Revamping SEIV Ship Hull Sizes & Features

[Nodachi]

Atrocities, here's what I've done with the mod I'm working on. I've got eight ships ranging from 150 tons to 500 tons. These are Small Craft. The next level of hull sizes are Capital Ships; 1000, 1500, 2000, and 3000 tons. For the small craft I've given each one an extra 100% to defense and offense and left the description blank to make it transparent. I'm using a QNP system so the smaller ships are naturally faster. Capital ships are slower but tougher and a whole lot more expensive to build and maintain.

Using this set-up small craft fight each other normally and are almost guaranteed to hit capital ships. With mounts capital ships outrange the smaller ships but have a hard time targeting them. When they do score a hit, however, it can be catastophic for the smaller ship.

[Chris Woods]

I think the real disparity is all about the mounts. Without any mounts at all, larger ships are more advantageous because they use a smaller percentage of their space to control facilities and propulsion. (Escorst spend 65% each while a dreadnaught only uses 10%. this means 6 escorts only have 360 kt to mount weapons/shields and armor while the dread still has 900kt lieing around.)

The small ships gain the advantage that they can be in 6 places at once while the dreadnaught, obviously, can't.

Mounts totally blow this out of the water, however, as one "Massive Mount" is worth 6 escorts easy. Mounts are a cool thing to play with, but without balancing (any any direct balancing of the mounts themselves leads to the AI being unable to use them correctly) they are far to overpowered.

Chris Woods

[Foreman]

And another way to make the balance - ship size does not grow with the technology. Ex:
Ship Construction 1 : 150kt
Ship Construction 2 : 400kt
Ship Construction 3 : 800kt
Ship Construction 4 : 250kt with mounts, combat speed bonus and reduced maintaince
Ship Construction 5 : 600kt with mounts, combat speed bonus and reduced maintaince
and so on...

[Instar]

I know this is probably well nigh impossible to mod, but wouldn't dread naughts need more C&C (bridge) stuff as compared to a frigate? Make dread noughts carry 2x the bridge or something.

[CNCRaymond]

I agree with Instar, the larger ships should be required to carry more in the way of C&C (Command & Control) components.

QNP system? Could someone please post the engine requirements for this. I.E. I assume that the larger ships require more engines to go the same speed as a smaller verhicle.

I like the idea of giving smaller ships more advantages as you research through the Construction Technology like what was posted below.

But what advantages do you think smaller ships should have over their larger counterparts? PCP any thoughts on this?

I have a couple:

Escort/scout/cutter -
Normal starting tech but at ship construction tech 4 bonus given for speed and reduced component size.

Frigate/gunboat/Corvettes -
Normal starting tech at start but at ship construction level 5 tech given for speed and special weapons mounts. (Weapons mounts can be an imporved fire rate or distance bonus to hit ratio to missles or torpedo's)

Destroyer/heavy destroyer
Normal starting tech at start but at ship construction level 6 tech given for armor and special weapons. (Special weapons can be as you said, advanced missiles and torpedo's.)

This kinda spells out what I had in mind.

PCP do you remember that game you authored a few years ago (Q - Experiment?) I still have a print out of it if your interested in reviewing it. Remember all of the detail you went into for each ship class? I hope you still have a copy of it someplace, but it has been four years now.

Also I think it is important to understand that each ship class (Hull size) should have an important role to play in any game/mod. No sense in designing a Destroyer when your going to have Light Cruiser in five turns.

Additionally, here is my list for ship hull sizes:

Ships:
Scouts
Escorts
Cutters
Corvette
Gun Ship
Frigate
Destroyer
Light Cruiser
Cruiser
Heavy Cruiser
Battle Cruiser
Battleship
Dreadnought
Juggernought
Capital Ship

Small Carrier
Medium Carrier
Large Carrier
Super Carrier
Battle Carrier

Space Stations/OutPosts:
Standard
Centenial
Crown
Outland
Frontier

Battle Stations:
Alpha
Beta
Delta
Epsilon
Gama

Star Bases:
Base Star
Battle Star
Death Star

Fighters:
Interceptor
Short Range Fighter
Fighter
Heavy Fighter
Bomber
Heavy Bomber
Fighter Bomber
Long Range Bomber
Shuttles
Runabouts

Support Ships:
Colony 1
Colony 2
Colony 3

Transport 1
Transport 2
Transport 3

Extras:
Salvage ship
Repair vessel
Construction ship
Cargo ship
Specialized ship

PCP you really could make a sweet mod out of that game idea you had for the old FSN Forums. What did they rename it? Domination?

[Suicide Junkie]

QNP system? Could someone please post the engine requirements for this. I.E. I assume that the larger ships require more engines to go the same speed as a smaller verhicle

No problem:
1) Pick a nice scale, that evenly divides all of your ship sizes. 50kt is typically good.
2) For each hull size, set the engines per move to [mass] / [50]
3) Bump up the standard movement points (thrust) of your engines to something around 3 to 7 points per 10kt. Higher tech engines should have more thrust.
4) Remove bonus movement abilities, since they mess up the system. Solar sails can provide lower thrust and use no fuel, to keep them useful.

An escort (150kt /50kt = 3) requires 3 E.P.M. so if you add a single engine with 3 standard movement points, it will have a speed of one.

Note: "Engines per Move" really means "standard movement points per move".

The alternative method is via mounts (mQNP)
1) Scale up all engines to enormous cost and size.
2) Add an engine mount for each hull, which reduces the size (and cost) of the engine appropriately. 1% per 50kt should do nicely.
3) Again remove bonus movement abilities.

[Atrocities]

Thanks SJ.

CNC I do remember the game. I find it very interesting how much that game mirrors SEIV. (IIRC I wrote it in September 98.) I may have an old copy of it on my P2 400, but that no longer works. PS or MB went out.

Random might have a copy it too. I will see if I can get one from him, but I have not seen him on line in over two years.

If you have printed copy, send it buy. I would love to read it.