My SEV Ship Mod...

[MarkSheppard]

I really can't test it out much since we can't heavily mod the Demo's Datafiles...

But here goes my attempt in trying to make each type of ship class unique and useful throughout the game...

The various Small/Large/etc Ship and Base Construction areas are folded into single tech areas:

Ship Construction
Base Construction

And you start the game being capable of building the following:

Frigate (FF)
150 Tons (gets bigger)
75 Tons Structure (gets bigger)
50 Crew (gets bigger)
25% Maintenance reduction (or some method)

NOTES: Basically designed so that it's cheaply built, and a quick way of getting sensors, or minelaying gear, etc to space in a mass produced hull in large numbers.

Destroyer (DD)
210 Tons (gets bigger)
210 Tons Structure (gets bigger)
100 Crew (gets bigger)
+4 Speed

NOTES: Gains +4 speed; to represent overpowered engines due to the destroyer's typical role as a picket ship, racing ahead of the fleet to scout ahead a bit; and to intercept incoming enemy ships before they can fire on the heavy capital ships.

Light Cruiser (CL)
420 Tons (gets bigger)
420 Tons Structure (gets bigger)
300 crew (gets bigger)
+1000 supply

NOTES: Gets +1000 supply points, and probably a reduction in engine consumption costs to represent that cruisers have always been "cruising" ships; designed to show the flag overseas.

Heavy Cruiser (CA)
550 Tons (gets bigger)
550 Tons Structure (gets bigger)
400 crew (gets bigger)
+1000 supply

NOTES: Gets +1000 supply points, and probably a reduction in engine consumption costs to represent that cruisers have always been "cruising" ships; designed to show the flag overseas.

Battle Cruiser (BC)
700 Tons (gets bigger)
700 Tons Structure (gets bigger)
650 crew (gets bigger)
+1000 supply

NOTES: Gets +1000 supply points, and probably a reduction in engine consumption costs to represent that cruisers have always been "cruising" ships; designed to show the flag overseas.

Battleship (BB)
900 Tons (gets bigger)
1500 Tons Structure (gets bigger)
800 crew (gets bigger)

NOTES: Has large amount of internal structure, and if I can figure out how to do it; a bonus for all the components internal structure to represent the heavy armor and internal subdivision of the heavy capital ship. Designed to be the center of the fleet capable of slugging it out for extended periods.

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When you research fighters level 1, you gain the following ships:

Escort Carrier (CVE)
210 Tons (gets bigger)
210 Tons Structure (gets bigger)
150 Crew (gets bigger)
25% Maintenance reduction

Light Carrier (CVL)
550 Tons (gets bigger)
550 Tons Structure (gets bigger)
400 crew (gets bigger)
+1000 supply

Fleet Carrier (CV)
900 Tons (gets bigger)
1500 Tons Structure (gets bigger)
800 crew (gets bigger)

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Can build these from the start:

Space Station (SS)
400/400 tons (gets bigger)
300 crew (gets bigger)

Starbase (SB)
900/1500 tons (gets bigger)
800 crew (gets bigger)

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Cargo ships get folded and spindled into a different type of unit:

Small Auxilary (SA)
350/175 tons (gets bigger)
100 crew (gets bigger)

Med Auxilary (MA)
600/300 tons (gets bigger)
150 crew (gets bigger)

Large Auxilary (LA)
900/450 tons (gets bigger)
200 crew (gets bigger)

intended to represent the various things like cargo ships, troop transports, Replenishment ships, Depot/Repair Ships, etc that follow fleets around.

I've yet to think about the fighters/drones/troops, but I'd like your input.

[Jarena]

I really like this idea (especially the hull bonuses for ship types, I think that's really cool)
The one thing I'd like to see in this mod is a reworking of the ship construction tech tree. The SEV demo one didn't make sense to me. Instead I propose expanding the theoretical aspect of ship design, as such:
Theoretical: Ship Construction L1
leads to
Applied: Frigate Construction
Applied: Colony Ship Construction
Applied: Light Freighter Construction
Theoretical: Ship Construction L2
leads to
Applied: Destroyer Construction
and so on and so forth

This way, one's ship hulls can adapt to play style. You can strike out for the DN quickly, but you'll have small expensive hulls. Or you can take the slow progression and have cheap efficient hulls as you work your way up. You can even specialize (big carriers and fast destroyers, say)

This could be applied to the fighter tree as well:
Theoretical: Strikecraft (or somethingng)
leads to
Applied: Carrier Hulls
Applied: Fighter Hulls
(where, say,: L1 = SFighter I
L2 = Sfighter II
L3 = Sfighter III, Mfighter I, and so on and so forth)

This, again, conforms to your playing style
Lowtech carrier + hitech fighters vs the opposite gives you:
A smaller number of powerful fighters (X-Wings?)
vs a huge number of cheap throwaway fighters (TIE fighters?)

Drones and troops, I think, could be kept like stock SEV, because they don't have dedicated deployment methods like carriers - unless, say, you added in a dropship class? (fast troop transports with +armor and +pd?)

As a last thought, would you ramp up the hull special bonuses? IE Destroyer I would give, say +1 speed, whereas Destroyer IV gives +4? Might be a way to keep smaller hulls valuable and researched late-game.

[Ed Kolis]

How are you supposed to give hulls differing numbers of hitpoints, given that hulls in all the Space Empires games (well, except the first one ) have hitpoints only by virtue of the components installed on them?

[Suicide Junkie]

Mounts would do.

Just give the components all the same hp/kt and scale that up as desired with a mount.

[Matryx]

Innate armour in the hulls?
Sure, it's not totally exact (components will still add to armour)... also not 100% sure what abilities we can mod in

[Captain Kwok]

There is actually an entry in the vehiclesize.txt file for structure amount, but I don't think it's being used.

[Phoenix-D]

I can't test it, since that file won't allow modding in the demo, but it doesn't look like its being used.