Useful Starbases! ? Modders, please respond.

[Barnacle Bill]

I think Trachmyr is exactly right about why fighters don't move on the turn of their launch. It is probably more a programming limitation than MM's idea of how it "should" work.

A few ways to change that without having to track the movement points of each fighter would be:

(a) Track whether a fighter has been recovered this turn and don't let it launch again if it has. This still requires individual tracking of fighters, but only a "bit" for each (recovered or not) instead of a "word" for each (number of movement points remaining).

(b) Don't let carriers & planets both launch and recover in the same turn. I think this would be an improvement over the current system because you could launch & execute a strike in the same turn. You still could not launch the strike, recover after the strike and beat feet all in the same turn, though (which is proper carrier-like behavior).

(c) In combination with (a), make fighters have to land by the end of the turn or be lost. This would be my preference ("fighters" sitting in space indefinately seems unrealistic). To cut down on the record keeping, you could somewhat adapt what Starfire does. There, you can't launch individual fighters. You have to launch Groups of 6 (which they call "squadrons" but I would call "flights" because of the small number). I would propose creating fighter units in SE4, under whatever name, which would work like fleets. There would be a minimum & maximum number of fighters allowed when you create a fighter unit, although casualties could reduce it below the minimum (you could not add above the max. All fighters in the same unit would have to be of the same design. Whether a fighter has launched or not would be tracked by unit, not by individual fighter (to cut down on the record-keeping). You can transfer fighters between units (but not while in space), or between units and cargo storage, but not OUT of any unit which has already recovered that turn. That allows you to freely reorganize before you launch, but not to put fighters which have already sortied into a different unit where they can sortie again. If you try to land a fighter unit someplace that can hold some but not all of its fighters, you would lose the excess (with a warning & chance to change your mind, of course). Fighter units could be part of a fleet, and would gain experience like a ship (individual fighters would not).

I also have some thoughts on the subject of moving bases. In tactical combat, the defender should be allowed to set up where he likes before the attacker is placed on the board. Assume bases have some inherent "station keeping drive" that can handle that sort of movement, but can't move them during combat or between sectors on the system map. Can attackers hit the planet from the other side? Sure, that is the inherent problem with static defenses. Build multiple bases so you can put them all around. Less efficient that ships, but again that is the inherent problem with static defenses. I would support a new type of "ground base", though, which would be on the planet surface and thus "on" the planet during combat like a Weapon Platform, but not cargo and not moveable. Rather, it would count as a facility. Each hull size of ground base would get a certain amount of "free" armor (doesn't count against its tonnage), to reflect that it is buried under rock, concrete, etc...

As far as stategic movement of bases goes, I have some thoughts there as well. I don't like the idea of space yards in ships (ever been to a real shipyard?) so I changed the space yard components in my data set to only be allowed in bases. However, I 'd like an ability as in Starfire to assemble a base remotely. You would have an option when building a base to "build as cargo", in which case it would appear when finished as a cargo item and be non-functional. You could use more than one ship to carry it as long as all of them are in the same fleet. When the ship(s) carrying it get where you want it, you would need something with repair capability to assemble it (there would be an "assemble base" order available to anything having repair capability). The base would then appear as a with all the components in need of repair (as if it had undergone a retrofit affecting every component), and have to be repaired. The process could be reversed (again using something other than itself having repair capability) to disassemble it to be reassembled or scrapped elsewhere.

One Last idea about space yard components. Even mounted in a base (or ship, if you haven't made my mod), they should not be allowed to build anything unless the base is at an inhabited planet that the base's owner controls. Again, real shipyards are not operated by a "crew" that lives on board. They employ wads of civilian workers who live in the surrounding community. No surrounding community (i.e. co-located colony), no workers. No workers, no construction.

[Trachmyr]

I have to disagree with you about no spaceyards in ships... robotic factories could easily handle such a thing (even today if we ever built something big enough to hold it), but perhaps a restriction on how big they can build something... for instance each shipyard (400 tons) can build a max of 200ton ship... perhaps this getting better as the facility improves (to where eventually a baseship could build a dreadnought or heavy carrier with 3 shipyards)... Also the rate of production should be lowered, but only if MM allows multiple shipyards to contribute to the rate of production...

Additionally, there should be NANOTECH in the game, and this would vastly improve the effectiveness of shipyards.

As a final note, perhaps building ships with a shipyard should also use supplies equal to the amount of resources used... thus you would have to be either at a port or have a fleet of resupply ships to allow a shipyard to produce massive fleets on the front line.

[Jubala]

As Trachmyr said space yards should have size limits on what they can build. But I don't think in the way he wants it. Space Yard Facilities should not be able to build anything bigger then 600kT (Battle Cruisers) and Space Yard Components should be more powerful and be able to build the biggest ships. Either they should be so powerful as to be better then a SYF with max pop bonus or they should get the pop bonus from the planet they are orbiting. I'd prefer simple raw power.

Why like this? Look at the size of the bigger ships. A BB is 800 000 Tonnes ship designed for use in deep space, not on a planet. It can't handle the stress of gravity when landed and just boosting the thing into orbit would cause heavy pollution.

At least that's my opinion. Maybe I placed the cutoff wrong (600kT) but it needs to be there imo.

Edit:
Forgot, I want to be able to build stuff in pieces like cargo and assemble on site (bases to deploy at warp points). Or at least tow the bases around.

[This message has been edited by Jubala (edited 14 January 2001).]

[Trachmyr]

I'm sure that these ground facilities have the ability to build large craft in orbit, these races are much more advanced than our 1970's space shuttle program... Why I believe that ship shipyards should be limited is the fact that you need labor and heavy macinery which is much more difficult to fit on a ship/base than a planet.

IMO that is...

[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited 14 January 2001).]

[Tomgs]

Well eliminating shipboard spaceyards will also kill Sphereworlds and Ringworlds. I realize that they won't be built too often but I have a game going now where I am building about 10 Spherewords just to see if I can.

[Barnacle Bill]

If you assume that there is nanotech & robotic industry everywhere, then planets & population are completely irrelevant. All that matters under that paradigm are resources. You would not bother with colonization. You'd just park shiploads of nanobots in asteroid belts and they would crank out - more nanobots. Weapons would just be - more nanobots which would "eat" enemy hardware and make more of themselves out of it. It wouldn't look much like SE4, which is more "space opera". I prefer a SF paradigm in which we just see incremental improvements vs how things are done today (which is pretty much what "space opera" means - modern day or historical naval paradigms translated into space, with tech that is better but similar in principle to that which goes with the historical paradigm). So, I "reality check" things against my real-life experience (retired USNR CPO, 8 years active duty in submarines, on the commissioning crew for one new boat so I know a lot about shipyards).

Aside from the above, a practical reason that I don't like space yards in ships is that it reduces the value of real estate. The industrial base that realy counts is your space yards. If you can't move them, or at least not quickly (assuming my proposal for remote assembly of bases were in effect), then you have to defend the place they are. Otherwise, you just move them at first indication an enemy has seen the system they are in. In fact, to increase the importance of real estate & population I think it might be a good idea to give a production bonus to space yard bases based on the population of the planet they orbit (have to think that through more, though).

As to building ring & sphere worlds, if you could remote assemble a base as I have proposed, you could still build them pretty much as today. That not being in place, in my own data set when I killed space yard components in ships, I also reduced the size of all the ring & sphere world associated components so they will fit in a base ship.