I'd feel it more canon if they were built elsewhere, then transferred to a destroyer.
I remember command briefings along the lines of "we've just recieved a shipment of xyz, enjoy" if they need to be built from an Arcadia module I guess that'll have to suffice in lieu of canon production facilities.
That's also how I feel, but then the carrier function of the destroyers become pretty useless - and in the FS1 era, the destroyers would become just totally useless. Like I said, because all ships can jump anywhere in the battlefield, carrying ships is irrelevant from a gameplay point of view.
But I plan to have supply freighters periodically jump in and depose resource at the Arcadia (and maybe between the Arcadia and the destroyers too), giving a consistent use for the freighters, providing another resource source, forcing the player to protect the convoys and creating a "ships parts are made elsewhere and assembled in the Arcadia" explanation
Though your post does give me an idea, how about building the fighters from the Arcadia and having them automatically warping to a destroyer with free slots and docking, and then it becomes automated et etc?
Yeah, but I just don't want automated fighters. FS is originally a space shooter, in which fighters prevails. I want the player to have full control of the fighters, be able to coordinate fighter/bomber strikes, escort and such.
Anyway, something that should be doable script-wise is making the destroyers increase the fighter pop cap.
Yep. I did read it. I read it all. In the first few posts it says it's a Freespace mod for Freespace fans.
Hence my canon comment ;p
And you're absolutely right. I am very concerned about canon and keeping a true Freespace feel, not only a "omg freespaice ships in HW dat's cool" feel.
Would it be possible to limit the fighers ammunition, to force the player to periodically dock the fighters to a base or capitol ship to keep them effective?
Ammunition capacity wouldn't be really easy to achieve. Making single-use weapons is definitely doable though (making it a special weapon like the scout EMP in HW2 and giving it a veeery long recharge time), and I may do that for Harbringer/Helios warheads.
However the "periodically dock" idea is something I will dig up. It should be possible to force (via scripting) the fighters to dock periodically to the nearest docking ship for R&R. And that will definitely make the fighterbays of the destroyers useful. That may also enable me to introduce the support ships (Centaur, Hygeia) into the gameplay.
If not, perhaps re-introducing fuel for fighters like in HW1 might be a good idea.
People have tried that, but it's just impossible to set up a non CPU-expensive system for this with the tools we have.
Come to think of it, you didn't mention destroyable subsystems so far. Will it be possible to shoot some of the weapons off of capships?
That's already done, good sir
. Each and every turret is targetable and damageable. However I made them so they can't be destroyed, only deactivated for a time, so they will regenerate over time and the player won't have to deal with a subsystem management menu for each capital ship. That's also basically how I dealt with shields (invisible subsystem around the ship that regenerate over time). I have yet to turn engines (and maybe weapons and other subsystems) into subsystems, because I need a mesh for them - I have enough things to do before I work further on that though.
Also, something that prevails in FS are the cargo depots. Any suggestion about how to integrate them cleverly into the gameplay ?
