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Light ship: Krill

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Richard LeMoon:


Video from before engine texturing. https://youtu.be/cWErSEiHmiM

 copypasta from the email I sent Muse:

So.... just messing around with the ship models and decided to revisit the thought I sent some time ago about a completely new introduction to the game, both mechanically and socially. The result was tearing apart a Squid and a Pyramidian, combining the smaller bits, retexturing, and making a new ship in the ultralight class.

Since it is sorta like a smaller Squid, I named it the 'Krill'.

If anyone recalls the email, it was all about introducing new players to the game through a tiered ship system. Ultralights would be designed for two human crew and one default AI. This allows a group of four friends to crew two ships without having to deal with 'pickups'. It only takes 8 people to form a full lobby (4 if they are against AI). No gunner class (gunner class is unlockable further up). The only repair tool would be the pipe wrench, with far fewer ammo types. No fire tools needed, since either there would be no fire damage guns for tier 1, or the default AI would take care of fire damage. This makes lobby time minimal, with no confusing conversations on why you should bring what.

To emphasize the two-man-crew mindset, only one gun max would face in a direction, with no weird angles or possible crossovers. There would also be no 'bad guns' to take. This leaves one person to pilot, and one person to shoot and repair.
 
A new thought I had to add to this is removing the armor, and leaving only permahull. This means no timed rebuilds for armor (new players miss this all the time anyways). Tier 1 guns would just chip away at the hull until the ship explodes, doing mainly low level shatter and flechette damage. This leaves the balloon, 2 engines (all UL ships would only have 2), and 1 or 2 guns to fix.

Naoura:
I am so very glad that someone else had the same idea.

I had the idea for Scouts or so, where the one four man crew is split down to two men crew on two seperate ships, where the "Captain" chooses the squadron, or basically the two ships that the ship would be divided into.

I figured it would be better for Alliance mode rather than skirmish, as it'd be a little difficult to pull off correctly and that they would be killed almost instantly by competant players.

I had the same thought on removing the armor rebuild, though I did think that the heavier scouts/ultralights could have some minimal plating. Just a small amount above what they generally have, but that's up to opinion.

I had three or four thought up, and I wouldn't mind seeing if you could render these too.

Harpy: two small weapon positioned facing forward on a kind of set of wings, like a smaller version of the Mobula. Balloon would be in two sets underneath these wings, like fuel pods on modern aircraft (http://media.defenceindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_F-18F_Over_Water_Fuel_Tanks_lg.jpg), while the captain would sit at the back. I'd say it'd fly almost like a fighter for the players, answering their prayers for it. Repair point for the balloon would be in between the weapons, making it a little difficult to switch between them.

Widow: Thin and narrow, somewhat similar to your Krill but with one weapon facing forwards, the captain sitting at the back with a weapon facing backwards afterwards. The engines would be up near the front, attached off of either side and angled downwards slightly. Balloon would be underneath the deck that the pilot woud stand on, with the repair point just in front of it, small ramps leading up on the sides for the pilot to walk up.

Barnacle: A heavy weapon platform with two decks. Bottom deck has the pilot's wheel, balloon point, and both engines, while the top deck JUST has a heavy weapon's slot. Balloon sits down below it, again, similar to a mobula, but in a single long spire.

Richard LeMoon:
These ships are designed to be entry level ships for new players in Skirmish. They could eventually have uses outside of that, such as single ship stealth missions in Alliance, but the main goal is to make ships that are super easy to man and learn the game with.

Since they are intended for two people only, there would only be one gun pointed in a direction, and no heavy, or even light guns allowed. Actually, you might have to rename existing 'light' guns 'medium' and 'medium' to heavy, and the new smaller guns to 'light'. Most people call the medium guns heavy anyways. There would have to be a set of guns specifically tailored for Teir 1 Skirmish that could only be used on these ships.

Guns would have more literal names as well. 'Hullcracker' grenade launcher. 'Loonbreaker' mounted blunderbuss. 'Gun Bane' anti-gun missile sling. etc. All guns will do relatively similar damage to the hull, with the exception of the 'Hullcracker' type guns. These would do a bit more. The end goal would be guns that are mostly the same as far as damage, but behave more like their bigger siblings. That is what I meant by You can't take a "bad gun." They are basically training wheels, and you can't gimp your team by taking the wrong one.

This may seem like a lot of hand holding, and it is.

The issue with ships is you can't think of them from the outside. You have to think of them from a level design standpoint. They are literally mini game levels. So, all good level design practices apply. These are 'first room' ships. Everything has to be obvious. You don't put in any easy fail elements (outside of rage games).

Your 'Harpy' thought might be possible as a two gun ship since they are so far apart. Or, if the guns are too far away from the pilot to be useful. Its a tough call from a level design standpoint, though.

I did have a thought for a mini Galleon type ship that would allow one select current light weapon on one side or the other. Great care would be needed in deciding which weapons to allow, though.

An alternative to 'no armor' would  'all armor'. In other words, you have a hull repair point with X armor, but only 1 HP perma hull. As soon as your armor goes, you die. This would allow people to learn good repair practices without the tedious tanking you get in higher level matches.

Naoura:
I rather disagree on having them as "Starter room" ships for lower level players.

I can agree with wanting less people on a ship, but I heavily disagree with having lower level players on them. A ship with 3 mid-level players can carry a low-level player through a match, whether or not they are trolling or simply being incompetent. 3 can carry a ship, but it's damned hard to do and remain combat effective.

Now, let's say you do that to a two-man ship. You are instantly negative combat effective, and are probably going to be shredded before you even know which component needs repairing, especially with low-to-no armor and hull health. Whether or not you could lock these ships to Novice matches or not, they'd still be absolutely destroyed when put up against any other kind of actual ship. Not to mention that, when put on a 4 player ship, they'd be so used to having to suicide into a fight with no armor that none of them would know when was the proper moment to repair armor, and low level pilots wouldn't know when to disengage to save armor and keep alive. They'd be so used to suiciding on the enemy and trying to simply shred the enemy before they themselves get torn apart. They'd likely focus more on keeping weapons active rather than balloon, in order simply to trade kills and try and win.

A two man ship would be high level, extremely high level, in fact. Even if you introduced some really, really simple to understand weapons with easy to understand arcs, firing rates, and arming times, a new player would still be confused about how the weapon is supposed to work at range, how elevation arcs and ship movement can throw off shots from a slow-moving projectile, etc. On top of that, keeping engines repaired, balloon in top condition, and trying to keep weaponry ready and equipped on top of that would be extroardinarily difficult for just two crewmen...

Unless you're a high-level player who knows practically everything about every weapon on every ship. On a solo-engie/gungineer type build for the crewman on the two-man ship, the high level player would be able to manage the ship well enough that the pilot would be able to avoid the guns long enough to be ready for another engagement, and the high-level pilot would have the skill and knowledge of the ships to avoid the most damaging of enemy weaponry and be able to engage on a ships weak-points.

I can agree with the idea of having a ship designed with new players in mind, but if you're going to do that, have more players, not less. A field full of chickens will still manage to peck their way through a fence, albeit slowly and not very effectively. Say you were to have the 8 player ship that I'd floated up a while ago. If you take the multiple hull points, defending much more strongly from incoming damage from a side, you'll end up having more of the engineers manning points that need repairs rather than manning guns. You'll still have the jerks who refuse to repair and go straight to the weaponry, but even then, you'll have enough hands at least trying to rebuild necessary components rather than shooting.

A dozen inexperienced hands can be roughly equivalent to a handful of highly experienced hands. It's like the Battle of Stamford, in effect: One battle hardened, dedicated, well trained and experienced soldier holding back a horde of inexperienced, untrained militia. Yes, eventually, one of them got lucky and killed the Son of Thor, and so the same would be found with matches where you have ships like this.

I agree with the concept, but the overall execution, I think.... rather backwards.

KeijoPertti:


even lighter version

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