An extremely silly question, buut...
 

How do you stop maintaining ships that are away from a space yard and are out of supplies, with no way to return and is essentially useless? Or is there a way?

It just seems obvious that there should be a way to abandon a ship, but I haven't found it anywhere. Of course scrapping/mothball is disabled, considering the nearest space yard is light years away. I just want to rid myself of these ships.

If there isn't, someone has got to reply with a good reason why http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Cause it won't make a lot of sense. Admit it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif
How silly does it seem if you HAVE to supply a ship with maintanence even though it is totally useless to you? Pretty proposterous to me.

Happy gaming,

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

There is no way to arbitrarily stop supporting a ship that is away from a space yard.

If you put a Self Destruct Device on your ship, you can have it blow itself up at will.

If you have another ship around (and in the same sector), you can have it fire on and destroy the target ship.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Or, you can Trade it to an ally. That is cruel and taking advantage of the AI but if you are deparate....

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

You can also run the ship into:
1. a Black Hole
2. a damaging storm
3. A damaging Warp point

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

But Taz, that would kill the crew.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Ethical questions huh?

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Taera,
It is for me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I will not glass a planet, start a war, or anything along those lines.
Literaly, I can't.
I've been playing for over 20 years and I won't change.
"Nice guys finish Last, but we do so with pride."

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

PowerManatee,

Build a ship with nothing but supply storage and solar batteries (quantum reactor is best, but likely you did not research it yet), send her to your fleet. Next turn, it will be recharged.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

The 'High' Gryphin, Giving a crew to an Alien empire is in my opinion even more cruel!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

An empire that would do this would probabily do other nasty things like, ummm... steal a pizza! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Taz, ::
< inocent expression > I was doing it for his own good.
But you did give me an idea for a ship class.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Getting back to the original question though, it would be a cool feature if there was a way to "turn off" maintenace support for specific ships. Doing so would decrease or eliminate the amount of resources that go towards that ship, but at some penalty. Perhaps an increased chance of a random damage event to the ship. Say a percentage chance per turn that one of the compononents would be destroyed. The ship would in effect slowly rot over the course of a few years in space without maintenance.

Maybe to prevent abuse you would only have this option for ships that were completely out of supply?

Geoschmo

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Perhaps being able to add 20 or 30 percent to the cost of the ship so it will have 2 or 3 times the range. This could reflect the extra cost to make the ships more efficient and better made.
Reminds me of how Singer Sewing Machine Corp nearly went out of business be cause their machines would not break or wear out.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Really, it is ridiculous that you can't scuttle a ship. Not at all realistic, and not in keeping with every other game I've played. And how are you providing maintenance to a ship that is out of range? If you are paying some ephemeral "trader network" for the maintenance, then have them give the crew a ride home after the crew blows up the ship.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I tend to agree with you. Although allowing it would have some implications. You could perhaps give every hull the self destruct ability, or if that doesn't work, make the self destruct device a level 1 tech. But either of those would negate any possiblility of using boarding parties.

If a hardcode change were made to allow for scuttling without a SDD outside of combat that would do it. Although it would eliminate the tactic where you incapcitate the enemies ships but leave them around to use up maintenance. Although to be honest that's a bit of a cheese tactic anyway. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yeah, that's what I had in mind.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Hmm,
"Blows up the ship"
Or leaves it as a trap/bomb for others.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Or maybe an abandon ship order. You lose control of the ship and it sits derelict until boarded by someone. Of course that could be abused. You build a massive fleet and park it some where and abandon it and keep a fleet of cheap boarding ships nearby to take over when needed.

What about allowing you to mothball a ship regardless of whether or not you have a space yard available, but only allow unmothballing with a space yard handy. That would do it, and shouldn't require too much in the way of code changes. Just remove what ever flag tells it you have to be at a space yard.

Geoschmo

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Klingon Boarding Party to Klingon Captain&gt; There is no one here.. the computer seems to be incontrol.. at least it is talking.

Klingon Captain&gt; Strange.. Let me hear.

Computer&gt; 5.... 4.... 3...

Klingon Captain&gt; Get Out of There!!

*BOOOM!!!*

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

A pizza class ship? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Hmm, and extremely silly morph of an extremely silly question. How do we do it?
&lt; moving my replys to the Cantinna"

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

It will limp back to base one sector at a time. To avoid this, if you have them, equip your ships with a solor panel and solor sail. That or go for Quantum reactors.

What I do is send a ship that has nothing but cargo compenants out to meet the ship with no supplies. I fleet them together and then return them too base.

After that, I alway establish infastructure first and for most. A base in every system. Resuply is the key to success.

But in a pinch, trade em to the AI for something. The AI loves depleted ships. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ June 04, 2002, 12:47: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

I saw suggest somewhere"
Build a fast Colony Ship.
Colonize as close to the ships in question
Build a Resupply Depot
If the planet is in an Allys system
Gift or trade the planet to them after you have "humanly" rescued your crews.

The original idea was to send the colony ship out behind the long range exploration ships so it would be in position when needed.

In some cases you might be able to get a Military alyiance

[ June 04, 2002, 12:59: Message edited by: The High Gryphin ]

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Geo, the abandon ship order has some merit I think.

You are right that it would be a cheese tactic to be able to reboard the ships at will, but you could make it so that derelict ships have zero supply and a random number of (randomly determined) damaged components.

The abandon ship order could go in the Retrofit/Modify/Scrap order window. The damage-algorithm could be the same one as for damaging warp points.

You could maybe even add a mineral cost to reclaiming derelict ships. This would make it unattractive to abandon ships that you wanted to later reclaim, and give the abandoned ships a real "derelict" feel.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Obviously, there needs to be a distinction between 'abandoned' and 'mothballed'. 'Mothballed' means 'preserved' after all. Can a desperate crew forced to abandon a ship possibly take the necessary measures to 'preserve' their ship? By definition, no. Simply, a ship that has been abandoned will break down and disintegrate. Just have it lose a certain number of components every turn after it has been abandoned. When the components run out, poof! I'd say at least 2 components per turn wouldbe good.

[ June 05, 2002, 19:45: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

I like the idea Baron, but I don't think a ship abandoned in the vacuum of space would fall apart that fast. Perhaps 2 components a year, but not 2 a month.

There is a realistic difference between abandoning a ship and mothballing it, but perhaps there doesn't need to be a game play distinction. It would save some coding I would think if the same function were reused. You could say...
</font>

• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Any ship can be mothballed regardless of whether it's at a space yard or not.</font>
• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Mothballed ships can be only be unmothballed if they are in a sector with a space yard.</font>
• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Mothballed ships take gradual damage, unless they are in a sector with a space yard.
  </font>

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think if this is done though, two things should be changed as well. Well one for sure and the other maybe.
For sure mothballed ships should not give a system view as they do now. They should be like mines in that respect instead of like sats. This way the ship isn't really a derelict, it still belongs to the empire that mothballed it, but it could be easily snuck up on and taken by another emnpire with boarding ships.

The other thing that maybe should happen is the ability to booby trap mothballed ships. Say the SDD would still work, even though it's mothnballed. But that might not be fair, so I am not sure about that. I would like that idea better if SDD's werent' a hundred percent effective, but that's another argument. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Excellent! Yes, I agree it would be cool if mothballed ships were seizable. Defense should be zero. If you can get next to it & board it's yours. But when reactivated it would have zero supplies, of course. No combat tricks of seizing mothballed ships & using them immediately!

Automatic decay if they don't have a space yard nearby to maintain them is also good. Ok, I'll compromise on one component (randomly chosen) per turn as the decay rate. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif The vast majority of mothballed ships will be in a spaceyard sector anyway.

Now the question is: How do we get MM to do this along with all the other things we're requesting? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually that would be worse. You could mothball a fleet, then unmothball it in a single turn with a single space yard ship. [edit: oops, I just realized what a dumb criticism that was, since you can already do that!]

The suggestion to have damage accumulate over time is a good one but might be hard to implement. Much easier would be to destroy all components but leave the hull there. (Is that possible? Maybe need to leave one component, bridge or MC, for example.) This would allow someone to come along and salvage the wreck, but they would need a repair ship and supplies. I wonder if you could mothball it, too? Then someone would have to unmothball it AND repair it. But you probably can't unmothball someone else's ship.

Easiest thing to do is just make it go away. Maybe the Trade Federation takes it as their rescue fee?

[ June 05, 2002, 20:27: Message edited by: dmm ]

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Since we are brainstorming:

How about allowing anybody to BUY the abandoned ship from the Trade Federation? (No, they are not in SEIV; I just invented them.) Perhaps they will even provide you with repairs, supplies, and a crew (for the right price). Or maybe the TF gets all technology from abandoned ships and can sell that to any and all who can pay their exhorbitant rates?

So, abandoning an outdated scout ship would be no big deal, but you wouldn't want to abandon something good, like a colonizer. UNLESS, maybe you had just stolen it from your arch-enemy and you wanted to let all of his neighbors get his colonization tech. (This differs from gifting or trading because you wouldn't need to have diplomatic contact with any of them.)

Interestingly, you might also want to abandon a captured ship if it had a bunch of levels of a tech that you didn't have any of. (Example: captured ship has Shield IV and you don't have shields at all.) You could then buy all of the levels from the TF, but it would cost you a lot and it would make them available to everyone else for that same price. But then maybe you could recoup some of your cost by trading the info to allies.

And how about this? Maybe you could also bribe the TF each turn to keep the tech secret?

Well, all this would require major recoding, but I can dream.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Well, if we're talking about a minimum of coding changes to the program, then insert a flag, like

WAS_MOTHBALLED_AT_SPACE_YARD {1/0}

If this is set to 1, then the ship was 'mothballed'. If set to 0, it was 'abandoned' (but the status is the same otherwise). Then don't change the ship until someone comes along and tries to board it. When they do, pick a random number of components and damage them. This could represent the fact that sometimes ships could float for millenia in the cold, preserving vacuum of space, but other times a freak meteor shower etc could damage them severely.

The point is, you don't need to track this, but rather leave the ship intact until someone comes and actually looks inside; the Schroedinger's Ship paradox http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Hey, I just had an idea for a modification to this. If the SDD is still functioning when the ship is boarded, it could detonate. This could represent the crew abandoning the ship, but leaving it 'booby-trapped'.

Hmm, but why would you abandon it if you had a functioning SDD? Isn't that how this thread started. Well, I'm confused http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I do like that, but the only thing is it doesn't allow for an abandoned ship to completely disintegrate over time, unless it disolves to dust when you try to board it. That would be frustrating. "I know there was a ship here somewhere..." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">ROFL! Good point! I am an idiot for not thinking of that. I suppose the only reason would be that you want to take the chance on recovering it later at least partially intact. Or it could be just meanness. But a minfield would be more efficent. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

And how about: Any ship that runs out of supplies AUTOMATICALLY becomes derelict, and runs a risk each turn of being salvaged by the Trade Federation! You'd have to have ships use a tiny bit of supplies each turn just sitting there in order to get maximum fun out of this rule, but the crippled survivors of big battles would also provide booty for the opportunistic TF scavengers. Engine killing weapons would be powerful once again. This would certainly make those Emergency Supply Pods and Solar Collectors more important! And would make it harder to sit on a warp point in the early game.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Unless someone probed it with LongRangeSensors. At that point you'd have to run the damage subroutine and keep track of it.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Or you have a Trek-no-babble answer for that and say long range scanners detect what's inside a ship based off their energy emmisions, and a derelict hsip has no energy emmisions, so is immune to long range scanners. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

I think that most of these Trade Federation ideas could be done in a no-AI game if it were set up correctly beforehand. One player plays the TF, whose role is to capture disabled ships, analyze their tech if valuable, buy tech, and sell ships and tech to anyone who can pay the price. TF ships and planets may not be attacked. (Exception: Intel can be used to recover your own ships.) TF never allies with anyone. TF cannot colonize or build any ships except boarding ships. TF starts with a tiny breathable planet in each system. TF starts with some advanced tech (e.g., LngRngSens, BrdngPrty, Rpr) but only sells tech that it has seized.

I don't know if TF should be allowed to use intel to get tech or ships. And I don't know what victory conditions TF could satisfy, if any. What do you all think?

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

the tf has to sel so much stuff that they buy out all the other empires http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif kind of like the Corparations in the LotR mod(wow Legacy of the Ra'Shrakil and Lord of the Rings have same initials!)

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Maybe TF also starts with a huge planet (or base or ringworld or sphereworld, depending on the galaxy size) which is actually an intergalactic colonizer and they need to fill it with organics and radioactives so they can traverse the intergalactic void.

Maybe TF could act as a bank too. Allow players to "gift" excess production which the TF would store (after taking a cut). They could give loans, with colonies as collateral. Hmmm, how could we set it up so players would deal with the TF? It wouldn't be any fun to play TF if everyone ignored you and all you got to do was an occasional scavenge. Maybe we should let them also build ships/units on contract?

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Dmm,
Banking Excess Resources, Nice idea
If this could be hard coded such that you could earn interest instead of having to build storage.
Maybe there could be 2 or more FT’s competing for “High Score”
It would be a pre requisite that they not be attacked
The FT would only be allowed one system
I guess the FT could be Mercs and gift their ships to the Highest Bidder.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

There isn't really much to stop this happening in a regular game when one player is

a) rich
b) successfully able to remain neutral.

It would be like being Switzerland! You'd also need to be trustworthy (i.e. people have to believe that you're going to give resources back to them if they bank with you)

In all likelihood, the temptation to take the money and run would prove quite great. (Especially if other players have a lot invested in you, then they might protect you to protect their money)

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I am pretty sure that there have been many times in history where not only did you not get interest but you had to pay the banker to keep your money safe. Since these are resources, that makes it more likely that you would need to pay the "banker" to store them for you.

A hard-coded Trade Federation (TF) would be nice, especially since then we could argue about it and demand changes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif But I'm trying to think of how it could be done (in an interesting way) with role playing and house rules.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Guys, I'd volunteer to "Play Sweeden" is someone wants to run a game of it.
I think it would be fun.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Actually, there's no need for a special 'trade federation' at all. Only one very small hard-code change is needed. We need some way to track how much of a given resource another empire has given you, and how much you have given to them. With a 'running total' of the positive or negative balance, of course. It ought to be on the diplomatic information screens somewhere. Then, everyone can 'trade favors' reliably -- if they feel like being reliable. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Once the resources are in your hands, who knows what might happen?

I can see certain players deliberately building huge amounts of storage space and using their ability to store resources for diplomatic advantage just like you would use any other ability in the game.

[ June 06, 2002, 18:00: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Of course you could do _some_ of these things just as a regular player. But no way could you set the whole thing up merely on trust, as a regular player with the same victory conditions as everyone else, unless you are playing against a bunch of morons.

One of the things that this role-playing idea would accomplish is to make Organics and Radioactives more important without modding the game. Currently, a 120% Organics planet is no big deal. Most of us would use it for research, intel, etc. Maybe put one farm on it. But if you have the TF player trying to collect Organics and using it as currency, then you've altered the game a lot (without modding anything). That 120% Organics planet is now much more valuable than a 10%-10%-10% planet, because you can use the organics to buy tech, info, ships, units, other resources, resupply and/or repair of your ships, etc. (depending on the TF rules and setup that everyone has agreed to).

The key is that the TF doesn't want to take over the galaxy. At least, not politically. In fact, in one scenario, they are trying to leave. You could easily have a game in which the TF leaves part way through (so they "win") and then the remaining players slog it out for control of the galaxy. (Although they might well ask themselves why the TF was so intent on getting out! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">See my Last post.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't see that happening in a regular game. I've never found resource storage to be a key factor in my games. And the storage player will become "ripe for the picking" as he amasses filled storage tanks at the cost of the 4 Xs, unless there is some other factor protecting him. Lots of countries try to be neutral but the only ones who succeed are protected by some formidable natural barrier, like high mountains or wide oceans. Just ask the Dutch.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

I could see 2 FTs copeeting with each other with a totaly separate victory conditions.
It would require enormous Role Play, trust, and good sportmanship. I realize I'm someting of a loose cannon. I am also a man of integrity.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Maybe we need something that's present in most other 4X games: money... If you could just sell surplus resources on an 'abstract market' and keep the money, then go to the same market when you were short of something and try to buy what you need it would amount ot more-or-less the same thing a the 'trade federation' idea. Supply and demand effects based on what all the empires are actually selling or buying would be nice.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Well, if you have an abandon ship option then perhaps it would be good to have life capsules on your ships.

So, if you choose to abandon ship pre destruction the capsules contain your crew (i.e. the experience factor). You could then have a time period to pick them up with another ship, or a certain chance each turn that they expire or some such.

If you pick them up before they die, you could have some of the unhappiness factor, associated with ship loss, offset.

If the enemy pick them up, they could be held prisoner and traded.

Or you could use intelligence operatives to rescue them, raising your sides happiness.

Once picked or rescued, they could reappear at a central holding pool, the surviving crew could be available for reassignment to a newly contructed ship. You could pre-stock the pool by training crew in your military academies.

Perhaps you'd track the type of ship the crew came from, and if assigned to a different type there would be penalties for non type familiarity.
i.e. so you couldn't put an experienced frigate crew onto a dreadnought without loosing most of their experience.

I realise that would all require major coding changes, I'm just rambling.....

Pit Bull

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

What you can do is have the universe with almost no minerals, but high amounts of orgs and rads.
Then only give the FT access to a resource converter. But keep the FT tech levels really low for offense, so they cannot attack anyone.
Everyone will need minerals to build, but they'll have to buy them from the FT by exchanging other stuff.
The FT can be attacked, but then they might not trade to you anymore. At which point you would need to go through a second party to get your minerals.

Plus, like the Gryphin suggests, to avoid whomever playing the FT from making a deal with one other player (and ruining the game), you put two FT's. Then you'll have some nice competion. On top of that, then you can make victory conditions for the FT's as they compete directly against one another.

[ June 06, 2002, 22:18: Message edited by: Lupusman ]

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

HighGryphin, BaronM, and Lupusman:
I like all those ideas. Some comments to sharpen our focus:

BaronM:
Money would be cool, but even with money you still wouldn't have a galaxy-wide Trade Federation as I've been describing it, unless you were allowed to sell tech and info also. If money were important, then that would lead to some interesting decisions about tech. Do you keep it to yourself and retain your tech advantage, or sell it for much-needed cash (and thereby make it immediately available to anyone who can pay)?
Of course the problem with the money idea is that it requires a re-code by MM. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Lupasman:
It is TF, not FT, unless you're French. (Federation de Trade?)
I really like that scarce minerals idea. But do you think the game would work if the TF wasn't bound by a strict neutrality code and was trying to conquer the galaxy like everyone else? What is to stop them from colonizing a few planets and then cutting everyone else off from minerals?
Regarding allowing attacks on the TF: so a player could choose to become a "rogue state" by attacking the TF, huh? I don't mind the idea of letting someone seize stored minerals, but it would be a game-buster if someone got control over the TF's resource converters. Those had better be on Planet Fort Knox!
(BTW, if you capture a planet with Mineral Storage, do you get the minerals that were stored there?)

HighGryphin:
I like the idea of competing TF houses. That would give you a game within a game. Maybe could combine with Lupasman's ideas? Like maybe one TF house wants Rads and the other wants Orgs? Or maybe it's just that the neighboring galaxy isn't big enough for them both!

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Hmmm.... if tech were saleable then some people would not bother to research at all but would just buy their technologies.

Being on the 'cutting edge' woulf be very difficult because you'd have to research for yourself, keeping ahead of the 'public' tech level and preserving what you had accomplished.

I suspect most people won't like that style of game.

Re: An extremely silly question, buut...
 

Actually, I am french-canadian. Thanks for pointing that out.

I was still holding the preconception that the TF would be nuetral, and that it should not be attacked by anyone. I only put that comment in if someone did decide to attack the TF, there are simple reprocussions.
But at the same time, if there are two TF's, one might finance a war against the other. For example if the victory of a TF is to get a monopoly, ie, no other TF's.

Neither is it in the interest of a regular empire to let only one TF monopolize, because the price of minerals would go much higher.

I'm sure a strange balance would eventually achieve itself in a game of this sort.

[ June 07, 2002, 01:59: Message edited by: Lupusman ]