[Slick]

Been giving the responses here some thought and have some things to add.

There have been some inaccurate generalizations here if compared to real life. Larger ships are generally faster and longer range than small ones; yes there are exceptions. Larger ships are less maneuverable. Command & control is not appreciably larger on larger ships; roughly 10% of crew represents C&C, and the shipboard space is roughly the same percentage.

Regarding SE4, I would increase the bridge, crew quarters and life support such that they represent the same rough percent of ship space as small ships. I would also give larger mounts an accuracy penalty to represent larger ship maneuverability.

Also, although QNP is a good idea, the end result should not be that all ships will be equal. This conflicts with real life. As I stated below, larger ships ARE better and should BE better in the game. This is due to "economy of size". Larger ships are more efficient, not less efficient.

The reason there aren't large navies from all countries on our oceans is $$$. It is tremendously expensive to operate and maintain a large navy. The US had 600+ navy ships under Reagan and today it has less than 1/2 that number. For SE4 purposes, this should translate into HUGE costs to make larger and larger ships. That will be realistic both in construction time and maintenance and will make smaller ships more useful.

Another concept is in the engines / quantum reactors. There are nuclear powered ships and conventional powered ships in our navy. The main difference is cost (to build and maintain) and time to refueling. Real life conventional ships must be refueled approximately weekly when at sea (give or take) when operating at high speeds and nuclear ships have endurances at 20+ years. The "supplies" issue is hardcoded for fleet sharing, but again you could make expensive components with large supply to represent the future Version of nuclear power vs. conventional power.

Slick.

[ March 24, 2003, 16:01: Message edited by: Slick ]