Freighter Network

Urendi Maleldil · #1 December 7th, 2005, 08:53 PM

You could mod-in remote resource generation into the freighter hulls. That way they'll generate resources for every uninhabited planet they orbit. Or you can add resource point generation to each hull. That would make them generate resources all the time.

It's not exactly what you describe, but I think it gets a similar idea across. As far as I know, there's no way to make ships gather a fixed number of resources while in orbit around an inhabited planet.

Suicide Junkie · #2 December 7th, 2005, 09:05 PM

The main problem is that they don't have to be moving, and can just sit in a 1000-ship stack over your homeworld.

You could make some satellites with the fixed resource generation abilities.
Then if you limit satellites to just 1 per sector, you'd have to spread them around nicely to get the income.

narf poit chez BOOM · #3 December 8th, 2005, 01:16 AM

That's an idea.

Magnum357 · #4 December 8th, 2005, 05:02 AM

I'm a little confused. Would these Satilites harvest/mine resources out of a planet or would they just spit out resources wherever they are placed? Also, how would the Freighters be used in all this? How would they get the resouces from these "Satilites" or whatever you want to call them so that the Empire could use it? One of the points I wanted to use about making a Freighter Network was that you have to send Freighters to places to get the Resources and able to have them get attacked by someone.

Or maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. Is SJ saying the Satilites ARE the freighters and they are placed over certain sectors to produce resources?

Magnum357 · #5 December 8th, 2005, 05:15 AM

How about this idea. Create a component that is able to harvest resources from a planet or astroid cluster, but is destroyed after use. Only Freighters would be allowed to use the component and would have to return to the ship yard to get the component repaired so that it can go harvest again. Now the question is can your script in a way to get the component after one turn to destroy itself after it pulled the resources you wanted.

douglas · #6 December 8th, 2005, 06:47 PM

The absence of a space yard ability is treated exactly the same as 0 for that ability as far as build rate is concerned. The only difference is that a 0-rate space yard will enable scrapping, mothballing, retrofitting, etc., but a component with no space yard abilities at all will not.

Magnum357 · #7 December 8th, 2005, 09:22 PM

Wow! I like that system a lot and I'm going to try too implement it somehow. Question for will though, why do you suggest implementing removoing resupply depots? I understand what you mean by making your military forces use supply as its maintance, but if you just are concerned about building a Freighter Network, you don't have to add that feature, right?

Also, I would imagine it would be too difficult for the AI to use this effectively?

Puke · #8 December 8th, 2005, 11:16 PM

yeah, this would have to be multiplayer-only. theres no way the AI could be scripted to send freighters to the right place for scrapping, or even to scrap them at all.

of course, if you gave the AI enough bonuses or special traits, they wouldnt NEED to have freighters at all. then it would be a human player with a freighter network, vs normal AI.

Will · #9 December 8th, 2005, 11:18 PM

Well, I was originally thinking maintainence-free freighters only, but since all hulls are going to cost some amount of organics, eventually you will hit a point where the maintainence on those ships would cause problems. You could make it all maintainence-free, though. Come to think of it, just strategizing for the production and delivery of the freighters would be enough of a hassle without having to think about maintainence and/or supply issues.

Modification then: three kinds of spaceyard facilities.
1. Spaceport, same as before; constructs at 3000/100/3000 (might want to tweak those values to account for population bonuses). Produces 2000 organics/turn, stores 2000 organics. Scraps at 110% efficiency, and can resupply. Costs 100k organics to build.
2. Launch Pad, same as before; constructs at 0/2000/0, produces 2000 organics/turn, stores 2000 organics. Costs almost nothing to build (1 organic?), it's assumed that the colony ship already has the materials, and it only requires a bit of work to set it up. Upgrades to Spaceport.
3. Military Base; constructs at 1500/50/1500, produces 50 organics/turn, stores 250. Can resupply ships, and provides extra unit spaces. Maybe higher tech gives ship/fleet training. Costs 20k organics to build, maybe more at higher tech. Possibly would also upgrade to Spaceport (or a derivative, Military Spaceport, with the training, unit spaces, etc included).

douglas · #10 December 12th, 2005, 10:05 PM

A freighter must yield a large amount of (non-organic) resources when scrapped. This requires either an insanely high scrap return at the spaceport (not desirable) or a high (non-organic) construction cost, so freighters cost a lot to build. Freighters are also supposed to be built quickly at a Launch Pad, so the Launch Pad must either have a high (non-organic) construction rate or build at no cost in the appropriate resource. A construction rate of 1/2000/1 satisfies neither of those two requirements.