Re: Revamping SEIV Ship Hull Sizes & Features
 

Fyron,
Interesting. Personaly I think that the accuracy mount should weigh the same as the LR mount, similar principles involved just different application.

Concealed mount seems a little Uber. Tonnage 25%, structure 100%, and damage 90%? That is one hell of a damage ratio you're offering, and they can double as internal armour.

I like the idea of the hold fire bays. Let 'em get in close and then see if they can run fast enough. Heh-heh. Wish I had thought of that.

For the pre-fire bays, how are they working? have they tested out all right? I remember the problems with adjusting seeher range through mounts (it doesn't actually affect the characteristics of the seeker) but will the seeker launch even though it will wink out of existence?

Edit: P.S. I noticed that you aren't intending for the AI to use any of the special mounts. Are you planning to keep it that way? If not, how are you planning to balance it?

[ March 23, 2003, 23:03: Message edited by: QuarianRex ]

Re: Revamping SEIV Ship Hull Sizes & Features
 

One thing I liked about MOO is the variety of ship sizes. I forget what the sizes were in MOO1, but in MOO2, the smallest ship size is 25 kT and the largest ship is 1200 kT. (OK, it doesn't say kT but I'm assuming each space unit is a kT). That's a factor of 48 between the smallest and largest ships! In MOO3, the jump is even bigger - something like 90 times, because there are 14 hull sizes with each being square root of 2 times the size of the Last. Compare this with SE4, where largest ship (Baseship, 1500 kT) is only 10 times the size of the smallest (Escort 150 kT)... Now I know that in MOO2, at least, small ships were fairly useless, but that's just because they weren't given enough defensive and speed bonuses. (+50 to defense for a frigate might seem like a lot, but then remember that in MOO2 you could have bonuses going up into the 200's!) It might not seem very "realistic" in wet-navy terms to have some ships 100 times the size of others, but this is a space game, it's supposed to be epic and awe-inspiring! (Why else do we have Battlemoons? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ) Of course, this change in scale would also necessitate a change in the scale of construction rates - in unmodded SE4 a top-level planetary spaceyard builds only 50% faster than your basic laser-popgun-age model! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif That certainly won't get anything big done in any reasonable amount of time! (Then again, we don't want a "yawn, popped out 8 more doomstars this turn" like we got in MOO2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif )

Oh well, done ranting for now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Revamping SEIV Ship Hull Sizes & Features
 

I agree with Instar, the larger ships should be required to carry more in the way of C&C (Command & Control) components.

QNP system? Could someone please post the engine requirements for this. I.E. I assume that the larger ships require more engines to go the same speed as a smaller verhicle.

I like the idea of giving smaller ships more advantages as you research through the Construction Technology like what was posted below.

But what advantages do you think smaller ships should have over their larger counterparts? PCP any thoughts on this?

I have a couple:

Escort/scout/cutter -
Normal starting tech but at ship construction tech 4 bonus given for speed and reduced component size.

Frigate/gunboat/Corvettes -
Normal starting tech at start but at ship construction level 5 tech given for speed and special weapons mounts. (Weapons mounts can be an imporved fire rate or distance bonus to hit ratio to missles or torpedo's)

Destroyer/heavy destroyer
Normal starting tech at start but at ship construction level 6 tech given for armor and special weapons. (Special weapons can be as you said, advanced missiles and torpedo's.)

This kinda spells out what I had in mind.

PCP do you remember that game you authored a few years ago (Q - Experiment?) I still have a print out of it if your interested in reviewing it. Remember all of the detail you went into for each ship class? I hope you still have a copy of it someplace, but it has been four years now.

Also I think it is important to understand that each ship class (Hull size) should have an important role to play in any game/mod. No sense in designing a Destroyer when your going to have Light Cruiser in five turns.

Additionally, here is my list for ship hull sizes:

Ships:
Scouts
Escorts
Cutters
Corvette
Gun Ship
Frigate
Destroyer
Light Cruiser
Cruiser
Heavy Cruiser
Battle Cruiser
Battleship
Dreadnought
Juggernought
Capital Ship

Small Carrier
Medium Carrier
Large Carrier
Super Carrier
Battle Carrier

Space Stations/OutPosts:
Standard
Centenial
Crown
Outland
Frontier

Battle Stations:
Alpha
Beta
Delta
Epsilon
Gama

Star Bases:
Base Star
Battle Star
Death Star

Fighters:
Interceptor
Short Range Fighter
Fighter
Heavy Fighter
Bomber
Heavy Bomber
Fighter Bomber
Long Range Bomber
Shuttles
Runabouts

Support Ships:
Colony 1
Colony 2
Colony 3

Transport 1
Transport 2
Transport 3

Extras:
Salvage ship
Repair vessel
Construction ship
Cargo ship
Specialized ship

PCP you really could make a sweet mod out of that game idea you had for the old FSN Forums. What did they rename it? Domination?

Re: Revamping SEIV Ship Hull Sizes & Features
 

Been giving the responses here some thought and have some things to add.

There have been some inaccurate generalizations here if compared to real life. Larger ships are generally faster and longer range than small ones; yes there are exceptions. Larger ships are less maneuverable. Command & control is not appreciably larger on larger ships; roughly 10% of crew represents C&C, and the shipboard space is roughly the same percentage.

Regarding SE4, I would increase the bridge, crew quarters and life support such that they represent the same rough percent of ship space as small ships. I would also give larger mounts an accuracy penalty to represent larger ship maneuverability.

Also, although QNP is a good idea, the end result should not be that all ships will be equal. This conflicts with real life. As I stated below, larger ships ARE better and should BE better in the game. This is due to "economy of size". Larger ships are more efficient, not less efficient.

The reason there aren't large navies from all countries on our oceans is $$$. It is tremendously expensive to operate and maintain a large navy. The US had 600+ navy ships under Reagan and today it has less than 1/2 that number. For SE4 purposes, this should translate into HUGE costs to make larger and larger ships. That will be realistic both in construction time and maintenance and will make smaller ships more useful.

Another concept is in the engines / quantum reactors. There are nuclear powered ships and conventional powered ships in our navy. The main difference is cost (to build and maintain) and time to refueling. Real life conventional ships must be refueled approximately weekly when at sea (give or take) when operating at high speeds and nuclear ships have endurances at 20+ years. The "supplies" issue is hardcoded for fleet sharing, but again you could make expensive components with large supply to represent the future Version of nuclear power vs. conventional power.

Slick.

[ March 24, 2003, 16:01: Message edited by: Slick ]

Re: Revamping SEIV Ship Hull Sizes & Features
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And what would you think they should weigh? 125 or 150?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmm... I may have reduced the wrong trait. The hit points are supposed to be 25%, not the space taken. The concealed weapon should take normal space.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">They are designed against missile dancers and such. You can fire the seekers when they are out of range. The seekers move in, and hopefully hit them when they come in range to fire at you. If they are out of range when the seeker arrives at its max range (regardless of the mount), the seeker just disappears. No big loss, fire more! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif They would be more useful on Bases, which can't move to combat the missile dancing.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I am not entirely sure. I might have them use the Heavy Mount because they can not react dynamically to a player using lots of emmissive or crystalline armor. The Heavy Mount is designed to combat such ships.

[ March 24, 2003, 19:38: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Revamping SEIV Ship Hull Sizes & Features
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
Current larger ships may be faster because they have nuclear power plants, while conventional ships don't. When large ships have the same power plant, it takes a proportionally larger amount (for space ships) of thrust to accelerate them. For most or all pre-modern warships of the same age and type of propulsion, smaller ships were faster. At any rate, it should almost always be EASIER to move a small ship at a certain speed, than a larger one.

In Proportions mod, there is a good analogy to the nuclear powered ships, in Gravitic Drives. Unlike other propulsion types, it takes a constant and fairly large amount of space to mount a Gravitic Drive, which directly adds to speed. Thus large ships equipped with them may end up as fast or faster than smaller designs without them, and small ships will tend not to have them because they'll use a larger proportion of space combined to the smaller size of small ships. Note that this was recently complained about by some players feeling that fighters should always be faster than Frigates (which isn't generally the case anyway unless you put a Gravitic Drive on the Frigate, and even then the fighters can usually keep up).

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
If the ship is less maneuverable, it should be a property of the ship class, not the weapon mount, although larger weapon mounts can also be given less accuracy to balance them and make them more appropriate for capital ship combat than swatting small nimble targets. Proportions mod does this.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">QNP doesn't necessarily make all ships equal. I'd say larger ships should be more powerful, but not better in all ways, or else you get the situation in the unmodded game, where there is seldom a reason to build smaller ships.

PvK

[ March 24, 2003, 21:33: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: Revamping SEIV Ship Hull Sizes & Features
 

Fyron:

I'd say 125%. Paying half again the weight of each weapon for what is essentially targeting equipment is a little too steep. 125% hurts, especially with no damage increase, but it's an acceptable sacrifice.

Re: Revamping SEIV Ship Hull Sizes & Features
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I agree with everything you said except this (partially). Nuclear power is not necessarily used for speed, nor does it provide power levels far in excess of conventional plants; it is used for endurance (time at high speed and time between refueling); and, for submarines, independence from propulsion use of air to allow being submerged for extended periods. Indeed some of the older nuclear ships were slow. Current large ships are faster simply because they are designed to be faster. They can carry proportionally more fuel so they are also longer ranged, again in general. When we talk about "faster", need to consider sprint (for battle) and strategic speed.

Agreed about the mass & acceleration issue, yes, Newton was right with laws 1, 2 & 3. Also a propeller driven ship obeys a "pump law" which basically says that "speed is proportional to power cubed". So to double a ship's speed, you need 8x power. Now for small and large ships alike, this limits max speed. Space engines are just plain different, but "economy of size" has shown that larger is better and more efficient, at the cost of ...well, cost. Of course, there are limits to everything due to the laws of deminishing returns.

The US only has 2 kinds of ships that are nuclear: aircraft carriers and submarines. All other nuclear surface ships have been decomissioned. You should see one of our carriers ripping thru the water. The rooster tail is extremely impressive.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to speak unkindly toward QNP. I think it is a good idea and a way of making smaller ships more useful. My major point here is that the reason you don't see huge navies from all the countries of the world, more than any other reason is cost. It is relatively cheap to maintain a small costal navy of frigates, but it is tremendously expensive for the US to maintain numerous forward deployed carrier battle Groups.

If the intent of the original post in this thread is to make a mod where smaller ships more useful in the game, I think the way to do it is to make the larger ships very expensive. The accuracy thing was just a side issue. That way you have to really plan your construction by beefing up your economy and support them with a fleet for protection (to protect your investment). Their maintenance alone will limit the numbers. With limited numbers of large ships, you need to fill in the gaps with smaller ships and carefully choose where to deploy your large ships. This is consistent with real life.

Slick.