WYRDYSM GAMES

These rules are currently untested and not exceptionally well developed. Worked examples of ships made based on these rules need to be created and tested in order to gather data to direct future development. If you see any major mistakes please point them out.

Step 0 - Core Rules, Planning, Things To Take Into Account

A few key things to take in mind before making a ship;

1) These are ships in a semi-realistic setting we're dealing with. They should look and function like ships. Propulsion systems should be clearly defined - no burying your thrusters right on top of the ship's core.

Ships should be large enough to feasibly contain all the necessary systems for them to operate on a daily basis. Some leeway is allowed due to BSF's inability to represent "tall" or vertical style ships, but please don't abuse it.

2) Any obvious attempts to abuse or bend the rules will be dealt with appropriately. This includes but is not limited to;
2a) No section should have an HP of less than 20.
2b) Ships that use unconventional shipbuilding techniques such as (but again not limited to) turrets/weapons to "drive" the entire ship's facing.
2c) Some other blatantly rulebending/abusive shit I haven't ancitipated but will probably rear it's ugly head at some point because fuck knows I can't have nice things any more.

This does not exclude or prevent ships which incorporate a reasonable quantity of ablative armour in appropriate locations.

3) Whilst custom weapon sprites are permitted, weapons should have appropriate sprites for their purpose; no missile launchers that look like cannons, and no heavy artillery weapons that look like tiny machineguns.
3a) Keep in mind that gifs with large muzzle flare animations can have abnormally large hitboxes as a result, which could lead to weapons being destroyed very easily. Use such sprites at your own peril!

Long story short, use common and aesthetic sense, realism is in moderate to significant effect, don't be a min-maxing/powergaming asshat, and everything should be fine.

Step 1 - Decide Radius

The first step in designing a ship is to decide how large you want it to be, this will determine how much equipment a ship will be able to carry, its durability and will affect its speed and maneouverability.

In shipmaker a ship's radius is indicated by its "size". Once you have decided on your ship's size round the number to the nearest 5 and square the result, this is your ship's MASS ALLOWANCE.

MASS ALLOWANCE represents the total ammount of space available for use on a ship.

Step 2 - Pick core and modules

In order for a ship to have any capability beyond drifting through space aimlessly it must be fitted with modules. All modules take up a portion of your ship's MASS ALLOWANCE, the total of all of the MASS ALLOWANCE used by modules is refered to as USED MASS. A ship's USED MASS may never exceed its MASS ALLOWANCE. In addition to mass, modules also have power requirements expressed as power drain in their profile, the total AVAILABLE POWER that a ship has is determined by its Power core.

Power Cores

Arguably the most important module of a ship is its Power Core, power cores are the beating heart of a ship and determine not not only the ammount of power available for a ship, but also its ultimate durability. Each ship has only a single power core, so choosing the correct one for your ship is vital.

Power cores have two attributes; Core Integrity and Power Output. Core Integrity represents the number of Hit Points that your ship's "core" section will have and Power Output determines the ammount of AVAILABLE POWER that a ship has.

Power core list

Standard CiviTech Core
Restriction #1: May not supply more than 100 power to weapons.
Restriction #2: May not be employed on a ship designed for anything besides mining or colonizing.
Restriction #3: May not provide power to non-CiviTech engines.
Core Integrity: 100
Power Output: 400
Mass: 250

Heavy CiviTech Core
Restriction #1: May not supply more than 100 power to weapons.
Restriction #2: May not be employed on a ship designed for anything besides mining or colonizing.
Restriction #3: May not provide power to non-CiviTech engines.
Core Integrity: 150
Power Output: 800
Mass: 700

Ultra-light
Core Integrity: 175
Power Output: 550
Mass: 600

Light
Core Integrity: 250
Power output: 850
Mass: 1045

Standard
Core Integrity: 400
Power output: 1200
Mass: 2200

Heavy
Core Integrity: 650
Power Output: 1850
Mass: 3200

Ultra-heavy
Core Integrity: 850
Power Output: 2400
Mass: 4500


Engines

In order for a ship to have any mobility it must have at least one engine module.Engine modules determine the speed, turn rate and acceleration of your ship. In addition to their mass engines have 3 other attributes; Speed Power, Acceleration Power and Turning Power. These attributes determine the ammount of speed, acceleration and turning capability that the engine module affords a ship.

Engine List:

Standard CiviTech Engine
Restrictions: May not be used on a ship with more than 4000 Used Mass.
Speed output: 1000
Acceleration output: 50
Turning output: 500
Hit Points: 75

Mass: 150
Power Drain: 175

Heavy CiviTech Engine
Restrictions: May not be used on a ship with more than 4000 Used Mass.
Speed output: 2000
Acceleration output: 100
Turning output: 1000
Hit Points: 175

Mass: 300
Power Drain: 350

Ultra-Light
Speed output: 4300
Acceleration output: 90
Turning output: 1800
Hit Points: 70

Mass: 470
Energy Drain: 160

Light
Speed output: 9000
Acceleration output: 265
Turning output: 3900
Hit Points: 100

Mass: 900
Energy Drain: 290

Standard
Speed output: 14060
Acceleration output: 335
Turning output: 5215
Hit Points: 200

Mass: 1400
Energy Drain: 450

Heavy
Speed output: 24500
Acceleration output: 540
Turning output: 7250
Hit Points: 300

Mass: 2000
Energy Drain: 800

Acceleration Assist
Speed output: 100
Acceleration output: 60
Turning output: 100
Hit Points: 50

Mass: 200
Energy Drain: 70

Agility Assist
Speed output: 100
Acceleration output: 10
Turning output: 1000
Hit Points: 50

Mass: 200
Energy Drain: 70

Speed Assist
Speed output: 2350
Acceleration output: 10
Turning output: 100
Hit Points: 50

Mass: 200
Energy Drain: 70

Weapons

Weapons make people die, they take up both mass and power. Weapons given here require your help to balance.

Weapon List:

Autocannons
Autocannons are rapid-fire medium calibre guns (typically around 100mm for standard autocannons and 200mm for heavy autocannons) designed to deliver non-explosive shells from fairly long ranges.

Autocannon (Autocannon)
Turning: 2
Deviation: 1.5
Range: 700
Damage: 20
Bullet Speed: 18
Submunition Damage: 0
Arc Range: 60
Fire Rate: 20
Clip Size: 3
Reload: 100
Hit Points: 100

Mass: 150
Power: 20

Heavy Autocannon (Autocannon)
Turning: 1
Deviation: 1
Range: 800
Damage: 40
Bullet Speed: 16
Submunition Damage: 0
Arc Range: 50
Fire Rate: 30
Clip Size: 6
Reload: 120
Hit Points: 130

Mass: 240
Power: 30

Vulcan cannons
Vulcans are multi-barreled guns that fire small rounds extremely rapidly, what they lack in accuracy and hitting power they make up for with high traversal speeds and massive volume of fire.

Vulcan (vulcan)
Turning: 6
Deviation: 5
Range: 650
Damage: 4
Arc Range: 90
Fire Rate: 4
Clip Size: 120
Reload: 250
Bullet Speed: 28
Hit Points: 80

Mass: 240
Power: 50

Heavy Vulcan (vulcan)
Turning: 3
Deviation: 4
Range: 750
Damage: 8
Arc Range: 70
Fire Rate: 6
Clip Size: 80
Reload: 270
Bullet Speed:26
Hit Points: 90

Mass: 405
Power: 60

Artillery
Very big guns that fire very large powerful filled with very large quantities of explosives from very long ranges. Beware the ship armed with artillery guns. The massive nature of artillery shells makes them vulnerable to point defence weapons.

Artillery (Repeating Artillery)
Turning: 1
Deviation: 2
Range: 1000
Damage: 60
Arc Range: 45
Fire Rate: 0
Clip Size: 1
Reload: 240
Bullet Speed: 22
Hit Points: 110

min explosion:30
Explosion inc:0
Fuse variance:0

Mass: 420
Power: 40

Repeating Artillery (Repeating Artillery)
Turning: 1
Deviation: 3
Range: 900
Damage: 40
Arc Range: 45
Fire Rate: 30
Clip Size: 3
Reload: 300
Bullet Speed: 22
Hit Points: 100

min explosion: 20
Explosion inc: 0
Fuse variance: 0

Mass: 720
Power: 90

Missile Launchers
Tiny, unmanned ships carried by a parent vessel that when launched intentionally collide with enemy ships sometimes detonating a small, internally carried explosive device. Extremely powerful and hit very often but are vulnerable to point defence guns.

Missile Launcher (High-Velocity Rocket)
Deviation: 10
Range: 1200
Damage: 35
Arc Range: 0.5
Fire Rate: 5
Clip Size: 2
Reload: 225
Bullet Speed: 6
Shot Accel: 6
Shot Maxspeed: 18
Interceptability: 0.1
Shot Tracking: 5
Launcher Arc: 90
Hit Points: 80

Mass: 650
Power: 50

Heavy Missile Array (High-Velocity Rocket)
Deviation: 10
Range: 1200
Damage: 60
Arc Range: 0.5
Fire Rate: 6
Clip Size: 4
Reload: 300
Bullet Speed: 5
Shot Accel: 5
Shot Maxspeed: 15
Interceptability: 0.15
Shot Tracking: 4
Launcher Arc: 90
Hit Points: 120

Mass: 980
Power: 90

Point Defence
Shooting down the things that the enemy is shooting at you is hard to do, but is a good way to avoid damage. Point defence modules can't target ships, but will attempt to shoot down hostile missiles and artillery shells within their range.

CIWS Gun (Particle Gun)
Turning: 15
Deviation: 3
Range: 450
Damage: 6
Fire Rate: 2
Clipsize: 8
Reload: 40
Hit Points: 100

Mass: 125
Power: 50

Experimental Weapons
Experimental weapons represent energing technologies, not yet tested on the battlefield, whilst these modules may not be appear to be attractive choices, fitting them may have its own unique advantage.

Drone bay (Demeter)
Range: 700
Damage: 5
Fire rate: 5
Clipsize: 2
Reload: 240
Bulletspeed: 8
Demeter Reload: 14
Interceptability: 0.24
Demeter lifetime: def
Hit Points: 160

Mass: 380
Power: 90

High Energy Laser (Mining Beam/Beamer)
Turning: 2
Arc Range:50
Damage: 3
Range: 800
Fire Rate: 0
Clip Size: 1
Reload: 300
Deviation: 0.20
Initial Deviation: 2
Duration: 60
Hit Points: 70

Mass: 500
Power: 180

Sensor Modules
Sensor Modules are used to detect things from a distance, all ships are able to detect objects that are in close proximity to them, but detection from a distance require sensor modules. Sensor modules have two attributes; Sensor Strength and Scan Speed. Sensor Strength indicates the ability of the module to detect targets, Scan Speed is the number of scans that the module can perform during a turn.

Sensor Array
Sensor Strength: 50
Scan Speed: 2

Mass: 1050
Power: 250

Large Sensor Array
Sensor Strength: 80
Scan Speed: 3

Mass: 1800
Power: 450

Electronic Countermeasures
Being detected at a bad time can ruin evem the best laid plans, to avoid being detected you can throw massive quantities of electromagnetic noise at the thing trying to detect you in order to blind its sensors, the unfortunate side effect of this is that it makes the ship that is doing the blinding much more visible to enemy ships.

ECM module
Jamming Strength: 40
Detection bonus: 20

Mass: 800
Power: 350

Heavy ECM module
Jamming Strength: 70
Detection bonus: 35

Mass: 1500
Power: 500

Economic Modules
Space isn't just about killing dudes, just mostly about killing dudes. The money that you buy spaceships with has to come from somewhere.

Colony module
Capacity: 100,000
Mass: 1500
Power: 200

Mining Module
Mass: 1000
Power: 180

Step 3 - Decide Section HP and calculate speed

All ships are comprised of a Core Section plus a number of additional sections, the Core Section gets its HP value from the Core Integrity value of the Power Core that you have chosen for your ship, but other sections draw their HP from a "pool" known as Section HP.

Section HP represents the combined total HP of all of the non-core sections of a ship. How this HP is distributed between sections is up to you (you may wish to have some sections with more HP than others), but the total of all of the sections must equal your Section HP.

Section HP takes up mass at a ratio of 1:1. One Section HP takes up one point of mass. Remember that your ship's USED MASS cannot ever exceed its MASS ALLOWANCE.

For example, a ship comprised of 8 sections with 300 HP each will have a Section HP of 2400 which in turn adds 2400 to the ship's USED MASS. A ship comprised of 4 200 HP sections and 4 300 HP sections would have a Section HP of 2000 which would add 2000 to the ship's USED MASS.

Once you have decided on the Section HP of your ship you can calculate its speed and agility statistics.

Speed = Total Speed Power / USED MASS
Turning = Total Turning Power / USED MASS
Acceleration = Total Acceleration Power / USED MASS

Step 4 - Shipmaker

Build the damn thing.

Engines and Thrusters
Each engine that your ship has should be represented by a single thruster or thrusterEX module on the ship itself.

If you are using a section to visually represent your ship's engines then your thruster or thrusterEX module should be parented to that section and the section's HP should be set to that of the engine rather than being based on the ship's Section HP.

Basic thrusters at this stage should use an orange or otherwise flame-like exhaust sprite, as engines at this phase are fairly simple chemical rockets, or something. Other propulsion types will come with different appearances.

That's right, sections representing engines don't count towards your ship's Section HP.

Core Placement - Because Preacher is a fucking retard
The Core must be placed in the 'center' of the ship, so that a ship's size is representative of it's actual size. That means the core may not be shifted back, forwards, or to either side of the dead center of the ship.

There are no exceptions to this rule.

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Update: I have introduced the concept of auxilliary engines that boost one specific aspect of engine performance but have lower mass and power requirements than more general engines.

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Initial trial results- two vs one / equivalent total mass and component mass ratios

Radius 110 (12100 mass)
Heavy power, 27.6% mass
1 Heavy engine, 16.5% mass
10 Autocannon, 6 Vulcan, 2 Artillery, 20.7% mass
Armor 4000, 33.0% mass
Total power: 1500, mass: 10870, 25 sections
Speed: 1.66, Acceleration: 0.04, Turning: 0.63

Radius 78 (6050 mass)
Light power, 17.2% mass
1 Light engine, 16.3% mass
5 Autocannon, 3 Vulcan, 1 Artillery, 20.8% mass
Armor 2000, 33.0% mass
Total power: 530, mass: 5290, 18 sections
Speed: 1.9, Acceleration: 0.06, Turning: 0.99

Eight simulations were run, each producing similar results: The surviving side lost roughly 75% of their sections each battle. I observe two vs one is an even matching.

There was little room to fit all the weapons in design, and their effect was a consistent rain toward any target. I will not comment on battle pacing until new armor/weapon ratios are tested; what I observed was fast-paced destruction but potentially acceptable.

Future trials:

One vs many, same mass total
Component ratio differences between sides
Weapon differences between sides
Large ships
Small ships

Testers, feel free to choose a topic and determine the results.

During the two vs one trial, I found the vulcans to be visually very impressive en masse. To test their effectiveness, I replaced the vulcans and artillery on a 78 radius variant with 9 additional autocannon (14 total).

While vulcans seem to have over double an autocannon's dps (including reload .76 vs .33), I find that unless your ship is touching noses with it's target, deviation produces less direct damage compared to two ACs (by equivalent cost). Take this as you will.

Trial two compared equivalent mass ships with a varied ratio of weapons to armor through 12 combats total.

Radius 110 (12100 mass)
Heavy power, 27.6% mass
1 Heavy engine, 16.5% mass
16 Autocannon, 6 Vulcan, 20.1% mass
Armor 4000, 33.0% mass
Total power: 1500, mass: 11790, 25 sections
Speed: 1.52, Acceleration: 0.04, Turning: 0.58

Radius 110 (12100 mass)
Heavy power, 27.6% mass
1 Heavy engine, 16.5% mass
6 Autocannon, 2 Vulcan, 7.1% mass (-13%)
Armor 5570, 46.0% mass (+13%)
Total power: 1100, mass: 11790, 25 sections
Speed: 1.52, Acceleration: 0.04, Turning: 0.58


Armor fared poorly against the armed over six trials, damaging between 25-35% before destruction. The combat was slightly prolonged, now that less firepower and more armor is on the field- an average of 40 seconds passed before each armored ship was rendered ineffective.

Two trials were also performed with the armored 110 vs two 78 (all-ac), where I observed less damage to the 78s- assumed due to alternating targets.

Finally four trials were performed with the ships used yesterday, to reintroduce artillery. Two with the 110 (-6 ac, +2 art), two with two 78s(5ac, 3vc, 1art). Combat length increased to 45 seconds, and the non-armor variants suffered ~5% more damage.

Based on testing done I have introduced some "heavy" guns, they also require testing, but once that is done we can move on to missiles, which are much more interesting.

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Looking at the engine stats, the light really seems to be a huge step above the rest in efficiency, and it does seem to make the other systems redundant for everything but getting a perfect complete fill of your allowed mass. Viewing the stuff below, it actually shows that lighter is better in every way except a small difference in the Mass to Accel between normal and heavy. Light however, is still superior in every way to the other two.

Normal:
Mass to Thrust 9.6
Mass to Turn 3.6
Mass to Accel 0.23
Energy to Thrust 25.563
Energy to Turn 9.482
Energy to Accel 0.609
Light:
Mass to Thrust 10.2
Mass to Turn 5.3
Mass to Accel 0.34
Energy to Thrust 50.225
Energy to Turn 26.075
Energy to Accel 1.675
Heavy:
Mass to Thrust 9.01
Mass to Turn 3.42
Mass to Accel 0.235
Energy to Thrust 21.452
Energy to Turn 8.149
Energy to Accel 0.560

Additionally, armor seemed to fare worse against agility when tested in smaller numbers, with it only really showing improvement as the scale of the battle got bigger.

That was an error, I corrected it and also tweaked with the power core/engine specifications to try and balance it out a bit.

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Weapon statistic tweaked. Introduced missile launchers. (Require much testing.)

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At the moment, the missiles just seem a tad too good for their mass and damage, with twice the firing arc of other weapons, nice range, and almost surefire hit chance thanks to guidance, it really does make it much better than the two other long range choices in the artillery and its repeating variant.

Course, it could just be that the artilleries are a little underpar compared to the other choices of weaponry, with sub par damage, even when considering the tiny amount of splash damage that it has, and the fact that while its marked range is 1200, its effective range is a fair bit shorter against any moving target. The main problem added by this is the huge mass that they have relative to other weapons, meaning they have the worst MDPS of all the weapons.

Other than that really, the weapon balance isn't actually that bad, with each of the current classes having their advantages, the Autocannons with their high Damage for their mass and low energy, vulcans with their very high damage output and slight spread giving them a better chance of hitting faster moving targets and the missile with its high damage accuracy, large firing arc and range (I wouldn't mind too much if its tracking or damage was lowered just a tad however, but thats my opinion).
Yeah, originally I had a list showin the DPS and MDPS, but I can't be bothered doing it again as I got logged out and lost the message. I might edit it in later.

You're quite right.

I adjusted the missile damage and introduced a "heavy" missile launcher that fires slower, less agile missiles that do greater damage and come in larger salvos.

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I have a question about radius determination. Since arbitrary core placement can affect size to make ships artificially bigger/smaller in number, will there be any guidelines to stop people from fudging their size?

A size 100 ship using these rules can be twice as big as another size 100 ship depending on core placement, and still be the same in strength just a bigger target with a larger spread of it's overall HP.

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Fly me to the moon, so I can play among the stars~
Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars~

Additionally, one must remember that placing the core anywhere but the center means that it takes less fire from one direction to pierce through to the core, as well as increasing the likelihood that a weapon with splash damage being capable of hitting the core.

The only real way to cheat the size thing is to put a tiny, light armored section that just sticks out to increase size, and doesn't really serve much other purpose. However, this would probably be easy to spot, so it'd be easy to prevent.

Also, the prototype-type weapons are looking pretty good. The drones are pretty bad in the damage department, but are effective and highly accurate, while the beam does its work quite well.

"Don't do that" is the guideline for that issue. That kind of thing is cheating, and it's obvious cheating too. A ship's "size" should always be representative of its actual physical size.

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