Ships: Supply

[Sandlapper]

marhawkman

I was only gone 2 days..... *reads through 2 pages of posts

No kidding!!!

I'll start with some thoughts on fuel supply\fuel use.

Assuming ships to be out of supply contact. All ships can generate fuel each turn by (insert technobabble). As such, no ship will ever be stranded in a SL

If a ship runs out of fuel, it moves at a minimum speed, generating small amounts of fuel until it emerges from the SL. All ships have equal, or near equal minimum fuel generation capability. Larger ships require more fuel than smaller, thus larger ships need more time to generate sufficient fuel to exit SL. Smaller=faster, bigger=slower.

Same fuel generation rules apply to ships arriving in system without fuel, bigger takes longer to generate enough fuel to "jump"(assuming a fuel to jump concept). Bigger=dead in space longer(without supply).

Okay, some thoughts on fuel use for "jumps".

A fuel "penalty" could be applied toward larger ships to hinder their use and speed. A fleet of Titan class ships moving into your empire should be slow and lumbering, which allows your much smaller fleet to "speed around" and attack the supply line feeding the Titans.

One such penalty could be "jump fuel" use of bigger ships. The bigger the ship, the bigger the fuel use. I will use a realistic example to convey the point. (Note: the formula will assume a doubling of size from one size class to another, this is for sake of this arguement, and does not have any bearing on how FO will actually use ship size between classes).

Assume starlane are in effect "pipes". Whenever a larger ship jumps, it must burn more fuel to increase the size of the "opening" of the starlane "pipe". In real life, doubling the diameter of a pipe will increase the cross-section area of the pipe by four.

Okay, various assumptions provided here:

Assume ship sizes double between size classes.
Assume five sizes-small,medium,large,huge, and titan.
Assume a small ship uses one "unit" of fuel to create an opening to jump.
Go to next size-medium.
A medium doubles the pipe opening size, which creates four times the area\volume of a small size. This opening will acomodate one medium ship, or four small ships. Consequently, four "units" of fuel are used for this size opening.

So....

4 smalls = 1 medium
4 mediums= 1 large
4 large = 1 huge
4 huge = 1 titan

So...

256 small ships = 1 titan, which means a titan would use 256 units of fuel to jump once. (Again, don't read too much into the numbers used, just the concept).

With this concept, LOTS of fuel would need to be produced to move a titan fleet even a few jumps.

Okay, enough for now...will be back.

[marhawkman]

But.... The "auto built" structure is equivalent to the "housing" structures from MoO2.

* a colony can produce an amount of supplies based on a meter like infrastructure or the amount of defense (however that will work)

Or your supply technology and the size...

[eleazar]

If a ship runs out of fuel, it moves at a minimum speed, generating small amounts of fuel until it emerges from the SL. All ships have equal, or near equal minimum fuel generation capability. Larger ships require more fuel than smaller, thus larger ships need more time to generate sufficient fuel to exit SL. Smaller=faster, bigger=slower.

Same fuel generation rules apply to ships arriving in system without fuel, bigger takes longer to generate enough fuel to "jump"(assuming a fuel to jump concept). Bigger=dead in space longer(without supply).
...

One such penalty could be "jump fuel" use of bigger ships. The bigger the ship, the bigger the fuel use...

OK, i can embrace the idea that bigger ships require more Jump-fuel, so that:
* it takes longer for a large stranded ship to scrape together enough fuel to jump,
* refueling a larger ship takes up more resources (however that is done)

The crux of my 1-unit-of fuel-per-jump idea is simplification of interface. However that can still be achieved. The fuel for a ship/fleet can still be displayed as the number of jumps the ship can do. The player has no reason to care how many gallons (or whatever) of fuel is in his ship— he just wants to know how far it will take him.

And if jumping is the only activity that uses fuel, it's quite easy to figure out how far a tank with "3 jumps" of fuel will take you. I still set no point to requiring a lot of fuel to open a SL, and then additional fuel to keep traveling on it.
My concern is simplicity, but i'll indulge in a "realism" argument: We can technobabble the StarLanes in various ways, however, commonly understood laws of physics shouldn't be broken without reason. "Objects in motion tend to stay in motion". A ship in space (or a SL) shouldn't need to burn fuel to maintain it's speed, unless Gameplay demands it.

A fuel "penalty" could be applied toward larger ships to hinder their use and speed. A fleet of Titan class ships moving into your empire should be slow and lumbering, which allows your much smaller fleet to "speed around" and attack the supply line feeding the Titans.

I'm not sure how you are connecting the idea of "Smaller=faster, bigger=slower" to fuel use. We can make big ships slower simply by varying engine speed by hull size. Unless you are simply assuming that the Titans will be frequently running out of fuel?

[Tortanick]

It's much more the FO way to have colonies produce supplies from available PP (as i've suggested). We already have an "industry" focus which can produce ships + buildings. There's no need to devise a knockoff method to produce stuff for the ships.

We allready have a money tax in the form of ship maintenance, do we really need a PP tax for supplies as well? I really think any tax based on supplies will be a real pain to manage because its so unpredictable. If you have ships staying still they arn't using fuel so they'll cost less PPs then moving ships, or ships that just used a lot of ammo in a fight.

The result is a tax that constantly jumps up and down depending on what you're ships are doing that turn, or mabey the previous turn, either way it will either require a turn by turn rebalancing of the production ques to ensure you have enough PP for supply, and aren't wasting any, or you'll be at a disadvantage to someone who dose.

Other method's consistent with the FO approach:
* any colony can produce unlimited supplies
* a colony can produce an amount of supplies based on a meter like infrastructure or the amount of defense (however that will work)

Number 3: A colony can produce unlimited supplies if it meets some simple criteria. E.G: it produces a certain number of PPs, or it has more than a certain amount of loyal population.

If a ship runs out of fuel, it moves at a minimum speed, generating small amounts of fuel until it emerges from the SL. All ships have equal, or near equal minimum fuel generation capability. Larger ships require more fuel than smaller, thus larger ships need more time to generate sufficient fuel to exit SL. Smaller=faster, bigger=slower.

I don't think that ships should be able to make a slow starlane jump, because its essentially hiding for however long inside a starlane. Instead they should wait in a system until they generate enough fuel then travel at normal speed.

OK, i can embrace the idea that bigger ships require more Jump-fuel, so that:
* it takes longer for a large stranded ship to scrape together enough fuel to jump,
* refueling a larger ship takes up more resources (however that is done)

Add, you need to bring more fuel tankers with the fleet if you have 3 big ships than 3 little ships.

The crux of my 1-unit-of fuel-per-jump idea is simplification of interface. However that can still be achieved. The fuel for a ship/fleet can still be displayed as the number of jumps the ship can do. The player has no reason to care how many gallons (or whatever) of fuel is in his ship— he just wants to know how far it will take him.

It depends on how resupply works, if the resupply system will work on individual "gallons" of fuel then the player needs to know.

For example in you're system where resupply is based on PP. Presumably there will be a set price in PP to fuel, if a player is in a sticky stiutation where he has to ration PP he would want to know exactly how many gallons of fuel his fleet has so he could make an informed decission on how to ration PP.

In my system where you have normal ships ferry more fuel from home to the front lines, the fuel tankers may need less fuel per jump than my fleet, so it would help to know exactly how much fuel they carry.

I do agree that the only use for fuel is starting a jump.

[Geoff the Medio]

If you have enough firepower then the battle could be you're supply ships trying to destroy the blockaders rather than just run past them.
[...]
...if you use real military ships [to ferry supplies] you get to have nice battles between the supply ships and the smaller fleets trying to cut you off.

In order to keep multiplayer playable, and single-player from being bogged down by too many trivial battles, we should be finding ways to reduce the number of battles that occur, not finding ways to promote easily-abstracted secondary-details like the journey of a small group of supply ships. The player will have enough to do with the actual main fleet, and doesn't need lots of distracting supply ship battles.

...your proposal has 2 different types of supply lines with totally different rules...

No its not the simplest overall, its the simplest for the ships at home half, that's where simplicity is important.

The overall simplicity is preferred, unless there's a good reason to complicate it. Having two separate systems for what is inherently the same thing (supplying fleets) is a big conceptual complication that I don't think can be justified.

We shoudln't be enforcing any style of gameplay, attacking "anywhere" isn't a good idea, but similarly attacks shouldn't be limited to being close to home.

It will likely depend on the period of the game. Nearer the start, wars will be more localized and supply-limited. Later, projecting force across the galaxy will becomes easier and more routine

How would you balance it though, if every captured planet starts producing supplies then there is no home field advantage for the defender, and invsion fleets would barely need to worry about supply. Something along the idea of establish a beachhead, fortify for a while then attack.

If someone captures a single system near your empire but away from their base of power, you probably have a variety of military and nonmilitary means of taking it back or limiting its function in the short and long term. Also, resupply shouldn't be instant: it should take several turns to replenish, during which counterattacks could occur. Also, having a source of supply does not mean that there is a repair base available; the latter could require more significant infrastructure investment that wouldn't likely be done easily or quickly at any captured border world.

...goes against your goal of having no ships stuck in the middle of starlanes.

The goal was no ships immobile in the middle of starlanes, which would be prevented by only having it cost fuel to start jumps, not continue or finish them. The alternative, unfueled slow-moving ships, would be moving along the starlane for several / many turns, unable to do anything useful while travelling between systems. Faster fueled ships would be across the lane in a much shorter time, and would be able to resume doing something useful when they reach their destination faster.

...method's consistent with the FO approach:
* any colony can produce unlimited supplies
* a colony can produce an amount of supplies based on a meter like infrastructure or the amount of defense (however that will work)

I'd start with any colony being able to produce unlimited supplies for ships, but ships having a limit on how fast then can replenish their stores. If we need to limit how much supply a particular colony can produce, that can be added later.

We allready have a money tax in the form of ship maintenance

I don't believe this has been decided yet...

I don't think that ships should be able to make a slow starlane jump, because its essentially hiding for however long inside a starlane.

It's not "hiding" if other empires can see the ship moving along the lane, which presumably they can in general. And it's not really beneficial to players to have their ships spend many turns doing nothing while slow crossing a starlane. A good case can be made for waiting to jump and then jumping at normal speed, rather than jumping slowly, but I don't think "hiding" is it.

...you need to bring more fuel tankers with the fleet if you have 3 big ships than 3 little ships.

Where did "fuel tankers" come from? If they just ferry fuel from supply sources and dole it out to ships in their vicinity automatically as needed or under player control, then they are best avoided from having in the design. They are bad because they duplicate the purpose of supply lines, and they are highly prone to requiring lots of micromangement.

This doesn't necessarily mean we can't have ships that you'd keep with a fleet that generate fuel and immediately give it to ships in their vicinity, but these ships would need to be unable to ferry fuel by moving separately from a fleet.

The player has no reason to care how many gallons (or whatever) of fuel is in his ship— he just wants to know how far it will take him.

It depends on how resupply works, if the resupply system will work on individual "gallons" of fuel then the player needs to know.

Fuel would be measured in jumps, for both amount available and rate of resupply for a given ship.

Presumably there will be a set price in PP to fuel, if a player is in a sticky stiutation where he has to ration PP he would want to know exactly how many gallons of fuel his fleet has so he could make an informed decission on how to ration PP.

As above, fuel is measured in jumps. Cost to produce fuel, if it costs anything, would be measured in ship jumps.

[eleazar]

...stuff that eleazar strongly agrees with (excluding minor details) especially the points about:
* avoiding trivial battles
* fuel carriers are evil, but fuel generators may be OK...

I'd start with any colony being able to produce unlimited supplies for ships, but ships having a limit on how fast then can replenish their stores. If we need to limit how much supply a particular colony can produce, that can be added later.

I'm not exactly happy with the idea of using PP to create supplies, and would not object if someone described a better way. But here's why i resorted to that idea:

With all the proposals in this thread having your ship more or less "in supply" can make the difference between victory and defeat. This is a major strategic element in the game. But if any colony can provide unlimited supplies acquiring supplies seems "exploitable".
Let's suppose two empires have a no-man's-land between them that is just about the same as the practical limit of their supply lines. Massive fleets are maneuvering and feinting, trying to get a clear shot at the enemy while protecting their flank.
Suddenly one side plants a colony on a nearly worthless world (or such a colony passes the magic point of development after which it can provide unlimited supplies. That side suddenly has a huge advantage, and with a closer source of supplies, makes a devastating attack— or fortify itself on that colony and be instantly repaired/resupplied..

The issue here is the arbitrary way a source of supplies could be attained. It's really hard to prevent the enemy from establishing a quick, lousy colony— and such a colony is very powerful.

The most natural way i can think of to place a variable limit to how many supplies a colony (or network of colonies connected by Planetary Supply Routes) can produce is to link it to PP. I don't want resupply to normally use up a large percentage of an empire's PP, i just want a reasonable relationship between colony development and the resupply it can produce.

[loonycyborg]

I just want a reasonable relationship between colony development and the resupply it can produce.

Rate of resupply should depend on the colony's Construction Meter.

[eleazar]

I just want a reasonable relationship between colony development and the resupply it can produce.

Rate of resupply should depend on the colony's Construction Meter.

Hmmm, OK, i'm putting aside the suggestion that supplies are converted from PP for now. It may be an issue that should be addressed as we figure out how planetary defenses work. Anyway it can be dealt with independently of the issue of this thread.

* A generous ratio from the construction meter to the amount of ship supplies which can be produced will work for now.


[EDIT]
A good part of this resupply proposal is it should be about 1000 times quicker to code than ship combat. And thus this could all come together long before full combat is implemented.

The game becomes significantly more playable if we implement:
* Supply
* an AI that can build warships
* make the auto-battle calculator take supplies into account.

[marhawkman]

I just want a reasonable relationship between colony development and the resupply it can produce.

Rate of resupply should depend on the colony's Construction Meter.

Hmmm, OK, i'm putting aside the suggestion that supplies are converted from PP for now. It may be an issue that should be addressed as we figure out how planetary defenses work. Anyway it can be dealt with independently of the issue of this thread.

* A generous ratio from the construction meter to the amount of ship supplies which can be produced will work for now.

I like the idea of it being a part of your colonies and/or special stuff that exists only for refueling. the real question is whether to make it a funtion of how much supply available sources can provide.

The game becomes significantly more playable if we implement:
* Supply
* an AI that can build warships
* make the auto-battle calculator take supplies into account.

I could write some pseudo code for an AI that'd be slightly smarter than a Liverwort.

[Sandlapper]

@ eleazar-

My thoughts on SL fuel use were that there would be fuel use to accelerate from a stop, and to decelerate to a stop. The larger mass of a larger ship requiring more fuel to accomplish both, especially with faster engines. No problem dropping that line of thought, if not desired, just explaining my thought process in that regard.

As to the "fuel penalty" of a larger ship, it's "a" way to slow the advance of larger ships, not "the" way to slow them. With the exhorbinant fuel use, a titan class ship might be limited to one jump's worth of fuel per turn, and requires another turn for supply to refuel it. The opposing empire might send a fleet of medium size ships that can jump three times in one turn to fly around, and wreak havoc to the supply line. The titan would be "dead in space" until resupplied, or several turns later generates sufficient fuel to jump again.

[Geoff the Medio]

Suddenly one side plants a colony on a nearly worthless world (or such a colony passes the magic point of development after which it can provide unlimited supplies. That side suddenly has a huge advantage...

It is potentially a huge advantage, but if it takes a reasonably long time to develop a colony to supply-producing levels, it's not really very sudden. There should be ample opportunity to take out the new colony before it grows big enough to provide supply. Conversely, if someone could protect a new colony long enough, they probably deserve to get some benefit. Obviously this benefit doesn't have to be supply-related, but it could be (amongst other things).

...instantly repaired/resupplied...

Even if someone has an infinite supply-producing colony nearby, that doesn't mean the resupply or repair would be "instant".

...limit to how many supplies a colony can produce...

If we limit how many supplies a single colony can produce (other than none or infinite) then we could have situations where separate colonies are able to both supply some ships, and individually supply some other ships. If both try to partly supply the shared ships, then combined that's more supply than those ships can take, and some is wasted. If ships are only fully supplied or not by a particular colony, then if one colony fully supplies all the shared ships, the other colony might have extra supply left with no ships to give it to, while the other has insufficient supply to give to all the ships in its range. If there are more than two colonies involved and a variety of ship-colony pairings, it's quite complicated to figure out the optimal supply distribution pattern.

As to the "fuel penalty" of a larger ship, it's "a" way to slow the advance of larger ships, not "the" way to slow them.

Why would fuel even be "a" way to slow ships? If we want to slow down ships, we'd just make them move more slowly. Fuel is primarily intended to limit range, and if ships are regenerating fuel so fast that they are effectively only slowed, then we're probably regenerating fuel too fast, or shouldn't be bothering with fuel at all...

...

Another addendum: If a ship starts a starlane jump from one system to another that are both colonized with supply-distributing planets by the ship's owner, then the starlane jump should perhaps not consume any fuel. This "cheat" means that you don't have to stop your ships and wait a few turns every so often when moving around within your own empire. Standard supply only replenishes if you start a turn in a system, which would not replenish or even maintan level of fuel if ships don't stop in each system along the route they're following.

[Tortanick]

eleazar, you could link supply production to PP, but not make it actually use the PP on supplies. A colony that makes 10 PP could make 100 supplies a turn if that 10PP is being spent on a ship or not.

I still like the infinite/none system but I thought I'd throw that out because there is nothing I'd hate more than actually useing PP on resupply, since every turn you'd need a different amount based on what you're ships are doing.



As for removing fuel tankers, to do that you would have to:
a) disallow players from customising how much fuel their ships can carry.
or
b) disallow ships from sharing fuel.

If you don't do either of these then a player can design a ship full of fuel tanks and send it with the fleet, instant fuel tanker.

Both those options have some really bad effects, with option a you can't sacrafice weapons for fuel and create a long range exploration ship.

With option b if you have different groups of ships that you order to meet up and form a fleet, then they'll all have different amounts of jumps left. Depending on the UI either a player will start having to manually deselect the empty ships, or order an attack and realise too late that only half the army is attacking a fortress. Cue the annoyance.

Is making sure players can't carry fuel tankers worth either of those tradeoffs? The same goes for ammo ships, and whatever other kinds of supply we use.

If someone captures a single system near your empire but away from their base of power, you probably have a variety of military and nonmilitary means of taking it back or limiting its function in the short and long term. Also, resupply shouldn't be instant: it should take several turns to replenish, during which counterattacks could occur. Also, having a source of supply does not mean that there is a repair base available; the latter could require more significant infrastructure investment that wouldn't likely be done easily or quickly at any captured border world.

What I meant that if you say that you are supposed to supply you're invasion from captured colonies then it must be reasonably quick for captured colonies to start producing supplies. I think that invading players should need to send fresh supplies from home because using a captured colony would make the supply lines to short to be easily cut.

[eleazar]

Suddenly one side plants a colony on a nearly worthless world (or such a colony passes the magic point of development after which it can provide unlimited supplies. That side suddenly has a huge advantage...

It is potentially a huge advantage, but if it takes a reasonably long time to develop a colony to supply-producing levels, it's not really very sudden. There should be ample opportunity to take out the new colony before it grows big enough to provide supply. Conversely, if someone could protect a new colony long enough, they probably deserve to get some benefit. Obviously this benefit doesn't have to be supply-related, but it could be (amongst other things).

That avoids some of the problems but i still don't like the idea of an arbitrary threshold in whichever meter that makes the difference between providing no ship-supplies, and supplying a whole fleet.

...instantly repaired/resupplied...

Even if someone has an infinite supply-producing colony nearby, that doesn't mean the resupply or repair would be "instant".

I can accept that complete repair may take several turns for a large and/or heavily damaged ship. But it would seem rather annoying under ideal supply conditions for it to take multiple turns to refuel a ship or restock the missile rack. If it takes several turn to refuel at home then the diminished amount of supply available further afield would be crippling.

I thought the basic idea we were going for is that resupply shouldn't be something to worry about in the heart of your empire, but only when ships are further afield?

[edit: adding this...]

...limit to how many supplies a colony can produce...

If we limit how many supplies a single colony can produce (other than none or infinite) then we could have situations where separate colonies are able to both supply some ships, and individually supply some other ships. If both try to partly supply the shared ships, then combined that's more supply than those ships can take, and some is wasted. If ships are only fully supplied or not by a particular colony, then if one colony fully supplies all the shared ships, the other colony might have extra supply left with no ships to give it to, while the other has insufficient supply to give to all the ships in its range. If there are more than two colonies involved and a variety of ship-colony pairings, it's quite complicated to figure out the optimal supply distribution pattern.

This complication seems to be based on different starting assumptions than i am using:

* The total supplies produced by a PSR network of colonies is added together and can be distributed by any or all of the member colonies or hubs. A well ordered empire will have all his colonies as part of a single (or maybe a few) PSR networks.

* It may be advisable to have a fleet be supply-able from multiple PSR networks, with the qualification that a fleet cannot receive more per turn than it would if the nearest source had unlimited resources— otherwise there's a benefit in having multiple fractured PSR networks.

* Complications (non-optimal distributions) only occur when the PSR network is fractured, and if they do, that's a logical consequence in allowing your supply infrastructure to be shattered.

[Sandlapper]

Geoff the Medio wrote:

Why would fuel even be "a" way to slow ships? If we want to slow down ships, we'd just make them move more slowly. Fuel is primarily intended to limit range, and if ships are regenerating fuel so fast that they are effectively only slowed, then we're probably regenerating fuel too fast, or shouldn't be bothering with fuel at all...

I'm referring to limiting the advance of a ship/fleet by relative supply need, not by engine performance. I'm suggesting that a larger ship has relatively larger supply needs, along with longer resupply times, both of which impede the progress of said ship along a supply line, relative to a smaller ship. The "fuel penalty" of larger ships is one way to "tax" the supply network in regards to increased supply use\need. I'm trying to acheive, by supply need\use, a concept of larger ship equals slow and short range by your suggestion here:



Geoff the Medio wrote:

-Want to make very large ships slow and short-range, but having all ships consume one unit of fuel per turn to move makes this difficult
--Can distinguish ship sizes just by speed of movement...
---Can't have "fast-long", "fast-short" and "slow-short" as separate speed-range combos
--Could have very large (shorter range) ships have smaller fuel tanks (in turns) than medium (longer range) ships...
---Difficult to explain this

Tortanick wrote:

Quote:
fast-long, fast-short and slow-short can be done in the ship design screen. If you have lots of engines and fuel tanks fast-long. Lots of engines and weapons with few fuel tanks: fast-short. Few engines and fuel tanks for more fire-power, you get the idea Wink[/quote]

Geoff the Medio responded:

This was about balancing the ship sizes. To make the sizes different, there has to be limits on how much the specific ship desigin can move one size can into another size's area of strengths (eg. with regard to things like speed or range).

eleazar quote below, reiterates that a diminished supply would have a crippling effect. Building larger, inefficient, ships diminishs supply quickly relative to smaller efficient ships, to the point that production\supply must be increased, else the extended fleets become crippled.

eleazar wrote:

If it takes several turn to refuel at home then the diminished amount of supply available further afield would be crippling.

[Geoff the Medio]

[If you] disallow ships from sharing fuel, [then] if you have different groups of ships that you order to meet up and form a fleet, then they'll all have different amounts of jumps left. Depending on the UI either a player will start having to manually deselect the empty ships, or order an attack and realise too late that only half the army is attacking a fortress.

You've got a particular scenario in mind here that you're not describing clearly enough to discuss. In particular, why one would deselect empty ships isn't clear.

But regardless, even if there isn't fuel, there will need to be ways to deal with ships that have different max speeds travelling together. Currently, a fleet travels at the max speed of its slowest ship. If we had fuel, then a fleet would stick together, and would take as long to get to its destination as it takes the slowest ship. If we had some ships completely incapable of getting to a destination, but others able, both in a single fleet, then we'd probably make it impossible to order the fleet to that destination.

If you're talking about ships at different locations all being ordered to converge at a location, there's no expectation there that they'd all arrive at the same time, is there?

If someone captures a single system near your empire but away from their base of power, you probably have a variety of military and nonmilitary means of taking it back or limiting its function in the short and long term. Also, resupply shouldn't be instant: it should take several turns to replenish, during which counterattacks could occur. Also, having a source of supply does not mean that there is a repair base available; the latter could require more significant infrastructure investment that wouldn't likely be done easily or quickly at any captured border world.

What I meant that if you say that you are supposed to supply you're invasion from captured colonies then it must be reasonably quick for captured colonies to start producing supplies. I think that invading players should need to send fresh supplies from home because using a captured colony would make the supply lines to short to be easily cut.

I'm confused... do you want captured colonies to give supply quickly, or not at all?

If a battle was close enough to sources of supply, you could supply a fleet from "home". But if you wanted to persue an ongoing war far away from your supply lines, you'd probably want to establish a closer source of supply by planting or capturing a colony.

If you planted a new colony, it would probably take a relatively long time to develop enough to start providing significant amounts of supply. But, if you managed to capture an already-developed system or world from an enemy empire, you'd probably be able to use some already-present infrastructure and start supplying useful amounts of supply quicker. Of course, you have to actually capture a well-developed foreign planet to do this, and protect it from counterattack, and hope it doesn't get disabled by nonmilitary means by the attacked empire.

Alternatitvely, you could yourself capture an already-developed planet from another empire using nonmilitary means, and then use that as a base for an invasion.

Also: English tip:
* "your" indicates things that belong to you, eg: "your house"
* "you're" is a contraction that means "you are". eg. "You are homeless."

...i still don't like the idea of an arbitrary threshold in whichever meter that makes the difference between providing no ship-supplies, and supplying a whole fleet.

It is a bit clunky, so if we can avoid it, I'd like to, but there are potential problems...

I can accept that complete repair may take several turns for a large and/or heavily damaged ship. But it would seem rather annoying under ideal supply conditions for it to take multiple turns to refuel a ship or restock the missile rack. If it takes several turn to refuel at home then the diminished amount of supply available further afield would be crippling.

This assumes that supply rate drops with distance, which hasn't been established (and might not be necessary)...

But what if, instead of amount of supply colonies can produce depending on their level of development, we have various levels of rate of supply, with colonies still producing infinite supplies each turn? A large colony could fully restock a ship in one turn. A smaller newer colony could only partially restock a ship. If a ship is in range to be supplied by multiple colonies, then the highest-rate colony does the supply, with no stacking (so fifty slow colonies supplying a ship are just as fast a one slow colony, which is slower than one fast colony).

If we limit how many supplies a single colony can produce (other than none or infinite) then we could have situations where separate colonies are able to both supply some ships, and individually supply some other ships [and complications trying] to figure out the optimal supply distribution pattern.

This complication seems to be based on different starting assumptions than i am using:

* The total supplies produced by a PSR network of colonies is added together and can be distributed by any or all of the member colonies or hubs. A well ordered empire will have all his colonies as part of a single (or maybe a few) PSR networks.

"A well ordered empire" isn't always going to be the case though. Unless we specifically design resource sharing to avoid it, there could be situations where two colonies that can't share resources are both able to supply a single fleet.

* Complications (non-optimal distributions) only occur when the PSR network is fractured, and if they do, that's a logical consequence in allowing your supply infrastructure to be shattered.

This would be fine if the non-optimal nature of the supply was predictable and logical to the player, but without specifically designing things to be that way, we might end up with it being essentially random to the player how much supply a particular fleet gets and whether and how much potential supply from various sources ends up being wasted due to non-optimal distribution. This screams bad design to me.

If we want to slow down ships, we'd just make them move more slowly.

I'm referring to limiting the advance of a ship/fleet by relative supply need, not by engine performance.

I (think I) know what you're saying, but I don't think that fuel as we're planning it is well-suited to limiting both speed. We have ship speed for that, and fuel can limit range.

I'm trying to acheive, by supply need\use, a concept of larger ship equals slow and short range by your suggestion here...

It's not just making large ships slow and short range; I want to be able to have "fast-long", "fast-short", "slow-long" and "slow-short" as separate speed-range combos. To do that, the things that limit speed and range probably need to be separate.