Fuel in a 4x game

[aegisx]

What are your thoughts on fuel in a turn based 4x game? Here are the constraints: Not Space Empires, no AI players, game is meant to last a long time, PBeM based (slower turn turnaround).

SE's supply system is nice as it encompasses fuel and crew supplies. Would breaking it up into separate things be too much micromanagement for even those of you who love it?

[Hugh Manatee]

I remember Stars! system pretty well, you had a fleetwide fuel gauge, could refill at planets, had ramscoop engines that could travel for free at certain speeds, and had fuel transport hulls that generated fuel every turn. It was a decent system, though it didn't account for crew supplies, you had to maintain supply lines and front line starbases, and chasing down or intercepting enemy fleets or retreating after a big loss got real interesting.

I also recall MoO2's travel system, IIRC you had engines with different ranges, if your engine couldn't make the journey to another star system outside your outposts and colonies, you couldn't go. Simpler, and abstracts fuel and supplies a bit, but interesting.

If there's reliable automation so that I dont have to micro manage transfer of the supplies yet it still has an effect on the overall strategy(like as you expand you have to leave outposts and supply lines behind, or bring supply ships with you) then go for it, but it can be abstracted like in moo2 if you justwant to focus more on fleet maneuvering.

The ultimate 4X game(that I haven't quite seen made yet) would be like a 3D Stars!(with Stars! Coordinate movment system) but with planets that revolved around a sun instead of the 1 star one planet(like Moo2's but those last few million miles actually matter), SEV's supplies, starbase production queues, planetary queues, and ship building, Stars!' resources(the different mineral types, and the production power of it's facilities based on weather or not your planet has the population to run them), SEV's hybrid simultanious turn based orders and movement, a cross between MoO2's tech tree, and SEV's(research big concepts like fission, then decide what to use it on depending on your empires "creativity").

One thing I haven't seen much of yet is combat that occurs outside of a "combat" instance. Like I move my ships somewhere, they fight it out right there, I can zoom in and watch, they start launching weapons as soon as they enter range, or retreating means actually running away under fire.

>_> um yeah.. supplies... supplies... Well I guess if you really want a big game having to manage the supplies every turn would begin to drag after awhile...

[Arkcon]

OK, in SE4 we had supplies, only engines depleted them, even if weapons needed them. We all just looked at our stranded, out of supply ships and laughed "They've been out of gas for 5 years now, what are they eating and breathing?"

Now in SE5, we have supplies and ordinance. And system-wide vs one planet only resupply/reordinance. Sometimes a ship gets stuck without enough fuel, but in a well developed empire, i.e. resupply depot gets up promptly in systems on your empire's frontier, you can get them back in time. Now a ship may have supply, but lack ordinance or vice versa adds some interesting occurances in combat so that's some fun.

What you'd like to do is split up supply/ordinance again, for I'm guessing food/water, and atmosphere. The result would be, what, lowered combat effectiveness, or the crew dies and the ship becomes a stranded hulk, or explodes, something like that, yes? Is that really much different than SE4, as above?

[Xrati]

AT's Star Trek mod has good supply system. The faster your ships move, the more supply (over what they regenerate) they use. It goes by tech level too, so you won't be crossing a system early in the game.

One of the principles of 4x games is tech. Do you want to move fast or shoot at somebody? Your tech develepoment is crucial and must be uniform over what your intent is. Supply and supply related techs should be included.

A system that uses supply points such as bases or depots also creates places of engagement other then planets. Not all planets would be supply points, but could build a ground/orbital base to resupply ships. Supply routes to these planets/bases should be determined by a ZOC and abstracted for those who do not wish to command every supply freighter in their empire!

Just a few thoughts... cause I don't get many of them!!!

[aegisx]

I believe in Stars! you could set the speed too, and it would use more fuel.

If you break out fuel, ordinance, life support etc it adds the possibility of improvingg the ship/crew by management/tech for each item. Not saying this is a good thing, as it may be too deep for too little gain.

[Arkcon]

What I'd like to see is the removal of supply storage from the engines, and replacing it with some sort of fusion reactor that created energy stores for all components to use. That has been done in some SE4 mods, IIRC. It just makes more sense to me, but it really doesn't add much to the game.

What I'm thinking is a ship built by a technologically advanced race should never "run out of gas" and be stranded. They should always be able to jury rig something and get themselves home. But how to balance that so its not abused?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Reduced speed.

Like, maybe, 1 square a turn?

[aegisx]

Arkcon said:
What I'd like to see is the removal of supply storage from the engines, and replacing it with some sort of fusion reactor that created energy stores for all components to use. That has been done in some SE4 mods, IIRC. It just makes more sense to me, but it really doesn't add much to the game.

What I'm thinking is a ship built by a technologically advanced race should never "run out of gas" and be stranded. They should always be able to jury rig something and get themselves home. But how to balance that so its not abused?

Reactor driven was the way I was leaning too. This opens up some possibilities with technology, as components can all be given a power requirement. This requirement can be altered as the technology advances.

[Suicide Junkie]

If the ship says "hey boss, that's beyond our maximum range" but you decide to try and fly to Andromeda anyways, its your own fault!

That said, consider a system for SE5 in which you have:
- Capacitors (supply storage)
- Fuel tanks (ordnance storage)
- Reactors (scripted)

Each turn, the script will check the storage levels on each ship and convert fuel to energy based on the number and level of your reactors.
Various power and efficiency ratings are possible, of course.

Flying or fighting too long without a break would drain your capacitors until you start taking out of supply penalties. Resupply depots would provide ordnance/fuel, while all facilities could provide some amount of supplies/energy to passing ships.

System defense ships would max out on cheap energy storage, since they have lots of places to recharge from. Scouts would go with just enough storage and reactors for a turn's worth of movement, and carry lots and lots of fuel for the long hauls.

[Arkcon]

What SJ suggest is more what I had in mind, a reactor that powers a ship ...

Consider old WWI era navy ships, they could carry a limited amount of diesel fuel, and the militaries and politicians of the world were pretty much driven by securing refueling depots. Nowadays, there are nuclear fueled carriers, miniature floating cities, that can go anywhere, worldwide, do anything, and keep the crew fed, and entertained, for years at a time. Of course, they are frequently visited by resupply ships, for foodstuffs, personal mail, etc. But I doubt the Captain of a large modern nuclear warship spends his day wondering, "Is the reactor full enough to get us home?"

This of course flys in the face of the standard SE5 resupply method, where every couple years, a scout ship has to return to empire controlled space, just to get fuel. Or is that intended to model the restock/recharge atmosphere/rotate crew needs, in which case, we already have what aegisx was asking for.

Way back in the SE4 days, these was a suggestion the we should try to model not only crew experience (i.e. more effective do to repeated won battles) but also crew morale (i.e. less effective due to being stuck guarding a warp point endlessly, recharged by having them return to a friendly port for R&R,) but it was struck down, as too much micromanagement.

Furthermore, we haven't considered yet the possibility that an alien race might not need food, atmosphere, R&R, might be composed of hull subunits, et cetera. But we could always make choosing that race consume racial points