Gritty Galaxy Mod Downloads

arthurtuxedo · #1 April 14th, 2007, 01:16 PM

I noticed something funny about maintenance in this mod the other day (v1.25 B, game version 1.25). It was roughly the same for Dreadnoughts as for Destroyers, about 200 of a resource. There's probably some variable on the mounts that's scaling down the maintenance on the bigger ships. This, of course, will result in fleets of dreadnoughts and only dreadnoughts, which is what makes me think it's not intentional.

Phoenix-D · #2 April 14th, 2007, 04:02 PM

Actually its intentional. The dreads take about the same maintenance, but they take a LOT longer to build.

arthurtuxedo · #3 April 14th, 2007, 05:47 PM

Hmm. And that works, in your experience with the mod? Because it seems to me that people can use orbital shipyards to build lots of them in parallel, thus making build time less relevant and allowing them to build up to their resource limit that's determined mostly by maintenance. In most of the SE games I've played, there's been enough time in peace time to build arbitrarily large fleets with this method, because only a large fleet can break through stacked defenses on a chokepoint, and it would take the other guy just as long to build a fleet capable of doing that.

Seems like building a bunch of base space yards and then stacking defenses like crazy to stall the enemy while the space yards build hundreds of dreadnoughts is the path to victory. Sure, it will take a few dozen turns to get the things built, but the low build rate will allow you to construct more of them in parallel, and hundreds of dreadnoughts would mop the floor with a mixed force of a few dreadnoughts, a few dozen battleships, and a few hundred cruisers.

Also, the longer peace time goes on, the more an initial force of destroyers and cruisers will get replaced by dreadnoughts.

Phoenix-D · #4 April 15th, 2007, 03:28 AM

It works, yeah. Once a war gets to any sort of length, you can't spare the shipbuilding time to make massive ships. Sure, you can work in parallel..but the same trick works for building small ships as well.

Also considering mothballs. While you can still only support X number of ships per turn, someone who builds and mothballs small ships during peacetime can effectively ALWAYS have a navy as large as his budget will support..

arthurtuxedo · #5 April 15th, 2007, 12:25 PM

Good point. We'll see how it shakes out, then.

Suicide Junkie · #6 April 15th, 2007, 07:35 PM

In the newest version, the HW build rate has changed, but with just an old legacy SY facility, you could build 30x 45kt scouts in one turn, or one 300kt dread in about two turns.

Given any particular amount of SY capacity, you get far more military tonnage per turn (9:1 for scouts vs dreads).

Rather than building and mothballing scouts during peacetime, I would suggest that a better strategy is to build the larger ships during peacetime.
Mothball the expensive small ships, to free up resources for the SY to go full out.

Consider that in wartime, you have a limited number of ships you can support...
The bigger the ships you have mothballed, the more *tonnage* you will have in the field.
And large mothballed ships are worth far more. If you're talking scouts, you would be better off just building them fresh on demand; that way they start with full supplies and ordnance.
Unmothballing a large ship during wartime, on the other hand, saves you a lot of build queue time just when you need it most.

During wartime, though, you will need lots of cannon fodder to absorb the slings and arrows of your fortune. Small ships are great at that. Faceless meat shields you build by the dozen to protect your flagship and its 100mm Laser batteries.

In general, you will probably try to budget enough resources to continually run all your SY at full capacity.
The leftover margin determines the number of warships you can support in the field.
In order to maximize your tonnage and firepower in the field, you will want the biggest ships possible, while constructing new ones at least as fast as you lose them.
Note: If you're building faster than you're losing, you can simply notch up your aggression and increase your casualty rate by demolishing enemy strongholds. In the longer term, you can switch to larger ships and thus increase your tonnage in the field.
Note2: If you're building slower than you're losing, you are in trouble, and will soon go down in flames as your fleet sizes shrink and your casualty rates rise. Time to switch to smaller ships.