Why does a Unit not show its ship class?

posted on April 14th, 2016, 8:03 pm

Not sure, if this is posted right here...

I noticed units when you click on them, only show their ships name (and status and this stuff...) but for some reason it never names the ships class like it was in A2 original.

Maybe this question has been discussed ages ago, sorry for that. I haven't played A2 for at least 7 or 8 years and I never was into the 'scene' off modding and this stuff. So for me, this is all completely new.

I'd be grateful if one of those professionals (or even one of the modders) can tell me why they decidest not to show ship classes.

Thanks,
guitar-Man

posted on April 15th, 2016, 5:18 am

Welcome to the forums Guitar-Man!

At the time this was more or less because we wanted to de-emphasize the role that ship "class" had in Fleet Operations. However, over time our system became more complex, with the addition of "size" as well. At that point there were too many class-size combinations to list easily on the ship profiles, especially as we did not want to confuse new players.

In future releases we will not have such an opaque system

posted on April 15th, 2016, 3:26 pm

Thank you, Dominus_Noctis.
It might be a language issue, but I don't understand your answer, related to my question...It's possible you misunderstood. I try again, both in english and in german :

A units profile names the ship name but not the class name
(like
"USS Enterprise"
Galaxy Class)
Obviously there is enough space to show and name the ships class name, but it doesn't. Why? This is in my eyes a big lack especially as a new player! Every time I mark a unit quickly, I hae no Idea what it's capable of, because I'm of course not familiar with new classes by there design.

german:
Klickt man eine einzelne Einheit an, ist da zwar der Name des Schiffes zu lesen, aber nicht der Klassenname, wie es im A2 Original der Fall war. Mir scheint es ausreichend Platz für Schiffsklassen-Bezeichnungen zu geben, da frag ich mich, warum man sie offenkundig bewusst weglässt. Als neuer Spieler ist das ein erheblicher Mangel, denn wähle ich "auf die schnelle ein Schiff aus, kann ich (besonders bei mir bisher unbekannten Klassen) nur raten, was es wohl kann. Wüsste ich den Klassennamen, könnte ich viel schneller die Klassen und deren Fähigkeiten lernen...

posted on April 15th, 2016, 4:17 pm

i think the point dominus is trying to make, is that on the back end, there are too many variants of classes to list them efficiently. take romulans for example; many of their ships are not defined by what class it is, but what upgrade you give it. federation has this to a smaller degree as well, with the defiant class having the normal variant, the klingon mix tech, and the romulan mix tech. while the changes here are subtle, they are still enough that calling it just "defiant class" is a bit misleading, and wouldn't help if you were trying to find which of your ships would unlock a cloak, or mines from the mixtech shipyards.

secondly, you're looking at things strictly from a playing point of view. behind the game, there's alot of complex systems that determine what group a ship falls under in alot of complex situations. each ship has alot of categories attached to it, that the game references when using group commands, or building unlocks. while i have not looked too much at how the game works, i know the game has many sub groups for each type of ship. the galaxy for example is attached to the warp in group, the military ship group (probably used to separate non-combat ships from units you can fight with), and any other sub categories that the game uses to know when and where to use and offer such a ship for building, repairing, and fighting. i believe alot of this is due to the rather limiting engine that A2 uses, and is mostly why the Fleet ops team wants to go to a new engine for further development.

posted on April 15th, 2016, 5:28 pm

Every time I mark a unit quickly, I hae no Idea what it's capable of, because I'm of course not familiar with new classes by there design.

So you can remember all the classes' capabilities, and recognise those capabilities from the class name, but not from its appearance? I doubt that, so I don't see how adding in the class' name will improve this particular problem.

Example: If I see "Galaxy class", I don't automatically remember "Offensive: X, Defensive: Y, System: Z" (and that's not even factoring in ranks or avatar changes, as described by others above). If I were able to have that kind of memory, I would probably have already remembered what a Galaxy class looks like...

You'll learn the ship classes and their appearances quickly enough anyway, so this will very soon be a moot point. :-)

posted on April 15th, 2016, 9:05 pm

Ahh! Yes, I did misunderstand . I thought you mean "class" as in "destroyer", "battleship", "cruiser", etc.

We don't include the ship's class (e.g. Galaxy class) for aesthetic reasons . The ship's visual tells you what it is, and if you hover over the visual, it tells you the class .

posted on April 29th, 2016, 4:05 pm

Sorry it took a while to respond - I played a while the game now. And I can say, yes, I got used to the classes, on that point Atlantis was right.
But I still think, it is still a little lack. The profile of a single ship was - for me at least - always more than a technical overview of a unit. At least when I play federation, every single ship is important to me. That's why I think the design of a ship's profile is an important thing.

That brings me to another point: After I have played now a while I'd like to write down kind of a critical reception on a e new thread, if none of the mod's here has something against it. I have this desire to write that from my personal perspective of someone who has never been into that modding-scene and who was never playing anything else than the original A2 ages ago....

posted on April 29th, 2016, 10:10 pm

Comments and thoughts are always welcome.