Staff June 2020 Factory Update

[John Locke]

June 2020 Update​

As submission come and go new issues and problems come to the fore and we are constantly tweaking the factory rules to account for them. In light of recent discussions, the following changes are being made to the factory.

1) Hyperdrives​

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We are doing away with the current balancing system based around hyperdrive and instead are replacing it with a binary yes/no option. Either a ship has a hyperdrive or it doesn't. To allow for that organic feel in terms of the information available about a ship and roleplay there will be a field for you to write in a ship's hyperdrive speed. This will not affect balance, but a speed faster than 1.0 will require balancing in the strengths and weaknesses.​

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2) Frigate Hangars​

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To bring Frigates inline with the rest of the ships a new field for hangar allocations has added at 350m allowing for a greater degree of customization when it comes to the fighters and support craft allocated to these ships.​

As always, if you have any concerns about the factory or these new updates please feel free to reach out to me, or post a discussion up in factory discussion.

 

[Republic Engineering]

John Locke - So, if ship's don't have a hyperdrive they don't get any benefits from removing that system?

 

[John Locke]

Republic Engineering

It's a free weakness for them. However, it won't affect the balance in terms of ratings.

 

[Republic Engineering]

John Locke - Having No Hyperdrive should've been considered a weakness to begin with, so it being free or not is kinda pointless. It's disappointing to see that the conversation(s) on this discussion point have basically been swept under the rug. But, that'll be something that'll pop up in a future suggestion thread in the Factory Discussion area.

 

[Niamh Raste]

I concur with Gideon. Not having a hypersrive is absolutely a weakness warranting use in the ratings system. Almost everyone agreed with this point, including former factory staff. That said, I will just keep bringing it up in factory discussion threads.

 

[Darth Empyrean]

I dont believe Hyperdrives have been taken into consideration for ratings for months if not years, and from what I understand this is simply a way to represent that officially.

Most of us have tried using it as free rating before, but have been told it isnt taken into account - since it doesn't matter in rp at all. This isn't exactly new, honestly, and a weakness like that can rationalize an extra rating like always.

Appreciate the update, John. Can't wait to see the future of Factory.

 

[Lily Kuhn]

Darth Empyrean
Maybe since the beginning of the year, but while I was a part of Staff, and the Factory, it was and was very openly represented in the templates and the tools the factory provided to its users, and it was a part of the factory as late as the end of the last year as could be observed in several submissions made during that period of time.

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Lily Kuhn
And just the same, many submissions show the opposite - of submissions openly being mentioned that a 'Slow' Hyperdrive doesn't add anything, creating a large issue in judging by precedent, and the complications that came with it. Regardless, nothing has changed, having a hyperdrive slow or not never meant anything but flavor, and now they've codified it in a less gamey way people can take advantage of.

Does this change anything? No, it doesn't.

Are people still free to say they don't have a hyperdrive and claim a weakness for it? Yeah, it seems to be the case.

If one rating makes or breaks someone's gamifying of submissions, they should make more interesting subs that don't rely on an 'Extreme' or 'Very Slow' rating to be interesting.

 

[Niamh Raste]

Hyperdrives absolutely matter in RP. No hyperdrive = no microjumps. No hyperdrive means if you lose the ship that carried them you lose those fighters. For pilot characters it means being stranded there. To say it doesn't just shows incredible disregard for the importance of hyperdrives in the Star Wars universe.

 

[Gir Quee]

Darth Empyrean , the change is for starfighter hyperdrives, which as Lily has already mentioned was in place for years - I remember it being used before I was a Factory RPJ.

I think you may be thinking about capital ship hyperdrives though, what you're describing is completely accurate for that.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Hyperdrive's presence or absence matters, no one is disputing that.

The speeds of the hyperdrive, do not, and never have mattered in RPing since for one actual travel time is incredibly inconsistent, and for another it's handwaved anyway. Ships arrive precisely when they mean to, like Wizards. In all my many fleeting threads the fact that a ship has a 2.0 hyperdrive has never, ever made any difference.

It counts as a weakness you may use in your submission if you do not have one and a strength if you have a specially fast one. That is all that is required. The factory has done a great job cutting out the use of superfluous stats and figures and this is another example.

You are free to object, but this is the stance John has taken, and it has my full support. You may make a Factory Discussion thread and come up with a counter proposal should you wish.

 

[AMCO]

This is a bit nitpicky about me, I'm not going to lie, but why even bother making "Hyperdrive" a distinct field from "Hyperdrive Class" when a "No" or "N/A" in the first would always result in the same in the second? Just clogs up the template unnecessarily, if you ask me.

Then again, I also wish I could put "Starfighters" and "Support Craft" under "Hangar Space" itself to make my subs sleeker, so I'm clearly overly focused on the aesthetic of it all - what can I say but that I despise redundancies?

 

[Djonas Vile]

AMCO same reason civilian stations still require armament ratings despite them always being none: because templates are templates.

 

[AMCO]

Not quite what I was aiming for, Djonas Vile ; basically, I prefer for a rating to be elaborated under the same rating, as is the case for Armaments.

I went and included an image of how I usually format things for reference, you'll note that I don't really have anything left to put under "Hangar Allocations" itself, just like the new "Hyperdrive" field will just be a "Yes" or "No" followed by another field that would have a N/A anyway if the ship doesn't have a Hyperdrive or a [Insert Class] if it does...

... which makes it, as I see it, entirely redundant for every ship type, in contrast to "Armaments" which is still taken into account for balance.

Spoiler

 

[Djonas Vile]

AMCO considering, 9 times out of 10, ships without hyperdrives are starfighters, which is a small percentage of starship subs im pretty sure, I don't really see how it's redundant unless like you're only making starfighters or really lame ships.

 

[AMCO]

This probably isn't the best format for this kind of discussion, Djonas Vile , so I suggest we wrap it up here unless you have something else that seems saying, but my point was simply that a field that simply reads "Hyperdrive: Yes/No" is entirely redundant when the next field has one describe the Hyperdrive or, presumably, insert the usual "N/A".

As I see it, it would be akin to having a field before Armaments asking whether the ship has guns or not.

Anyway, this is very nitpicky and very much a personal opinion, but then I also said that in my first post.

 

[Djonas Vile]

AMCO I think I see what you're saying now. Instead of 2 fields for hyperdrives it should just be one like for modularity. When people say yes, they usually describe the modularity after, but if they say no they leave it at that. Now that I've had sleep and not reading after a 10 hr work day I get you.

 

[Republic Engineering]

As of today, it's been well over a week since my second suggestion discussion thread was posted in the factory, and roughly a week since a factory judge mentioned that my opinion was being considered / discussed by the factory staff. I'm just wanting to touch base and see where we're at - or to see if scuttlebutt's to be believed and it's been swept under the proverbial rug.

I've linked the relevant thread so if people are interested, they can view it and love it (maybe,) comment on it, tear it apart - what have you.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Crickets chirping for a while



Shame, seemed like a decent suggestion to me (The edited one that was [none] [average] [fast] was the one I liked).