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

[Atrocities]

If you want to make smaller ships more practicle, give them the ALWAYS HITS ability.

[Fyron]

That sounds like a really dangerous proposition...

[Captain Kwok]

An easy way to make small ships more effective is to employ a QNP scheme, modify the large mounts so they don't give such an overwhelming advantage in terms of damage/kT and lastly make some balanced offense/defense modifiers.

[Rollo]

Depending on how you'd set up a mod, it would not be much of a problem to make the AI design different size ships or better versions of early hulls.
I'd be easy to make 3 ships-of-the-line, say, one destroyer class, one cruise class and one battleship class and get a mix of these ships.

You can restrict the sizes of each class in AI_designcreation.txt and use different design type (Attack Ship, Kamikaze Attack ship, and Boarding Ship) for each size class. You can then control the build ratio of the these designs in the AI_Construction_Vehicles.txt.

For more then 3 ship classes, it gets a bit more complicated, but it's also do-able.

[Rollo]

One question I often ask myself, though, when discussing this topic. If bigger isn't better, why reserch higher levels of ship construction?

[Captain Kwok]

I think the idea here is that players want both types to be viable together for the duration of a game.

[StarShadow]

It's also somewhat more realistic to have fleets that aren't all composed of your largest hull, in my opinion at least.

I was thinking, most of a ships cost comes from it's components/weapons and only a small fraction from the hull. So a small mount that reduced weapon cost as well as size/damage/etc makes sense to me, so I came up with:

Long Name := Small Ship Mount
Short Name := Small Mount
Description := Smaller sized weapon mount which decreases weapon size by 2 times. Requires a vehicle size of 400kT or less. Can only be used on Direct Fire weapons.
Code := S
Cost Percent := 25
Tonnage Percent := 50
Tonnage Structure Percent := 50
Damage Percent := 75
Supply Percent := 50
Range Modifier := 0
Weapon To Hit Modifier := 0
Vehicle Size Minimum := 150
Vehicle Size Maximum := 400
Weapon Type Requirement := Direct Fire
Vehicle Type := Ship
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Ship Construction
Tech Level Req 1 := 5

I also revised the advanced small hulls a bit.

Name := Advanced Escort
Short Name := Adv. Escort
Description :=
Code := AES
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 := 6
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 by 50%
Ability 3 Val 1 := 50
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 := 8
Ability 5 Val 2 := 0
Ability 6 Type := Supply Storage
Ability 6 Descr := Energized hull functions as extra supply storage.
Ability 6 Val 1 := 1000
Ability 6 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 := 2
Requirement Pct Fighter Bays := 0
Requirement Pct Colony Mods := 0
Requirement Pct Cargo := 0

Name := Advanced Frigate
Short Name := Adv. Frigate
Description :=
Code := AFG
Primary Bitmap Name := Frigate
Alternate Bitmap Name := Frigate
Vehicle Type := Ship
Tonnage := 200
Cost Minerals := 200
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 := 6
Number of Abilities := 6
Ability 1 Type := Combat To Hit Defense Plus
Ability 1 Descr := Small size makes ship 50% harder to hit in combat.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 50
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 := 150
Ability 2 Val 2 := 0
Ability 3 Type := Combat To Hit Offense Plus
Ability 3 Descr := Advanced targeting system increases chance of hitting enemies by 50%
Ability 3 Val 1 := 50
Ability 3 Val 2 := 0
Ability 4 Type := Emissive Armor
Ability 4 Descr := Advanced hull design is resistant to damage.
Ability 4 Val 1 := 50
Ability 4 Val 2 := 0
Ability 5 Type := Extra Movement Generation
Ability 5 Descr := Lightweight composites enable faster movement.
Ability 5 Val 1 := 8
Ability 5 Val 2 := 0
Ability 6 Type := Supply Storage
Ability 6 Descr := Energized hull functions as extra supply storage.
Ability 6 Val 1 := 1500
Ability 6 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 := 2
Requirement Pct Fighter Bays := 0
Requirement Pct Colony Mods := 0
Requirement Pct Cargo := 0

Name := Advanced Destroyer
Short Name := Adv. Destroyer
Description :=
Code := ADS
Primary Bitmap Name := Destroyer
Alternate Bitmap Name := Destroyer
Vehicle Type := Ship
Tonnage := 300
Cost Minerals := 300
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 := 7
Number of Abilities := 6
Ability 1 Type := Combat To Hit Defense Plus
Ability 1 Descr := Small size makes ship 50% harder to hit in combat.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 50
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 := 200
Ability 2 Val 2 := 0
Ability 3 Type := Combat To Hit Offense Plus
Ability 3 Descr := Advanced targeting system increases chance of hitting enemies by 50%
Ability 3 Val 1 := 50
Ability 3 Val 2 := 0
Ability 4 Type := Emissive Armor
Ability 4 Descr := Advanced hull design is resistant to damage.
Ability 4 Val 1 := 70
Ability 4 Val 2 := 0
Ability 5 Type := Extra Movement Generation
Ability 5 Descr := Lightweight composites enable faster movement.
Ability 5 Val 1 := 6
Ability 5 Val 2 := 0
Ability 6 Type := Supply Storage
Ability 6 Descr := Energized hull functions as extra supply storage.
Ability 6 Val 1 := 2000
Ability 6 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

I'm just not sure that they are well balanced though, I haven't had time to do much testing. I have the advanced escort appearing when the cruiser does. The advanced frigate is availible with the battle cruiser and the advanced detroyer with the battleship. They aren't really meant to be able to go 1-on-1 with their larger counterparts.

[Dizzy]

I like the idea of advanced smaller hulls, but can we get the AI to build them?

Mb if we had a generic template tutorial on just this specific thing, I;d tackle it.

[Rollo]

Dizzy said:
I like the idea of advanced smaller hulls, but can we get the AI to build them?

Mb if we had a generic template tutorial on just this specific thing, I;d tackle it.

yes, you can. See my earlier post. Decide on 3 shipsizes and limit the size for each class.

Well, if it was a generic tutorial it wouldn't be specific and vice versa, now would it? =)

[Dizzy]

Hrmmm... Rollo, 1st things 1st. My SEIV enjoyment is on hold till devnull updates out. I cant seem to find another mod thats to my liking. I gotta have it! I like all the ideas youve come up with. Only thing I think thats weak is the tech tree. Checked out Eclipse mod and the techareas are nuts. Far too many for me to chew on, but there are a few interesting branches that devnull could take advantage of to help the basic tech advancement seem less stock and 'been there done that'.

Among the divergent branches of techs that spread things out a bit and offer more depth, I especially liked the Mount tech areas that allow advancement of weapons thru mounts using research. VERY cool. Shouldnt be hard to adopt it w/o altering the AI. If the AI had the basic mounts already there, all the other stuff for the players would have to be researched. In order to use it they'd have to spend research for it. That way the AI wouldnt have to be told to research anything new. Just a thought. I guess its a fine line to ride. How close to stock do you want to stay yet offer something new and fun?



Ok, modding the AI. I think I could make this all happen if I knew how it works. Have to roll my sleeves up and get in there.

By default, if the AI only builds three types of ships (are we talking warships here or are these 3 ships supposed to do everything for the empire?) if I set one to be a specific class, will the other two by default choose the latest and greatest hull size?