Here is my attempt to work with the Shipyard Alpha. Per the strict admonitions that come with the Alpha, I wasn't having fun. Honest. You did ask us to go crazy. Here are two examples. These are not intended as functional ships, although I have done things like this with GC2 and hidden massive weapons inside for surprise attacks. The AI never really expresses surprise, though.
This ship abuses the rotation/oscillation features. There are three nested sets of rotating rods with sensor dishes attached at the ends. One rod attaches to another, which attaches to another, etc. The end point of the outermost rod follows a path of complex 3D cycloids depending on the relationship between the various rotation speeds. By assigning rotation speeds interspersed between 10.1 and 18.7 on a couple dozen different rotation points, the combined rotation effects approach chaotic. There is no visible video loop. It just keeps shuffling itself. The rods have been shrunk in two axes and appear as threads. I visualize this as a tangle of independent sensor devices connected by force lines. I am sure it wouldn't work that way in game mechanics, but shooting at this thing should have most of your ammo go right straight through without harm. There are nine copies of the exact same ship in this picture, each one on its own phase of the shuffle sequence. If you look closely, there is one dish that looks the same on each ship. It is actually bobbing up and down slowly on one of the major axis poles. It is the simplest motion involved and even that motion is not in sync across the different ships.
This ship has only one set of nested rotation rods, but it abuses the symmetry settings to make a much more complex visual effect. The ship constantly unfolds itself through a ~30 second loop. Three phases of the same ship are shown here. There is much of the standard video graphics overlap artifact involved and it looks very funky in the Shipyard view. (Note: at any one moment in the shipyard view, the graphic overlap keeps looking stylistically consistent. This is a big tribute to the artists. It shows just how far you can push things and they will continue to look as good as possible.) When shown in-game on less than closest view, the animation looks like something from Transformers movies. Note that when you put two animated ships into a fleet, the animation syncs up. If you take them out of the fleet, they go independent on cycle again.
Again, no fun was had playing with the Alpha. None whatsoever.
cant see your images
I got the images to link, but my browser isn't showing me thumbnails. If someone has a clue, to give, I would love it. This is my first time posting images on this forum.
Edit: I think I got it working somewhat. I find I'd rather be fighting the Alpha than the forums.
Ha.
Though i cant approve of the title of the post.
I'm dumbfounded by how unfun and what little improvement there is in the shipyard as well! Step it up Stardock, this isn't a charity!
I agree it is not fun and I loved ship design in GC2. Long way to go
Its disorganized...but ambitious! A rough diamond...but still a diamond! Mostly the same...yet creative! Plain...but interesting! The person you married is nothing without makeup...but the beauty is still there.
Really guys. Its not that bad! It has everything fun from gc2 but its bad because its disorganized and missing its makeup metaphorically. The fun is still there.
But a...Paul, rotating is a reeeeal pita. That should have been a priority since its so critical to building.
DARCA.
It sure isn't easy to get parts where you want them, but you can make anything. I have a hard time getting all the parts to show up where their hardpoint says they will be, but if you take time to work with the 'OFFSET' tab, you can get a part to be exactly where you want it to be. I also like all the animation abilities. You can make it rotate around the hardpoint or not! You have symmetry and all kinds of things!
I think the real thing that needs to be fixed is part placement on hardpoints. I have a fairly tough time placing parts where they need to go.
Could you post a gif or small video so we can join in the un-fun?
The only thing i dont like for now is that we cant see the hardpoints. I had to delete many placed parts just because i dont know if i can connect another one to them.
Let´s hope they fix it soon so we can test the shipyard properly.
This bothered me also. I hate the spotlight thing we have going on right now
I hope they make hardpoints visible like in GC2, that was much better
Just to be be clear, I mean total untruth when I call the Shipyard Alpha "not fun". It is all brazen jest and lies. My only excuse is that the Alpha keeps telling me I'm not going to have fun and I can't resist a straight line like that. Truthfully, the game portion is kind of dry for me as a more casual player. I can see where the game is going and I like that. It just isn't there yet. The Shipyard is a refreshing break.
I am repeatedly impressed by the state of the Shipyard Alpha. I like the concept of the hard points and can see where they will improve and be even better. They really help my construction style.
As always, any helpful critique I would have has been stated before. I will mention wanting a floating XYZ axis to show me what is where after I have spun the model more times than I can keep track of. I want a sphere base. Maybe something I can do with regular polyhedrons. I want to paint things in horrid reg/green/purple stripes that are actually camouflage for certain alien eyes. I want people demanding the ship builder as an independent software package because it is so much fun to play with.
I am extremely impressed by the art work. Pieces immediately look like they were built together. That is nice crafting with both art and graphics. It gets really shown off with symmetry settings.
Seriously, if this is first shot at both game and Shipyard, I am stoked.
I will check with my video gamer family to see about posting a video. I don't really know how to take a video. The thirty second cycle would be cool.
In another thread there was something about sharing ships. If someone had an upload point that could be reflected into the founder's vault, I would put up my silliness in exchange for a chance at a Borg cube. I found the config files on my hard drive. They are amazingly small.
Fraps. This screen capture software is easy to use and this version is free, but you can only record 30 seconds of video (edit and splice them together). You could search around for other versions of 'screen capture' software.
CamStudio is another screen capture software that is completely free, but when installing, you have to watch for the bloatware.
Jing also is free and allows you to capture video that I think can be up to several minutes, but I have to admit I've never tried video with it, only screen shots.
I know. Maybe I should have added /s to my comment
If you don't feel like it's complex to install another program to record it (which would be the most ideal), then you can use your smarphone to record it and post it. It won't be the best video ever but at least we'll be able to see it!
This is my first attempt at posting a video. The playback seems to stutter a little now and then. This is an artifiact of my reording clumsiness. It does not do this in game.
That is super cool, well done
Only managed to see this now. That is cool. Can you make one that seems to be like a pump of sorts? Then we can pretend it's pumping the energy rifles towards the enemies
You are encouraged, nay challenged, to try for yourself and find out. Also, to show off your results.
Here is a ship with pumping guns. I call it the Gunboat Diplomat. The pumping action is the turrets from 4 Cannon parts, so this is with functioning weapons, not just moving bling.
There is much use of the offsets here. Yay, offsets!! It involved much trial and error. I had to let my OCD son plink at things for half an hour to get the final alignment exactly right. At one point, he had a calculator out. I have no idea what that was about and didn't dare ask. At another point I was kvetching about hardpoints and how I was hoping they would get better. He turns to me and says in unconscious deep guru tones, "Hardpoints are not as important as you think." I thought I was being admonished against the dark side or something. Obviously, the shipyard is deeply satisfying to his tendencies. He loves it, too.
A lot of what is convincing seems to be based on the visual cliches of movies, etc, which I try to avoid in designs. In this case, it seems to be necessary subliminal triggers to tell us, "Hey, that's a weapon!" I tried the motion being synchronized between guns and it broke the illusion. At certain points, it looks like some sort of oscillating drive mechanism instead of weapons action. See point one below. The best results came from hiding the majority of the cannon inside the hull and just letting the turrets stick out. Giving the turret a visually static base to project from is the primary base of the illusion. There is a whole lot of oversized Cannon inside the hull swinging back and forth. If you remove the four pieces that comprise the hull, it looks rather comical.
The action would be better with possible additional features. Consider these my wish-fulfillment suggestions.
Assymetric oscillation speed control. The motion really needs to be two different speeds, slow in extending, quick in retraction to simulate recoil. Otherwise, it is more obviously just a cycle of movement, possibly a ship mechanism.
Phase control of motion. The best visual is when the two turrets act opposite of each other. Definitely a movie-cliche visual thing. This happens some of the time with the de-sync ocsillation periods I am using. To accomplish this consistently would take both of them being at the same speed setting or period, with their phase being separated by 180 degrees.
Synchronized weapons animation. The ultimate visual illusion would match whatever weapons fire graphics is going to happen with motion. In this case, firing a weapon just before the recoil. This obviously has some complications in getting the two concepts to link. My impression is that weapons fire rate may be somewhat variable according to tech level, etc. Still, coordinating moving parts with laser blasts or guns a'blazin' would be very effective in tactical battle display.
Some criticisms...
The buttons for sliding values in scale, rotation, etc, are too fiddly and tiny. Often, I ended up selecting the little text box next to the slide bar instead of the right end end of the bar. Also, if I miss, I end up deselecting the part completely. That is very annoying.
It is unclear what I can or cannot get away with in the numerical values input. In oscillation mode, it seems you can only use integer values. Any fractions entered get discarded and do not seem to take effect,. My son found that he could put in a offset value of 0.15. It doesn't show in the numerical display, but it seems to put the object exactly where he wanted,
I will echo previous comments about the need for a 3D X/Y/Z coordinated indicator. Please!
I dearly dearly want to pick up and move parts.
Ship designs are only saved within the game they are created in. There is no carryover between one game and another. I expect this is an Alpha phenomenon, but I didn't realize it and unknowingly threw away a lot of work. Now I know.
Still, I got a gunboat out of it. It took stubbornness on the part of two different people, but it worked. That is success.
That actually looks really good. Seems like you spent quite a long time on it. Not sure if I would have the patience, but it#'s clear that if you spend time on the editor you can make really good ships.
Hiding parts inside the hull is a time-tested concept so don't worry about it! Making it look like like an illusion of another part, that's just great!
I may have to take that challenge, but I will probably make a spaceship looking like a bee instead!
Same as Achronous. That things awesome!
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