I wonder if there will be any bio-engineered ships.

maceman wrote:
so Maceman Propaganda got no votes!? *sniff*

nope! Life is sometimes cruel



I say Military Power

What I'm curious about is what kind of template choices can we use for ships? Is there a lot of diversity? Is it race specific? Examples I can think of would be: modular (e.g. USS Enterprise), warbird-like (Klingon battle cruisers), asymmetric (Babylon 5 Terran cruiser), robot-like (like those anime mecha cartoons), saucers, wedges (Imperial star destroyers), fish or squid-like, complex curve shapes, cavities within structures, rotating objects, etc...

Stretchycheese wrote:
What I'm curious about is what kind of template choices can we use for ships? Is there a lot of diversity? Is it race specific? Examples I can think of would be: modular (e.g. USS Enterprise), warbird-like (Klingon battle cruisers), asymmetric (Babylon 5 Terran cruiser), robot-like (like those anime mecha cartoons), saucers, wedges (Imperial star destroyers), fish or squid-like, complex curve shapes, cavities within structures, rotating objects, etc...

I too wonder about the themes of the rest of the ship sets, to me the look of things are very important and I am quite "picky" when setting up my custom race not to over think the looks of my ships. IMO so far they have strived to get culturally defined ship hulls, while being mindful of model complexity and texture demands; so I would expect the rest of the ship sets to at least try to resemble the cultural aspect of their owners/creators. Now that you mention B5(my favorite space opera series ever), I would love to have some Narn looking ships in there; just because I like the aestethics really. But B5 is one of the first shows presenting ships that look functional and are in fact simple, at least among the young races.

Stretchycheese wrote:
What I'm curious about is what kind of template choices can we use for ships? Is there a lot of diversity? Is it race specific? Examples I can think of would be: modular (e.g. USS Enterprise), warbird-like (Klingon battle cruisers), asymmetric (Babylon 5 Terran cruiser), robot-like (like those anime mecha cartoons), saucers, wedges (Imperial star destroyers), fish or squid-like, complex curve shapes, cavities within structures, rotating objects, etc...

I'm not sure what you mean by "template choices". Each of the races will have a specific design of its ships. So far we've seen only UE and Cravers ships and they look quite different. There are going to be 8 factions in the game, that means 8 fleets of ships of different size, purpose and design.

Ahh another B5 fan around here!



AFK doing the happy dance!

reynanuy wrote:
I too wonder about the themes of the rest of the ship sets, to me the look of things are very important and I am quite "picky" when setting up my custom race not to over think the looks of my ships. IMO so far they have strived to get culturally defined ship hulls, while being mindful of model complexity and texture demands; so I would expect the rest of the ship sets to at least try to resemble the cultural aspect of their owners/creators. Now that you mention B5(my favorite space opera series ever), I would love to have some Narn looking ships in there; just because I like the aestethics really. But B5 is one of the first shows presenting ships that look functional and are in fact simple, at least among the young races.

Sharidann wrote:
Ahh another B5 fan around here!

And another one, even if a bit rusty, Vorlon and Narn fan

Stretchycheese wrote:
What I'm curious about is what kind of template choices can we use for ships? Is there a lot of diversity? Is it race specific? Examples I can think of would be: modular (e.g. USS Enterprise), warbird-like (Klingon battle cruisers), asymmetric (Babylon 5 Terran cruiser), robot-like (like those anime mecha cartoons), saucers, wedges (Imperial star destroyers), fish or squid-like, complex curve shapes, cavities within structures, rotating objects, etc...

ships are race specifics.



for example UE have a lot of Art Deco inspiration while the Cravers are more seen as scavengers without much interest for aesthetics... every faction will have a strong visual style (on top of their gameplay).

SpaceTroll wrote:
ships are race specifics.



for example UE have a lot of Art Deco inspiration while the Cravers are more seen as scavengers without much interest for aesthetics... every faction will have a strong visual style (on top of their gameplay).

Such posts are so delightful... It's hard to wait for the beta.

I'll use this thread instead of starting a new one, those art concepts of UE and Craver ships in the articles on the main site that some of you might have missed, I found them in twice as big resolution on this site:

http://www.gamersglobal.de/screens/51186



Have to admit the Craver Big Ship concept is my favorite so far! Oh boy I'm going to have fun turning enemy ships to scrap with this baby

Yeah ! I like them both. See in the center up front on the Craver ships they have what looks like a really big gun. Love all the pipes & hoses running about too. The UE ships look distinctly different, which gives a great feel for the uniqueness of the races. I really like them too. The artists have done a fabulous job. Can't wait to see the other races!

The look of them are really distinct. The screenshot of a space battle is really good too. Is it gameplay footage or just a "photoshoped" screenshot ?

so Maceman Propaganda got no votes!? *sniff*

I think there are some races still missing. Therefore maybe. ;-) I think so.

Will arcs of fire be represented?

ObiMark wrote:
Will arcs of fire be represented?

One question: Why "arcs"? It is a space-fight. Unless the projectile is massive and you're fighting very closed to a gravitational well or the projectiles have electrical charge and there's a massive magnetic field nearby, like a neutron star or a sun, everything runs straight?

I'm pretty sure "arcs of fire" doesn't refer to the effect of gravity on a projectile. It's the angle that you can swivel the guns to hit a target, like a battleship can't fire its broadside directly in front of it. This was something that annoyed me about soase to be honest. I'd have a kol fire the main gun which goes halfway along the hull and then the beam fires out at a 90 degree angle.

TOCFFTM wrote:
I'm pretty sure "arcs of fire" doesn't refer to the effect of gravity on a projectile. It's the angle that you can swivel the guns to hit a target, like a battleship can't fire its broadside directly in front of it. This was something that annoyed me about soase to be honest. I'd have a kol fire the main gun which goes halfway along the hull and then the beam fires out at a 90 degree angle.

As far as we know, there is no direct ship control. Cite out of the unoffivial FAQ:

Raptor wrote:
Question: How do space battles work in Endless Space?

Answer: Space battles go through 4 phases: Preparation, Long range, Medium range, Melee. In Preparation you choose your strategy and battle actions for the next 3 cinematic phases. Other factors play a role in determining the outcome of a battle such as Hero abilities, research, ship customization, etc.

I'm not sure were such arcs of fire would actually benefit you, then. During ship construction?

I think he means if in the cinematic phases the ships will be firing through their hulls or firing arcs of different mounted weapons will be modeled correctly. Say you have lasers on both sides of your ship and on the front, when the enemy ship is to your left only the lasers on the left sideboard should be able to fire at it. That's something that would look realistic, not having weapons that miraculously go through your hull like it's not there in order to hit the enemy whatever his position might be.

Yeah it's the small details that help create a real sense of immersion. The SOASE beams, although pretty, were a little distracting when they fired out of the wrong sections.

I didn't mean trajectory of weapons fire, it's space, effects of gravity well shoud be ignored since it would take far too much computing otherwise.



By arcs of fire I mean if I put big weapon on the left side, then I have to turn my ship(s) so that gun, not ship points towards enemy.



Kind of like sailing ships that had strong broadsides, but weak front and back guns.

Gluon disruptors? You mean a weapon that would cancel the strong force temporarily and locally? Interesting idea... You'd get a localized nuclear fission explosion where it hits. I'm not sure if that wouldn't be overpowered. XD

If the gluons are "disrupted", we could imagine it'll disconnect all electrons and protons to make a plasma cloud.

Indeed it could make a hole with a size according to the weapon stength, but we may have visual effect in the form of a coloured cloud around the hole.



When the effect of the weapon is done, the quark could recombinate to protons/neutrons with the renewed gluons. Maybe even to molecules, which may form some kind of dangerous schrapnel

Raptor wrote:
And another one, even if a bit rusty, Vorlon and Narn fan

And another one. Give me some Centauri with mass drivers. If not, a few Minbari would do.

A Minbari cruiser would do nicely, thank you very much.

no_one_you_know wrote:
And another one. Give me some Centauri with mass drivers. If not, a few Minbari would do.

Guys, MP is Military points, the ones you spend to unlock tech in the Military branch (the one with the fist) of the tech tree:

Of course I like it. What's not to like, look how many variables Not sure about those MLRS-like trucks "A-entropic fields", what are those? I'll make a wild guess and assume these are some kind of anti-entropic missile shield but I'm not sure about the icon, something like this would make more sense to me:





I'd love to see a comparable Craver ship next to this one to make a comparison but I'll have to wait for that I guess

clean design look's great!!!. but personally i would like too see this ship longer, to give a certain appearance of a really important vehicle for intergalactic adventure.=)

Gluon disruptors? You mean a weapon that would cancel the strong force temporarily and locally? Interesting idea... You'd get a localized nuclear fission explosion where it hits. I'm not sure if that wouldn't be overpowered. XD



P.S.: Misguided thinking: There would actually be an energy loss by disconnecting the strong force completely, for a while. (Up to iron in the periodic system, you gain energy by fusion, afterwards by fission. Reducing everything to protons and neutrons or even quarks would not free energy, but suck it up...)



The armor would have a hole and there would be a lot of radiation, anyways. But at least it isn't an atomic explosion anytime it hits, as I initially thought.

Are there other ship templates for the "UE large class"? In MoO2 you could chose several templates for a ship class (e.g. Cruiser). I think, it would be a compromise, between fixed ship designs like in SoaSE and the GalCiv2 ShipDesigner where you could create your ship designs without any limitations.

But that is only a detail...

I wonder how big this ship is, and the sizes of the later ones. Still, i love the idea of being able to customize the appearance/performance(?) of you ships.Honestly, I would ALMOST rather not see this stuff as it is making me waaay too excited for this game to come out.

I like what I can see. What are those MP for ? Movement Points ? Magic Points ? Military Points ?

We can see the tonage of each module, but you don't see "effectiveness" or "power" or how much damage you can do with a weapon. I just hope those modules aren't cosmetic but also provides gameplay changes in battles (some weapons disabling shields or things like in Gratuitous space battles).

We can see that modules are in three area : weapon, defense, support. What "support" stands for ? More energy to fuel your weapons ? Cloaking devices ? EMP jammer ?

It is from Japan.

I think that it is very beautiful and good.

I'd just speculate about "Mass Points" for MP, because there was a mass budget mentioned in the interview.

Yes, it seems appropriate if the left value under each icon is module`s cost.



EDITED: Looking more attentively at modules icons i can see a fist being used for MP, so it is probably Military Power or other related thing. And the left value seems to be represented by weighing scales icon of some sort.



EDITED: actually if you look at the tonnage you`l see that weighing scales icon there. So yes, MP is not related to mass.

My first thought was that MP stands for Manpower. But the more i think about it the less i think it is correct. It would, in a way, be reasonable because if you look at the values the active attacking devices need more MP (bring more MP?) than the defensive devices but that could equally be explained by the "Military Power" explanation, because in the end, attack is more valuable than defense etc. ...



But, if MP means Manpower, than what use would this value be if you are not limited by hull-size but gain more Manpower just if you put more guns to your ship? So i think it musst be something else. ...

Munition points?

Check this screen shot out guys!



(Right click -> view image for a bigger image)



What do you guys think of the current system? Personally I'm hyped! \o/

SS: Ship design is one of the 4X gamer’s dearest features. What will ship design be like in ES? I understand that you will offer a modular approach for designing ships. Will it be possible to spot and destroy individual systems in-battle for example. Will there be different hull sizes available? Unlocked by research perhaps?



Romain: Ship design is both simple and powerful. The simple part is that you have a set amount of free weight on your ship hull for modules, and you can install as many modules as will fit within that weight limit.



Where it becomes more complex is in your choice of ship class, with each class having their advantages and disadvantages, unique modules, fleet-wide modules, ship specific modules, weapon types, defense types etc… We prefer that the player focus on what to put in their ships, rather than where to put them.



For most factions, research will be the best way to get new modules to equip your ships.

I like the direction AS is taking with ship design, what are your comments and concerns on the matter? Do you like it/hate it? Discuss here!



Screen shot and info taken from http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2012/03/interview-with-amplitude-studios-on-endless-space/.

Maceman Propaganda!

The large class ship is only 400 tons!!!



Is it a placeholder tonnage?

@ Raptor:



Are you certain? Is there a developer post that confirms this? I did not read anywhere that one can research with anything other than research points. Any form of "Military Points" working like this would remind me of Hearty of Iron 3 practical points, which is not a bad thing. But i would think it strange if you could just get more military technology by just building ever more ships ...



And if your only evidence for your theory is, that the symbol in the tech-tree is the same, than i would seriously doubt that this is sufficient. In this phase of the development it may even be that the symbols are just placeholders at the moment and that this is a coincidence.

No it's just a deduction, no dev post to prove it though. SpaceTroll said in the interview the research tree is divided into 4 branches: Science and Industry, Exploration, Social and Diplomatic, and Military. You can see them up there on the image. I can bet the fist icon is the Military branch. Therefore points with the same icon should be Military points.

Hi all,



I just wanted to step in with a little clarification.

I vote that it gets officially declared to stand for "massacre potential" :P

Slowhands wrote:
Hi all,



I just wanted to step in with a little clarification.

1. Researching and unlocking technologies in the Tech Tree is done only through Science points.

2. The fist icon on the Tech Tree and Ship Design screens indicates that they have something to do with Galactic Warfare (working name of that Tech Tree branch). You do not use a different resource other than "Science" to learn military technologies.

3. So MP is Military Power or Munition Points or Maiming Possibility or Massive Pounding or Mega-Pulverize something like that...

So these are Science points, but you are currently (or when the shot was taken) using the Galactic Warfare icon for them, right? If so why MP instead of SP?

I'm assuming that MP measures how strong the ship is, while in the tech tree uses science points to unlock stuff, i.e things for galactic warfare. Let's say stronger shields. Now with the stronger shields the MP raises because the ship is stronger. MP and SP are not directly related.

Cloud wrote:
I'm assuming that MP measures how strong the ship is, while in the tech tree uses science points to unlock stuff, i.e things for galactic warfare. Let's say stronger shields. Now with the stronger shields the MP raises because the ship is stronger. MP and SP are not directly related.

This makes sense.

MT4K wrote:
I vote that it gets officially declared to stand for "massacre potential" :P

I, too, would vote for such an expressive way of saying "threat level"