[MUD-Dev] Containing automation?

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On 05:04 PM 7/21/99 -0700, I personally witnessed Marc Hernandez jumping up
to say:
>
>	The original plan was to have people build spaceships out of
>building blocks (instead of the common: select hull size N, It has P ports
>for weapons.  It has C cubic metres for cargo.  Select laser etc).  But I
>found building a full spaceship out of such things is a monumental task.

Ultimate Universe does something similar. We have about 15 things that your
ship carries by default, which are traditionally called "forward bay
devices". Beyond that, there are "specialty device bays" which you can put
other items in; anywhere from 5 to 40 of them. 

The real key to this plan is that any and all of those forty devices can be
removed or replaced at any given time. You may, for example, go out
exploring and need a vast number of unusual sensors on your ship. Since you
don't need them all the time, when you decide to go into sweep-and-clear
mode and run around killing everything, you can sell or discard the sensors
you don't use often and replace them with weapons. When you log off for the
evening, you can discard some of your weaponry and replace it with ship
defenses in case of ambush. 

We've discussed a change in which we would split the available devices into
"hardware" and "software" devices, with some devices needing both hardware
and software, but I'm holding off on this concept for the moment because it
may be too complex for people to understand.

-----
| Caliban Tiresias Darklock            caliban at darklock.com 
| Darklock Communications          http://www.darklock.com/ 
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