Petition for Multiple Shipyards: MM take note...

[Trachmyr]

I have seen in many Posts that many players want multiple shipyards on a planet to contribute their building ability. Or they would like to be able to build both facilities and ships at the same time (and maybe units as well)

Additionally, I have seen many refrences that MM does NOT want to implement this.

The easiest way to implement this would be to add the "Divide points equally" function that already exists in reaserch/intelligence, and to limit one shipyard per Domed colony and one shipyard per 1M, 2M, etc. population for habitable coloies (perhaps this value can be in the settings.txt). If you currently have more than allowed, you lose the production from those unsupported shipyards. You could always reduce the impact of this change by reducing the productivity of shipyards in general.

If you agree with me that multiple shipyards should be possible and/or building multiple facs/ships/units should be possible (even if you don't agree with me how it should work) then please reply to this stating your agreement. Hopefully with enough show of support, MM will implement this much wanted feature.

Thank you... And thank you MM, as I know you are one of the few game designers that would actually take this request into consideration.


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

[Noble713]

If we are going to do multiple shipyards/build queues at all, it has to be a complete return to SE3's method (well, with the possible exception of repairing ships, I like how repair works now).

When the SE4 demo was first released, you COULD put more than one Space Yard Facility on a planet (it was a bug). It was totally unbalancing. You could build an entire battlestation in a single turn, and that's ridiculous. The "Divide Equally" thing that you mentioned won't have an effect if you only work on 1 project.

[Trachmyr]

Yes, but I feel the times to build many of the ships now is too quick... especially on domed planets... I suggest they reduce how effective shipyards are to begin with (to about 1/2 current rate), and on a huge planet allow a max. of about 4 (1 per 2M pop), which will only be 2x as fast currently... but to get that you would need to invest time to build those 4 shipyards... on the otherhand, ringworlds/sphereworlds would (& should) be able to produce ships at an amazing rate...

[SirDarwin]

And of course not only would you need the 4 shipyards, but you would also need to ship people around to get those 8B people on the planet.

I don't think it would be too bad of a idea, but I'd prefer to see multiple builds on a planet (ie. 4 ship yards, lets you build 4 different things). This could setup the same way research and intel is currently setup.

[Taqwus]

If you wanted to reduce the potential effect of multiple shipyards, you could use something like a harmonic series.

For any given project, sort them in order of descending production rate (in case there are non-upgraded Versions). Then the first contributes 100 percent, the second 50 percent, the third 33\frac{1}{3} percent, and so forth -- perhaps while still costing the full rate. Systems integration is NOT easy or cheap...

You can still reach high levels (4 gets you 2x, 11 gets you 3x, 31 gets you 4x, 83 for 5x, 227 for 6x -- so a sphereworld *could* be pretty fast) but there wouldn't normally be that much reason to go beyond 4 shipyards per project for roughly double speed due to the massive inefficiency involved (which is at least partly justified since you can't infinitely parallelize production; there's going to be SOME "critical section" work that can't be shared easily, plus the extra work from putting it all together will add up).

Similar series (X/X+(i-1)), i being the shipyard number starting from 1, X greater than 1) will yield "nicer" results. For instance, with $x=4, you'd only need... 7 shipyards to get quadruple, and 23 would get you octuple if you're rich and crazy enough to put 23 shipyards on a single project.

On multiple queues -- you probably wouldn't need them. One could use just one queue, augmented by another field -- max number of shipyards to devote to it. Then available shipyards get allocated automatically starting at the top of the queue, reallocating as they become available due to finished / cancelled jobs.


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Seawolf]

GUys,

Isn't the simple solution to build space yard ships? More realistic too since building a ship in space is easier no?

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Seawolf on the prowl

[Taqwus]

Well, for instance, it's very strange that even a world of 8B people can't build both a ship AND a facility simultaneously; unless it's a mobile shipyard, it's unclear that it should really be involved at all, actually.

Likewise, you can't build two types of units simultaneously, or a facility and fighters, or... it's quite counterintuitive. It MIGHT make sense based on pop limits (e.g. you need a certain amount of pop to operate the facility and its infrastructure), but it's not -- a sphereworld w/ 50B people still can only build one item at a time.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Commander G]

Multiple ships yards would be OK or at least allow multiple items to be built in one turn or at least start the next item with left over resources.

The way the game works now, you have to play as Sea Wolf suggests, building orital shipyars on bases. I usually build 3 - 5 myself on my homeworld, depending on how soon I get my hands on a colony with Metal. Once I build enough of these bases, I scrap the planet shipyard (when it has 1.0 years of Slow building) and build something else I need such as a Mineral Mining Facility.

Ship yard bases do cost maintenance, but they can be mothballed when you do not need them.

[dmm]

quote:

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Originally posted by Seawolf:
GUys,

Isn't the simple solution to build space yard ships? More realistic too since building a ship in space is easier no?

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If it's easier in space, then why are space yard ships/bases so much slower at building stuff? And why can't they cooperate on a big project (even at reduced efficiency)? And why don't they get bonuses for being in orbit around a planet with tons of population? And if they're not at a planet, where are they getting their supplies from? (Now that I mention it, even if they are at a planet, where are their supplies coming from, if it is a tiny, airless, hostile, barely-inhabited, rioting world under siege?)

[This message has been edited by dmm (edited 16 January 2001).]

[FrankyVas]

Perhaps you should be allowed so many shipyards per population. ie: 1 per 4b. Thus large planets, and ring/sphere worlds would benefit while most other planets would remain as they are.

Frank V.