The Ultimate ship design
 

I spent many turns slip shotting tech to get a decent selection of weapon choices, support components and shielding. I get the Crusier chassis and head off to the drawing board to design the ultimate ship for combat.

I add the required bridge and what nots, including a scattering armor, steath, shields....all the goodies. I pick a nice weapon and run it up to the max. this thing can shoot down a duck from a sector away it looks so good. I decide to build a fleet of these, as it can be built in two turns on emergency build, (3 otherwise). I commit 75% of my empire to this new fleet endeavor and am going to trounce the Phong for their continued intel attacks and harrassment. BOY are they gonna get it!

The turn finally rolls around, my new capitol ships are finished. Time to assemble the stomping fleet on the game!

I forgot to include the FU**ING ENGINES IN THE DESIGN!

damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it!!!!!!!!

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

been there - done that

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

I have a save I can go back to and fix the problem. Just glad this was not a PBW game, I would have to eat the loss (and a lot of crow). This is also why I said it would be nice if you could edit prototypes that are still in queue. Now I have to take the extra hassel step of removing them all before I can fix the problem and then re-entering them over again.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

This is where the Retrofit command comes in handy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Phoenix-D

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

LOL!

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

That is hilarious!
I haven't managed to pull this one off yet because I make sure I have all needed stuff, including engines.
What I do is add the Bridge, LS, and CQ then the engines. It is a habit for me so I never forget to add those items. You should try to get in the habit of doing that as well. I'm sure it will save you future frustrations.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Used to happen to me. Now, instead of designing from scratch, I upgrade an old design, even if I have to change hull size.

Somehow 'tho I always create stellar manipulation ships from scratch -- and more than once I've forgotten engines.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thats just it, I follow the same pattern. i put the bridge,LS,crew,enignes, then the ecms shields ect. weapons Last so I can pack as many on as will fit. I just plain arse forgot the mousey looking thangy. But it certainly would shoot down anything that came near it. I should have know better that something was off base being able to fit ALL those guns on it.

If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. (fitting, yes?)

hey, at least I am a good sport and shared. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

Unless you had supply, I don't think weapons work very well without engines. could be wrong.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Gee, thanks. your right. make me feel even better about my ultimate design. an empty gun with no trigger.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

couslee
No problem, glad to be of help. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif In case you have not picked up, I'm good at doing things like that.

Edit: BTW: You will also do it again along with sending out colony ships with no population on board. Most of these errors take place somewhere around 1AM. I persoanly think the game is programed to do that.
< the Gryphin Gryns >

[ January 17, 2003, 12:43: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thats just it, I follow the same pattern. i put the bridge,LS,crew,enignes, then the ecms shields ect. weapons Last so I can pack as many on as will fit. I just plain arse forgot the mousey looking thangy. But it certainly would shoot down anything that came near it. I should have know better that something was off base being able to fit ALL those guns on it.

If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. (fitting, yes?)

hey, at least I am a good sport and shared. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Oh ok, I see.
I usually add the B, CQ, and LS first, then ECM, Combat sensors, and whatever else of that nature. And then I add the weapons, I usually it set in my mind how many weapons I want on a particular design. After I add those weapons I use the extra space for shields and armor or whatever. Other wise I end up over-doing or not putting enough shields and stuff on. So it just saves me some hassel.
But others have their way of doing things so it's all good.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

What the game needs is a 'Tug-ship' class where 75% must be Engines! add a Bridge, CQ, LifeSupport and Armor to take up the rest! LoL

It would be kind of funny to see a huge fleet being pulled by a bunch of tiny 'tugs'! LoL

Cheers!

[ January 17, 2003, 15:14: Message edited by: David Gervais ]

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Unless these are incredibly small (so that %75 means 5 or six engines) most players will probably slap a large label over the word "tug" that says "SCOUT", as they will be the fastest ships in the fleet.

Though it would be an interesting mod to make a hull class that could ONLY fit engines, crew neccesities, and detection equipment...

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

I did that before once. I couldn't understand why my cool new state-of-the-art battle cruiser just sat there. Thought it was a game bug! I say just leave your ships parked where they are, and use them like defense turrets for that planet (the tactical combat would be funny - sit, sit, wait, sit some more, now shoot)!

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

Posted by Phoenix-D:
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Don't overlook Phoenix's answer. It's the key solution to this. I find myself retrofitting immediately after production more often than not. This way you can add the Lastest components.

At key points, build repair bases to expedite retrofit repairs (when dealing with fleets). Nice to do this over a planet with Resupply and Training facilities. Kind of like one stop shopping. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

A good way to avoid this mistake is to keep the components of your ship in a specific order. If you always put ship-control items first, THEN engines, THEN WEAPONS, etc... you are much less likely to 'forget' something vital. It can be a hassle to revise an old design and keep things in order, though. This is why I wish MM would return the 'replace' command to the ship design window so you can upgrade/change things without having to essentially re-assemble the entire design.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

In a PBW game I had a fleet taht was low on supplies, so I build a ship with massive amounts of solar panels, called POWER.
When it's finished, I too see that I missed to add engines!
It had a supply storage of 0 i think, so the solar panels didn't do anything.
Lost some vaulable time there.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

I am "anal" that way also. I will delete everything in a design just to keep things in "proper" order. I know it don't matter if the engines immed follow the cq, but it drives me nuts. That is what was so frustrating about my blunder. It should not have happened to MEEEEEE!
I have a plan, it's a good plan, I am gonna implement that plan, just as soon as I can get my head out of my arse. lol

What I need to try and get use to, is not using the "upgrade" button. I spend a lot more mouse clicks removing items from an upgrade. would be easier to just "create". I still have not got that down to intuition yet, but have been using the upgrade button to check which components are upgradable. It would be nice, it there was an indicator of what components were just upgraded (highlighted, boxed, anything)

Doobian, can't use them that way, because no engines=no supplies. besides, the support cost is too much for that. Might as well build a station or sats. No, the only viable options are reload save, or refit, or recycle.

On to my rant.... I read, and it would seem to hold true, that obsolete designs with 0 in service get the design deleted when the game turn switches from .9 to .0. Based on that info, I did all my upgrades, even if only a minor retrofit, so that i could clean out all the old designs. it's turn .0, and all those obsolete designs with 0 in service are still there! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif What other factor does there have to be to get rid of the damn things! I hope they add a "delete design" opion in the next patch, or allow editing of a design that has 0 in service and 0 in build queue.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

couslee, Of course it should happen to you. < Gryns > If it didn't we would worry about you. How many times have you sent out an empty colonizer?

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

gryphin, with this game (meaning SE4).... not even once. Ok, once, but it was intentional. I learned that lesson a long time ago playing stars!. At least in this game, it can still colonize the planet, and most people use population trasports anyway, so sending one out with no pop is no big deal.

To change the flavor of this thread, I just built my first porta-builder and want to remote mine an asteroid field. it has 776/301/754 for the resources. I want to design a good all-around starbase remote mining facility. This is the design I put together.
master computer
5/each of the 3 remote miners
3/shield5
1/emissive3
1/multiplex4
1/combat sensor1
1/ecm3
1/repair3
1/stealth armor 3
1/scattering armor3
2/security station1
2/shield depleter5
5/CSM4
4/PDC5
5/anti-proton7

Cost 31kt/1500/5960
maint 3856/187/745
takes 1.3 yrs to build.

The question is, what would you do differently?

[ January 18, 2003, 05:52: Message edited by: couslee ]

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

I would say "Don't waste the resources by having different types of miner on the same ship/base", but seeing as the place will Last for 70 years of game time, I don't suppose it really matters.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Why though? if your setting up an immoveable mining operation why wouldn't you want to stripmine all 3 resources?

Or do you handle remote mining differently? (ie ship based instead of station based)

edit in:
you would put 15 of one type and grind out the single resource instead? then what, retrofit the next batch?

or perhaps use a smaller space station chassis.hmmm

Just trying make a decent design. as you said, it's going to Last for the better part of a game.

[ January 18, 2003, 06:56: Message edited by: couslee ]

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

The asteroid is lowered in value by 1% for each resource that is mined for each turn that passes, no matter if 1 miner is used, or 15. So, using multiple types depletes multiple resources faster than if you use all of one type, then retrofit later.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

i cheated, i created remote miners based upon the monolith. it requires that you have the same level in each of the normal extraction skills plus stellar manipulation so lvl 3 mononlith miner needs lvl 3 organic extraction, mineral extraction, radioactive extraction and steller manipulation. lvl 1 500 of each resource, lvl 2 600 of each resource, lvl 3 700 of each resource. they require 1500 of each resource to build. i'm sure if someone does the math that this is not cost effective but hey it works for me. now i just need to figure out how to do the ai's so they can use them.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">In VGA planets it was quite common to build very large battlecarriers without engines, then having a small tugboat towing it into combat. Saved a lot of resources that way (2 engines instead of 8).

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

I remember that in SEIII, you were not permitted to design a ship without at least one engine. I wonder why that feature was removed?

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

You should have the option to make an engine-less ship. It is all about more features. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ok, good reason to specialise them. i hope the 1% irregardless was not another fix they didn't tell us about.

I am fairly sure my homeworld started out 1mil of each of the 3. it started out with a mess of mineral miners, and one each of the other two. the homeworld values are now 458/927/931. So I am thinking the 1% max has been changed as well.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

Well Fyron, looks like a day for it. first the intel discovery, now this.

Resources on turn 7.1
458/927/931

Resources on turn 7.2
451/926/930

Facilities present
6 level-2 miners (900)
1 level-2 organic (900)
1 level-1 radioactive (800)

Racial traits that apply:
-15% to organic and radioactive production. mineral production still at 100%.
+30% production from population
+20% production from happiness

So, the 1% max limit per turn reduction is not in the game anymore either, it calculates it on the extraction rate. (makes more sence anyway).

So, back to my original question. what else would you change on the design. lol

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

I would get rid of all the weapons , unless of course the system it is in is undefended and way out beyond your front lines. Doing so will free up more space and you can mine alot more.
When I remote mine I use baseship hulls. I put 2 engines, the LS, CQ, and bridge, and then QR, and possibly a cloaking device. Then I fill the rest up with miners. (One type per ship design.) So for each baseship hull that I build for remote mining I can get a average of over 20K per turn from having it packed full of miners.
Your base I'm sure coule average 25-30K in each resource per turn if you packed it out.
Just a suggestion.

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

I had thought about that, clearing out the weapons (and related) components. But being this my first time through, i didn't want to desing and easy kill if the AI created a worm hole right to that system. I am building a couple, as waiting for answers has moved slower than my game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

I do not have a ship hull large enough for remote mining yet. I got lucky with a conquest, and a ruins, and got my space station tech maxed out early.

I was trying to think on more of a long term plan. not so much streching out the resources, as preparing for possible attacks. once the asteroid field was strip mined, I was going to retrofit it to a shipright's yard. Do ship yard components stack? because the 2k limits makes the component stink imo. takes forever to build anything

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No they do not stack. Only one Space Yard component per ship and only one component can build any given item at any given time. The 2K limit does stink, but right now we just have to deal with it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: The Ultimate ship design
 

The 1% reduction is what miners do in the unlimited resource game, where the resource values are percentages. I don't know what they do in a limited resource game (which you appear to be playing), where the resource values are in kT.