"Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

Ok, from the title of this thread it may not be clear what I am talking about. It has been discussed in several mod threads that it would be neat to be able make a component for a ships that could construct units but not be able to build ships.

The problem is even giving them a slow construction rate doesn't eliminate the possibility that given enough time a ship or base could be constructed.

Someone, I can't remember who or in what thread, mentioned controlling it by resource types. That is, creating a class of yards that was not capable of constructing all three resource types, and then making what you do not want constructable require the resource that this ships cannot build with. I want to discuss this in a little more depth.

My thought is that this would be easier than it appears on the surface. By simply editing the Vehiclesize.txt file and adding 1 organic and 1 radioactive to every hull type that you want to have a standard yard to be required to build you would work for the ship end. Then it would be a matter of making sure that your unit only required one or two of the resources.

For some units this would be easy. Mines for example already only take minerals and rads, so you could add construction of these two to the mine layer component and you could then build mines onsite, but not build ships.

For fighters it would not be so easy, since they have components taht require all three. You would have to modify all the components you would want to be buildable by the mod fighter builder. But it could still be done. You might even end up with race specific yards. Mineral/organic for the organic races, mineral/rad for the crystal races, and probably the standard ones too.

You can also make these specialized yards ship only, or conversly make the standard space yards base only. This would require a base to build a ship, but a ship could be used to build a unit. A logical progresion I think.

I think this idea could be applied to a lot of mods. Sci-fi cross, P&N, Monsters.

I think maybe the AI might have a problem with this though because they may try to build a ship on one of these unit only yards. There would be nothing to restrict putting a ship in the queue, it would simply never get built because the yard caouldn't make use on of the required resources. So this may have to be for human play only.

Comments?

Geoschmo

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

Hmmm. I'm trying to think of how I could reconcile the "only uses two resources" bit with my "balanced resource use" ideals.

Going with no-organics on the units might work, but that would tend to cripple organic races, since they can't then use organic weapons & such on their units.
No rads usage on units would go against engines and weapons.
Eliminating minerals would just be plain silly.

I'm not sure how I could work that into P&N http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

What I am suggesting would require some changes to the unit components. If you had mineral/organic unit constructors for the organic races, you would have to tweak the unit components (engine/weapons) for those races so that they did not require rads. This could require in some cases a whole set of organic race equivalent components that have the same capabilities. Eg, Organic fighter engines, instead of standard fighter engines.

The non-organic races would be simpler. Simply remove the organic resource from those standard components and give them a mineral/rad unit constructor.

Geo

[ 01 February 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]</p>

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

You don't have to change all resources usage. Only the ones used by the unit you want to build. An only organic or only radiactive figter sounds strange but may work.

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:
...
You can also make these specialized yards ship only, or conversly make the standard space yards base only. This would require a base to build a ship, but a ship could be used to build a unit. A logical progresion I think.<hr></blockquote>

Yes, although this would also prevent building bases in deep space, unless bases were able to move, or a different base-constructing shipyard component were added.

PvK

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by PvK:


Yes, although this would also prevent building bases in deep space, unless bases were able to move, or a different base-constructing shipyard component were added.

PvK<hr></blockquote>True. I think the original idea that I was basing this on was not to change the exsisting space yard component, but to be able to add construction ability to specialized "unit only" components, without allowing the construction of ships. So this would still allow you to get your deep space bases.

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

There is already a "unit construction only" facility. It is called a planet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Sarcasm aside, though, this means that there is a flag somewhere in the code for "unit construction only." MM just needs to make it available to modders. But as you point out, the AI would need serious reworking to make proper use of this, which is probably why it has not been made available.

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

That thought did occur to me as well. As alwyas though I am simply trying to find ways of doing things without having to wait for/hope for a code change. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> There is already a "unit construction only" facility. It is called a planet.
Sarcasm aside, though, this means that there is a flag somewhere in the code for "unit construction only."
<hr></blockquote>No, it doesn't. It means there's a "can build ships" flag associated with the shipyard facilities and components. Planets can build facilities as well as units.

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by capnq:
No, it doesn't. It means there's a "can build ships" flag associated with the shipyard facilities and components. Planets can build facilities as well as units.<hr></blockquote>
Good point. So if the "can build ships" flag were accessible to modders, then they could make a kind of "unityard" that could build units but not ships. Even better would be if there were a "can build units" flag also, which would allow modders to require planets to build a "unityard" facility before building units. And modders could restrict shipyards to ships only. And modders could then add in a research area for a "general purpose yard" that could build both ships and units. But all of this would confuse the AI, big time!

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

As long as you don't get rid of the ability to put a base out in 'deep space', it sounds like a good feature - more detail and strategy is good IMO. But like I say, let's be able to build a base and ships anywhere. One of my favorite tactics is to build a base of operations deep in enemy territory hidden by a sensor-obscuring storm... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

I find it strange that a planet can build drones, which are physically larger than Escorts, but cannot build an Escort without a shipyard. How about a new setting for shipyards -- max vehicle size. Planetary abilities would be set by defaults in settings.txt of course, and then you could have 'small ship yards' that can build anything up to 50 tons for small units (troops and fighters), up to 150 or 200 tons for satellites and drones, and then actually have MORE levels of full-scale shipyards with increasing max tonnage ability for major ship construction.

A nice side effect of this would be that planets could build small ships, escorts and frigates, so you could do things like build scouts or errand-runner type ships (medical bay? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ) without tying up your main shipyards. Actually, in my modded config the escort is 200 kt so you could have planets able to build only units by setting the default planet max build size to less than that. This could open the way to a new racial ability, too. Increased shipyard capacity that would let you build larger ships than the default for your shipyard type.

[ 05 February 2002: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]</p>

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

Baron,

I was trying to find a way to do it without a code change, but if we are looking for code changes, I like your idea a lot. You should put that on the list of suggestions for future patches.

Geoschmo

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

Baron, that's a great idea! Hope it will get implemented eventually. It would be cool to establish a base at the limits of your colonizer ships, then have that base build escorts for exploration. Also, it would help with defense in the early game -- you could make lots of escorts quickly. An enemy without long-range sensors wouldn't know if the fleet on your outpost was 4 escorts or 4 destroyers, so he'd have to weigh the risks. (This can happen now, of course, but it would become much more common with your suggestion.)

One problem might be people making tons of escorts to suddenly inflate their score.

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>One problem might be people making tons of escorts to suddenly inflate their score.<hr></blockquote>

Ah.. trickery!

This reminds me of the British and Germans during WWII building a whole lot of Anti-Aircraft guns on the coast... along with a bunch of plywood cut-outs of Anti-Aircraft guns! And I think the Russians painted top-down views of airplanes on their runways (complete with shadows) to give the American's false Satelite data.

Building a ton of escorts to send a false score is tricky all right. But if push does come to shove, the trickery won't save the player!

PS. So this thread about having space-based Unit Producing components right? So, where would units be stored? Are units automatically stored into empty storage components? Would the Unit Producing component have a certain amount of storage space?

[ 06 February 2002: Message edited by: jimbob ]</p>

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

" But if push does come to shove, the trickery won't save the player!"

It will. If the game is decided on score, for example. The AI also uses score for things like surrendering and MEE.

Phoenix-D

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by dmm:
Baron, that's a great idea! Hope it will get implemented eventually. It would be cool to establish a base at the limits of your colonizer ships, then have that base build escorts for exploration. Also, it would help with defense in the early game -- you could make lots of escorts quickly. An enemy without long-range sensors wouldn't know if the fleet on your outpost was 4 escorts or 4 destroyers, so he'd have to weigh the risks. (This can happen now, of course, but it would become much more common with your suggestion.)

One problem might be people making tons of escorts to suddenly inflate their score.<hr></blockquote>

Well, you could say the same of starbases with nothing but ship control components. This is a problem with players abusing the way score is calculated, not a problem with starbases. I personally would like to see some changes so that the AI would work with 'perceived' strength rather than getting a 'cheat' view of your actual strength. Non-sabotage Intelligence projects would actually be important to the AI then.

I'd also like to see any sort of colony be able to build a colony ship but that might require some tricky manipulation of the restrictions since they are so large.

Re: "Unit construction only" Space Yards
 

"It will. If the game is decided on score, for example. The AI also uses score for things like surrendering and MEE."

Oh http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif
I've never played by "score wins" and only occassionally request a surrender. I guess I'm just a little too barbaric http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif