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just because it's a complete vacuum...
...doesn't mean your ship's paint won't lose color over time! What with spaceships being directly exposed to the entire electromagnetic spectrum at all times from all directions, I think hull-painting companies would have lots of business.
So, what I suggest is sort of an updated Paintstation plugin. Make the paint outfits decay after a time, much as cheap reactors do, but instead of exploding they simply become replaced by duller-colored versions of themselves. The dull versions eventually wear off as well, leaving the ship its base color.
At any time, if the player buys a new paint job, the old one is removed (that is, its wearing-out timer is eliminated), so that a freshly-painted bright red ship won't suddenly turn faded green.
What do you think?
And would it take too many outfits and cröns per color to be easily put into action?
Also, if you put a paint job outfit as standard on a given type of ship (say, if you make all stock shuttles blue, with used shuttles faded blue) would AI ships show up colored, and, as a corollary, would the player's ship, if he or she bought or captured a ship of that type (and what about captured and hired escorts)?
I think it's possible Qaanol, but it would include a series of crons and silent missions to get the desired effect. The job of doing that would be rather arduous and I doubt there will be a willing effort to set this up. Not to say that no one can't do it... would be an interesting effect to add to the game I will say at least.
Bottom line:
A for the idea, F for achievement so far...
Prof ADN.
Used Carbon Fiber, if you read the desc, fades over time. Pretty much the same principle.
I think that a wide variety of things should be decayable, if this was a more realistic 'spcae simulation', which it isn't...
Qaanol, on May 2 2005, 12:37 PM, said:
At any time, if the player buys a new paint job, the old one is removed (that is, its wearing-out timer is eliminated), so that a freshly-painted bright red ship won't suddenly turn faded green.View Post
It would be quite possible. The only real annoyance I can see would be that paint outfits vanish after purchase, so you can't use them directly to power your cröns. I think that I would have it set up so that, when you purchase a coat of green paint, it sets Bqqq, which stands for "Green Paint". Now, have a crön start some percent* of the time once the player has Bqqq set. After a duration of however many days, it will grant a more faded color of paint, and set Bxxx. Have another crön do the same thing, except that it requires "Bqqq & Bxxx", and it has "Bxxy !Bxxx" in its OnEnd field. Repeat until you reach the "Null Paint" stage**, which will unset Bqqq.
Note that because this is based on two sets of bits, it comes out as a nice matrix of paint colors, each defined by two NCBs (hue and fade), giving you maximum control for minimum bit usage (this does count).
When you purchase a paint outfit, it not only sets the bit that stands for its color, it also unsets every other "color" bit, as well as all of the "fade level" bits. Assuming that the maximum length of a set string is 256 characters, you can have far too many types of paint, something like 600+ (50 bit sets per string makes a 25 by 25 matrix, 25 squared= 625, and don't forget that an extra 25 for the first level paint, which is defined by a lack of a fade bit). Fortunately, you aren't required to use all of them, because there are only 175 or so outfit slots left in the default scenario. In fact, you run into the crön limit far before reaching that number...
Also, if you put a paint job outfit as standard on a given type of ship (say, if you make all stock shuttles blue, with used shuttles faded blue) would AI ships show up colored, and, as a corollary, would the player's ship, if he or she bought or captured a ship of that type (and what about captured and hired escorts)? View Post
I am almost certain that AI ships ignore the paint outfit. I am not certain about what happens when you capture one, though.
Edwards
*The "some percent of the time" for the crön is to give the time periods an element of randomness. No point in being too predictable, right? **"Null Paint could be triggered merely by the most faded "fade level" bit being set, and it would unset every "color" bit, as well as that last "fade level" bit.
This post has been edited by Edwards : 03 May 2005 - 11:13 AM
Don't get me wrong, realism in computer games is great. But why on earth would any player buy a superficial outfit, which offers no actual game-play advantage, in the full knowledge that it will fade away in a relatively short period of time?
Can it be achieved? Sure. But why the hell would you want to waist good credits on it?
Hudson, on May 3 2005, 07:04 AM, said:
Can it be achieved? Sure. But why the hell would you want to waist good credits on it? View Post
Eh, same reason you want to pimp your ride IRL.
As for the disappearing outfit thing, make it the secondary effect of a 0 mass cargo pod or something.
-reg
Regulus, on May 3 2005, 11:48 AM, said:
As for the disappearing outfit thing, make it the secondary effect of a 0 mass cargo pod or something. View Post
Doesn't work. I ran into that with a cloaking device+black paint outfit. If an outfit contains paint in any ModType field, the outfit will vanish after purchase (maps probably do this as well). It's probably to remove any possibility of problems due to someone buying two different colors of paint.
Anyway, it isn't an actual problem at all, as you can see from my far-too-effecient method of doing this.
Thanks muchly to everyone, especially to Edwards for his implacable drive to succeed, his superb understanding of the Nova engine's capabilities, and his rigorous clarity of thought and expression.
Hudson, on May 3 2005, 04:04 AM, said:
Honestly, if more or most items decayed, and especially if ships came stock with invisible, unremovable outfits that decayed over time to make the vessel slower and less able (like having one of your turret slots break off), I think the game would be much more fun, as you'd have to pay attention to your ship and perform both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance.
As far as superficiality goes, when I see eight Kestrels onscreen at once in the stock Nova scenario, I want the one I'm piloting to be visually distinct.
Moreover, superficiality is only skin-deep. <_<
Quote
No it wouldn't. I did feasibility studies at the beginning of Retribution to see if implementing that was a good idea, and the results were overwhelmingly negative. It's frustrating if you forget and something breaks down while you're in the middle of an important mission, and it forces you to take time off to make sure you have enough money to make those repairs.
Realism for realism's sake is pointless. If it doesn't enhance the immersive value of the gameplay, graphics, or plot, it's probably not necessary. If you really want to worry about paying bills, there's always 'real life'.