Design validations

[vebyast]

• Part not researched by given time (depends on #17)
• Subsystem over internal weight cap
• Design power cost > power generation
• Nonzero Militarisation (depends on #26)
• Design total weight over principal frame weight cap
• Part counts outside allowed range (depends on #28)

Need to both detect and display each of these. Probably turning various numbers red?

Note that entering invalid inputs must remain possible; people work in the corners of the permissible region constant go over the boundary all the time. Rejecting invalid inputs during editing would be a PITA. Instead, just detect and mark them.

Tooltips would be an excellent idea here.

[nixanten]

• Nav deflector type is limited by a combination of frame subframe type, frigate + heavy engineering subframe, cruser + medium or heavy engineering subframe and capital frame (regardless of subframe) all allow a heavy and prohibit a light nav deflector, while all other combinations allow a light and prohibit a heavy nav deflector.
• Subframes need to match the principal frame type.
• The spreadsheet does not currently support it, but there should be a way to set and check against the tech based internal weight limits for frigates and cruisers (which can be lower than the internal weight offered by a frame)

[nixanten]

Also validation for part availability in design year should be optional and/or soft because there are also designs for other powers that can have different part availability and making an explicit custom part list for that case may be too much work.

[vebyast]

tech based internal weight limits for frigates and cruisers

That'd be things like the [T2] 2,100kt Cruiser Design item? Is there a list of those compiled anywhere?

Also validation for part availability in design year should be optional and/or soft

Currently the plan is to have exactly zero hard validations. As a concrete use case, users need to be able to share designs that don't work so that they can collaborate on fixing them.

[nixanten]

That'd be things like the [T2] 2,100kt Cruiser Design item? Is there a list of those compiled somewhere?

Not outside the research megapost. Uncertainty about how exactly those were supposed to work in combination with the principal frames was one of the reasons we didn't research them before now, but given that the projects are still there they seem to actually be supposed to impose an extra limit, and we have treated them as doing such during the Kepler design.

Currently the plan is to have exactly zero hard validations. As a concrete use case, users need to be able to share designs that don't work so that they can collaborate on fixing them.

I mean that it needs to be easy to distinguish a design with many parts failing validation for availability but zero other issues from a design with part availability failing validation and one other issue.

[vebyast]

I mean that it needs to be easy to distinguish a design with many parts failing validation for availability but zero other issues from a design with part availability failing and one other issue.

Ah, yes. I'm going to be putting a lot of effort into designing how to show validations to avoid issues like this. Just turning the entire sheet red is kind of useless; I have to show where the errors are.

In this specific case, I think that "this part is not available in this year" will be one of the least visible validations - I'm thinking that it'd just be affected cells in the "year available" column turning a bit yellow. Other validations would show up in other places in the app and would be much more visible. For example, power or weights not lining up are going to be affected cells turning red.

I'm considering, in addition to the cells and the tooltips, a display for long-form error messages with feedback, kind of like what you'd get out of any compiler.

[vebyast]

Other things from SWB:

• Subframe mismatch with main frame
• Explorers can't have modules
• Missing components: impulse engine, no sensor / science module at all, computer core, operating system, hull system, SIF, navigational deflector, nacelle system, fuel & matter stores, warp core, M/AM Injectors, Coolant, EPS Manifold

Warnings:

• No phasers, only one sensor and no science module, missing deflector shields, recreation package, eject system
• Frigates without torps or combat module can't use frigate doctrines
• Explorer without recreation, sickbays, or replication package seems unwise - that's intuition though not a rule, some ppl may be building battleships