Ship Shapes can be brought back!

Okay, Remember that thread that got everyone's hopes up for nothing? You know.. The one where it showed the ships in different shapes? Well, I would like to bring these back into play. You see, the reason they were scraped is because they had no purpose. It was just a novelty. But I want to add something new to this old, scraped, idea. Classes! Heres how this will work. Each ship will have there own amount of power, speeds and HP. The basic ship can be a perfect balance. But the cube can be more powerful than speedy and the bird of prey can be more speedy than power full. With a few more designs for the ships this can REALLY add to bitfighter's gameplay. If this can be used it would be a fantastic addition to bitfighter and gives even more customization more the ships. All we need is more designs for ships. 3 isn't enough. And before you say "BUT TH3R3 IZ ALR3ADY A TURBOH MODULE" The faster ships make turbo even faster because of how fast they already are. But they do not have a lot of power to do damage with. I can't see how this can go wrong, It only does good for the game and makes it much more attractive. I really want this idea to go through and it would amazing if it did. Thanks.

[bobdaduck]

The triangle ship is so iconic to the game that I don't want to get rid of it.

This is not a new idea, it was even brought up in the thread you're talking about itself.

The triangle ship is so iconic to the game that I don't want to get rid of it.

This is not a new idea, it was even brought up in the thread you're talking about itself.

We are NOT getting rid of the old ship by ANY means. That bugger is stayin' No matter what. I just want to revisit the idea. And try to get some new feedback on it that we can hopefully talk about and get it in the game. That thread was the best idea ever. We need to look at this from a different angle. It would add more replay-ablity to bitfighter.

[bobdaduck]

What? No it wouldn't.

Of course the ship is staying but like... Adding more ships decreases its value.

It would be fun, but I don't think it would add ANYTHING to the game. A novelty at best, confusing at worst, it doesn't meet the criteria.

What? No it wouldn't.

Of course the ship is staying but like... Adding more ships decreases its value.

It would be fun, but I don't think it would add ANYTHING to the game. A novelty at best, confusing at worst, it doesn't meet the criteria.

Did you even frigging read the thread? I said each one will be different. It will let players find one that matches their play style. Also the ship will still be the main one. It will not be replaced. It will be a perfectly balenced ship on all levels making it the perfect ship for newbies to experts. The other ships will add to this by making players have a choice between others to find the levels that will best match em'.

Heres the idea.

[Little_Apple]

That bird of prey looks like an obese pacman ghost.

[Quartz]

I've always liked the idea of different ships, and different models fulfilling different roles. However it would be a pain in the ass to balance and a very, very big change to the game.

What I would suggest instead, if anything, is to model the ship off of whatever modules you have selected. Which could be interesting.

I've always liked the idea of different ships, and different models fulfilling different roles. However it would be a pain in the ass to balance and a very, very big change to the game.

What I would suggest instead, if anything, is to model the ship off of whatever modules you have selected. Which could be interesting.

Well, I think we can release these different ships (Plus a few more maybe) And tweak them over time. Until they are completley balanced. Here is another Idea for a ship.

[bobdaduck]

I'm much more inclined to go with Quartz idea, so that you can tell what modules two ships are using. I'd still be sad to lose the iconicness of the triangle though. Even if you're not replacing it outright, it still isn't nearly as big a part of our game if there's a ton of different shapes to choose from. Also ship classes as you're proposing is... I don't really like the idea of that. The higher speed/stats/hp part seems off and out of place in bitfighter, to me.

I'm much more inclined to go with Quartz idea, so that you can tell what modules two ships are using. I'd still be sad to lose the iconicness of the triangle though. Even if you're not replacing it outright, it still isn't nearly as big a part of our game if there's a ton of different shapes to choose from. Also ship classes as you're proposing is... I don't really like the idea of that. The higher speed/stats/hp part seems off and out of place in bitfighter, to me.

You do realize quartz idea will make the ship fade out even more. Right? With my idea the ship is still the mascot, and still iconic. Quartz Idea kinda makes it just another form. The classes would go much better in my opinion. I think we should try at least one of these ideas in v19.

[bobdaduck]

If we're going to fade out the ship at all, to heck with it.

His idea has practical merit, without affecting gameplay. Your idea will add a whole new layer of complexity to the game, a layer that I don't particularly want.

For reference, 5c3 is 10, so we need at least 20 different ship designs.

If we're going to fade out the ship at all, to heck with it.

His idea has practical merit, without affecting gameplay. Your idea will add a whole new layer of complexity to the game, a layer that I don't particularly want.

For reference, 5c3 is 10, so we need at least 20 different ship designs.

1st, No we only need a few new ship designs.
2nd, The main ship is still our mascot and the one we advertise with no matter what.
3rd, Complexity? you just get to pick different ships that have different stats. If you don't like em, Just pick the original one. I seriously don't know why someone would think this is a bad idea. It adds to replay-ability, It adds something other than the triangle ship. (Seriously, I know its iconic.. But its getting boring having everyone look the same isn't it?)

[bobdaduck]

I'm against change for change's sake in any form.

1: If we go with Quartz idea of showing a different ship based on weapon/module selection, we would need 20 different ships, at least. If we go with your idea then yes we only need a few.

2: Yes, still our mascot. Our mascot that doesn't even appear in game anymore

3: Should we have different flag designs too? Different wall colors? Lets have bursts just be a random sprite we pull from the internet, different each time. Just... seems like a really bad idea to me.

I believe that I have found the perfect balancing system. Instead of using bars we could do this.
Classic = Perfectly Balanced as mentioned before.
Cube = Highest power, Mid HP, Slowest Speed.
Bird = Highest Speed, Mid Power, Lowest HP
Sphere = Highest HP, Mid Speed, Lowest power
This should work a lot better than a bunch of bars.. Its much less confusing.
Now you can easily see how I wanted them to be balanced. Each ship has its own weakness and strength, Along with one thing its somewhat good with. (Mid)

[bobdaduck]

I believe that I have found the perfect balancing system. Instead of using bars we could do this.
Classic = Perfectly Balanced as mentioned before.
Cube = Highest power, Mid HP, Slowest Speed.
Bird = Highest Speed, Mid Power, Lowest HP
Sphere = Highest HP, Mid Speed, Lowest power
This should work a lot better than a bunch of bars.. Its much less confusing.
Now you can easily see how I wanted them to be balanced. Each ship has its own weakness and strength, Along with one thing its somewhat good with. (Mid)

Because of how the game is currently balanced, the bird of prey and the cube will be the only two ever used. In-game they would be far superior to everything else.

I'm against change for change's sake in any form.

1: If we go with Quartz idea of showing a different ship based on weapon/module selection, we would need 20 different ships, at least. If we go with your idea then yes we only need a few.

2: Yes, still our mascot. Our mascot that doesn't even appear in game anymore

3: Should we have different flag designs too? Different wall colors? Lets have bursts just be a random sprite we pull from the internet, different each time. Just... seems like a really bad idea to me.

Y'know what. Why don't we try my idea in the next update to see if it goes well. And in the next update we can try quartz and see if it works any better.

I believe that I have found the perfect balancing system. Instead of using bars we could do this.
Classic = Perfectly Balanced as mentioned before.
Cube = Highest power, Mid Speed, Lowest HP.
Bird = Highest Speed, Mid HP, Lowest Power
Sphere = Highest HP, Mid Power, Lowest Speed
This should work a lot better than a bunch of bars.. Its much less confusing.
Now you can easily see how I wanted them to be balanced. Each ship has its own weakness and strength, Along with one thing its somewhat good with. (Mid)

Because of how the game is currently balanced, the bird of prey and the cube will be the only two ever used. In-game they would be far superior to everything else.

Slightly Tweaked the two cheapest ones.
Cube = Highest power, Mid Speed, Lowest HP.
Bird = Highest Speed, Mid HP, Lowest Power
We could try this ans fix em' up every update until they are good enough.

[bobdaduck]

Y'know what. Why don't we try my idea in the next update to see if it goes well. And in the next update we can try quartz and see if it works any better.

Because the amount of time and effort it requires to program is big enough that nobody's going to code the stuff in unless you can convince them that its worth it.

If you were to code it yourself, they would put it in. Otherwise you're asking for a lot of work to "just try it".

I know at this point I practically begging. But I really want this in the game. You see, I have wanted to be a game designer/dev all my life. But never managed. So I wanted to come up with something big to hopefully help the game out. And so the birth of this thread. When I return too one of these threads only to find people saying "ETS NUT GUNNA WORK BLAH BLAH BLAH" Without even giving it a chance or a look into. Its pretty upsetting. Now I know I sound like a dramatic idiot when saying this but seriously!

[Little_Apple]

imo, if there are different styles ships with different stats it makes the outcome of a 1v1 firefight more dependent on what model shop you are using rather than the amount of the player's skill level. I think it's very balanced as is and the devs have done a very good job at making gameplay consistent without getting redundant.

Ps. If you want to be a game dev that bad you can take classes...

[bobdaduck]

You've done some good work with things like the trailer, it was excellent. This just seems like a bad idea though, and just not worth the work.

My idea was simply to change the design of the ship. Opti is presenting something entirely different.

If there were to be different ship shapes with different states with each ship design, AND keep the iconic triangle ship, what if the classic ship was the best there is stat-wise, and have all the other ship designs/stats nerfed relative to the original ship? That way, the classic triangle ship which is the bitfighter mascot, would be the preferred ship?

My idea was simply to change the design of the ship. Opti is presenting something entirely different.

If there were to be different ship shapes with different states with each ship design, AND keep the iconic triangle ship, what if the classic ship was the best there is stat-wise, and have all the other ship designs/stats nerfed relative to the original ship? That way, the classic triangle ship which is the bitfighter mascot, would be the preferred ship?

Uhhhh... No.... That would be the complete opposite of balance...

[Little_Apple]

oh and bob, you look good in green.

Uhhhh... No.... That would be the complete opposite of balance...

My idea was simply to change the design of the ship. Opti is presenting something entirely different.

If there were to be different ship shapes with different states with each ship design, AND keep the iconic triangle ship, what if the classic ship was the best there is stat-wise, and have all the other ship designs/stats nerfed relative to the original ship? That way, the classic triangle ship which is the bitfighter mascot, would be the preferred ship?

[Little_Apple]

but if the original shape is better than the others why add the others in the first place?

[bobdaduck]

If our triangle is working great how it is why add more in the first place?

I actully support this idea and reject qaurtzes idea it would make BF have more varity and not be so boring also i agree with you im tired of people going to my threads and saying no it ont work blah blah blah but having no valid reason for it it would make BF alot more fun.

I actually support this idea and reject qaurtz' idea it would make BF have more varity and not be so boring also i agree with you i'm tired of people going to my threads and saying no it won't work blah blah blah but having no valid reason for it it would make BF a lot more fun.

Thanks, I know this will add a lot more skill to bitfighter and will make it a much more competitive fighter. Rather than everyone being the exact same.

[Quartz]

Who's qaurtzes ??

It's devilish close to my username. I am offended.

problem is is people are so concerned about BF being "consistent they are to closed minded to adding to BF the only time Bf gets new features is whne a dmins makes a exuctive desicon.

overall adding to BF is good maybe moving ahead to osmthing that will become a new thing that expands / is beyond the original zap would be great.

BF FOREVER!

this idea +2^2^2^2^2............................

problem is is people are so concerned about BF being "consistent they are to closed minded to adding to BF the only time Bf gets new features is whne a dmins makes a exuctive desicon.

overall adding to BF is good maybe moving ahead to osmthing that will become a new thing that expands / is beyond the original zap would be great.

BF FOREVER!

this idea +2^2^2^2^2............................

Stop making typos.

[watusimoto]

You see, the reason they were scraped is because they had no purpose. It was just a novelty.

They were scrapped because it really wasn't as good as we thought it might be.

For the record, raptor did a ton of work to make alternative ships possible, we implemented it, we tried it, we rejected it. The code is still there, and could be revived, but at the moment I don't see us doing that.

We discussed ship classes in the past (I believe I proposed it at one time), but the community (then) panned the idea. Modules are sort of like ship classes in that they give ships special abilities.

I'm against change for change's sake in any form.

1: If we go with Quartz idea of showing a different ship based on weapon/module selection, we would need 20 different ships, at least. If we go with your idea then yes we only need a few.

2: Yes, still our mascot. Our mascot that doesn't even appear in game anymore

3: Should we have different flag designs too? Different wall colors? Lets have bursts just be a random sprite we pull from the internet, different each time. Just... seems like a really bad idea to me.

Hehe nice burst. But we can always retrieve the code, test it out in like a beta on bitfighter.org???

For those who don't know. The ships will not change the modules. Instead, It will adjust the speed, amount of damage weapons do, and amount of HP they have. Hardly any programming will have to be done. You already have the ship shapes, So why not have some simple code added on to them to adjust their stats? It would be great. We NEED to step outside of what zap was. Bitfighter does not HAVE to be the same game! At least test this idea out and post a video of it and see what people think.

[bobdaduck]

If we were doing it, it would not be through the classes (adjusting ship stats) option. It would be with Quartz option (or perhaps some other option yet to be presented).

I've already stated why I think your ship classes idea is unviable. And "just try it" isn't going to happen when what you're asking for is several days of programming work to "just try" something.

Perhaps ship shapes could correlate with badges? (The rotating/temporary badges that I've proposed)

Am I the only one who thinks that while this might be a decent feature, it'll look like crap? Sorry for being harsh, but I don't know another way to put it. Circular and polygon Bitfighter ships, in my opinion, destroy the beauty that is triangular retro combat. I don't oppose change, but I have grown to love the simple triangle ships and I think uprooting that would be a mistake.

That being said, I would not be opposed to keeping the same triangle shape but changing the ship's appearance. Ex. instead of a simple line straddling the ship have a more detailed health bar. (Disclaimer: I'm not encouraging changing the ship's appearance. But I would personally prefer it to different ship shapes if we go this route.)

Perhaps ship shapes could correlate with badges? (The rotating/temporary badges that I've proposed)

This would definitely be very motivational and add a lot of replay value.

Perhaps ship shapes could correlate with badges? (The rotating/temporary badges that I've proposed)

This would definitely be very motivational and add a lot of replay value.

Indeed. At this point, I just think we should use the ship shapes. And maybe the classes were not such a good Idea.. I like the badge idea, and quartz' idea.

If we're just using ship shapes as a cosmetic feature then make it client-only. You didn't read my post so I'll say it again: I personally believe ship shapes would look ugly and detract from the positive aspects of the game. If you want them for your own computer, fine, but don't keep encouraging this to be a game-wide feature when people clearly oppose it.

[bobdaduck]

If we're just using ship shapes as a cosmetic feature then make it client-only. You didn't read my post so I'll say it again: I personally believe ship shapes would look ugly and detract from the positive aspects of the game. If you want them for your own computer, fine, but don't keep encouraging this to be a game-wide feature when people clearly oppose it.

I proposed the idea of "rotating" or "temporary" badges, based on most games played/most games won per month or whatever. If these were implemented, my idea was that whoever has the badge for the month gets a custom ship. This makes games played a valuable resource and people would play a lot more often.

What do you think of this?

If we're just using ship shapes as a cosmetic feature then make it client-only. You didn't read my post so I'll say it again: I personally believe ship shapes would look ugly and detract from the positive aspects of the game. If you want them for your own computer, fine, but don't keep encouraging this to be a game-wide feature when people clearly oppose it.

I proposed the idea of "rotating" or "temporary" badges, based on most games played/most games won per month or whatever. If these were implemented, my idea was that whoever has the badge for the month gets a custom ship. This makes games played a valuable resource and people would play a lot more often.

What do you think of this?

Nah, quartz Idea is better. The idea of having to earn the ships is not great. I prefer the modules. Hell, I could come up with some designs for that idea.

ship shapes = yes......

ship mods = yes.......

saying no without giving a valid reason....... no.

I proposed the idea of "rotating" or "temporary" badges, based on most games played/most games won per month or whatever. If these were implemented, my idea was that whoever has the badge for the month gets a custom ship. This makes games played a valuable resource and people would play a lot more often.

What do you think of this?

I'd be more inclined to go with this compromise since it promotes game participation, but I still think ship shapes would detract from the consistent and positivity of Bitfighter unnecessarily. I also think seeing a lone, bizarre ship would be rather distracting.

That being said, I am not opposed to implementing incentives to raise game activity. If the whole community believes this is the way to do it, then I'll grudgingly accept it, but I'm sure there are better ways.

On the other hand, I will note that part of my reluctance is due to the existing suggestions for customized ships. I think people are assuming that since Bitfighter's ship is a simple triangle shape, the way to go for customization is to use other basic and mundane shapes. I think this is entirely wrong thinking and frankly I think a square or circle would look ugly and lame. The bird idea used more creative thinking, although it needs work. If someone can make mock-ups of a ship that actually looks appeasing then I might change my mind.

ship shapes = yes......

ship mods = yes.......

saying no without giving a valid reason....... no.

Are you kidding me?

Do you even read threads before posting?

The mockups I made for raptor were a rush job. If I put my mind to it, I bet I could come up with some more polished designs.

The mockups I made for raptor were a rush job. If I put my mind to it, I bet I could come up with some more polished designs.

Same, I say we go with quartz' idea and try to come up with as many idea as we can. And P.S. I for one think the cube and sphere ships would look cool.

Are you aiming for quality, or quantity? If you are looking for quantity, count me out.

[bobdaduck]

Are you aiming for quality, or quantity? If you are looking for quantity, count me out.

Going with Quartz' idea we need at least 20 different ship designs.

Going with mine we need at least 8.

This isn't exactly a small project.

Who said we were going with anybody's idea?! My intent was to provide alternative ship designs which somewhat correspond to the games theme/feel. Why? Because it looks cool. Why does this game have color?? Because it looks cool.