Big ship supremacy... Can little ships keep up?

[Captain Kwok]

It goes by the largest allowed size of the last valid entry for a given design type.

[Urendi Maleldil]

I might make a Small Ship Masters racial trait for the Masters Mod, and I was wondering what advantages might be good to add to advanced small ship hulls.

faster?
cheaper?
stealthy?
+defense?

[StarShadow]

I'd go with faster, extra defense and extra abilities.

Example:

Name := Escort
Short Name := Escort
Description :=
Code := ES
Primary Bitmap Name := Escort
Alternate Bitmap Name := Escort
Vehicle Type := Ship
Tonnage := 150
Cost Minerals := 150
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 0
Engines Per Move := 1
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Ship Construction
Tech Level Req 1 := 5
Number of Abilities := 5
Ability 1 Type := Combat To Hit Defense Plus
Ability 1 Descr := Small size makes ship 60% harder to hit in combat.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 60
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
Ability 2 Type := Phased Shield Generation
Ability 2 Descr := Advanced hull design incorporates a phased energy matix.
Ability 2 Val 1 := 100
Ability 2 Val 2 := 0
Ability 3 Type := Combat To Hit Offense Plus
Ability 3 Descr := Advanced targeting system increases chance of hitting enemies.
Ability 3 Val 1 := 25
Ability 3 Val 2 := 0
Ability 4 Type := Emissive Armor
Ability 4 Descr := Advanced hull design is resistant to damage.
Ability 4 Val 1 := 30
Ability 4 Val 2 := 0
Ability 5 Type := Extra Movement Generation
Ability 5 Descr := Lightweight composites enable faster movement.
Ability 5 Val 1 := 7
Ability 5 Val 2 := 0
Requirement Must Have Bridge := True
Requirement Can Have Aux Con := True
Requirement Min Life Support := 1
Requirement Min Crew Quarters := 1
Requirement Uses Engines := True
Requirement Max Engines := 3
Requirement Pct Fighter Bays := 0
Requirement Pct Colony Mods := 0
Requirement Pct Cargo := 0

Unless I've misunderstood how to apply some/all of these abilities, this would result in an 'Advanced Escort' with a 60% defense bonus, 100 phased shields, 25% attack bonus, immune to weapons doing less than 30 damage, and a movement of 10 using (a max of) 3 engines (assuming ion engines).

Probably over-powered but just an example after all.

[Dizzy]

Hey Star Shadow, thats a great idea! Later on down the tech tree for ship contruction we could have advanced hulls come out. That's be very cool if we restrict like the Dreads and Juggernoughts. Have it Battleships and on down...

Then again... as suicide junkie said, the AI would build BB's and that'd mean human players would only reap the benefits of adv hulls... Hrmmm

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Make it a multi-player only mod and add stuff the AI can't do.

[Wenin]

I'm currently playing the Imperium Verus Mod, and it made Solar sails only work for 600Kt (Frigates in the mod) sized ships. You also can't have a Solar Sail with any other engine. The top of the line Solar Sail gives movement of 8, using only 1 supply unit per movement. The other ships use QNP engine system, though their speeds can get up and past 10 per turn they won't have the range.

So in this system the FGs are still nice ships late in the game.

[StarShadow]

Well...it would be nice if the AI could use the advanced small hulls, but even if it doesn't, the idea (of advanced small hulls) is still good. After all, the point is to make the small hulls competitive against larger hulls, not to make them better than large hulls.

[Dizzy]

I had another idea, Starshadow. Advanced hulls could essentially be worked to where ship contruction tech can go higher and higher. Advanced hulls could sport advanced mounts. Kinda like going from Star Trek's The Motion Picture era to The Next Generation if you get my meaning.

Like narf poit chez BOOM said, I'd make an excellent MP mod, since SJ says i'd be hard to get the AI to do it. I think pretty soon I'm gonna start looking at the AI files. I've figured out all the components and mounts and am working on the techareas. Easily moddable game so for. I like it! Love it!

[Atrocities]

Imperator Fyron said:
You can easily limit the largest ship size a race will build in AI_Design_Creation.txt.

How?

[Fyron]

All entries have two fields for min and max size of the design class.