Ship Drops - Blue Prints

[Warrax]

Perhaps in the majority of space games, ships styles and capabilities are strictly controlled by the game itself.

Its convenient, but this convenience is bought at the price of style, optimization, ingenuity and (player) design.

 

On the otherhand ...

Prolly the biggest handicap of Avorion, in its current design, is the requirement that forces players to come up with - and build - their own ship designs - flawed perhaps in some way (under-powered, under-capacity, crap maneuverability) or otherwise well designed and fun to fly around in.  Or they could spend some time, scanning the internet, to find a file of the right ship they want.

Certainly, the biggest feature that I like about Avorion is the game's openess to MY designs.  I enjoy building my own ...

 

The problem with player-built ships is that they are ... oriented to the tastes of THAT player.  Plus - it can take hours - even days devoted to construction of one single ship.  For my own designs, I get both compliments and criticisms - I accept it all, and in many cases, I have learned much from those offering suggestions.  (You can see some of my work here).

 

In any case, I am interested to see the game have a little more (general) appeal for the more casual player.

 

 

Suggestion:  Add Blueprint Drops for Ships

Perhaps game play would be more straight forward if players could receive blueprint drops of various ships, types and detail.

The decision for the game designers is how is it best to incorporate this into the game.  (So I will say nothing on this part of my suggestion).

 

Players who are enthusiastic about creating and designing their own, or are into sharing designs online, and in the Avorion Workshop - great.  Go at it !!

Again, this game feature is what keeps me playing here (and designing).

 

But at least then, the more casual player has an approach for the game.

 

Also - if these ship designs were developed by devoted players or even professionals, i mean - wow, these designs would be sought after.

Perhaps too, some of the rarest ship designs could be coded to be "un-tradeable". 

Getting a rare ship drop could be as fun as completing a mission or getting a sweet weapon drop.

 

In fact, I would even drive a (slightly) smaller, less capable ship, if it was cool to pilot around in.

 

Thank you for reading.

See you in game.

 

The Durandal.  Designed by Kailyze from DeviantArt.

 

[Sir Charles]

I like this idea.

I think there should be a special bonus to such ships, which I suggested before in relation to something else:

A ship that matches its blueprint could have adapted stats, making it better to fly despite the normal game mechanics. Of course this bonus would vanish immediately when the design is changed in build mode.

[SneakyTacts]

Some blue prints should be obtainable or freely construct-able in shipyards.

[Eruner]

Wait a minute, why would anybody want a ship blueprint of an NPC ship?

When a Shipyard already can make you such ship in few minutes?

And then you can save that ship as a blueprint?

 

I kind of don't understand the purpose and use case of the idea, sorry.

[SneakyTacts]

Wait a minute, why would anybody want a ship blueprint of an NPC ship?

When a Shipyard already can make you such ship in few minutes?

And then you can save that ship as a blueprint?

 

I kind of don't understand the purpose and use case of the idea, sorry.

Well, remember how ugly and unorganized those randomly generated ships are? We’re all hoping for even just a few casual-looking ships for when we don’t want to build to perfection or when we were newbies without creativity. Nothing extraordinarily attractive—just normal stuff that suits enough of our needs.

[Eruner]

In other words, rework of how ships are generated. Isnt this on roadmap?

[SneakyTacts]

In other words, rework of how ships are generated. Isnt this on roadmap?

No, we're talking about a few basic ships to be made by the developers for general purpose and convenience, but I'm sure we'd all appreciate and rather have better random ships in the shipyard, as you say. I just checked and can confirm that "ship generator rework" and "improved visuals for AI ships" are on the roadmap. Again, I'd rather have these two roadmap items than default ships.

[Warrax]

Thank you, Sneaky for offering your views.  I share your point of view, and like your enhancing ideas (above).

And Blue Charles - wow - I really like your idea about the enhanced flight attributes.

 

But, let me return to Eruner's great question ...

Imagine, Eruner, being able to pilot a ship much like the image above, in this thread's opening post.  I mean, I would be thrilled to fly a beautiful ship here in Avorion.

As Sneaky pointed out, it can take hours of planning, designing, building, tweaking, and ultimately managing a ship design.

 

I am just suggesting there be a way to shortcut all that labour.  Please understand, I love the work done by others, and I have enjoyed designing my own ships.

There is real reward in building your own ...

 

I think it would also be fun and super cool to be able to acquire very rare drops of a beautiful ship - something that my skill would never allow me to build.

Especially if the rare drop of a ship blueprint contained enhancements (as Blue Charles suggested).

 

Anyway ... great discussion.  Thank you all for reading and those of you whom have responded so far.

 

 

By the way, Sneaky Tacts is an Avorion Ship Designer and his Creations thread may be found here.

[SneakyTacts]

Thank you, too, Warrax!

    I find myself thinking a bit differently from you. I think that the workshop and forums should have the pretty ships (and all the others), while the game would provide ships with a comfortable, vanilla feel—whether they be randomly generated or carefully crafted for balance. I would not mind being able to loot magnificent ship plans, but I feel that we already have attractive ships in the workshop.

    Thanks for the link to my ship! You’re very kind. I must say that it is built with only Xanion and Trinium, not Avorion. I haven’t actually reached the core in the normal gamemode because I’ve restarted recently after spending days making a ship that is fairly normal-looking and massive. Maybe if I had a decent vanilla ship plan, I would have continued? My little Trinium ship looks like a colorful toy compared to some of yours and others, lol.

[Warrax]

All good, Sneaky, and you're welcome.

Thank you for clarifying your thoughts.  Now let's hope that the Devs are able to incorporate the idea somehow (if it works for game balance, etc).

 

I hope you enjoy your re-start.

I will also be re-starting soon, but will be after Koonschi has set the new v0.26 into the main branch for game play.

 

The fresh changes on the horizon look very interesting.

[FuryoftheStars]

Yeah, I have to say that while I love this game's system where you can build (or edit) ships however you want (and the block system allows for great destruction mechanics  ;D ), I also really love where in other games you can just hop into great looking ships that are already available and just go.

 

For those of us that are... uhh... "design challenged", it can actually take a really long time to design and build stuff (I've been working on a 2-slot starter ship (with its 3-slot upgrades with Titanium & Naonite) for over a month).  While there are a lot of ships available here or on the Steam workshop, and some do look great, this requires the player to search for them, weed through the not so great ones, maybe only be able to find one or two ships of this style they like and another one or two of that style, load them in game and have them apply only to the player's ships, maybe find that there are some design choices/flaws with the downloaded ships they don't like and are not easily fixed, etc, etc, etc.

 

For a casual player, this can be a bit of a turn off.

[Eruner]

after reading new comments I thing that Workshop ships are better and more convenient way to drive a beautiful ship you didnt designed, when you want, which you want. I see that majority of blueprint drops would be either meh, or not what player actually wants to fly.

 

"The problem with player-built ships is that they are ... oriented to the tastes of THAT player"

"The problem with non-player-build ships is that they are .... not oriented to anybody's taste"

 

I don't want to discourage you from creative thinking and making new ideas, just this one solved by workshop + ship generator rework things

:)