[Baron Munchausen]

Adding ALL of these would be a nightmare. I think two much smaller changes would help the game's realism though. Have crew quarters actually USE supplies each turn so ships cannot sit on station for infinity. Right now, even if you set a supply usage for crew quarters they don't have any effect. This would be a good enough approximation of ordinary supply usage without having to have a special type of supplies.

The one "other" type of supplies that might be worth modeling is ORDINANCE. (Or 'ammo' as you call it.) Some types of weapons should realistically have a limited number of shots. Missiles and other seekers, for example. But having to build each missile and carry it in cargo like mines would be a mess. So, let's make a missile component on a ship hold a certain amount of abstract 'missile supplies'. Each shot uses missile supplies instead of normal supplies. When you run out, no more shots. This would put realistic controls on missiles and maybe we could make them more powerful in other ways with this limit in place.

Direct fire weapons are mostly 'energy' weapons and are fine using normal supplies. Torpedos are an interesting case. Some of them might realistically be considered 'energy weapons' but some of them might be 'ordinance' weapons. If there was this 'second' type of supply we could experiment with hybrid weapons and see how the logistics affects their effectiveness.

Solar Collectors should produce supplies only, of course, no ordinance. Being able to regenerate ALL supplies in deep space is an unbalancing aspect of the game. If missiles (ordinance) could not be regenerated but had to be acquired from bases (either planet bases or space bases) it would make the logistical limits on military expeditions more effective.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 05 April 2001).]