Space Food Empires!

[Captain Kwok]

Thanks for the name RCCCL. I re-named the warp point generator as 'Warp Point Seeder'.

Any other ideas out there?

[Ed Kolis]

Any chance of any sort of harvesters - of the MOO3 persuasion or otherwise?

edit: I'm thinking maybe some sort of super WMD type thing, maybe a weapon which deploys robots which devour the population of a planet?

[Captain Kwok]

While working on the new maintenance system in the VehicleSize.txt, I was thinking of ways to make carriers more likely to be used as, well, carriers.

An easy way would be to make special mounts for fighter hangers that would reduce their size when used on carrier hulls. However, since hull sizes are customized by race, this wouldn't work out so well.

So, I have made carrier hulls cheaper with a lower base maintenance cost (20% vs 25%) while being able to launch/recover fighters at a reduced rate even if all hanger bays were destroyed. They also have a slightly lower maximum speed, increased defense penalty and require 50% fighter bays.

Are the benefits enough to balance the penalties, plus encourage their regular use in the game, particularly for fighter-focused races?

[El_Phil]

Given how important speed can be, particularly in a large empire and during combat, the low maximum sped is a big penalty. If you keep the low speed make them the large fleet carriers and add faster strike carriers that have less capacity and perhaps no launch/recover if damaged.

[Captain Kwok]

Reduced speed in this case is generally 1 or 2 move points less at most. It shouldn't really matter all that much in combat, since carriers are just releasing fighters and backing off.