I have being playing around with ways to improve the player ship outside of adding uber weapons and armor.
One thing I found right away was that the cargo hold expansion device needs not be the max- i.e. you can add smaller increments of cargo capability.
Another little discovery was that the virtual devices can be used to reverse upgrade some device slots (fill them up in the beginning) and then I believe that the virtual device can be removed at a later time to 'upgrade' your device slot availability.
I also believe it is possible to create a device that switches the weapon you are using from a hot key- something along the lines of a multi-purpose weapon system which could be switched from a long range to a short range weapon configuration. (For the freighter this could effectively add a weapon slot by making it possible to use 1 device slot for 2 weapon types)
What do you feel the value of adding one or two extra device slots later in the game would be? It could even be reserved to a mission, rather than available as a Ringer or Teraton service.
I am looking for more ways to improve the playership later in the game, and am wondering if you feel that this would be a benefit to play. If upgrading certain aspects is possible, would it then be more interesting to decrease the starting allotments as well?
Ship Upgrade Paths
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Salvagebot 1.0
- Commonwealth Pilot
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 6:43 am
- Location: Tinker Sanford
Can you make a mod that will give a weapon an "autofire" toggle? Weapons can currently be "enabled" and "disabled" from the device menu. "Autofire" could be a third mode switch on that control.
"Autofire on" would make the weapon fire when you hold down the fire button, regardless of whether it is the selected weapon or not. "Autofire off" would make the weapon fire only when it is selected -- as is the case with the unmodified game.
It would save me a lot of tapping of the "W" key as well as allow me to do neat stuff like fire all turreted weapons but not forward-firing weapons.
(Switching to forward fire would mean fiddling with all the turreted weapons' controls, but I could live with that.)
It would also mean you could carry weapons above your power setting but keep your autofire pattern below your reactor's rating, then switch to some other firing pattern as you ran out of ammo for your main pattern.
Can this be done easily?
"Autofire on" would make the weapon fire when you hold down the fire button, regardless of whether it is the selected weapon or not. "Autofire off" would make the weapon fire only when it is selected -- as is the case with the unmodified game.
It would save me a lot of tapping of the "W" key as well as allow me to do neat stuff like fire all turreted weapons but not forward-firing weapons.
(Switching to forward fire would mean fiddling with all the turreted weapons' controls, but I could live with that.)
It would also mean you could carry weapons above your power setting but keep your autofire pattern below your reactor's rating, then switch to some other firing pattern as you ran out of ammo for your main pattern.
Can this be done easily?
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Periculi
- Fleet Officer
- Posts: 1282
- Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:48 pm
- Location: Necroposting in a forum near you
I think that this mod on UTF may be close to what you are looking for. However, it just cycles through the weapons for you. As for an auto fire option, I have tried to get weapons to fire like the ai does- using the secondaryWeapon="true", but the game ignores that for player ships. I think that functionality like that would need to be added into the game engine rather than a mod to really have it work as you describe.
Some things which could be upgradeable:
Turn Speed
Brake Speed (could be combined with turn speed)
Armor Capacity
Cyber defense (there are numerous threads around about making cyberweapons and such a bigger part of the game)
Fuel capacity
LRS view distance
etc
I think a lot more paths would be avaiable if some upgrades weren't in the form of add-on devices (which take a slot) but REPLACEMENT devices, which odn't take slots because you replace the drive or reactor or other system with the new device. You can still have choices because you can only have one of any given device at a time.
So instead of getting an "LRS view enhancer" which I probably wouldn't waste a slot on, I could decide to update the standard scanner with one which is long ranged OR I could choose one which gives more information. (This also allows for the item-based upgrade system that transcendence uses). THe downside is that without limited slots you aren't as limited in choices - you can ALWAYS get some kind of drive upgrade, for example.
Another, more complicated way to accomplish a similar thing but fix the above issue is to have different types of slots, but more of them -
Weapon slots - (duh)
Shield slot, drive slot, reactor slot -
Hull slots (AKA External device slots) - patcher arms, ICX, extra sensors, solar panels, extra armor, extra maneuvering/retro thrusters,
Useable device slots (AKA Internal device slots) - jumpdrive, CPU, afterburner,
Underbelly device slots (for lack of a better name) - fuel capacity expansion, cargo expansion, smuggler's hold, weapons bay (extra weapon slot), auton related devices, grappling hooks, mining related devices, etc
You could keep track of all these slots with a picture of the ship like the f1 screen with spaces for the items displaying at a glance what's in each slot and how many slots are free.
Turn Speed
Brake Speed (could be combined with turn speed)
Armor Capacity
Cyber defense (there are numerous threads around about making cyberweapons and such a bigger part of the game)
Fuel capacity
LRS view distance
etc
I think a lot more paths would be avaiable if some upgrades weren't in the form of add-on devices (which take a slot) but REPLACEMENT devices, which odn't take slots because you replace the drive or reactor or other system with the new device. You can still have choices because you can only have one of any given device at a time.
So instead of getting an "LRS view enhancer" which I probably wouldn't waste a slot on, I could decide to update the standard scanner with one which is long ranged OR I could choose one which gives more information. (This also allows for the item-based upgrade system that transcendence uses). THe downside is that without limited slots you aren't as limited in choices - you can ALWAYS get some kind of drive upgrade, for example.
Another, more complicated way to accomplish a similar thing but fix the above issue is to have different types of slots, but more of them -
Weapon slots - (duh)
Shield slot, drive slot, reactor slot -
Hull slots (AKA External device slots) - patcher arms, ICX, extra sensors, solar panels, extra armor, extra maneuvering/retro thrusters,
Useable device slots (AKA Internal device slots) - jumpdrive, CPU, afterburner,
Underbelly device slots (for lack of a better name) - fuel capacity expansion, cargo expansion, smuggler's hold, weapons bay (extra weapon slot), auton related devices, grappling hooks, mining related devices, etc
You could keep track of all these slots with a picture of the ship like the f1 screen with spaces for the items displaying at a glance what's in each slot and how many slots are free.
I like oddbob's slot definition. I would also split weapon slots into omni, launcher, and regular slots.
I would like this mod to make the wolfen have one less weapon device to start, and be able to get more weapon devices as the game goes on (up to two past the regular amount now). The frieghter would be the same thing except with non-weapon slots.
Would it be hard to mod something that allows you to install only FOO omni weapons where FOO is the number of slotless(like patch spider) virtual omni-slot devices? Would make an interesting thing to add to the mod.
I would like this mod to make the wolfen have one less weapon device to start, and be able to get more weapon devices as the game goes on (up to two past the regular amount now). The frieghter would be the same thing except with non-weapon slots.
Would it be hard to mod something that allows you to install only FOO omni weapons where FOO is the number of slotless(like patch spider) virtual omni-slot devices? Would make an interesting thing to add to the mod.
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Periculi
- Fleet Officer
- Posts: 1282
- Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:48 pm
- Location: Necroposting in a forum near you
I experimented with a few versions of external weapon mounts- using no device slots and it worked great. I can also see ways to implement ship class specific weapons. Weapons that use more than 1 slot are possible as well, very easily. On the freighter I tested for 0 slot weapons, the weapon max was ignored for these types- so I had 3 0 slot weapons and 2 single slot weapons.
I have a few strategies on upgrading weapon slots, which will create further variations on ship classes- military hardware could require more slots for instance.
Maneuvering can be adjusted with a propulsion upgrade; and also I found that 0 mass, 0 slot virtual devices can simulate replacement of existing systems in a limited fashion.
I have no idea how modding could implement the majority of OddBob's suggestions, I can't even find the graphic to change the F1 screen. Autofire would need some fancy coding, I think it's beyond me.
To reiterate my idea, initially the concept was involving smaller scale improvment paths- so a level 1 cargo hold gains you 10 tons, a level 2 gains you 25 tons, a level 3 gains you 40 tons- as an upgrade path. I have been experimenting with adding quality variations to weapons- like a low quality laser cannon (over heats, inefficient power usage, lower damage) versus an elite laser cannon (excellent heat sinks, low power consumption, higher damage base) as a way to create more ship build options. This is one of the ways that I can see to increase the playability of levels- which would make using larger networks of systems more fulfilling.
I have a few strategies on upgrading weapon slots, which will create further variations on ship classes- military hardware could require more slots for instance.
Maneuvering can be adjusted with a propulsion upgrade; and also I found that 0 mass, 0 slot virtual devices can simulate replacement of existing systems in a limited fashion.
I have no idea how modding could implement the majority of OddBob's suggestions, I can't even find the graphic to change the F1 screen. Autofire would need some fancy coding, I think it's beyond me.
To reiterate my idea, initially the concept was involving smaller scale improvment paths- so a level 1 cargo hold gains you 10 tons, a level 2 gains you 25 tons, a level 3 gains you 40 tons- as an upgrade path. I have been experimenting with adding quality variations to weapons- like a low quality laser cannon (over heats, inefficient power usage, lower damage) versus an elite laser cannon (excellent heat sinks, low power consumption, higher damage base) as a way to create more ship build options. This is one of the ways that I can see to increase the playability of levels- which would make using larger networks of systems more fulfilling.
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Ttech
- Fleet Admiral
- Posts: 2767
- Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2007 12:03 am
- Location: Traveling in the TARDIS
- Contact:
This is a great idea this would be sooo cool. I would love to see this or some of this come into play.OddBob wrote:Some things which could be upgradeable:
Turn Speed
Brake Speed (could be combined with turn speed)
Armor Capacity
Cyber defense (there are numerous threads around about making cyberweapons and such a bigger part of the game)
Fuel capacity
LRS view distance
etc
I think a lot more paths would be avaiable if some upgrades weren't in the form of add-on devices (which take a slot) but REPLACEMENT devices, which odn't take slots because you replace the drive or reactor or other system with the new device. You can still have choices because you can only have one of any given device at a time.
So instead of getting an "LRS view enhancer" which I probably wouldn't waste a slot on, I could decide to update the standard scanner with one which is long ranged OR I could choose one which gives more information. (This also allows for the item-based upgrade system that transcendence uses). THe downside is that without limited slots you aren't as limited in choices - you can ALWAYS get some kind of drive upgrade, for example.
Another, more complicated way to accomplish a similar thing but fix the above issue is to have different types of slots, but more of them -
Weapon slots - (duh)
Shield slot, drive slot, reactor slot -
Hull slots (AKA External device slots) - patcher arms, ICX, extra sensors, solar panels, extra armor, extra maneuvering/retro thrusters,
Useable device slots (AKA Internal device slots) - jumpdrive, CPU, afterburner,
Underbelly device slots (for lack of a better name) - fuel capacity expansion, cargo expansion, smuggler's hold, weapons bay (extra weapon slot), auton related devices, grappling hooks, mining related devices, etc
You could keep track of all these slots with a picture of the ship like the f1 screen with spaces for the items displaying at a glance what's in each slot and how many slots are free.
How did you do that? Do you have a mod? I'd love to try that.Periculi wrote:I experimented with a few versions of external weapon mounts- using no device slots and it worked great. I can also see ways to implement ship class specific weapons. Weapons that use more than 1 slot are possible as well, very easily. On the freighter I tested for 0 slot weapons, the weapon max was ignored for these types- so I had 3 0 slot weapons and 2 single slot weapons.
I have a few strategies on upgrading weapon slots, which will create further variations on ship classes- military hardware could require more slots for instance.
Maneuvering can be adjusted with a propulsion upgrade; and also I found that 0 mass, 0 slot virtual devices can simulate replacement of existing systems in a limited fashion.
I have no idea how modding could implement the majority of OddBob's suggestions, I can't even find the graphic to change the F1 screen. Autofire would need some fancy coding, I think it's beyond me.
To reiterate my idea, initially the concept was involving smaller scale improvment paths- so a level 1 cargo hold gains you 10 tons, a level 2 gains you 25 tons, a level 3 gains you 40 tons- as an upgrade path. I have been experimenting with adding quality variations to weapons- like a low quality laser cannon (over heats, inefficient power usage, lower damage) versus an elite laser cannon (excellent heat sinks, low power consumption, higher damage base) as a way to create more ship build options. This is one of the ways that I can see to increase the playability of levels- which would make using larger networks of systems more fulfilling.