This is a pretty cool discussion, and there are some very neat ideas here. Thus, I can't resist throwing in yet another set of opinions.
The idea of buying better trained crews is pretty cool, but it has the opposite effect that the original poster wanted - to give a small, way-behind empire a chance. If I'm running the hugely successful empire, I can AFFORD better crews for all of my ships. The guy who's losing can't, which will only make it even harder for him to do well.
It can easily be argued that morale is factored into the experience/traing bonuses. However, if I wanted to impliement a real morale system, I would not do it that way.
I would have factors to do actual morale checks. Things like:
- ship is facing a larger fleet (1.5:1, 2:1, etc.)
- ship is facing larger enemy ships (eg, my destroyer is facing a battlecruiser would be a detrement)
- ship is x% damaged or has lost critical components
Things like that. In SE IV now, once a ship loses it's weapons in battle, it tries to run. I would think that based on a real morale check, the following things could occur:
- Initial "Shaken" results would penalize the ships offensive and defensive bonuses by -10%
- Next level would penalize by -20% and set the ship to fire only at Max weapons range (eg, stay in the fight, but don't go toe to toe with the enemy)
- Next level the ship tries to run and only fires if in range while fleeing. -30% to offense and defense.
- Finaly failure: the ship surrendurs and becomes an enemy ship (though it would not be able to fire or move for the rest of the current battle)
There would, of course, need to be modifiers for things like:
Master Computer. Sorry, MCs should not suffer from morale.
Mechanoid race. I can't see them doing this either.
Religious talisman. I'd give a bonus to morale for this... these guys are fanatics.
I'm sure there are lots of other things including racial and situational issues which could factor in. This is just a really rough outline.
So, for what it's worth, I think that a real morale system would be cool.
General John
"Napoleon said that morale is to the physical as 3 is to 1. I'll take 3 DNs for each of yours any day.
"