Chainships, anyone? (Signups closed)

[Verminator]

Back in the mists of yore, during those heady days of the pre-0.9 era, TheBlueEcho ran a project based upon an idea of mine. Basically, the task at hand was for the community to build a battleship piece by piece, each person adding to a ship little by little, from a plain core and a pair of thrusters until we got a fully functional dreadnought.

The first submission by ArcaneDude looked like this:



By the time everyone had had a shot at it, we had something that looked like this:



For the olden days where there were no custom sections and not as many advanced shipbuilding techniques, I think it's fair to say that we did ourselves proud overall and got a good result, although the whole process was messy and there was more than a few setbacks involved. But this is a different era! We've got all kinds of fancy stuff to work with now, and we can do a damn sight better.

This isn't the official topic yet though, I'm not actually starting anything right now. I just want to see who exactly is interested, and I'm also keen to hear any ideas that anyone might have to make this whole thing run smoothly.

[Swamp Fox]

I was wondering when someone would try this again. Well, I'm game if this actually gets off the ground, I guess.

[Droid]

Ditto what Swamp Fox said.

[Raul]

i don't know if id be allowed in a second time but i really enjoyed workin on it before. Even witout swa sprites and such, the weapons and triggers possibilities alone make this worth trying!

People are really gonna have to keep on top of keeping their sprite folders consistant though. not a problem with swa so far but the problems with the beauty pagent were horrendous!

[Silverware]

Just need someone to make a custom sprites folder with a SMSprites.ini file, with it all up to date and set up, so that people can just DL that and use it.
I would be interested in joining this, looks like fun.

[inteuniso]

I personally think this would be friggin awesome!

When do we get started?
Also, ditto what silverware said. It would be just too damn hard to make sure everyone had the sprites in the right folder.

[AidanAdv]

We could just make a folder called "Chainship Sprites" with subcategories like Doodads, Sections, Bullets etc. and before some used a sprite they would have to put it in there. The folder would be updated and posted every time someone finished their portion of the ship.

[Kiltric]

Sounds like a fantastic idea. It would certainly liven up the community a bit. My only concern would be how the building roster is decided, and what would get people included or excluded.

We could just make a folder called "Chainship Sprites" with subcategories like Doodads, Sections, Bullets etc. and before some used a sprite they would have to put it in there. The folder would be updated and posted every time someone finished their portion of the ship.

Wouldn't it be better to post any custom sprites you used and the directory it was stored in, as well as requiring that the directory be in the standard form? Then two dozen people don't have to add another directory for sprites they probably already have. Also, then it would be easier to post the ship for anyone to have once it's done; if that would be done.

[derekiv]

I would like to see another chainship made.
And this time I won't go over-board

[thanto_]

I think it would be a good idea to enforce a sprite folder naming policy, namely the one mentioned in the custom content section - three letters from name, then the name of the sprite types as per the creator. For example, the steampunk sections kaelis made would be kae_steampunk. Everyone should be doing that already, and if they aren't, well, they should rename their folders.

[Anna]

Very well, since th15 removed me from being a moderator for my original post in this thread which consisted entirely of "I suspect this will be an unmitigated disaster. Have fun guys.", a rather tame comment, and then Arcalane removed the posts, allow me to explain this stance in excruciating and truly assholish fashion, just to demonstrate that it wasn't me just being a dick, it was me making what I thought to be a genuine observation.

1) The previous chainship was worked on by several intelligent and respected members of the community, and even it had a lot of problems during the process.

2) With all the new custom sections, especially now that we have the SW-style, there are so many disparate building styles that absolutely won't mesh well together, it could result in something that looks completely haphazard and random.

3) Finally, unless you have someone running it who's willing to say "that's bad, we're ignoring X's contribution", or has the balls to say "that person is not good enough", then the really shitty shipbuilders will utterly ruin this.

So as you can see, my original post wasn't an attempt at being a dickhead. It wasn't "threadshitting". I simply assumed that these points would be obvious and didn't feel they needed outright stating.

Why is point 3 important, some of you are asking? Because some of you have less talent at shipbuilding than the sperm in my nutsack, that's why.

That's what me really being an asshole looks like.

[Kaelis]

Seraph, as long as people are having fun and there is even a slight possibility for them to learn something or just do something creative, there is nothing wrong with it. Your three points don't really matter, because who said this absolutely has to result in something decent?

I do agree that Seans reaction was rather... excessive and ill-handled. But i have a feeling that this one post of yours wasnt the sole reason.

[EriErin]

allow me to explain this stance in excruciating and truly assholish fashion, just to demonstrate that it wasn't me just being a dick

Allow me to be a dick, just to demonstrate that I wasn't being a dick

cool story bro

1) The previous chainship was worked on by several intelligent and respected members of the community, and even it had a lot of problems during the process.

2) With all the new custom sections, especially now that we have the SW-style, there are so many disparate building styles that absolutely won't mesh well together, it could result in something that looks completely haphazard and random.

3) Finally, unless you have someone running it who's willing to say "that's bad, we're ignoring X's contribution", or has the balls to say "that person is not good enough", then the really shitty shipbuilders will utterly ruin this.

Regarding the observation in point 1: TBE's chainship project was composed of several intelligent members of the community because they were specifically selected to be on the roster. There is no reason why we couldn't employ a similar system in order to filter out the bad weenies and leave us with only the good weenies.

Regarding a possible lack of good weenies to enlist, in addition to point 2: A good idea would be to standardize the usage of SW sections in the construction of the chainship. It is a well-known fact that SW sections are markedly easier to blend together in comparison to stock-style sections, thus increasing the number of potential candidates we have at our disposal. I acknowledge that there are some people terrible enough to make even SW sections look fucking fugly, but our skill threshold has still significantly been reduced.

Regarding point 3: While users with truly high standards such as yours are indeed difficult to find, with a little common sense-based filtering we won't have any of the really shitty shipbuilders in the roster at all. In the event that we do get an ugly duckling, changes made in poor taste can always be reverted or altered, as in the original project.

In conclusion, sign me the fuck up. I wholly support this shit as long as we pull it off decently.

[Cycerin]

Seconding what Eri said. This can become something great.

[jwa8402]

That sucks Seraph, sorry. You should still join in, the ship would be 9xe10 times better.
Actually the second and third point were serious problems in the last chainship event, so I agree with you there. As long as theres a preset style(ie terran or alien), a limit on section additions, assigned jobs(ie lizzie for coloring, CT for weapons), plenty of backup saves so they can revert if something goes nasty, and a steady hand in charge of it all willing to keep poor shipbuilders out or at least guide them around mistakes, it should be manageable.

I totally believe Verminator or even TBE(where is he anyway?) can keep a measure of control over it, and it seemed like everyone learned a lot last time. Heck, just reading through the old thread, its pretty obvious what the problems were and how to avoid them next time.

*edit* clarification: I was not volunteering anyone, just referencing examples of people's original jobs during the first project, solely as an example of avoiding multiple people trying to do the same job. Sorry for any misunderstanding.