FreeOrion

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

I'm probably about half-way done building the ships tree. None of the theory techs I've made have names or descriptions yet, and most applications and ship parts have very basic/placeholder descriptions.

The ships tree is more or less divided into two separate tree structures at the moment: the hull tree and the everything else tree. I do not have plans to make interdependencies between them at this point.

The hull tree has four theories dependant on each other trunk-style, small medium, large and huge hulls, each of which (if that's OK) unlocks/will unlock a shipyard building required for making hulls of that size. Then there are applications branching from different shapes of hull - Standard (the ones that were there before), Internal (only internal slots, slightly fewer total slots), Combat (only external slots, more total slots than standard) and Bulky (same slots and almost as much health as standard hull of the next level, but slower and almost as expensive as standard hull of the next level).

This is totally open to revision of course, and in the future, more creative hull shapes might be added? Also, empty hull is now a type of small hull.

The everything else tree has, at the moment, 6 theories, dependent on each other trunk-style, 5 of which are filled out with applications, only the original 3 of which actually have names. Ships is by far the most application-rich tree, with 6 applications per theory. Also, since there is only one theory per tech level, the RP costs will eventually be more gradual than for the other trees. There are two weapons, two other ship parts, one planetary defense/shield app, and one totally random app per tech level. I have renamed Optical Sensors to Optical Scanner, since I'm saving the rather esoteric and uninformative (on its own, anyway) term "Sensors" for the highest level of detection equipment. I am also considering the possibility of detection parts (or other parts) automatically giving bonuses to planet detection (or the relevant meter).

Josh's mass driver icon is also in use.

Here are the relevant files, put in a single text file and compressed:

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

A few concerns...

Overall, this reads like would be too many different hulls with not enough distinction between them. Four different levels of internal-focused, external-focused, generic and "bulky" (standard of the next bigger size?) is a lot of samey hull options.

A better categorization might be around a series of hulls with a few shared advantages and disadvantages, with much more variation between these series in terms of battle speed, starlane speed, cost, built time, fuel capacity / range, and health. (And when it's available for hulls, stealth)

These series or groups or whatever might include:
* Asteroid Hulls - Require access to an asteroid belt to build, have lots of health, are low PP cost and moderate build time, are slow on the map and in battle, hold lots of fuel and which are moderately stealthy.
* Constructed Hulls - Have moderate health, are unstealthy, are fast in battle and moderate speed on starlanes, hold little fuel, are fast but high PP cost to build.
* Organic Hulls - Have low health, are very stealthy, are moderate speed in battle and fast on starlanes, hold little fuel, cost moderate PP and are slow to build.

The series don't have to be these, and perhaps shouldn't be if making multiple types of art would be too much work. Alternatives might be to have theories like "Naval Force Projection" that has longer-range weapon-equipped hulls, "Naval Swarm" that has lots of low-cost / small / cheap ships, or "Naval Concentration" that has large, expensive, powerful, slow and short range hulls.

Regardless, whatever series of hulls there are, it should be easiest to specialize within a series and more difficult to research multiple series at the same time.

Within series, there could be a sequence of hulls, or a branching pattern of hull types available. One series might branch out a few times, another might have a series of hull applications that need to be researched in order, and the third might have all options available immediately after researching the theory. This is mainly for variety and to keep the series feeling as different as possible to play with.

Note also that theory techs should never unlock anything directly (except that techs can have theories as prerequisites). This means theories for hull sizes or types or shapes or whatever shouldn't unlock a hull type or a building.

You're right: The hull tree is boring, and I think the reason is that I completely forgot about the rest of the tech tree when making them. Organic hulls, transforming hulls, robotic hulls, N-dimensional hulls, all of these can connect easily to the rest of the tech tree and could have interesting effects.

Perhaps I should also assume that in the future, hull abilities won't necessarily be restricted to what they are currently, and could possibly act as population or production centers?

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

I'd like to make those things possible, but it probably won't be happening soon, so don't make any plans that only really make sense if they are (possible).

Edit:
I've modified the hulls parser in the SVN version to accept a stealth value, and an arbitrary list of effects groups in hull definitions.

Wow! There are quite many new hulls in the new tech tree. I just hope that even with all these new hulls, parts will still have a vital role in the ship design process too, so that there will be plenty of options for the player to customize his/her ships. However, since there is currently no way to test the new hulls in battle, and there doesn’t seem to be too many parts available yet (especially in the shields and armour categories) it is quite difficult to say much about this.

About the shield and armour parts. I must say that I personally liked the MOO 2 approach to these very much. In MOO 2 you had a nice evolving series of shields and armours that you were able to research, and as a result of this there was always something new that you could look forward to. Quite similarly as there is always something new coming in the area of computer technology that we are lured to buy, new processors, graphics cards etc. So I wouldn`t mind seeing a similar evolving series in FreeOrion too.

Some special defensive tech ideas could also be borrowed from MOO 2 and used with a different name and perhaps with a slightly different function. For example the Energy absorber. The very idea of using your enemy’s own weapons against him/her/it is somehow perversely satisfying.

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What is your favourite alien species and WHY?
Preliminary thoughts about diplomacy
Some unfinished ideas for specials