SE5 Poll on Slot Layout, take 2

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I'd have to test-drive it. Sounds neat so far.

[Atrocities]

We are limited to what we can say for or against SLOTs.

[TurinTurambar]

I did not request it and I am not opposed to it.

Fyron: Your bias is implied in many ways. My first thought while reading the poll description was, "Fyron found out there might be slotted components in SEV and thought 'Who the hell ever asked for that? I sure didn't and I don't want it.'"

[Kamog]

The real problem is the difference between ship sets. In the 'form fitting' slot scheme, races that have been given 'slender' ship artwork will have far fewer actual slots to work with in designing their ships.

That's a good point, I'm concerned about that too.

OK, for SEV I'm only going to play races with square blocky ships like the Borg! Yup, the Borg are my favorite race now. Hopefully the Borg dreadnought will be just a huge cube full of slots that takes up the entire ship design window. With the maximized number of components, it will easily beat other races with thin spindly-shaped ships.

[Captain Kwok]

Ships still have a tonnage as dictated by the game and not by the number of slots they have... what BM was saying below was that if slots were based on each ship so some might have an advantage in how you could arrange components...

[narf poit chez BOOM]

The number of slots will most likely be standardized.

[Fyron]

Naturally there is always a reason for making a poll... But I did try to keep the options covering everything. I originally had it say yes, no and don't care, but it was pointed out to me that it would be a more useful poll to have the broader options currently in place.

[henk brouwer]

Baron Munchausen said:
The real problem is the difference between ship sets. In the 'form fitting' slot scheme, races that have been given 'slender' ship artwork will have far fewer actual slots to work with in designing their ships. With Starfury you can go buy another ship if you want something different. With SE V you will be stuck with the racial set you have chosen, and screwed if that set has 1/2 the slots of some other player's shipset. Ships needing many small components, like transports, could be impossible to finish properly in some shipsets.

That sounds really bad. IMHO the number and placement of slots should be independent from a ship's artwork. It seems very silly that you could get a huge bonus or handicap just because you prefered certain artwork when designing your race. (It would also confuse newbies in terrible ways, and pbw players would be forced to all take the same shipset for a fair game)

That said I really do like the idea of firing arcs and directed damage, but like Munchausen said there should be a standard grid for ships, I know that would probably mess up the current ship design window, since the grid would not fit on the artwork, but the ships for SEV are quite low on polygons and have low res textures anyhow, and these flaws are clearly visible in the shipdesign window. The shipset artwork (though very nicely done) is not designed for showing the ships zoomed in that far.

So my advice would be to change the shipdesign window so it gives a standard grid for each shipsize without the top-down view of the ship. You could replace it with a nice looking texture or some fancy artwork. The ship's artwork could still be displayed somewhere in a corner of the screen at a more apropriate zoom-level, maybe with some nice rotating animation.

(Anyhow thats just my opinion, based on incomplete knowledge and vague assumptions on how the current seV system works, I have not yet voted for this reason)

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

In the Starfury demo, I found the amount of slots on the mere Destroyer to be immense; if the screenshots are any indication (Jraenar Frigate) the same thing is true with SEV. So unless either A.) you've got ships with immense tonnage ratings or B.) you're placing lots of low-tonnage comps (or C.) both) you won't run out of slots, and their main function is to determine component placement i.e. what Slick said about wet navy ship designs.

About the poll; I didn't vote, as I never actually requested slots, but I do think they're a good idea. In my case "no I didn't request it" means "I never really thought about it".

[Baron Munchausen]

Captain Kwok said:
Ships still have a tonnage as dictated by the game and not by the number of slots they have... what BM was saying below was that if slots were based on each ship so some might have an advantage in how you could arrange components...

Actually, I was saying that you might not be able to use the full tonnage allowed because of not enough slots. It won't happen early, of course, but ships that use many small components, like transports, could in fact run out of slots.

There are also very real differences between the shipsets in the proportions of armor, outer hull, and inner hull slots. This also will make for arbitrary and unfair ship design restrictions.