New Ship Designer is Way Too Complex

[CaptObvious]

Hey all,

I just got back to Hazeron after years away (last time I played it was old-style cities and ships) and I thought I'd try my hand at designing a ship because none of the few on the exchange fit my needs.  Jesus.  You basically need to be a professional CAD modeller to use that thing.  Even when I'd managed to build what is basically a couple of boxes with rooms in them, I spent 20 minutes trying (and failing) to figure out how to add capacitors, drives and weapons to it.

I appreciate the freedom it gives us in designs for ships and buildings, but it's just way too complex for the vast majority of people to use.  The old designer was more along the right lines, working in blocks.

What's most telling about this is looking at the blueprint exchange, both the lack of designs available and the number of designs that are just flying bricks or small modifications of Haxus' ships.

Hazeron already has a huge learning curve as a barrier to entry, having such a core part of gameplay be so inaccessible could be damaging to the long-term viability of the community.

Just my 2 cents anyway.

[Oggal]

Remember that for just tweaking ships you can always refit. That functionality didn't exist before and has now become a constant for me.

That said, I agree the new designer is quite complex. But I dont feel the state of the exchange is a good display of that as it can be argued that the exchange is empty because many people publish designs privately ro empire only.

[AnrDaemon]

What's most telling about this is looking at the blueprint exchange, both the lack of designs available and the number of designs that are just flying bricks or small modifications of Haxus' ships.

"Flying bricks" were a case even back in the days. Hell, even my ships were "flying bricks" most of the time, I only recall may be ten designs (not including retooling) I'm not ashamed of.

Exchange is not an indication of ability, only of willingness to share.

[Deantwo]

Yeah I don't foresee people making big warship blueprints for public use. I mostly only see myself making a small shuttle or exploration ship blueprints for public use, and likely only as read-only.
But interior designing of spaceships was always my favorite with the old designer, this is now very complicated in the new designer.

Buildings blueprints on the other hand I don't mind sharing. My issues with them are mostly that they are confusing to make. Having to juggle the different types of volume you can allocate to them, remembering which volume type is used by which building type, and how much volume of each type you need per "room".
I would love to see building blueprints simplified in those areas, so they are more straight forward.
See: (Suggestion thread) Building Blueprint Simplification

I have to confess that I haven't used the new designer much. Mainly because I have a hard time finding inspiration about what to make. I have made a total of two, a couple very simple building blueprints.

[Vectorus]

This is another reason why I've always advocated divorcing visual size from functional volume.

No one is going to make a top-level warship publicly available, but if you can take any design you like the look of and crank up the stats, the public exchange is going to be a lot more use. Every reduction of "TARDIS"-like possibilities has made that harder and harder.

Anr is right. I've explored lots of inhabited systems over the last year and found fun, crazy and beautiful designs at every turn. The great majority are not on the exchange - a better incentive to share (since a chronodollar comission is absolutely worthless) would go a long way. Perhaps some way of boosting your own shipbuilding speed when other people manufacture your designs?

[Lochar]

I wasn't that great with old designer as well but could put together something more than a box. This new one , even watching a video on youtube just looked so dang complicated.

I have been using exchange but this Q lvl vs Tech lvl of old throws me off. Specially when see a Q1 that needs IO,Cryo and few other resources that don't usually start out with.

Also while I am happy folks have posted something on the exchange, is it a bit of trial and error to find a ship that doesn't have pathing issues or hard to get into. I have been just using of disks and previewing them in designer before commit.

I really wish their was some incentive for other players to post their designs, because I doubt I will ever touch designer as is and rely on others. Maybe like galactic standing for design usage, may not be cash but it could be bragging rights.

[Deantwo]

I have been using exchange but this Q lvl vs Tech lvl of old throws me off. Specially when see a Q1 that needs IO,Cryo and few other resources that don't usually start out with.

Yeah Q on a spacecraft blueprint is confusing, it doesn't actually have much of an impact on the design itself, it just lets the designer cram smaller subsystems into the design than would otherwise be needed.

For example: If the design is too small to have both a FTL drive and a power plant, the designer can raise the minimum Q a little. This causes all subsystems to be a better, in this case the power plant will produce more power and the life support subsystem will require less volume that can then be used elsewhere.

While that might seem good on paper for some players, it makes almost no sense for new players. The Q slider in the designer should be removed. Replace it with something simple like a couple new advanced modules.
For example: Add a more advanced power plant module that uses one of the advanced resources. Then players can increase the effectiveness of the spacecraft's power plant by adding another advanced resource to the construction bill.

Then add a filter to the exchange that lets us filter by resources needed in construction.

Also while I am happy folks have posted something on the exchange, is it a bit of trial and error to find a ship that doesn't have pathing issues or hard to get into. I have been just using of disks and previewing them in designer before commit.

Definitely post some positive reviews on the good blueprints you find, and some negative low star reviews on the bad blueprints.

I haven't gotten to look at that many of the spacecraft in the blueprint exchange, so I can't tell you exactly what is good either.

[Falkenkopf]

I like the Idea of beeing able to design the spaceship of my dreams.

But I'm not a 3D designer and maybe won't be one anytime soon.

So I would prefer to be able to design spaceships in an much easier way, like in empyrion. With some practice, it is not so difficult to form some kind of outer hull in the soh designer. But with decent details and textures it's getting tedious. Maybe within some month or years I would be able to learn how to use a 3D designer properly and to draw or use prefab textures, so that it will look good. I love the possibility to be able to do these things in this kind of games. And SoH is a masterpiece, so that this designer is meant to be a part of it.
But i wish, there was a second, more easy way for casual players, to design spaceships, buildings and vehicles and their interiors and specifications. Not necessarily, like it was with the old designer and these leveled hulls, even it was fun to use it.

[AnrDaemon]

Please check the videos posted by Haxus on ship designing.
You don't have to be pro 3D designer to build something useful, although it takes a bit of time to get used to the toolset and principles.

[Xantheose]

Yeah true, plus of that, when you have one viable ship, you can fit it to be anything in 5 minutes. You don't have to design more than 1 ship.