FreeOrion

Interesting idea Daveybaby. Seems like it wouldn't cause the player any big UI related hassles, while fixing a few of the problems people have with the global queue/pool.

What happens when the maintance tax isn't paid? What happens to the projects being worked on by the yard? Does the shipyard drop down to a lower capacity level?

Does the planet get a discount if the full capacity is not being used?

Note, these aren't problems I have with the idea, just questions.



Not 100% certain, but I believe Aq went with buildings (meaning those that inhabit build slots) being fed PPs from the global pool.

Infra almost certainly won't cost any PPs.

I would say that the shipyard's capacity would be temporarily reduced, although i dont see this as something that would be a common problem. I imagine that the only way a planets PP output would ever reduce would be if the player changed focus (and IMO i would expect an industrial focus to be almost a prerequisite for a shipyard using this system, so a player moving from industrial to, say, farming would have to expect a drop in capacity) or if some negative event occurred (e.g. your shipyard planet was bombed, in which case... well, reducing your shipyard capacity is probably *why* the enemy chose to bomb it).

I would say, at the very least, the planet should *always* pay the base part of the maintenance cost.

Whether the capacity part is paid is optional, as far as i am concerned. Forcing players to pay the full cost regardless might encorage them to plan their upgrades more, i.e. only upgrade when you need it. You would have to give an option to downgrade capacity though.

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Sounding good. Tentatively, I like it.

Occurs to me that shipyards might not be the only buildings with local maintaince fees....

If the capacity tax is dependent on the capacity currently being used, then it just ends up being a tax increase on the PP / turn to build a ship.

I'd suggest a constant tax for capacity, not dependent on use.

(Unless "capacity" doesn't only mean PP / turn limit... you could have a PP / turn per ship under construction cost, which would disproportionally tax lower PP / turn cost ships...)

I'd alternatively suggest having various addon modules for starbases that enable various classes of ship part to be built there (not higher tech refinements, just broad categories of part), and have these have a constant per turn cost. Another addon module would be the "enlarged construction yard" module, which increases capacity.

I discussed this here: http://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtopi ... 2731#12731

(though with some extra specifics for v0.3 that are likely irrelivant at this point)

This has been discussed before, hasn't it? It seems like a sort of "yeah we'll probly have building and ship maintainance... not much to discuss" type thing... (but maybe I shouldn't assume)

This is why I was suggesting once to have various different shipyards: each shipyard only builds certain units/components, just like in RTS-games. This takes care of "captured-shipyard-problem": sure you can use all your resources to pump out ships at the captured yard, but all you will have is masses of slow short-ranged behemoths, getting picked off by the long range fighters that your opponent built meanwhile. If we really have unlimited shipyard production, this would be a nice way to balance it.

Interesting, the 50% number would need to be tweaked but could work for maintenance costs.

Also Ragnar. I think the best way would be a cap on how many PP a shipyard can use per turn. This cap can be upgraded with technology. Thus if the player wants to get maximum benefit out of his empire he will need to have (Total PP) / (Number of shipyards) = (max PP per shipyard)

As the game progresses we will want to tweak the tech so that number will stay generally the same (assuming a constant number of planets). The only difference will be the number of ships each yard can build a turn.

Until of course at the very end when we will have all the rule breaking techs.

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Aquitaine is my Hero....

I dunno... that depends on the enemy having lots of specialized shipyards set up with the perfect counter to the one you've built. If you also happen to have brought along something that counters what counters what's built at the shipyard you captured, there's still a problem. (... then again, maybe that's a good strategy to retain?)

I don't imagine many people will want to make shipyards that specialized either. If, surprisingly, unlimited pooling is adopted, I imagine most won't want to have some other reason they have to build a whole bunch of separate shipyards.

Also, does a shipyard only build a single hull, and any kind of weapon, or only a single kind of hull and a single kind of weapon... (ie each shipyard is specialized to a particular ship design)? If weapons are part of the ship balancing, which I'd like, then you'd need to limit which shipyards can build which. If you do this, then you'd have to go with multiple shipyards per system, which would just be like the addons method, or limit a shipyard to a particular ship design only, which is waaaay to restrictive, I imagine.

hrm,

We've got limited build slots per planet. What if, instead of upgrading shipyards, players constructed a piece of a shipyard into each slot.

Every shipyard piece would allow the construction of a few basic ship hulls with basic ship parts, increase the PP shipbuilding capacity of the planet, and charge a maintaince fee to local Industry.

Beyond that, each shipyard piece would unlock certain hull or ship parts for construction at that planet only. There'd also be an enhancement effect for stacking the same shipyard piece: if you build two Death Star Construction yards on a planet, then the Death Star hull would have more hitpoints when built at that specific planet.

Players would decide how to mix and match the shipyard pieces: Empire A might have a fast engine yard, stealth yard, and death star facility to build super fast invisible juggernaughts. Empire B builds three shield facilities for extra tough shields. Empire C builds his yards on different worlds, so that his expensive wonder-sized eggs aren't all in the same basket.

Could be other effects beyond unlocking ship parts. Maybe an extra capacity yard, a yard with a low maintaince fee, or an organic hull facility that eats Nutrients instead of Industry.

drek: How many "slots" are there going to be? I was thinking roughly 4 or so... but having all these shipyard options go into slots would requie a lot more than that... and if they can also be used for other kinds of buildings, and there are 10 or more, then what's the point of slots at all?

I like the idea of different shipyards for different hull, and adding enhancements to shipyards to improve components... lots of interesting possibilities there. I so think that the effects should be limited to giving bonuses to certain hull types / components. If you start making shipyard upgrades required in order to build certain types of ship, then players are either going to have to have a LOT of shipyards (= lots of faffing) or theyre going to be severely limited in what types of ship they can build.

Also, a lot of this stuff will be highly dependent on how the ship design model works... when is that scheduled for?

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Uh... how do you figure? If shipyard upgrades are required, then you'll probably have fewer shipyards, since it's better to focus your capacity and part type options in one place for the most flexibility. Similary, upgrades to prevent you from building anything... they only make it so you have to plan ahead to build anything anywhere.

I figured the basic ship parts offered by all shipyards would be extensive, only the really special stuff would require a special yard.

Course, we could have some special yards give bonuses to the basic stuff: the shielding specilized yard for example.



It'll be the first question of v.4, which will start after the v3 design doc is finished. I think we are almost finished with the first version of v3's design doc, after that there'll be a v.31 to decide upon content (techs, buildings).

Has the slot thing even been decided yet? I didn't think it had. Also I'm against an arbitrary number of anything in a game. It disrupts the game play for me...

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Aquitaine is my Hero....

I just figured that if you had limited building slots, you would probably need all of them in order to meet the requirements for a given ship type, so you would probably end up needing at least 1 shipyard (plus upgrades) for each ship type you wanted to build. Probably not a serious issue, but worth bearing in mind.

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The COW Project : You have a spy in your midst.