Just note that in these pictures is just rough visualization from quick image editing. It may not look very neat, but hopefully you get the idea.
Player info in first screen
Since ship info already exist at ship configuration dockscreen, perhaps we can replace them instead with player's basic info. This will contain various player's data such as ranks, installed program, and experience info.
See also: https://ministry.kronosaur.com/record.hexm?id=99567
Ship Configuration
Ship specification info is being first display as usual.
New Tab: Compartment
This a new tab called Compartment. This will be contain hull, weapon, shield, cargo, reactor, and propulsion HP data depend on how the ship designed. Compartment tab by default is only available for capital ship, though small ship can be modded like this. See this picture as an example:
Some points for for this tab:
- WMD weapons are effective on damaging compartment as it should.
- If hull HP reaches 0 HP, it will be immediate death for the ship.
- If compartment HP other than hull reaches 0 HP, it will damage the equipment.
- If a main weapon damaged, it can switch to other main weapon. However, secondary and launcher cannot be switch. See weapon tab section for more information.
- Damaged weapon may be jammed or explode if player still attempt to fire.
- Damaged shield may be malfunctioned and permanently disabled.
- Damaged cargo may cause lost items each time hit by enemy.
- Damaged reactor may cause fuel leak and may cause increased power consumption or reduced max power.
- Damaged propulsion may cause increased power consumption and slowing the ship.
- Any damaged compartment can be repaired by crew mechanic or immediate repair at dock services.
Tab: Armor and Shield
It's same as before, though there may be an idea for two shield slot for capital ship.
Tab: Weapon
There will be a massive change of how weapon slot works. Various slot customization can be done based on ship design. Default ship design is just like commonly used. However, it's may be better to unify weapon slot. So the display tab on a ship without weapon will look like this:
Note: label can be just written as "Weapon Slot", but I will use "Main Weapon" label for better explanation.
Any weapon can be installed on main weapon slot including launcher. But launcher will get their own individual slot as it installed. A launcher also cannot switch to other weapon. However, sometimes there may ship design that have their own special slot reserved for launcher. Launcher usually follows main weapon slot location, except if there is special slot reserved for it.
There also a situation where player install two main weapons. Instead of filling the screen with slot picture, we can create something like a sub-slot of main weapon slot which can support as many weapon as ship slot remains. In this screen, we can also manually switch especially if there are more than two main weapons. We still able do a quick switch with W key.
For an example, EI500 installed a omnidirectional laser, mining laser, dual recoiless, and Nami launcher. It will look as this picture:
Certain ship may need some alteration to suit its need. Let's take Manticore as example. By default it have main weapon in right arm and launcher in left arm. However, it could be done better.
Manticore should have linked-fire two main weapon slot. So each weapon slot can be used with any weapon. If player want to install a launcher, they can choose which main weapon slot will be used. However, since launcher is not switchable so player can not install another weapon on launcher slot.
See how many variation that Manticore can be customized:
See also: https://ministry.kronosaur.com/record.hexm?id=100672
Meanwhile, we also need to talk about a secondary weapon. Secondary weapon is a special weapon slot that always linked-fire with main weapon. It usually used to fire where the target is not within main weapon reach by using min-max fire arc or omnidirectional fire. Secondary weapon also is not switchable and does not have sub-slot. It's basically a weapon slot that is meant to be support weapon.
Let's take a look on ships that uses secondary weapon:
Tab: Miscellaneous device
There is not much change on this tab. Though a capital can have multiple slot for reactor. They usually handled by compartment tab for their customized position on ship.
Additional note: I realized that I should add empty slot image on to indicate some weapon slot still able to install additional weapon in some of picture, but I'm bit lazy to re-edit them all.
