornering and braking (acceleration and topspeed are excluded because it's a 109 bhp diesel ). Relating to the Ooniverse this means my 2009 Adder will outmaneuver a 1980's Fer-De-Lance.

[Commander McLane]

... without going for gross increases such as an entire extra energy bank. For example.

Standard Cobby MKIII

...

Energy: 256

And upgrade on that ship could be:

...

Energy: 300

Well, that is an entire energy bank. In fact, for player ships an upgrade from 256 to 257 is an entire enrgy bank, due to the way the number of energy banks is calculated.

Anyway, generally I am with you in this line of thoughts, and overall the performance increases look sensible. Ubership territory is where two or more of these stats are suddenly doubled or tripled.

[Disembodied]

Of course, we'd have to assume that technology on starships advances in the same way that it currently does on cars, which is far from being a given. Car technology is about 100 years old. Will the speed of advances in the design of engines, handling, bodywork etc. from the last 100 years be mirrored in the next 100 years? Probably not, to be honest, because the curve started from (essentially) zero. There are fewer performance increases to be squeezed out of the materials available.

Technological development doesn't always move forward. Sometimes it plateaus, and sometimes it goes into reverse. In our recent history it's been pretty much up, up, up, and at ever-increasing speed – but that's not guaranteed to keep on going.

Technological improvements in starship design might be very slow. The Cobra III is 60 years old, and it's still one of the best ships around. That implies that there might not be much more that people can squeeze out of whatever sciences they're using to build and power the things. The increases Sendraks is suggesting *could* represent a revolutionary breakthrough, instead of a mild improvement.