New Hangars, "Fighter", and AI control

[eduty]

To produce a more thematically consistent gameplay experience, the way in which hangars, fighters, and command of ships not currently piloted by the player are changed.

Hangars are updated to "store" any object in Avorion that fits its capacity and fits within the hangar opening. A ship's hangar capacity is a percentage of the combined volume of all hangar blocks on the ship. Hangars made from "better" materials utilize a greater percentage, as the hangar's systems can be further miniaturized and allow more space for an object to fit within. This comes with the recommendation that hangars are available in all materials, with iron granting capacity equal to 50% of its volume and each subsequent material adding an 8% increase - all the way up to 90% for an Avorion hangar.

For a ship to "land" on a carrier with a hangar, the carrier must have hangar capacity equal to or greater than the total volume of the landing ship, and the hangar opening's height and width must be greater than the landing ship's height and width.

The player orders a ship to land on a carrier by taking control of the carrier and issuing the "enter hangar" command to the appropriate ship. If the volume and size requirements are met, the selected ship will fly towards one of the carrier's exposed hangars and despawn at a short distance from the hangar opening.

Ships that have successfully landed on a carrier are bound to a launching hangar on that carrier, and cannot land on another carrier until dismissed from the carrying ship.

This essentially removes the need to construct fighters from turrets at fighter factories, as each "fighter" is essentially the same as any other Avorion ship.

So as not to be a disincentive to creating multiple small craft - ships no longer require a captain to receive AI commands. Captains need only be assigned for their unique captain bonuses, and are entirely optional. Ships will still require command crew, such as sergeants, lieutenants, etc. based on their crew populations.

The main tab of the ship menu now assigns a key binding to any exposed hangars, similar to how the game currently operates torpedo launchers and turrets. Outside of the menu, the hangar is displayed on the HUD with the other key bindings. Right-clicking on a hangar gives the player access to the hangar's commands: attack target, defend target, mine, salvage, and repair. If the hangar is active and the player presses the keyboard key bound to hangar launching - all craft assigned to and currently stored within the hangar will launch.

If the hangar is empty and active, pressing the key bound to hangar launching will recall all bound craft to that hangar.

Craft that are in a ship's hangar are displayed on a tab in the ship's menu where the fighter tab was previously located. The new hangar tab displays all the ships in the carrier's hangar similar to how ships are presented in the fleet tab of the player menu. The hangar tab also displays the carrier's maximum hangar capacity and its current utilization. Ships on the fleet tab that are bound to a carrier have an icon indicating that they are currently on the carrier, and display the bound carrier's name, a small thumbnail, and the carrier's current sector.

Each ship on the hangar tab is assigned to an exposed hangar from a drop down menu below the thumbnail of the ship. Adjacent to the drop down is a button to initiate the transfer of crew and cargo between the carrier and the ship.

To the right where you'd normally find the "delete ship" option for a destroyed ship, the player has the option to dismiss the ship from the hangar altogether. Doing this immediately "launches" the ship from the hangar and unbinds it from the carrier.

As pilots are no longer necessary, pilot personnel are replaced with "deck crews" that service ships in the hangar. The number of deck crews required on a ship is proportional to its hangar capacity. A ship in a hangar repairs its hull and shields 15% faster thanks to the work from the deck crews. Overstaffing the deck crews can enhance that repair bonus to 20%. That means that a ship in a hangar with its maximum mechanic bonus will repair its hull 150% faster than normal.

New upgrades can increase hangar capacity (same amount per rarity as a percentage based cargo upgrade) and the deck crew repair rate (same bonus per rarity as a regen boost shield booster). New transporter software can be installed that removes the height and width requirements from landing a ship on the carrier.

If a ship bound to a hangar is destroyed, it is treated as a regular destroyed ship. It is immediately dismissed from the carrier's binding and can be restored at a repair dock using a reconstruction token.

If the carrier is destroyed, all craft in its hangar are immediately dismissed at 50% HP and at the start of their shield regeneration cycle. These ships spawn in whatever space is available around the destroyed ship. At this point, it's probably a good idea for the player to enter the strategy menu, select all the ships that just spawned/escaped the destruction of the carrier, and order them away from the conflict.

Edited May 1, 2021 by eduty

[Ninut]

rather than material giving more volume, I feel that it should be the highest quality material it can hold, like an iron hanger cannot hold a craft with titanium or avorion for example, but a trinium can hold naonite and lower.

[eode]

On 5/1/2021 at 2:53 PM, eduty said:

So as not to be a disincentive to creating multiple small craft - ships no longer require a captain to receive AI commands. Captains need only be assigned for their unique captain bonuses, and are entirely optional. Ships will still require command crew, such as sergeants, lieutenants, etc. based on their crew populations.
 

Maybe, only if they are operating in the same sector as the ship they're bound to?

On 5/1/2021 at 2:53 PM, eduty said:

If the carrier is destroyed, all craft in its hangar are immediately dismissed at 50% HP and at the start of their shield regeneration cycle. These ships spawn in whatever space is available around the destroyed ship. At this point, it's probably a good idea for the player to enter the strategy menu, select all the ships that just spawned/escaped the destruction of the carrier, and order them away from the conflict.

Or, at 2% (default) health of the main ship (or at 2% for the hangar's health), they just abandon ship.  The percent could be configured somewhere.

[eduty]

On 5/13/2021 at 12:19 PM, Ninut said:

rather than material giving more volume, I feel that it should be the highest quality material it can hold, like an iron hanger cannot hold a craft with titanium or avorion for example, but a trinium can hold naonite and lower.

I like this restriction, although the naval warfare aficionado in me wants to keep the volume requirements. In my head, very low tech hangar decks would have ordinance carts, lifts, winches, hoists, and require more people to handle the repair and rearming operations for anything in the bay. This takes up a lot of space. I envision more technologically advanced hangars would have more advanced robotics and conveyor systems that stow into the walls, floor, and ceiling, with the deck crews essentially writing arming and repair protocols for the robotic force as opposed to turning wrenches themselves.

On 5/27/2021 at 3:25 PM, eode said:

Maybe, only if they are operating in the same sector as the ship they're bound to?

Or, at 2% (default) health of the main ship (or at 2% for the hangar's health), they just abandon ship.  The percent could be configured somewhere.

It could just be me, but it has always struck me as odd that you need a full on captain for a ship with a handful of people. Perhaps a better mechanism would be to require the captain after the ship hits a certain crew total.

As for the abandon ship mechanism, I had assumed that a player paying attention to their hull HP would deploy any stored craft before they were destroyed, or start dismissing them and jumping them out of the hostile sector. The damage to the stored ships is probably an unnecessary expectation surrounding how fighters or fast patrol craft are handled in other tabletop naval/space combat games.