Attack of the Ankle-Biters - Replacment player needed.

[Phoenix-D]

If you allow light carriers, they'll be used as warships. Half fighter bays still gives you 400kt weapons space, and enougg size to use Huge mounts (IIRC, at least Large)

[Ed Kolis]

You could create a 300kT "escort carrier", or increase the fighter bays requirement of carriers to something like 75%...

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
If you allow light carriers, they'll be used as warships. Half fighter bays still gives you 400kt weapons space, and enougg size to use Huge mounts (IIRC, at least Large)

It's huge mount, and they would RULE against destroyers. They rule in a normal game until the other player gets LC's. Against even numebrs they even kick LC butt, but LC's are cheaper by a decent amount so it's hard to keep even numbers using carriers.

Allowing carriers would most definetly break this idea.

Geoschmo

[ July 26, 2003, 19:42: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Pax]

Oops.

I had forgotten that LCVs were 800kT in the unmodded game; I was thinking they were 400-500kT.

So, drop the LCV to ~400kT, adjust remaining features to suit, and allow them in. Versus 300kT destroyers, the 200kT space not occupied by fighter bays isn't going to win the day.

And, keep in mind, that s NOT 200kT of weapons space, that space is also eaten up by engines, control components, sensors, ECM, shields, armor, etc, etc.

As for mounts .... just chop 'em out.

...

I may work up something for such a game, myself. Maybe.

[ July 26, 2003, 22:20: Message edited by: Pax ]

[Pax]

So, here's my idea for hull sizes.

ECM%'s were based on a combination of EpM and mass; 300kT and 3EpM were pegged as "nomodifier" (IOW, Destroyers). Every 50kT or 1 EpM difference was worth a 20-point shift in inherent ECM; higher EpM was worth a penalty, as was greater mass.

Base hulls (the Spacedock, Outpost, and Starbase sizes) were assigned a basic progression independant of their size; these hulls, by rights, would have far more efficient built-in active and passive ECM measures (different materials, lack of engine radiation, etc).

The differing EpM is not a stab at newtonian movement, it's merely meant to allow some hulls to get more out of a given engine component than others (the Fast-class hulls, including the PRobe), and others to get less (carriers, transports, the heavy destroyer).

There's no seperate colony ship hull; simply use a Light Transport hull for that.

I think it may be a good idea to cut the size of the Spaceyard ship component to 100 or 200 kT -- or else give it a (for it's size) small amount of cargo space (maybe 600kT, enough for one Large Weapons Platform), so that the 600kT Bulk Transport hull could use it. Thus you could still have spaceyard ships.

So. Thoughts, comments, ideas ... ?

code:

---

| Hull           | Short | Size (kT) | ECM% | EpM |

|----------------|-------|-----------|------|-----|

|Probe           |  PR   |        50 | +140 |   1 |

|Scout           |  SC   |       100 |  +80 |   3 |

|Fast Frigate    |  XF   |       150 |  +80 |   2 |

|Frigate         |  FF   |       200 |  +40 |   3 |

|Destroyer       |  DD   |       300 |   +0 |   3 |

|Heavy Destroyer |  HD   |       350 |  -40 |   4 |

|Fast Carrier    |  XV   |       300 |  +20 |   2 |

|Carrier         |  CV   |       400 |  -60 |   4 |

|Fast Courier    |  XT   |       200 |  +60 |   2 |

|Light Transport |  LT   |       300 |  -20 |   4 |

|Bulk Transport  |  BT   |       600 | -140 |   4 |

|----------------|-------|-----------|------|-----|

|Spacedock       |  SD   |       200 |  +50 | n/a | 

|Outpost         |  OP   |       500 |   +0 | n/a | 

|Starbase        |  SB   |     1,000 |  -50 | n/a | 

|----------------|-------|-----------|------|-----|

|Satellites      |       |           |      |     |

|  Small         |  SSa  |        60 |    ? | n/a |

|  Medium        |  MSa  |        90 |    ? | n/a |

|  Large         |  LSa  |       120 |    ? | n/a |

|----------------|-------|-----------|------|-----|

|Fighters        |       |           |      |     |

|  Small         |  SFr  |         5 |    ? |   ? |

|  Medium        |  MFr  |        10 |    ? |   ? |

|  Large         |  LFr  |        20 |    ? |   ? |

|----------------|-------|-----------|------|-----|

|Weapon Platforms|       |           |      |     |

|  Small         |  SWP  |       200 |    ? | n/a |

|  Medium        |  MWP  |       400 |    ? | n/a |

|  Large         |  LWP  |       600 |    ? | n/a |

|----------------|-------|-----------|------|-----|

|Troops          |       |           |      |     |

|  Small         |  SFr  |        10 |    ? | n/a |

|  Large         |  LFr  |        20 |    ? | n/a |

|----------------|-------|-----------|------|-----|

---

Some notes:

• Probes are developed after Scout, perhaps after Frigate
• Fast Frigates are developed after Frigates, perhaps after Destroyers
• Heavy Destroyer, obviously, are developed after destroyers
• Carriers require both Ship Con and Fighter tech
• Fast Carriers require more of both Ship Con and Fighter tech than Carriers do
• Carriers must be 50% fighter bay or more
• Fast Carriers must be 30% fighter bay or more
• Fast Courier must be 30% or more Cargo
• Light Transport must be 50% or more Cargo
• Bulk Transport must be 75% or more Cargo
  

[ July 26, 2003, 22:18: Message edited by: Pax ]

[Slick]

Wow! Pax, I don't want to sound negative so please don't take this the wrong way, but that is certainly different than what I originally had in mind. Run with these ideas, this project may turn into a fun mod. If you would like a little more about my original thoughts I would be happy to post them here.

Slick.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Slick:
Wow! Pax, I don't want to sound negative so please don't take this the wrong way, but that is certainly different than what I originally had in mind. Run with these ideas, this project may turn into a fun mod. If you would like a little more about my original thoughts I would be happy to post them here.

Slick.

Sure.

Your original thought was, ISTM, just to chop out the bigger hulls, but then I got to thinking abotu how you could make a small-ships game still have a variety of hulls. That requires greater variation in more than just size, since you're workign in such a small "window" of possible sizes, so some speed variations seemed appropriate.

So I came up with 2 scout, 4 warship, 2 carrier, and 3 transport hulls, for 11 ships in all. Starbases should also drop in size (or they become absolute TERRORS on defense).

The possible changes to the Spaceyard componentare intended solely to permit spaceyard ships; I'm in favor of dropping it to 100kT, since that'd fit on a spacedock, and you could push the 500kT base hull out a ways, tech-wise.

I do plan to explore this further. Generally, I won't likely touch much beyond the hull sizes, and the tech fields that affect them.

To re-introduce some design variation, OTOH, I may *cough*"borrow"*cough* mounts form other sources. Some of the Gatling moutns could be amusing, for example.

Oh ... one thing I forgot to work in is Drones. Make them 50/100/150 (2EpM), perhaps.