Big ship supremacy... Can little ships keep up? - Page 6

Baron Munchausen · #51 March 28th, 2006, 08:12 PM

The problem with all of these ideas is that they simply carry forward the long-standing conflation of ship size with ship role that has been in SE from the beginning.

Honestly, the actual components are what make it what it is. The size is simply a function of the size it needs to be and your ability to build ships of that size. Battleships of the 1st World War were 18-24000 tons. Battleships of the Second World War were 30,000 and up. Were the old battleships reclassified as cruisers because of this?

So while I agree that the current tech tree of ship hulls is too rigid in SE I don't think the solution is the right one. I'd stop calling the hulls by any 'class' names at all and use the design names to differentiate the ships. Then ship construction can just let you build bigger ships and you design them as needed for their role. Proper economics of scale in the design system would result in the familiar 'capital ships' and 'escort' classes without any artificial categories needed.

Suicide Junkie · #52 March 28th, 2006, 09:07 PM

Yes!

No artificial categories, let the components speak for themselves!
Difficult to do, since you have to carefully balance everything and avoid the pitfalls of ubertechs.

However, not impossible, as the fighters in CBmod show...
As you research fighters, you get not only bigger ones, but smaller ones too. And special ones, like the ER fighter, or the stealth fighter.

Dizzy · #53 March 28th, 2006, 09:09 PM

Ummm Baron, nm...

Rollo, nice. I like it. Maybe add a few here or there, but its a good start.

I'm excited about the tech branch. Having the AI coded so it has to choose a path sounds cool. All the AI in the end wont be fielding all the same classes anymore. That'd be cool to see such different stuff at the later stages of the game.

Fyron · #54 March 28th, 2006, 10:58 PM

The purpose of multiple hulls available is so you don't use your big 2000 kT hull with only 400 kT used to make a small ship. This is especially important in any mod that has scaling of any sort (including, but not limited to, QNP). The problem with stock is that there is not any reason to build those small ships... The proposed type of setup absolutely requires a lot of rebalancing to make different hulls meaningful.

Baron Munchausen · #55 March 29th, 2006, 12:02 AM

Quote:

Imperator Fyron said:
The purpose of multiple hulls available is so you don't use your big 2000 kT hull with only 400 kT used to make a small ship. This is especially important in any mod that has scaling of any sort (including, but not limited to, QNP). The problem with stock is that there is not any reason to build those small ships... The proposed type of setup absolutely requires a lot of rebalancing to make different hulls meaningful.

Which is to re-phrase what already said, that the current ship design system doesn't take scale into account. A larger ship ought to be proportionally more expensive to build and maintain because you need more materials or at least more elaborate engineering to make a larger structure work. A larger ship ought to require proportionally more engines, or at the very least the same proportion of engines, for the same performance. But in fact ships become more and more 'efficient' as they become larger in the SE IV system. Using less than the maximum tonnage for a given hull doesn't make your ships faster or more maneuverable either. Bizarre.

Dizzy · #56 March 29th, 2006, 03:28 AM

Quote:

Baron Munchausen said: <Snip>
...the current ship design system doesn't take scale into account. A larger ship ought to be proportionally more expensive to build and maintain

Well, you cant make hulls too much more expensive cuz the AI wants to always build the biggest ships. So you can take advantage of that and build more numerous smaller hulls.

One way to make the gulf narrower between large and smaller hulls would be to nerf the weapon mounts. All the large and heavy and massive mounts would need the same scaling damage equal to the tonnage increase. That way they are no more powerful than smaller hulls.

There is a way to make the engine scaling issue a little better... Speed up the smaller ships somewhat and make the bigger ships a bit slower using the max engines in vehiclesize.txt.

I have an idea for mounts that'd be cool... Since the mounts would be equally scaled no matter the hull size, mounts would need some flavor. I suggest some basic types that give and take. For example, besides the standard scaled mount have 3 others; an Accuracy mount adds to hit but subtracts some damage %, also an Extended range and Overload mount to round it out.

The AI could use AI tags to identify with a particular mount so instead of setting up ALL the AI with standard scaled mounts, we could have some AI that use variety. I.E., the Cue Cappa would use the extended range mounts on all their weapons... cuz with their long eye stalks, they can see farther. Or something.

Fyron · #57 March 29th, 2006, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Well, you cant make hulls too much more expensive cuz the AI wants to always build the biggest ships.

This can be worked around. You just need to make use of design types like Defense Ship and Attack Base. You can limit them to a smaller max tonnage to force the AI to build some smaller ships in the presence of large ships.

Quote:

The AI could use AI tags to identify with a particular mount so instead of setting up ALL the AI with standard scaled mounts, we could have some AI that use variety.

AI tags can not be used for mount selection. If the mount is available and it can be used on the component, it will be used. Mount selection is ability-agnostic.

Instead, you have to add a bunch of AI-only mounts that are copies of the regular mounts, but are arranged so that they are last in file for particular ship sizes (or ranges of sizes).

PvK · #58 March 29th, 2006, 06:11 PM

My Proportions mod is not the only one that addresses all of this well, is it?

I'm quite happy with what I did, although I have a little more left to add (i.e. scale mounts for small ship control components would be good, and the larger mounts may want to be made a little stronger). QNP, scale mounts for some components, combat and maintenance mods based on size, armor adjustments. Does the job nicely. The Proportions 3.x AI is broken, but Proportions 2.x (or AIC mod) has almost as good handling of ship sizes, and the AI DOES build a mix of ship sizes - you just have to make AI designs by type and script it to build a mix of specific sizes. (Well, it's a pain, which is partly why Proportions 3.x AI is still broken, because I haven't bothered, but it is possible to do.)

PvK

Fyron · #59 March 29th, 2006, 06:19 PM

Nah, many other mods address these issues as well. P&N, CB, Adamant, the Art of War mod that was never finished, etc.

Dizzy · #60 March 29th, 2006, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Imperator Fyron said:
AI tags can not be used for mount selection. If the mount is available and it can be used on the component, it will be used. Mount selection is ability-agnostic.

Instead, you have to add a bunch of AI-only mounts that are copies of the regular mounts, but are arranged so that they are last in file for particular ship sizes (or ranges of sizes).

In my mount mod, I added all the standard mounts last so by default the AI uses these. However, it would be easy to mod it rather than use ability tags, my bad, you can require a tech area specific to that mount and that race. That'd set them up to use that mount. For instance, Pulse mount technology. Have a race research that and they'd use that mount instead of the default. All you need is a few of the races using various mounts and you have tons of weapons variety out there.