FreeOrion

Edit: Here is a link to the most recent content updates. /edit

I have made a more interesting set of ship hulls.

There are now 5 hull theories: Naval Swarm, Naval Specialization, Naval Concentration, Naval Centralization and Hyper-Advanced Hulls, which has no applications at the moment.

Each of the first four theories is a prerequisite for 6 applications unlocking hulls of a specific "size" (which may or may not correspond to the actual size of the ship in battle, but will always correspond to the ship's capacity relative to other ships of the same type). Each hull comes with a corresponding shipyard, which must be present for that hull to be built. A more advanced shipyard of the same type is also acceptable, since more advanced shipyards require the presence of less advanced shipyards in order to be built, and replace them when they are built.

The 6 types of ship at this point (incredibly unbalanced for now) are:

Standard - Regular ship with a regular crew. Regular stats.

Asteroid - Cheap ship made from an asteroid. High capacity and high stealth (perhaps in combat, only while "orbiting" an asteroid belt and in the regular map, only when in a system with an asteroid belt). Must be built in a system with an asteroid belt.

Robotic - Completely automated ship. Low stealth and detection, but high capacity and health. Regenerates health each turn.

Transdimensional - Exists in multiple dimensions/universes simultaneously. High stealth, speed and capacity, but low health.

Organic - Living hull. Low speed and capacity, but high fuel capacity and detection. Regenerates health and fuel each turn.

Energy - Energy hull. High speed, capacity, detection, health and cost, but low stealth and fuel, except for the solar hull, which has lots of fuel. Can only be built in systems with high-energy stars, and shipyards are highly explosive and fragile.

Here are the relevant files. I hope everyone thinks this is as much better than my previous attempt as I do:

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

Did you put a single big file into the zip, or several smaller files? When I unzip, I just get one file called text_files.txt and a _MACOSX directory...

It's a single big file into which I copied and pasted all the other text files. (Is it possible to put more than one file in a single zip? I wouldn't have thought of it at all.) So that would be text_files.txt.

It works perfectly for me when I download it (though perhaps that knowledge is less than useful to you?).

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

It is. You can probably drag-drop onto an existing zip file, or highlight them all and right click and select zip files, or use whatever zipping gui you have, or list the files on the command line all together while zipping...

I see. It's pretty much just creating a whole folder and compressing it. Here are the individual text files, all compressed in one folder.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

Just had an idea: what if Naval Specialization came before Naval Swarm? Then there would be no problems with being able to build colony ships at the beginning of the game, and it's more dynamic and interesting than just gradually progressing from small/fast to huge/slow.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

We should avoid labels like "Small" and "Large" for hulls in general. They're a mental short cut and avoid having to think up better classifications, and have too many built in expectations from players of previosu games where bigger always = better.

There also shouldn't generally be a simple linear sequential progression between poorer to better hulls within each series. At most one series of hulls could be arrange mostly like this, but the others need to have different tree shapes. Possibly the "constructed" hulls would be the obvious fit, as they fit the traditional model of building a ship and it makes sense that it would be more difficult to build bigger ones, but it might be better to make it asteroids so that more interesting variations on ways to construct a ship can be thought up.

But for other series of hulls, use different arrangements.

Also, if you have to describe a series of hulls as having "Regular stats" then there's no reason to have that seires of hulls.

So, drop "Transdimensional", lump "Robotic" into "Standard" and call it "Constructed" or something similar as I suggested earlier.

Make the "Energy" hulls available only later in the tech tree, but make Asteroid, Organic and Constructed available from the start.

Organic can have two variations available at the start, neither of which are larger or smaller. Later, sub-variations from these will be unlockable, with a branching tree, with possibly some crossovers at higher levels.

An organic hull theory tree might look like:

with one or two hull applications (that unlock hulls) unlocked by each. No "sizes"

Asteroid hulls can have a few size-related options, maybe or maybe not actually described using terms like "Small" and "Large", and most of which can be researched immediately after unlocking the initial asteroid hulls theory. Asteroid hulls would be a very wide but not deep hull tree. There could also be one or two variants of some of the sizes with interesting properties as well, so that's it's not a completely flat tech subtree.

Constructed hulls would ideally have something other than size being their primary distinguishing charactistic as well. This could be the one that has a very deep but not wide tree of techs to unlock its variations, with each sub-type being unlocked by the previous, but again, not in terms of smaller -> bigger.

I'm not sure what to do with Energy hulls. After figuring out how to distinguish the variants, a progression graph shape can be decided on.

As for how to distinguish between the various series of hulls (Asteroid, Constructed, Energy, Organic), I made a little chart to arrange which seires of hulls are good (+), average (=) or poor (-) in various characteristics...

There would be variations on these within each series, and some unique characteristics to certain hulls, but on average, each series would have some pros and cos, with energy getting a bit better off over all since it's unlocked later in the tech tree and is super fancy seeming.

Point is, all the trees are visually, progressively and functionally distinctive.

I see. It's clear that the scope of that to which I was attempting to apply "diversity" was altogether far too narrow. I'll try again; thank you.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

I'm finished the new set of hulls. For now, ships applications that unlock hulls have the same descriptions as the hulls they unlock. If anyone wants to write unique, but informative descriptions for these techs, be my guest.

Every application that unlocks something that requires a shipyard also unlocks that shipyard, regardless of whether or not another tech unlocks the same shipyard.

There are four classes of ships: Constructed, Asteroid, Organic and Energy. All of them are available from the start, but that's just because I haven't added any cross-category dependencies for the Energy hulls yet. Technically, the Standard Hull, which is the only preunlocked hull at the start of the game, is a Constructed hull even though it can be built at any shipyard. Each ship type, with the exception of Energy, has a special type of ship part unlocked somewhere in its tree.

Constructed Hulls: There are some really big ones, and some really small ones, but the main thing that separates this class from others is its robotic hulls, which can regenerate health. The Constructed hulls tree is long and skinny, with seven theories dependent on each other consecutively and seven hull applications. The Constructed flagship allows all accompanying friendly ships to recover health in combat and completely restore health between combats. Players who choose the Constructed path will have the opportunity to research torpedos (which are technically missiles), which come in Anti-Matter and Plasma varieties, and have various advantages over regular missiles. All hull apps unlock a unique shipyard which is necessary for their construction (a higher level shipyard of the same type will also always do). Shipyards in this category can be upgraded from any one of the three previous shipyards. The upgrade destroys the previous shipyard, but still allows older hulls to be produced. The lowest level shipyard must be built as an upgrade to the Basic Shipyard, which can only build standard hulls.

Asteroid Hulls: Like Constructed hulls, there are some really big ones and some really small ones, but in this case, the main thing that makes them distinct is the fact that their stealth increases massively when they are in a system with an Asteroid Belt. There are also imitation asteroid hulls which have this ability enhanced, but have various other drawbacks. The Asteroid hulls tree is short and fat, with three theories dependent on each other consecutively and nine hull applications: five from the first theory, three from the second theory and one from the final theory. The Asteroid flagship uses swarms of nano-asteroids to enhance the shield meter of all accompanying friendly ships. If the player chooses to research the Asteroid hulls tree, he will have access to Rock Armour Plating and Crystal Armour Plating, which are much less expensive than regular armour parts. There are three shipyards in this category, one for each theory level which is unlocked by every app of that theory. These shipyards can only be built as upgrades for the shipyard immediately previous. Like Constructed, the lowest level must be built as an upgrade to the Basic Shipyard, and shipyards destroy the previous model when they are built.

Organic Hulls: Organic Hulls aren't really distinguished by size. Most of them are alive, but one is composed of inert organic material. The thing that separates these hulls from the others is their generally high stealth and their ability to regenerate health and a small amount of fuel between combats (with a few exceptions). The Organic hulls tree is something of a ladder, with two sets of three consecutively dependent theories. Each theory unlocks its own hull, and shares a hull with the corresponding theory from the other set of three. As such, there are nine organic hulls in total. The Organic flagship increases the stealth and detection of all accompanying friendly ships. The special ship part available to players who choose the Organic hulls tree is a special type of Bio-Fighter, far superior to regular fighters (which reminds me, I think in general I used too many hyphens when some words actually could have been made into one...). There are six shipyards - two for each level. The less advanced shipyard for each level allows construction of only the hulls unlocked by apps unlocked by a single theory. The more advanced shipyard for each level ("level" meaning one theory from each side of the ladder) allows production of the hull unlocked by the app unlocked by both theories. "More advanced" of course, means that it can produce all the same ships as a less advanced shipyard, plus whatever extra. The less advanced shipyards of each level are more advanced than the more advanced shipyards of the previous level. An these ships can be built as upgrades to any shipyard of the previous level, or the less advanced shipyard of the same level, if applicable. Same rules for Basic Shipyard and replacement.

Energy Hulls: There are only four Energy hulls theories, the second two dependent on the first, and the last dependent on the previous two. Each has a single hull application. The Energy flagship decreases the stealth of all ships in the vicinity which do not belong to the empire or one of it's allies, and also completely refuels friendly ships within 0 distance. There is one shipyard for the first app, one for the second two, and one for the last one. The rules for their construction are the same as for Asteroid shipyards.

That's a bit long-winded, and maybe it's a bit of a pain to try to take it in all at once, but I think I made the descriptions for each individual building and hull adequately clear, so the player will never need to wonder why he can't build something.

Also, all ships of the same type have the same fuel capacity and starlane speed - this is done to discourage mixing between categories. If I have a mixed fleet of Asteroid hulls and Organic hulls, I either have to group them together, and lose the Organic hulls' speed advantage and the Asteroid hulls' fuel advantage, or else one or the other will get left behind, either because they were too slow, or because they ran out of fuel.

These are the text files relevant to everything I've modified so far:


Edit: Just realized that I forgot to allow standard hulls to be produced at energy shipyards. Here's the modified hulls text file:

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

Don't make one shipyard destroy another when built. It's confusing and, for me, annoying.

Rather than "Standard" shipyard, have the previously-existing basic shipyard, and then have various add-on buildings, like the oribital drydock, or naval incubator, neutronium forge, energy disjunctor, or whatever, which allow alternate hull types to be built. They should all have more interesting names than just "Something Shipyard", although some indication in the name that they are a shipyard addon would probably be a good idea.

There are also a lot of techs branching off of galactic exploration that don't seem appropriate. Perhaps make various weapon and defense types branch off of hull types, or a separate tree or trees.

"Immitation" implies it's not a real asteroid hull. Call it camouflage.

Don't have "Merculite" rockets. Avoid copying MOO unnecessarily.

Call it something better than "asteroid manipulation". Be a bit more specific about the type of manipulation, perhaps?

They are clearly not "nano" asteroids.

"Compiled Asteroid Hull" -> "Agregate Hull"

The "crystal" hull might be better described as sintered, or somesuch. "Crystallized" works better than just "Crystal". "Monomolecular" can be thrown in somewhere, perhaps.

Why does gravity nullification lead to nanite maintenance...?

Planetoid Mobilization doesn't need Engineering in its name. I wonder why it's not part of the asteroid hulls tree, though.

Plasma Torpedo sounds pretty low tech to be unlocked by "Trans-Spatial Drive".

Robotic Military Personnel should be named something better, and shouldn't be in the ships tree, and certainly not so deep into it.

In general, in names and descriptions, avoid unnecessary "however" and wordy idioms like "on the other hand" or "when one thinks of" and buzzwords like "space-age".

Avoid reworded repetition like "When a ship gets big" and then "When a ship's mass gets sufficiently large"... (eg. Internal Gravity Nullification).

Avoid using too many colourful superlatives and judgement words... gigantic, enormous, tremendous(ly), unfortunately...

Do not write "comprised of". Use either "comprises" or "composed of".

Neutronium isn't notably hard, but it can be described as dense.

I'm having a bit of trouble with this growth tech (don't worry; I've addressed most of/will address the rest of your concerns with the ships tree, but for now, I'm taking a break from that due to all brain mushingness):



The game gets stuck on the production and growth phase the turn after I try to colonize a hostile world. (Also, I know that this will give hostile planets of different sizes the same max pop. I will fix that later, possibly by modifying the planet tables so smaller hostile planets have negative base population.)

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

Can you make a simpler tech that produces the same crash?

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

I replaced my entire techs.txt file with this:

I started a game that had a hostile planet in my home system. I researched the (only) tech, and colonized the planets. Hit turn a few times. No hangs or crashes.

I performed a similar experiment, replacing my default file with the svn default file and gradually substituting my own files to see which would cause the problem. It never happened. Whatever strange problem it was, it's fixed now; thanks for checking.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.