FutureCraft central content thread

[Prototype]

Ok, you lot know the story, no need to explain why I'm making this

This thread will hold information about what we need to achieve to make FutureCraft, and hopefully in the future can be used as a quick reference for what needs doing and who is doing what, so other debs can work on stuff.

Anyways, the first bit I'm going to try and sort out is ships, and the various aspects that go along with them, if you disagree with something or I have left something out, tell me and I shall adjust it.

SECTION 1: Ships

Threads worth noting: http://www.fc-mod.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=298

Part 1: Ships
Subsection 1: flying, and ship controls

Spoiler:

Threads discussing this: http://fc-mod.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=451 (ship controls)
Devs working on this: fr0st, I think

Core ideas:
Ships are crafted out of block are able to move freely in space, with minimal lag. Ships have their own gravity fields, so that any entities will stay oriented relative to the rest of the ship, and will be able to move around inside.
Ships sizes affect the performance of the ship, but this is more relevant to subsection 5

How the flight of ships can be accomplished:
[fr0st, care to explain this one?]

Subsection 2: armour and shielding

Spoiler:

Threads discussing this: http://www.fc-mod.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=665

Devi working on this: none ATM

Core ideas:
Since there hasn't been much discussion, or at least any I can find, I'll present a simple idea, which is open to debate, but I shall create a proper thread and link it to this one.

My current ideas (likely to change): there are two types of damage, normal and special, anybody who has ever played Pokemon should understand what I am getting at here, but I'll explain anyway:

Normal: kinetics, bullets, ship impacts, and such

Special: energy weapons, lasers, plasma cannons and the likes

Each block has a damage resistance and a special damage resistance, which determine what percentage of the damage dealt by the damage inflictor is actually inflicted on a block.

For example, block X has a damage resistance of 60%, but a special resistance of only 20%, so a kinetic impact dealing 100 points of damage will be reduced to 40, but a special impact will deal 80 points. This system can be balanced so that the total resistance is equals a maximum or 100%, but doesn't necessarily have to for lower grade materials.


Shields will follow the same principle, but will cut out after absorbing so much damage, meaning people can choose from a more normal resistant, or a more special resistant shield, which means if you want to build a ship with high normal resistance, that leaves it very weak to special attacks, you can use a shield to cover for this, that it until the shield breaks. Shields can either be cast as a box (or any other shape for that matter) around the ship, or just be invisible and absorb damage that would normally be taken by the ship



Now for ships, there are two systems immediately obvious to me:
1: each block on the ship has its own HP, and they break individually

Pros: more realistic, as it means you have to be a little more tactical during ship to ship combat
Cons: might be harder to do, might make fights a bit too complicated

2: the ship has a total health determined but the number of blocks, but its resistance to the two types of damage is an average of the total resistances of each type, for every block in the ship

Pros: in ship combat, you just shoot wherever you want, might be easier to implement
Cons: would create scenarios equivalent to the classic FPS game feature of knifing someone on the little toe, and them dying, just as they would if you knifed them in the face


How this can be accomplished:
Decisions need to be made before I can say anything about this

Subsection 3: engines and propulsion

Spoiler:

Threads that have discussed this: http://www.fc-mod.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=415 [note: locked]

Devs working on this: none ATM

Core ideas:
Different tier engines, producing different amounts of power, affecting the top speeds of each ship whilst in normal flight.
So, the maximum speed of a ship would be determined by its mass, and the force applied to it by the engines, of course we can't really have them accelerating forever like they would do, because then it becomes a little more difficult, and you can end up with dreadnoughts manoeuvring the same a fighters, which is pretty unbalanced. So how about, each engine produces so much power, and the maximum speed of a ship can be determine by Vmax= Power/Mass + C, C being the minimum speed, acceleration of each ship can be done with F=MA, but as V increases, the acceleration decreases, according to the maximum speed of each ship.

Fuels:
Engines require fuel, the fuel can be stored, different engines may be able to hold different amounts of fuel, but of course you could just hook it up to an auxiliary tank, and perhaps have the feature of a reserve tank, just in case you run out of gas in outer space. Not every engine has the same fuel, but they will require power in the form of electricity to run, however you can use the engines to run turbines to generate more energy, which brings me onto my next part.

Efficiency:
Engines require power, but how much each energy each engine requires is not necessarily the same, also, it could be possible to attach a generator to your engine, in order to recycle power put into it, improving the efficiency.

Engine tiers:
Each engine will be tied to a type of ship core, meaning it will only work with a ship of that type, otherwise you'd have people trying to stick dreadnought engines on a frigate, which will likely be smaller than the engine, so all engines must be linked to the core.

Now in the propulsion systems, there are two parts, the engine itself, and the thrusters, the thrusters are what transfer the power of the engine into movement, but each engine does not necessarily have to have one thruster, you could position the thrusters differently, and likewise, not all thrusters have to be linked to one engine, so you can have something like this, ship K has two engines, X and Y, both linked to thruster Z, the pilot only needs on engine, but can turn the other on for greater speed at the cost of burning more fuel.

How this can be achieved:
Will expand later

Subsection 4: construction of ships

Spoiler:

Topics discussing this: http://www.fc-mod.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=531

Devs working on this: none ATM

Core ideas:
See topic

How this can be achieved:
Will expand later

Subsection 5: physics of ships

Spoiler:

Topic discussing this: http://www.fc-mod.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=582 (to an extent)
http://www.fc-mod.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=541 (to an extent)

Devs working on this: none ATM

Core ideas:
Ships can hit each other, the amount of damage done will be related to the velocity of the ship, and will be normal type damage

Docking should be possible between ships, but will require special docking pads, which negate the damage caused by the impacting ship provided it is travelling at below a certain velocity towards the docking pad

Another way of docking could involve tractor beams, when a ship is held by a tractor beam, it's velocity can be changed by the beam, so a special "docking beam" could be used, which forms between two craft, and allows the two to come together without anything exploding in an annoying manner

And idea is that when a ship is exploded and broken, it's parts can remain in space, this can be permanent or temporary, meaning you can collide with it, but also, it could be salvaged using tractor beams ect.

How this can be done:
With physics

Ok, that's all I have at the moment, but I will be adding

SECTION 2: Space (the final frontier) (including inter server stuff)

SECTION 3: Infrastructure

SECTION 4: smaller vehicles (fighters and stuff)

SECTION 5: infantry and weapons


Again, if I have missed anything, please tell me, if you think something is wrong, either tell me here, or post in its respective thread, you won't get done for necroposting

Also any mods/devs, if you have something to add to this, don't ask, just add it, just leave a note saying that you added it.

[Chairman_Tiel]

Engines should be dependent on the type of ship core they're attached to. Regardless of whether they're both a power core and a central computer or just the block that gets the ship off the ground, it seems like a much more efficient way to go about calculating the speed of a ship than taking into account mass, etcetera.

[Prototype]

I guess each engine could be tied to a core type, so you can have core 1 engines, core 2 engines, some engines will be relatively more powerful than others.

I probably should have added that, adding now.

[Iv121]

There is no problem calculating that mass and stuff. See it is a very efficient calculation as it only required to be preformed once when the specific ship is created and is maintain through the ship's lifespan so it is not a problem. Why I favor mass is because it balances out building loads and loads of armor on the ship. If you build too much armor your speed suffers. OFC the engine is tied to the core as power consumption of bigger engines is also bigger .

[Prototype]

Think we should make a separate thread for the engine discussion

[Chairman_Tiel]

There is no problem calculating that mass and stuff. See it is a very efficient calculation as it only required to be preformed once when the specific ship is created and is maintain through the ship's lifespan so it is not a problem. Why I favor mass is because it balances out building loads and loads of armor on the ship. If you build too much armor your speed suffers. OFC the engine is tied to the core as power consumption of bigger engines is also bigger .

You're in space. Technically how much gear you have onboard doesn't really affect your speed; you're only limited by cost and surface area, perhaps power too depending on the modules.

[Prototype]

also can someone sticky this, because IDK how to

[҉]

There is no problem calculating that mass and stuff. See it is a very efficient calculation as it only required to be preformed once when the specific ship is created and is maintain through the ship's lifespan so it is not a problem. Why I favor mass is because it balances out building loads and loads of armor on the ship. If you build too much armor your speed suffers. OFC the engine is tied to the core as power consumption of bigger engines is also bigger .

You're in space. Technically how much gear you have onboard doesn't really affect your speed; you're only limited by cost and surface area, perhaps power too depending on the modules.

Err, yes it does. It affects acceleration, anyway, which is the only measure that matters in space. Your engines can exert a specific amount of force, and the mass of your ship determines how many meters per second your ship gains per second, using F=MA. Any ship can go as fast as it wants to, so what matters is how long it takes them to get up to that speed. I don't know if we're actually going to do that in FC, but if we're going with full Newtonian physics that's how it should work.

[Prototype]

I'm not keen on infinite acceleration, I don't think its a good idea, a resistance force might be a good idea here

[Chairman_Tiel]

There is no problem calculating that mass and stuff. See it is a very efficient calculation as it only required to be preformed once when the specific ship is created and is maintain through the ship's lifespan so it is not a problem. Why I favor mass is because it balances out building loads and loads of armor on the ship. If you build too much armor your speed suffers. OFC the engine is tied to the core as power consumption of bigger engines is also bigger .

You're in space. Technically how much gear you have onboard doesn't really affect your speed; you're only limited by cost and surface area, perhaps power too depending on the modules.

Err, yes it does. It affects acceleration, anyway, which is the only measure that matters in space. Your engines can exert a specific amount of force, and the mass of your ship determines how many meters per second your ship gains per second, using F=MA. Any ship can go as fast as it wants to, so what matters is how long it takes them to get up to that speed. I don't know if we're actually going to do that in FC, but if we're going with full Newtonian physics that's how it should work.

I'm pretty sure fr0st confirmed no full newtonian physics. I could be wrong, though.

TBH all this acceleration stuff seems a bit too much. Just a simple top speed based on engine type would suffice and no one would be the wiser. Coders do less coding, players get the mod sooner, everyone wins.

[joykler]

well this is going the wrong way
we are again
reinventing the wheel
instead of restarting this engine dillema
look in the dev section

in the new and the old and gather as much topics about it as possible
than go look for the best idea within those things
if someone has a addition to that he is free to do so

but no restarting in name of god

[Prototype]

It's isn't a restart, this is what it's been the whole time.

[Prototype]

Also can a mod that knows what they're doing split off this engines part, I think it needs to be in a separate thread

[Chairman_Tiel]

No, we're getting somewhere here. Splitting it off into a different thread will only stagnate discussion on the subject.

[Prototype]

No, we're getting somewhere here. Splitting it off into a different thread will only stagnate discussion on the subject.

No, just moves it to a place where this particular discussion is isolated, I'll link that from the top, we simply continue the discussion there.