Revamping SEIV Ship Hull Sizes & Features

[Fyron]

Originally posted by 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.

Make the Bridge 1000 kT. Give each ship a mount that can only be used on the Bridge to scale it's size and cost appropriately.

[QuarianRex]

One thing that I always wanted to see was inherent abilities for the specialized hulls. Like giving the carriers a fighter launch abilitiy of 5/20 or somesuch. It would give a concrete reason to pick the carrier hull when there are larger alternatives available.

Here are some comments on previous ideas. Increasing the cost of the larger ships? Whether this is done through increasing hull cost or boosting maintainance I say thee nay. Making a fleet of dreadnoughts break your galactic bank isn't realistic and is even less fun to play. I don't think anyone likes being forced to make smaller ships. How about giving a severe maint. reduction on the smaller ships. They may have the lifespan of gnats but you could support a horde. That would be a reason to keep the smaller sizes around.

Mounts can be a problem. If you want to go the MOO2 heavy mount route (2x size, 1.5x damage, additional range) then for the love of god don't give them to-hit penalties. Penalties actually shorten the effective range, and besides, you need something to offset the lowered damage ratio. I think that a +10% to-hit bonus per +1 range is needed to make the range increase usable as opposed to being a cruel taunt. Of course this type of mount is really effective when you can combine it with higher damage ratio weapons to give that long/short range punch.

Another problem is that the AI blindly uses the lowest available mount on the list. How to get around that? Perhaps by limiting certain mounts to certain weapons? Maybe the MOO2 heavy mount would be limited to energy weapons while the high damage/low accuracy would be more appopriate to slug throwers and the like? Then you could have a mix of mounts in a given design.

[ March 23, 2003, 22:06: Message edited by: QuarianRex ]

[Fyron]

Here is a sample of the CompEnhancement.txt file (just ship mounts) from Adamant Mod. What do you think?

[QuarianRex]

Fyron,
Interesting. Personaly I think that the accuracy mount should weigh the same as the LR mount, similar principles involved just different application.

Concealed mount seems a little Uber. Tonnage 25%, structure 100%, and damage 90%? That is one hell of a damage ratio you're offering, and they can double as internal armour.

I like the idea of the hold fire bays. Let 'em get in close and then see if they can run fast enough. Heh-heh. Wish I had thought of that.

For the pre-fire bays, how are they working? have they tested out all right? I remember the problems with adjusting seeher range through mounts (it doesn't actually affect the characteristics of the seeker) but will the seeker launch even though it will wink out of existence?

Edit: P.S. I noticed that you aren't intending for the AI to use any of the special mounts. Are you planning to keep it that way? If not, how are you planning to balance it?

[ March 23, 2003, 23:03: Message edited by: QuarianRex ]

[Ed Kolis]

One thing I liked about MOO is the variety of ship sizes. I forget what the sizes were in MOO1, but in MOO2, the smallest ship size is 25 kT and the largest ship is 1200 kT. (OK, it doesn't say kT but I'm assuming each space unit is a kT). That's a factor of 48 between the smallest and largest ships! In MOO3, the jump is even bigger - something like 90 times, because there are 14 hull sizes with each being square root of 2 times the size of the Last. Compare this with SE4, where largest ship (Baseship, 1500 kT) is only 10 times the size of the smallest (Escort 150 kT)... Now I know that in MOO2, at least, small ships were fairly useless, but that's just because they weren't given enough defensive and speed bonuses. (+50 to defense for a frigate might seem like a lot, but then remember that in MOO2 you could have bonuses going up into the 200's!) It might not seem very "realistic" in wet-navy terms to have some ships 100 times the size of others, but this is a space game, it's supposed to be epic and awe-inspiring! (Why else do we have Battlemoons? ) Of course, this change in scale would also necessitate a change in the scale of construction rates - in unmodded SE4 a top-level planetary spaceyard builds only 50% faster than your basic laser-popgun-age model! That certainly won't get anything big done in any reasonable amount of time! (Then again, we don't want a "yawn, popped out 8 more doomstars this turn" like we got in MOO2 )

Oh well, done ranting for now

[Slick]

Been giving the responses here some thought and have some things to add.

There have been some inaccurate generalizations here if compared to real life. Larger ships are generally faster and longer range than small ones; yes there are exceptions. Larger ships are less maneuverable. Command & control is not appreciably larger on larger ships; roughly 10% of crew represents C&C, and the shipboard space is roughly the same percentage.

Regarding SE4, I would increase the bridge, crew quarters and life support such that they represent the same rough percent of ship space as small ships. I would also give larger mounts an accuracy penalty to represent larger ship maneuverability.

Also, although QNP is a good idea, the end result should not be that all ships will be equal. This conflicts with real life. As I stated below, larger ships ARE better and should BE better in the game. This is due to "economy of size". Larger ships are more efficient, not less efficient.

The reason there aren't large navies from all countries on our oceans is $$$. It is tremendously expensive to operate and maintain a large navy. The US had 600+ navy ships under Reagan and today it has less than 1/2 that number. For SE4 purposes, this should translate into HUGE costs to make larger and larger ships. That will be realistic both in construction time and maintenance and will make smaller ships more useful.

Another concept is in the engines / quantum reactors. There are nuclear powered ships and conventional powered ships in our navy. The main difference is cost (to build and maintain) and time to refueling. Real life conventional ships must be refueled approximately weekly when at sea (give or take) when operating at high speeds and nuclear ships have endurances at 20+ years. The "supplies" issue is hardcoded for fleet sharing, but again you could make expensive components with large supply to represent the future Version of nuclear power vs. conventional power.

Slick.

[ March 24, 2003, 16:01: Message edited by: Slick ]

[Fyron]

Interesting. Personaly I think that the accuracy mount should weigh the same as the LR mount, similar principles involved just different application.

And what would you think they should weigh? 125 or 150?

Concealed mount seems a little Uber. Tonnage 25%, structure 100%, and damage 90%? That is one hell of a damage ratio you're offering, and they can double as internal armour.

Hmm... I may have reduced the wrong trait. The hit points are supposed to be 25%, not the space taken. The concealed weapon should take normal space.

For the pre-fire bays, how are they working? have they tested out all right? I remember the problems with adjusting seeher range through mounts (it doesn't actually affect the characteristics of the seeker) but will the seeker launch even though it will wink out of existence?

They are designed against missile dancers and such. You can fire the seekers when they are out of range. The seekers move in, and hopefully hit them when they come in range to fire at you. If they are out of range when the seeker arrives at its max range (regardless of the mount), the seeker just disappears. No big loss, fire more! They would be more useful on Bases, which can't move to combat the missile dancing.

Edit: P.S. I noticed that you aren't intending for the AI to use any of the special mounts. Are you planning to keep it that way? If not, how are you planning to balance it?

I am not entirely sure. I might have them use the Heavy Mount because they can not react dynamically to a player using lots of emmissive or crystalline armor. The Heavy Mount is designed to combat such ships.

[ March 24, 2003, 19:38: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]