Unlike many other games out there, VO lacks the ability to tune up there ships to the players desire, using a limited number of points and slider bars to create your own ship. With this ability you could sacrifice cargo capacity to raise your ships turbo speed or or give up some spin torque and raise the capacity, giving you a heavy mining ship. It make take some adjustments, but I think this would really benefit the game.

This has been suggested before.

It's not a bad idea per se, but I'd imagine it'd be a hellishly difficult thing to avoid extreme setups.

Not that hard really...

more weapons=less armor, more armor=less cargo, more cargo=less armor... etc... etc...

I'm not sure how hard it would be to add this. Maybe a better way would be to offer ships as is... (base model) and then offer ships with added ports for non combat/combat/armor stats adjusted per # of ports.

think that would be cool because there are different type of combat players there are the ones that are about deal damage( ones that think about kill the enemy in battle) then there are the defensive types( that think about how much damage they are take so worrying more about themselves in battle) then you go people who loves to have tones of power=weapons and people who like to use speed in battle then you get just miners which probably use ither armour or cargo room

ill turn down cargo and armor and have 20 large ports and will be known as the swarm king!!

It will be called the "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones...CrazySpence Edition"

Well, the system would need to be balanced, but it's not, persay, impossible.

Weight is the easiest way to do armor/cargo upgrades....

But I think for armor, having players decide which brand of armor they want for their ship when they make it would work out fine...

Pretend all the light ships we have right now have the lightest armor, make energy resist armor (same hull hitpoints, but energy weapons deal 2/3's damage, explosive weapons deal 3/2's damage)

Explosive resist damage, (just the reverse)

and so on, people sacrifice vulnerability to certain weapons in return for protection against others...

If they just want more hull points, then you can do it by mass...

Imagine that all light ships have the lightest form of armor as it stands, have 2 levels of additional armor, medium and heavy,

each upgrade adds 10% hullpoints for 20% mass.

I doubt I'd use the upgrades, but seems like an unbroken way to start.

Ports seem impossible though, since where the weapons are placed becomes a difficulty on the ship.

it would work as follows,

each changeable option has 50 points. each armor point added would add 10 mass. (mass isn't self-changeable but is influenced by armor & CU) for every 50 mass added a CU is taken. Each ship must have at least 2 CU. Higher CU means less room for armor.

for every 2 points added to your base speed one turbo speed is removed and vice verse. higher mass means lower spin torque. thrust is influenced by base speed.

Higher mass meaning lower spin torque doesn't make sense.
Spin torque influences angular acceleration in same way as thrust influences linear acceleration,
So increasing mass already lowers your angular acceleration (linear too) given same torque.

this is why we have ship varients

I don't think ships should be completely customizable until very high player level.
There are quite lots of ship classes serving various purposes. I would stick with something we already have, and improve it. I suggested use of GUS (General Usage Slots) in another thread, for non-weapon devices. In that case, you can upgrade ship in many ways w/o need to change ship class. I would be VERY diligent of creating something as "dynamic ship-class".
I would compare it to real world. You have number of airplane types for you choice, with numerous variants. Do you want something special, specially tailored for you? PAY! As I said, beginning on players' epic level. At least, if ever.

agreed with astib.
Although I do like the concept of different armor. how about the option to get tougher/lighter armor for a premium price at the shipyard?

hoov :
Unlike many other games out there, VO lacks the ability to tune up there ships to the players desire, using a limited number of pionts and slider bars to create your own ship. With this abilit you could sacrafice cargo capacity to raise your ship [ ' ] s turbo speed or or give up some spin tourqe and raise the capacity, giving you a heavy minning ship. It make take some ajustments, but I think this would really benifit the game.

Jim Kirk:
No "hoov", it really would not benefit the game.

However, it would "benifit" YOU to "tourqe" your tiny brain and make some "ajustments" to your spelling.

hoov :
it would work as follows,

each changeable option has 50 points. each armor point added would add 10 mass. (mass isn't self-changeable but is influenced by armor & CU) for every 50 mass added a CU is taken. Each ship must have at least 2 CU. Higher CU means less room for armor.

for every 2 points added to your base speed one turbo speed is removed and vice verse. higher mass means lower spin torque. thrust is influenced by base speed.

Jim Kirk:
Wow that might just be the most ridiculously stupid idea on these forums I have ever heard. I feel dumber even trying to rationalize WHY anyone would want this...

Ships aren't even constructed that way.
No one would ever even want to construct a ship that way.
There would never be anyone dumb enough to want to construct a ship that way.
Only an absolute asshole who thinks everything is interchangeable would want to construct a ship that way.
Don't be that guy "hoov"!!!

LOL.

"I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul..." Billy Madison

Could you guess what "Jim Kirk" voted?

<<<<<<<|<| REJECTED |>|>>>>>>> ......because it's......

<<<<<<<|<| RETARDED |>|>>>>>>>

I have seen this sort of "customization" thing in any number of online games. The end result is the same. Everyone ends up using the same setup since it is the best setup. The ability is still there, but mostly wasted since most everyone ends up using the same thing.

We have multiple variations availible on most ships and many weapons choices already. I'd say the time would be better spent on something else. If you feel the need to have a ship option, suggest a mod of something already in game. Personally I think this "customization" option is not needed in game.

I agree bull350.

as for you "jim", the place for spelling corrections is the classroom not the forum and I think you would benefit from returning to school and learning some manners!

It's a curious thing to rely overly on realism in a game where there's no fuel penalty in terms of cost of mass. The devs have worked at ship specs to balance playability, clearly.

Almost everybody has an idea how they'd improve a ship, and the idea is that they could build/design THE best one, giving them the greatest advantage - right? You want to dominate, to make everybody else marvel at your superiority?

But unless it's fair - balanced - the people you "beat" will not think it's YOU that beat them, they'll rationalize that you had superior tech backing you up, or that you found some way to exploit the (proposed) ship design process.

In practice, since we to all like to take stuff and make it "our own" it would be interesting to see some additional "bolt on" options with resulting (balancing) impact on ship properties.

One interesting attribute I've seen discussed elsewhere is the ship name. Why, after all, is it more obvious who the pilot is than which hull this is I'm seeing? Granted, some of you flyboys blow up hulls so fast that naming them might seem nearly pointless, imagine that when you buy an UNNAMED ship you name it - possibly with a name unique to your faction - then when you move up instead of mothballing it you put it on the market, already configured, at a price that competes with others. Think of it as like a ship pawn shop...

Changing the name might require a small fee paid to a capitol station within that faction, where the registration can be updated and the ID squawker tweaked, etc.

I'm sure for a slightly higher fee such changes could be done on the black market, too.

Now all the sudden you've got not just that generic replacement to pick from when you shop, but the pre-configured UIT "Rust Bucket" or the SERCO "Enterprise" etc., and whichever captain has left it at that station makes a % of what you spend on it? Ships, one of the obvious commodities, become a greater part of the trading aspect of the game.

Wouldn't it be nice to leave your mark on the game by having your ship flying around under the hands of another captain? I reckon you'd want the database to work with the obvious name filters, but it's a small list of which ships are available on each planet, and at what price - over time the interest for leaving them unsold might outweigh the price and the ship pawn shop would just recycle them. However, logging in to find that you've been given some thousands of credits for the sale of the "SERCO Pearl" or the UIT "Lady's Lucky Liberty" (known affectionately to her series of crews as the triple L) because you priced it to attract buyers would be a bonus.