Re: Component order
Choosing the order of components is what made starfire so great. You could spend a great deal of time designing ships. Your opponent could not see your designs so he would have to just learn what sort of damage your ship could take and dish out by combat. This would lead to ships made to hit and run, ie engines on far right. Armored brutes that had few weapons but might get your opponent to waste shots on and were cheap to build. Ships that would fight to the end with weapons on the far right but couldnt move after taking damage. Also the location of PD's played a very important role, if a ship design put the PD's more left then the enemy could stand off and use missles to finish it off. If you put the PD's more right then the ship could stop incoming fire but gave up offensive fire or speed after getting damaged.
Speed in Starfire is life. This is key since the play area had no "walls" If you could out run your enemy then you can disengage and live to fight another day. You could set hard hitting close range ships to cover warp points and long range ships too guard inside systems.
I wonder how hard it would be for the game to allow for this finesse of design and combat modeling.
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