Tree View for Designs and Models

Tree View for Designs and Models

This is an idea that Havoc and I always wanted to see implemented back in the DSE days.

Add a button to the Research Window labeled “Add Model”. Clicking on this button brings up a small window that says, “Model Designation:” and a text field next to the colon. Below that would be Accept and Cancel buttons. The effect of adding a model would be to list the model name in a branch below the design that was selected in the Research Window at the time the Add Model button was clicked. The Add Model button would be grayed out for Specials.

Once one or more model designations have been added to a design, the Research button will become grayed out when the root design name is selected. The first model designation added is given the existing design. When additional model designations are added, the View Details screen will come up with the information from the root design filled in. The player can then make changes and it will be stored as the new model.

The player can click View Details when a model is selected to view it. Models can be researched as normal. Changes can be made to a model only if it hasn’t been researched yet. If it has been researched, the Add Model window will appear when the player clicks on the Redesign button. The player also has the option to delete a model at any time. If the last model is deleted, the design returns to being a single entry with no branches.

Clicking View Details on the root design will allow the player to view and make changes to the design, but clicking on the Submit button will only save the changes, not design it or research it. The root design serves as the template for any models added, so changes to the root design will be seen the next time the player adds a model. Lastly, when viewing the root design or any model, the options to choose a different Hull in the Hull Builder, to change the Hull Type in the Armor, Shield, Radar, Engine, and Weapon Builders, to change the name in any of the Builders, and to change the Weapon Type in the Weapon Builder will be disabled.

This tree view for designs and models would apply to the Research Window, the Build Window, the Colonial Research Queue, and the Colonial Production Queue. It would be a subset of the existing tree. Models could then be selected and added to a Build queue by pressing the + button. As with all tree views, it would be expandable/collapsible.

Lastly, the Prototype Builder would get new drop-down menus positioned just beneath and slightly indented for the Hull, Engine, Armor, Radar, and Shield drop-downs. These would be for choosing the model and would be grayed out for designs that have no models.

This would improve the player's ability to keep the list organized immensely. It would also have the effect of greatly expanding the available space for design names since players would no longer need to append model numbers to the name for all of the variations they create. For Hulls, one could easily make the model names the name of the material used to make the Hull. Then there would be the hull design name with each of the materials usable for making that hull listed beneath it.

Mmm well it's been a long time since I wrote this, so I'm not 100% sure what I meant by all of it, but at its most basic, this changes the Research Window to display like this (imagine the stars are empty space):

- Design
*****- Model 1
*****- Model 2
*****- Etc.

so for example where we currently have Prototypes displayed like this:

- Fury Mk. I
- Fury Mk. II
- Fury Mk. IIa

and the game sees them as completely independent designs.

With this new system, it would be like this:

- Fury
*****- Z-500
*****- Z-501
*****- Z-502

That's the display change. The functional change is that the root design serves as a template. It is not a design in and of itself. The models serve as what we now know of as Prototypes. Right now if you edit an existing design, then research it to see what the random number generator gives you, then if you don't like what you get, you have to do all the edits over again for another try. With the template, that's not an issue.

If I recall correctly, my idea for this had two key parts. This was the first one, to greatly improve the organization of how things were listed in the Research Window. At this point, Hulls are still designed and researched separately from Prototypes, but they are displayed in this tree format.

Part 2

The second part, which I didn't cover well in the original post, was to better handle the evolution and upgrade of designs. If the above was in place, then we could take it further by eliminating the separate listing of Hulls and Prototypes and integrating them together using the new system.

Using the example above, let's say the Fury is a Mantis heavy fighter. Now that we're in step 2, we'll say the template now includes both the hull and the prototype in one place. In our original template, we choose the Mantis, the hull material, and lay out the squares for weapons, engine, radar, etc. When finished, we save hull design and proceed to what we currently call the Prototype screen. Next, we add the specific components we want. When that's done, the template is complete. We then create the Z-500 model and research it. At this point the template and the model are identical, but the model can be produced.

Now, let's say we want the same thing with a different hull material. Easy, just open the template, change the hull material, and create a new model.

Did you design a better engine that needs one more square of engine space? Open the template, adjust the hull layout, change the specific engine used, and create a new model.

Need to revise the weapon groups? Ditto.

And of course, if you aren't happy with the random number generator results, you can simply delete that model and create a new model from the template again.

The one thing you cannot change at this point is the specific hull used (Hull Type). You can't create a new model that doesn't use the Mantis hull.

You have some good ideas there, but I don't want to get rid of the hull designer. I think it's a big part of what sets this game apart. If you take a look at StarDrive and the upcoming StarDrive 2, it's clear that having detailed hull design is not a downside if the UI is good.

The entire reason I was drawn to BP in the first place was the detailed ship design. I think this Tree View and Models idea would improve the UI for design greatly.