SEV: Are there missing ship types?
 

I just realized are there missing ship types in SEV? Where are the Escort and Heavy Cruiser classes? Is there also a battle cruiser class?

Re: SEV: Are there missing ship types?
 

SE5 calls for fewer ship hulls, but more unit hulls (small/medium/large versions o each). With the new ability to have multiple levels of ship hulls, there is not as much need for so many explicit hulls.

See this article for a complete listing of specified hulls.

Re: SEV: Are there missing ship types?
 

So if I understand you correctly it was desided that the escort, Heavy Cruiser, Battle Cruiser, and Baseship were no longer needed and removed. I cannot disagree more with that decision. I don't care so much about unit hulls verses ship hulls. I'd rather have more then less for ship hull graphics. I'd at least like to have as many as were available in SEIV or the option to change to alternate ship graphics in game.

So now you need to mod these in too. I think ship hull levels should have a research max to seperate hull sizes. I'd like to see more ship graphics then less other wise what's the point in having even 9 ship hulls avaible when all you have to do is research the hull for the frigate.

It's stuff like this that makes me think twice about investing in this game. I'm begining to understand why people are saying features have been taken out. Did any of the beta testers have a problem with this? At this point I'm thinking I'll hold off on getting this game. I'm just more and more disappointed with the dirrection this has taken. Back to SEIV.

Re: SEV: Are there missing ship types?
 

Only Escort and Battle Cruiser were removed. There was never any Heavy Cruiser in standard SE:IV.

Re: SEV: Are there missing ship types?
 

I thought the same thing until I played the demo. Have you played the demo? One of the things you can now research is hull upgrades within a class. So your destroyer hull size can almost double in tonnage if you choose to continue researching it, or you can invest your research points in Light Cruisers instead.

There is actually a lot more flexability in this new system. Your cruisers are a lot more like Battle Cruisers at the top of the research chain.

Re: SEV: Are there missing ship types?
 

Yeah but the problem with this if only minor, is as an opponent, recoginizing ship sizes. I mean, via sight alone, you should be able to tell, if that is a light cruiser, or battleship. Now you just have light cruisers, and mega light cruisers, and you cant really tell the difference, unless you look real hard...

Re: SEV: Are there missing ship types?
 

The stock sizes don't overlap to that extent where a light cruiser will have the same tonnage as a low-level battleship; plus clicking on a ship always tells you what type of hull it is. More importanly though is that all the different sizes are useless because stock SE:V is even worse than SE:IV when it comes to small vs large ship balance. A player won't even bother to research smaller hulls once that get the next level up - it's an absolute waste of research points.

Fortunately I have a ready-to-go mod that addresses this and many other balance issues with stock. In my balance mod, I drop each hull tech to 3 levels, with level 2 providing the next hull level up. Now it is still worthwhile to research that last level because a) It usually gives something like access to a mount or b) there's small-big ship balance so it's actually useful to keep smaller ships around.

Re: SEV: Are there missing ship types?
 

Where's the readme for this balance mod?

Re: SEV: Are there missing ship types?
 

Everyone should play KwokStock.

Re: SEV: Are there missing ship types?
 

The main ship hulls in the Balance Mod. Each one has 3 levels. The "max move" figure is just at low tech with no bonuses applied. It's essentially like SE3's system. The mount thresholds are at 400, 750, 1500 for L, H, M.

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Start End Max Max # Def Off
Hull Size Size EPM Move Engines Crew Mod. Mod. Maint
Frigate 250 300 2 12 5 100 30 0 ---
Destroyer 350 400 3 11 7 150 20 0 ---
Light Cruiser 450 500 4 11 9 200 10 0 ---
Cruiser 600 750 5 10 10 300 0 0 ---
Battleship 800 1000 7 10 14 450 -10 0 ---
Dreadnought 1000 1250 10 8 16 600 -20 0 ---
Baseship 1500 1800 15 6 18 750 -30 0 ---
</pre><hr />

Thanks for the plug SJ! But on a more serious note, many of the beta testers made contributions in the development of the balance mod - so it's just not made for my "tastes".