Ship Talk

[Xrati]

Most games that have training set limits on how much you can get. The rest is based on actual combat or science missions. It makes sense, you can't become a legend sitting in an academy! (although I know some people who think so)
Also, once assigned, the officer could not be transfered to another ship. This will avoid heavy game mechanics to track this.

[jars_u]

Originally Posted by Skyburn

...The leader would need to be present at important events to gain prestige points (PP) and you could decide how to spend them to improve the leader's abilities.

Originally Posted by Xrati

...It makes sense, you can't become a legend sitting in an academy! ...Also, once assigned, the officer could not be transfered to another ship...

The option to choose and further customize a "leader ability" to me would be welcome and also allow for further customization (attack bonus, trade bonus, etc.) I also agree that there should be a severe limit on abilities gained strictly though training (vs experience) and would also add that the officer/politician etc. should not only be tied to a specific ship but should die if the ship is destroyed - which would add an element of a high value target vs a green ship.

[pydna]

I noticed early on Ed mentioned Stars!

One of the design aspects of Stars! I loved is that shrewd design can compensate for lack of technology (within reason).

A lot of posts mention players want firing arcs for weapons. Thats fine, however what I would love to see is the ability through shrewd design to compensate for lack of firing arcs.

For example.

Lets say my beam weapons only fire in a 90 degree arc. My opponent has vessels with beams that fire in a 180 Degree arc. Economically I can't research to a new tech AND build a new fleet in time to defeat him.

so I look at my design options and realise I can compensate partially by giving my vessels better manoeuvring jets (turn facing quicker) and better computers (getting better initiative).

The result is that whilst my design isn't as advanced it can hold its own (in the short term) against my opponents design.

This only one strategy, ideally it would be great if there were three or four different design strategies players could employ to give ship building some real depth.

[jars_u]

Originally Posted by pydna

...players could employ to give ship building some real depth.

Designing better ships and then using them to blow stuff up better is one of my favorite aspects of 4X so I'm in favor of the general idea of ship design having real depth that impacts combat certainly and overall game-play as a result.

Speaking specifically to both SE4 and 5 for example while numerous perhaps even too numerous weapon options existed for a player to research and use in his/her designs some of the real differences (to me) were often (but not always) too negligible to really justify one over another in any real overall design strategy.

But at the end of the day the question will be "Is the game fun?" and tedious MM (depending on what your preferences are) - especially as mentioned elsewhere - later in the game can be a serious kill-joy.

[Timstone]

I have a small question.
When I played Ascendancy I could send my ships home in one turn with the "Recaller". I know this can be implemented. Just state the following with every ship you produce: "Impaler 01 build on stardate 1979 at Earth". You can use this data to send that particular ship homewards in the blink of an eye.
Would such a system be useful/wanted.
Obviously implementing such a system wouldn't mean you have to show the data. But you could check out which ship is most antiquated or which shipyard build the most ships.
More numbers to crunch!

[jars_u]

Originally Posted by Timstone

...But you could check out which ship is most antiquated or which shipyard build the most ships...

Ship design was always one of my favorite aspects of both SE4 & 5 - but managing and upgrading all the incremental designs was certainly a chore especially as the game went on.

Unless SL affords individual ships a greater level of importance then I think most 4X games do - I would be in favor of a oversimplified and perhaps even a "unrealistic" way of dealing with this issue. Perhaps a monetary cost of upgrade only with limited time investment and generally loose or multiple valid upgrade locations.

In SE a construction/repair style ship would take too long to perform an overhaul and sending back to a shipyard meant not only the time invested in the upgrade but also a two way trip (perhaps made worse by an already damaged ship) - that combined with the restrictions on percentages of old/new component on an overhaul more often then not at least for me ships either rarely got upgraded or since no attachment existed with ships the older ones were used as bait/kamikaze ships in battle.

[jars_u]

I see on page 2 of the off topic thread there is a discussion that also address this issue in some detail - I think the off topic is now on topic and we need a new off topic thread!