SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

If all a ship’s weapons use the same ordnance supplies regardless of type then, in my opinion, that will totally miss the point of having ordnance supplies. I know that star ship’s engineers in the 25th century are good, but just how many depleted uranium cannon shells do you need to glue together to make a torpedo anyway? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Why not have 4 or more ordnance supply types? For example, torpedoes, missiles, shell projectiles and energy cells. This way, the idea of ordnance supplies would be fully implemented into the game.

All that would be needed is for the ordnance supply ability and the ordnance re-supply ability to be made into 4 or more abilities. You would also need a new entry in the component file for ordnance supply types. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

It would also increase the display requirements and micromanagement fourfold, and encourage further specialization of ships until they carried only one type of weapon. More, it doesn't solve your objection; after all, how many Capital Ship Missiles do you need to glue together to make a Plasma Missile?

Assume they have replicators and shove the uneeded ammo into those to make ammo they do need.

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

Send it to Aaron.

It's subspace protomater, see, and they rephase it through the phase emitter coils. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

Asume that the "supply space" used to store Uranium shels in some ships is used to store Missiles in others each time your ships visit a resupply depot.

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

There is a fairly simple fix for this objection, and it doesn't require many different types of ordnance. Each weapon component should have its own ordnance storage capacity and not 'share' with any others. Basically, this turns ordnance in a 'number of shots' counter for each weapon that uses ordnance. That means each weapon would represent both the actual firing device and the ammunition storage capacity, which is how seekers currently work in SE IV anyway. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I happen to like the idea of needing some 'generic' cargo space for ammunition in a warship but it's not essential to the concept of ordnance.

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

The point is about ships with both weapons...

And the answer is that quartermasters are naturally Psychic, and can pick the right ratio of ordnance to pack in there based on what you will use in the future.

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

I would have thought the point of having ordnance supplies was so a ship’s ability to use a particular weapon type in combat could be precisely controlled. With the combat in SE5 being real-time, the need to controlled the ability to use a particular weapon in combat is more important, not less. For example, consider a fleet with an exhaustible supply of missiles and a restricted supply of torpedoes or a ship with point defense systems with an exhaustible supply of ammo. We could get the point defense systems to use the ship’s supplies, but then the ship using up all of its supplies, and this ruins the point of having an ordnance supply system in the first place. Also, some universes that people like to mod or make up don’t have replicators [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/ooo.gif[/img] or even energy weapons [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/ooo.gif[/img].

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

If something like this is implemented in SE:V, I'd rather see it like Baron M. suggested below. A generic "supply" value rather than specific types for different kinds of weapons like missiles, torpedoes, etc. It would be automatically stocked at any supply depot. :P

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

Unfortuately that also means you wouldn't be able to add any extra ammo (or less ammo!) to a weapon, which is pretty silly from a design perspective.

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

Well, you could have a component that increases supply for all weapons on a ship.

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

This is how my ordnance supply idea could work in the game. As suggested by Baron M, all weapons would have their own magazine. For example, depleted uranium cannons would have a magazine of 20 shells, capital ship missile launchers would have a magazine of five missiles and the point defense cannons would have a magazine of 200 shells. We design a ship with 6 depleted uranium cannons (120 shells), 3 capital ship missile launchers (15 missiles) and 12 point defense cannons (2400 shells). Now we can add or not add ordnance storage components that add more ordnance to the ship e.g. depleted uranium shells storage, missile storage and point defense shells storage. We add two depleted uranium shells storage components (80 shells) and 3 missiles storage components (30 missiles). The ship now has 200 depleted uranium shells, 45 missiles and 2400 point defense shells. All weapons of the same type can share ordnance; fleets also can share ordnance, just like ship’s supplies. The re-supplying of ordnance would work like this. A ship would visit a planet with an armory facility or ammunition dump and all its ordnance stores would be replenished. We could also re-supply from tender ships. Maybe this idea, on second thought, would be better for Star Fury II than for Space Empires V?

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

I agree completely. I think a generic pool of ordinance works best from a gameplay perspective.

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

Hi All,

You need to be aware of a change in SE5. Resupply Depots will no longer generate an infinite amount of supply. They now generate a fixed amount per turn. Same goes for ordinance. This way you cannot resupply an entire fleet with just one Resupply Depot.

This makes the idea of having different ammo types for each weapon a bit more tricky. And the Resupply Depot cannot just give all of your weapons a full ammo load. There had to be a specific amount taken from the Resupply Depot and given to the ship. If you actually have to generate each ammo type, that will be a micromanagement nightmare.

Now I know that a single ordinance pool is not realistic. But I'm trying to add realism without adding micromanagement. In SE3, you just had a timer that counted down. So you could see very quickly how long a ship had. In SE4, this became supplies which required more management per ship since you needed to figure out how much supply would get you through. In SE5, the current design is supplies and ordinance, just so that ordinance firing ships have a slight detraction.

Ordinance firing weapons (specifically seekers) are one of the most powerful weapons. If they now require ordinance, and a new facility type to generate it, that makes them slightly less useful than energy weapons which just use supplies. The introduction of ordinance is just to offset these weapons a bit, and add in the possibility of running out of ordinance during a battle without your ship completely shutting down.

I am open to suggestions on changes to this design. However, I do not want to add anything that will add to the already high micromanagement requirements.

Aaron

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

Hey got a question for you though?

Do you still have quantum reactors? Because if so then energy weapons would still have limitless supply right? Please say right http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

And if by that point ordinance is still in use could you do us all a really big favor please, and add a kind of either torpedo or missile that is really usefull even when fired in small numbers, say two tubes on a ship would be enough to crinch the shields a bit?

Because as it stands I never use missiles past the point when I get shields PD and energy weapons, because the enemy tends to shoot down all my poor missiles.

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

You mean "ordnance", right? "Ordinance" has nothing to do with ammunition, but with official decrees...

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

Whoah, never noticed that difference before. Checked it in the dictionary just now myself. Thanks for pointing that out Fyron. You may have just saved Aaron some tedious spelling corrections. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

Hmm, yeah, juggling even five types of ammunition could get hairy. And I can't think of an easy way to make it modable. Which doesn't mean you can't... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

I wonder if this could be modded into a Fuel/Energy system...

Where a reactor component would burn some of your ordnance each combat/game turn in order to recharge your supply storage, which in turn gets fed into shields/weapons/engines.

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

Good to know about the changes..assuming it isn't already like that I'd suggest making seperate abilities for refilling ammo and supplies..ditto on the Quantum Reactor or equivilent. That way even if the stock Resupply Depot fills them both a modder could restrict that. I presume the amount it fills per turn is moddable as well?

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

These same objections could be raised about the concept of 'generic supplies' as well. How do the quartermasters know exactly how much fuel, food, ammunition, etc. to load all the time? That's why many games -- like the MOO series -- use a fixed radius of operation to simulate the supply train, and some others -- like SE III -- use a fixed number of turns.

The use of explicit supplies is a good thing. It lets you have ships with greater or lesser range at the same technology level and allows greater endurance for less activity rather than forcing you into one fixed range or one fixed time limit. I like having supplies explicitly included in the game, and I hope crew quarters and life support will honor their 'supplies used' settings in SE V! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I also think the concept of 'generic ordnance' is a good one. It splits off the biggest 'exception' to the supplies problem -- the difference between combat usage and regular usage -- and makes ship supply consumption a bit more logical at minimal cost in micromanagement. The additional bonus of being able to give heavier weapons a disadvantage of running out of ammunition is also good.

There are many 'issues' like this in simulation games where full realism is too difficult or burdensome to adhere to. I for one can live with the 'problem' of apparently interchangeable ammunition just like I can live with the 'problem' of interchangeable supplies because it enhances the game.

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

Ever since original SE IV came out I have continually requested that Quantum Reactors be given a clear limit per turn because an infinite rate of generation is much more difficult to justify than an (effectively) infinite duration of production. Sure, you can create a source of energy that continues to operate for many years. Nuclear reactors today get refueled once a decade or so. What's impossible to justify is that one such device can refill any number of ships in the same fleet like it's a tap attached to an extra-dimensional swimming pool. So it would still be possible to 'run out' of energy with a QR if you used it faster than it could be replenished.

I'm glad to hear that resupply depots will have finite limits. Now let's fix the QR as well...

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

Yeah, I pointed that out to him several times when he posted the sample from the Components file. I hope he's already fixed it by now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

IMHO it would be nice if you actually had to produce supplies and ordinances which where then distributed through the resupply centers. This way you could actually sent an ally supplies which would free his planets to produce warships while someone without such a supply delivery from an ally would have to chose either to build more ships or keep them running.

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

One way to add more realism, without adding more micromanagement, would be to add a new entry to the component file that would controlled how many times a weapon could fire in any single battle. This, combined with the current ordnance supply system and the existing ability to control a weapon’s reloading time, would mean we could reach a good level of realism without adding to much micromanagement. Baron M.’s suggestion, that weapon components store and use only their own ammunition, is a good idea as well.

Re: SE5 Ordnance Supply?
 

If MM is going to go thru the trouble of separating ordnance and supply, it would be nice to have another mining component type of item; one that you can setup like a remote miner to build ordnance remotely.

Rather than have to return to some planet-based facility, I'd like to be able to have my SolarPanel/QR-equipped fleet be able to produce their own ordnance when on long-range missions.

Of course, they'd have to be over some planet/asteroid with the resources required. They also could use the resource amounts of the planet / asteroid to determine the rate at which the ordinance is built.

Is that idea any good?