Shipmaking Q&A

Got questions about Shipmaker? Get answers here. Please read the stickied topics first!

Moderators: th15, Moderators

Sponge
Captain
Captain
Posts: 474
Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2007 11:44 am
Location: USA

Post by Sponge »

Anna wrote: And jesus christ, if you'd read the little fucking tooltips, and read the fucking F1 help manual, and even just casually look around the forums at some of the new guides posted, you'd realise that it's not even half as unintuitive as you seem to think it is. It's fairly fucking easy to figure out the how of it, even if sometimes it is complex to put into practice.
Look, no offense intended, but not everything has "fucking tooltips." Not everything is self explanatory. In fact, some of the least intuitive functions lack tooltips. Additionally, tooltips are no substitute for thorough documentation. I appreciate all of the work done by Arcalane, Kaelis, and everyone who's name I cannot easily copy/paste. I fully understand that frustration that's resulting from a lukewarm reception to the new SB, and the slew of repeated questions. Here's the simple matter: the manual for shipbuilder is incredibly long. If someone has one question, skimming through the entire five page document (five full pages in MS Word) is intimidating. There are some guides out, but they're pretty unorganized.

But hey, it's day two. It's understandable that not everything is in place. Snapping at confused members and locking threads is probably a touch on the harsh side. This is all accentuated by the fact that several features are very buggy or plain inoperable. Yes, bugs are expected with such a big update, but it's pretty unreasonable to expect someone to read a seven page thread of boring errors to see if their problem has come up yet. Questions are bound to come up. Several times. Granted, taking a glance at stickies before posting should be required, expecting people to read pages upon pages of half-finished documentation, disordered guides, troubleshooting strategies, and bug reports is a lot to ask of someone who's just trying to enjoy a game.

Let me be clear: this update is very cool, and I'm very impressed with all the work you guys have put in. I'm not complaining. I've decided that I'll leave the new SM alone until some of the more pervasive bugs get ironed out. My sincere suggestion would be to ignore all the duplicate threads and work on a FULL documentation. Weapon/module stats, mini-tutorials/examples, in-depth explanations, the works. Furthermore, a table of contents, where individual items scroll to their respective sections with a click of the mouse is just about required to make it less intimidating. This way, every time someone has a question, the response will be "Press F1," as opposed to "Press F1, read tooltips, skim a shitload of mismatched info, hope the answer is there/detailed enough, do a back flip, etc, you're a dumbmotherfucker." This should also make it a lot easier to find any and all information, hopefully eliminating the vast majority of the questions in the first place.

Again, thanks for all the work you have put into this. The new stuff is neat, but as has been said before, the release was probably a bit premature. All the added features are tricky to figure out in the first place, but when you've no way of knowing whether you're doing it wrong or if it's just completely bugged, the experience becomes much more difficult.
Malahite
Captain
Captain
Posts: 284
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 3:23 am
Location: Poland, Some old closet

Post by Malahite »

Anna wrote:And jesus christ, if you'd read the little fucking tooltips, and read the fucking F1 help manual, and even just casually look around the forums at some of the new guides posted, you'd realise that it's not even half as unintuitive as you seem to think it is. It's fairly fucking easy to figure out the how of it, even if sometimes it is complex to put into practice.
You know, puting fuck or shit every five words makes your posts only inmature and longer to read. :P


I agree with Sponge and Captain Trek, that some things are quite unintuitive, some aren't covered in the F1 help, and some could use a step-by-step guide [which shouldn't be that hard to make...].
This once I also agree with Anna, that the game lacks proper testing, but then agin this is v 0.9, which means we're all testing it at the moment. And thank's to everyone involved it's quite fun.

Aside from some user-friedly guides and txt [written by some user-friendly crew member...] this Ed also just needs some time. Time to play with it, test it's functions, see what does what.

Baah, and 'lame' or 'n00bish' questions will be posted even two years afther version 1.0, since this game has the thing that attracts new people to it. And then, the best way to deal with it will be calmness, and a link to a proper topic. And closing the topic with the question.
People aren't asking questions to piss mods off. People are asking questions to make ships :lol:
[b][color=red]Comrade Malahite
Red Star Navy senior designer[/color][/b]
[i]"True beauty lies in the eye of the viewer"[/i]
[img]http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/8817/signeh5.jpg[/img]
[i]"For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done"[/i]
Swamp Fox
Captain
Captain
Posts: 342
Joined: Wed May 14, 2008 7:00 am
Location: Tellus Tertius

Post by Swamp Fox »

Sponge wrote:If someone has one question, skimming through the entire five page document (five full pages in MS Word) is intimidating
You know, this is exactly the kind of situation the search function is intended for. If one actually uses it, they can usually find what they're looking for fairly quickly and easily. I will admit that better documentation is needed, but until that time, this is really the next-best thing, and quite possibly faster than making a post asking the question.
"Okay. I'm gonna get your money for ya. But if you don't get the President of the United States on that phone, you know what's gonna happen to you?"
"What?!"
"You're gonna have to answer to the Coca Cola company."
User avatar
Arcalane
Pseudofeline Overlord
Posts: 4034
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2007 10:37 am
Location: UK

Post by Arcalane »

Sponge wrote:Weapon/module stats.
We already have that thread. It's called the Weapons and Modules Guide.

But before this goes any further, I'm going to nip this in the bud.

So pardon me, but;

THIS IS A THREAD FOR QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. NOT RANTS. NOT DEBATES. CLEAR?

Back to the questions and the answers please folks. On a sidenote we should be getting patches out soon that fix moving/rotation section bugs.
  /l、
゙(゚、 。 7
 l、゙ ~ヽ
 じしf_, )ノ
CmdrTimo
Lieutenant, Junior Grade
Lieutenant, Junior Grade
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon May 12, 2008 11:15 am
Location: In the restaurant on the end of the universe. (or Seattle)

Post by CmdrTimo »

Sorry if this sounds like a newbie question but, does anyone know how to make a section revolve around a perfect circle like Anna did in http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3373?
I only know how to make the section go from point A to point B in a straight line.
"War: The mad game the world loves to play." ~Jonathan Swift

"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time."-Chesty Puller
Draco18s
Lieutenant Commander
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 73
Joined: Thu Jan 22, 2009 3:19 am

Post by Draco18s »

Try the same edit tab, only farther down, right about where the colors are...
Malahite
Captain
Captain
Posts: 284
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 3:23 am
Location: Poland, Some old closet

Post by Malahite »

CmdrTimo wrote:Sorry if this sounds like a newbie question but, does anyone know how to make a section revolve around a perfect circle
I'm taking a guess, that the 'main' parent roatainting section should be in the center of the circle, and the rest around it...
[b][color=red]Comrade Malahite
Red Star Navy senior designer[/color][/b]
[i]"True beauty lies in the eye of the viewer"[/i]
[img]http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/8817/signeh5.jpg[/img]
[i]"For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done"[/i]
CmdrTimo
Lieutenant, Junior Grade
Lieutenant, Junior Grade
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon May 12, 2008 11:15 am
Location: In the restaurant on the end of the universe. (or Seattle)

Post by CmdrTimo »

Malahite wrote:I'm taking a guess, that the 'main' parent rotating section should be in the center of the circle, and the rest around it...
Nah, I tried and the game gave me an error. I'm starting to think that it is a custom section, one whole section rotating.
"War: The mad game the world loves to play." ~Jonathan Swift

"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time."-Chesty Puller
D00D!
Commander
Commander
Posts: 174
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2008 4:37 pm
Location: Frontlines againest a piggy invasion

Post by D00D! »

Arcalane wrote:1) TURRET. GET IT RIGHT.

2) They can. It's just that they're bugged right now. It'll be fixed soon.

@FS; the bubble shields are a single section, actually, not any doodads. That would just be daft.
What is it with you and spelling? Anyway, thanks for the answer, hope it gets fixed soon.
Avatarless and proud of it! And being really crazy and screwing everything conventional!
Currently working on:

The largest transforming mecha EVAR!
AnnihilatorX
Commander
Commander
Posts: 116
Joined: Sat Mar 01, 2008 3:49 am

Post by AnnihilatorX »

I have been trying the new features extensively. I'd say you should wait till a bug fixed version to come out before trying the new features or you'd scratch your head to bleed.

The new features are great but writing a guide currently is not possible due to instability or crashes.
Venator
Captain
Captain
Posts: 423
Joined: Sun Feb 10, 2008 12:07 pm

Post by Venator »

CmdrTimo wrote:
Malahite wrote:I'm taking a guess, that the 'main' parent rotating section should be in the center of the circle, and the rest around it...
Nah, I tried and the game gave me an error. I'm starting to think that it is a custom section, one whole section rotating.
Nope, they're separate. It is possible to have a circle with multiple sections, you just have to parent them properly.
[url=http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2921][img]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c348/DraTuicichNovae/AESig.png[/img][/url]
BizzarreCoyote
Commander
Commander
Posts: 139
Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:17 am

Post by BizzarreCoyote »

Kruxynus wrote:I can't get the ship deployer to work. I type in the filename of the ship, "Custom Ships\PAS.shp" but when i try to use it in sandbox, it simply says "invalid ship". "PAS.shp" is in the "Custom Ships" folder, can a ship not deploy itself or am i just doing something wrong?
Try going the long way, starting at C: (or whatever your drive is called) and ending with the .shp, adding a "" after every folder you enter.


It would be something like this:

C:Program Files\Battleships Forever\Custom Ships\(Insert ship here).shp
[url=http://profile.xfire.com/bizzarecoyote][img]http://miniprofile.xfire.com/bg/sf/type/2/bizzarecoyote.png[/img][/url]
AnnihilatorX
Commander
Commander
Posts: 116
Joined: Sat Mar 01, 2008 3:49 am

Post by AnnihilatorX »

May be the default root is custom ships so you don't need to put 'Custom Ships\" ?
Hypothetical Wisdom
Commander
Commander
Posts: 125
Joined: Thu Jan 29, 2009 5:06 am

Post by Hypothetical Wisdom »

Is there a way to make your own formations, like the Peitho Deflector formation seen in level 8?

And thank you, Arcalane, I think I get it now :) . In fact, now that I get what drivers and stuff are, I think I'll go re-read Kaelis's post and see if it makes sense this time :lol: !
Will work for kewl sig/av

[i]There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.[/i]
BizzarreCoyote
Commander
Commander
Posts: 139
Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:17 am

Post by BizzarreCoyote »

Hypothetical Wisdom wrote:Is there a way to make your own formations, like the Peitho Deflector formation seen in level 8?
Well, you could build a ship that looks like a group of ships...
[url=http://profile.xfire.com/bizzarecoyote][img]http://miniprofile.xfire.com/bg/sf/type/2/bizzarecoyote.png[/img][/url]
Post Reply