item display

[Betelgeuse]

There are several places where items are displayed and there are some issues with the way it is currently done.

On the ship selection screen it shows some devices. For weapons ,shields , and armor it gives the names and some stats. If those devices are in tables they can still be shown on this screen but those chosen might not be the ones you get in game. Items can have non default names and stats and those are not shown.

On the normal flight screen you have your current weapon, launcher, and ammo currently selected on the lower left. In addition enhancement bonus is shown there. It would be nice to be able to change the ammo and enhancement bonus strings. Ammo could be used to show modes and weapon info and enhancement strings could show what non standard bonuses there are.

On the item screen in dockscreens there is also enhancement strings that would be useful to alter. It also has stats that might not reflect the real stats.

Anyone have any thoughts on this on how to improve these issues?

[digdug]

I suppose that the best way to deal with that is to have the rolls for the tables in the ship to be done only 1 time when the ship-selection screen appears, and that roll should be used when launching the game.

mmhh, maybe it's still exploitable if the player returns to main screen and go to selection screen until he sees what he wants.

[Blitz]

On tables should be handled.
The game should pick the devices and items when the game is started. This will prevent ship scumming - or atleast discourage it as the game takes some to start. The ship selection screen, however shouldn't lie.
The other option is to have the game roll and pick the devices after you hit the select ship button. But on the selection screen, you should show the possibilities. (Not the percentages - a new player shouldn't really need to know and experienced players would reroll enough to get what they want anyway.)

On how virtual devices are handled.
You can create a virtual device on the ship as a mod (perhaps as an inherent capability, for eg) These should show up on the ship selection screen as a separate category.

On large numbers of items
When a playership has large number of devices, and/or a tables which include a large number of ships, the player should be able to scroll to see all the posibilities.

On display in game
I agree with taben on this. A key to cycle through the enhancements and damage, and power use of a weapon would help. Also, in the cargo/ship configuration screen, I feel that some more details such as the manufacturer and maybe the status of the weapon as an energy weapon/howitzer should be displayed.

[PKodon]

Okay, I didn't want to repeat what's been said already, but, to summarize my desires:

Cargo bay upgrades: when you buy, when in your cargo hold, and when installed, should tell you how much extra space they give you (you might need the info if you need to remove one, and need to know how much cargo to dump in order to do so).

Weapons: It would be nice to know what the damage per minute, range, and power use are for non-launchers. For launchers, the firing rate. For missiles, MAGs, shells, etc. the damage per minute and range of shot. For mines that have proximity or timers, what the proximity is, or how long the timer before they detonate.

Enhanced items should reflect the changes due to enhancements.

Some indication of the value of items, and perhaps a total value of items in the hold, or installed, should be given somewhere. I don't know if it's possible, but, perhaps an average selling price you might get for the stuff in your hold, to allow you to see if you have a hope of buying that nice shiny new toy you just found at a station, if you sold everything you own to get it.

As for the ship selection screen with ships that have random equipment from tables, I believe that what you see should be what you get. No "bait and switch". Flipping left-right through the ships and having loadout change there might be okay, but once you pick a ship, loadout should not change from that screen to what you find when you get in the game.

And any enhancements that can be made to such equipment due to mods, ought to be made before you pick the ship, and reflected in the ship selection screen.

[Prophet]

Ship selection:
What if we had the up/down arrows re-roll the device load out? So when a ship is selected you could switch between different versions of the same ship but with different/random equipment.

Displaying enhancement tags:
Perhaps if there was more than one tag it they could be set to cycle through, switching every 3 or 5 secs. The other option would be to tile the enhancement tags which may have issues overlapping long item names unless they were given their own display line underneath the item name.

(Pipe dream)
I would really like the ship item browser to be expanded so you could examine details of a selected item. Extra information like a longer description, all of the item's stats, attributes, basically everything in the xml. Perhaps this is something better suited for a mod.

[Corporal Jomn]

PKodon, the type of cargo bay expansion doesn't affect how much extra space is given. On the ship selection screen, under the amount of beginning cargo space, it may say: "Optional expansion upto 100 tons" (that's for the Wolfen) Just subtract the beginning amount from the expanded amount (in this case 60 tons). The only thing that differs is the attributes.

[Blitz]

PKodon, the type of cargo bay expansion doesn't affect how much extra space is given. On the ship selection screen, under the amount of beginning cargo space, it may say: "Optional expansion upto 100 tons" (that's for the Wolfen) Just subtract the beginning amount from the expanded amount (in this case 60 tons). The only thing that differs is the attributes.

Don't think that's true.
Regular Hold

Code: Select all

<!-- Cargo Hold Expansion -->
<ItemType UNID="&itCargoHoldExpansion;"
.		
.
.
		<CargoHoldDevice
				cargoSpace=		"100"

Smugglers hold

Code: Select all

<!-- Smuggler's Cargo Hold -->

	<ItemType UNID="&itSmugglersCargoHold;"
.
.
.
		<CargoHoldDevice
				cargoSpace=		"50"

I believe this is percentage. The sapphire gets 100 extra with the regular hold but only 50 extra on the smugglers hold. Can anyone confirm hoy much you get on the Wolfen?
You won't notice the diff on a e1500 cuz cargospace and maxcargospace are the same...

[PKodon]

PKodon, the type of cargo bay expansion doesn't affect how much extra space is given. On the ship selection screen, under the amount of beginning cargo space, it may say: "Optional expansion upto 100 tons" (that's for the Wolfen) Just subtract the beginning amount from the expanded amount (in this case 60 tons). The only thing that differs is the attributes.

I wasn't talking about the ship selection screen there, I was talking about more info when you press "S" to find out about your ship's configuration and cargo.

[PKodon]

...

I believe this is percentage. The sapphire gets 100 extra with the regular hold but only 50 extra on the smugglers hold. Can anyone confirm hoy much you get on the Wolfen?
You won't notice the diff on a e1500 cuz cargospace and maxcargospace are the same...

No, it's not a percentage, it's actual tonnage. However, it's the max you can get added. If your ship, for example, has the following:

Code: Select all

            cargoSpace=      "100"
            maxCargoSpace=      "125"

Then, no matter which cargo expansion you had installed, the most you could get is 125 tons.

On the other hand, if you have

Code: Select all

            cargoSpace=      "200"
            maxCargoSpace=      "400"

And are using only the cargo hold expansions available in vanilla Transcendence, then the maximum cargo space you can actually have, in practice, is 300 tons, because there are no cargo hold expansions that add more than 100 tons (unless you make one in a mod), and you can't use more than one cargo hold expansion at a time.

I know, I made some cargo hold expansions for the FalconCV.

[Blitz]

ah..thanks, and that breaks the Osaka cuz you can't have more than 170 tons and can never reach the maximum of 175 tons. I'll go post there.

[PKodon]

Addenda:

In the ship's configuration screen, it should also tell you how many device/weapon slots you have, how many are used; and for the device that's selected in the listing, in the data on the right, give how many slots it's taking up.

This would have been a big help in deciphering a possible bug that someone pointed out to me regarding a ship's weapon slots disappearing (started with 5, somehow lost 2 by 2/3 into the game).