Specialized Ship Designs

[Elowan]

How many of you construct specialized ships? And what are they for?

For myself I set up a Specialized Ships tech tree and gave it a Racial Trait restriction and a low cost to research. Each level in the tree requires the corresponding tech level in Ship Construction and/or components/units - like fighters.

The first special design I made was:

Explorer
I gave it a size of 350 and an ability of 15% defense and a new bmp.
It has 6 engines; 2 supplies; 3 sat bays; 3 cargo; and whatever weapons I choose to fill the remaining space.

I set it so that it shows up as buildable along with Small Transport; Colony Ship; and Escort when the game starts.

The next ship design I use is what I call the:

Jeep Carrier

This is about half the size of a light carrier. I find it extremely valuable and I use it along with other vessels to form small squadrons which are used to patrol warp points, guard new colonies, etc.

Long Range Explorer

This is a reasonably large ship with 3 small fighter bays, missiles, PD's, 6 engines, auxiliary bridge with as many supply units as it will hold. Its mission is to range far and wide to find Ancient Worlds as well as contact other species. It has its own bmp and is at a sufficiently high level in the tree so as to take advantage of advanced tech. In fact - it can't be built unless you've researched Solar panels; it would be a natural with quantum reactor engines.

How about discussing your own designs (unless they're Top Secret - of course).

[Ed Kolis]

I can't tell whether you're talking about ship designs or hulls... one is made in the game while the other is made by editing VehicleSize.txt

[Elowan]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
I can't tell whether you're talking about ship designs or hulls... one is made in the game while the other is made by editing VehicleSize.txt

Hmmm - let's see ... I mentioned giving a ship a size of 350. That's a non-standard size, and ... I mentioned its having its own bitmap, so ... I must be talking about editing the VehicleSize.txt not to mention making/stealing new bitmaps.

Looks like I need to: 1) make sure I have my 2nd cuppa and keep both hands on the keyboard before typing notes.

Sorry about the confusion.

[oleg]

Assuming Elowan made a mistake indeed and we are talking about more or less standard SE, then yes, specialised ships are standard practice. SE is not about individual ships but about fleets. Every single ship is fast to build (relatively to the span of the game) and utterly dispensiable. There are no all-to-powerfull Enterprises saving Milky Way from evil Mars bars.

"Quantity has a Quality of its own" - Stalin

[Elowan]

Oleg --
ne chievo

I was talking about specialized hull designs. I like to have a few specialized ships and consequently I have to muck with the VehicleSizes.txt and the tech tree.

Color me crazy. Now ... what color would that be?

[ July 25, 2002, 01:01: Message edited by: Elowan ]

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Elowan:


Color me crazy. Now ... what color would that be?

Heh... PINK! haha jk man...