Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

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labgnome
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Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#1 Post by labgnome »

So here is a proposed re-work of the shipyard buildings and hull lines. The biggest changes are firstly that the Orbital Drydock is divorced form the production chain and no-longer requires the shipyard to build. Secondly I have split the robotic hull line into Massive, Flux and Robotic hull lines. Thirdly I have partially split the "dead" organic hulls from the main organic hull line. Also I have included structures for the tames monsters as their own sort of hull-line. Lastly one major change I have made is restricting each of the different hull-lines to one per shipyard, to force specialization. Many of these ideas have their genesis in other topics on this forum, and I wanted to collect all of them here.

Orbital Drydock
  • No longer requires Shipyard
  • No longer required to build ships
  • Repair only
  • Build one per system
  • Requires species that can build ships
  • Requires minimum happiness to build
  • Requires minimum happiness to use
  • Consumes Infrastructure
Shipyard
  • Required for Small, Medium & Large Hulls
  • Required for Xentronium Armored Hull
  • Build one per 4-jumps/one per sector
  • Requires species that can build ships
  • Requires minimum happiness to build
  • Requires minimum happiness to use
  • Consumes Infrastructure
Robotic Processing Unit
  • Requires Shipyard on planet
  • Cannot be built on planet with Orbital Incubator, Geo-Integration Facility, Advanced Engineering Bay or Energy Compressor
  • Cannot be built in system with monster nest or Asteroid Processor
  • Required for Robotic, Nano-Robotic & Logistics Facilitator Hulls
  • Required for Robotic Interface Shield part
  • Requires minimum happiness to build
  • Consumes Infrastructure
Geo-Integration Facility
  • Requires Shipyard on planet
  • Cannot be built on planet with Orbital Incubator, Robotic Processing Unit, Advanced Engineering Bay or Energy Compressor
  • Cannot be built in system with monster nest or Asteroid Processor
  • Required for Self-Gravitating & Titanic Hulls
  • Requires minimum happiness to build
  • Consumes Infrastructure
Advanced Engineering Bay
  • Requires Shipyard on planet
  • Cannot be built on planet with Orbital Incubator, Robotic Processing Unit, Geo-Integration Facility or Energy Compressor
  • Cannot be built in system with monster nest or Asteroid Processor
  • Required for Flux Bubble, Spacial Flux & Trans-Spacial Hulls
  • Required for Trans-Spacial Drive part
  • Requires minimum happiness to build
  • Consumes Infrastructure
Orbital Incubator
  • Requires Shipyard on planet
  • Cannot be built on planet with Robotic Processing Unit, Geo-Integration Facility, Advanced Engineering Bay or Energy Compressor
  • Cannot be built in system with monster nest or Asteroid Processor
  • Required for Organic, Symbiotic & Bio-Adaptive Hulls
  • Requires minimum happiness to build
  • Consumes Infrastructure
Cellular Growth Chamber
  • Requires Orbital Incubator on planet
  • Required for Endosymbiotic, Protoplasmic & Sentient Hulls
  • Requires minimum happiness to build
  • Consumes Infrastructure
Growth Pen
  • Requires monster nest on planet
  • Required for direct generation of level 2 monsters
Maturation Chamber
  • Requires Growth Pen on planet
  • Required for direct generation of level 3 monsters
Xenocoordination Facility/Necorbiology Facility
  • Requires Orbital Incubator or Maturation Chamber on planet
  • Requires Shipyard in system
  • Required for Static Multicellular, Endomorphic & Ravenous Hulls
  • Required for production of ships with monster parts
Asteroid Processor
  • Requires Shipyard in system
  • Built at asteroid belt
  • Build one per system
  • Cannot be built in system with monster nest
  • Cannot be built in system with Orbital Incubator, Robotic Processing Unit, Geo-Integration Facility, Advanced Engineering Bay or Energy Compressor
  • Required for Small Asteroid, Asteroid, Small Camouflage & Camouflage Asteroid Hulls
  • Required for Rock Armor part
Asteroid Reformation Processor
  • Requires Asteroid Processor at belt
  • Required for Crystalline, Asteroid Swarm & Scattered Asteroid Hulls
  • Required for Crystalline Armor part
Energy Compressor
  • Requires Shipyard on planet
  • Requires white star, blue star or black hole system
  • Cannot be built on planet with Robotic Processing Unit, Geo-Integration Facility, Advanced Engineering Bay or Orbital Incubator
  • Cannot be built in system with monster nest or Asteroid Processor
  • Required for Energy, Energy Frigate, Quantum Energy & Fractal Energy Hulls
  • Requires minimum happiness to build
  • Consumes Infrastructure
Solar Containment Unit
  • Requires Energy Compressor on planet
  • Requires black hole system
  • Required for Solar Hull
  • Requires minimum happiness to build
  • Consumes Infrastructure
Last edited by labgnome on Tue Jun 04, 2019 3:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#2 Post by AndrewW »

labgnome wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 8:15 pm
Advanced Engineering Bay
[*]Cannot be built on planet with Orbital Incubator, Robotic Processing Unit, Geo-Integration Facility or Energy Compressor
[*]Required for Trans-Spacial Drive part
This would restrict the Trans-Spacial Drive part from most hulls.

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Re: Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#3 Post by labgnome »

AndrewW wrote: Tue Jun 04, 2019 8:41 am
labgnome wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 8:15 pm
Advanced Engineering Bay
[*]Cannot be built on planet with Orbital Incubator, Robotic Processing Unit, Geo-Integration Facility or Energy Compressor
[*]Required for Trans-Spacial Drive part
This would restrict the Trans-Spacial Drive part from most hulls.
Maybe have the requirement be that they are supply connected.
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Re: Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#4 Post by Ophiuchus »

As discussed in the other thread ("... and Sectors") euclidean distance is preferable to 4-jumps distance (sectors would work fine).

More importantly the reasoning for your suggestion is missing in the OP.

What does reduced infrastructure mean? Why would you want shipyard specialisation and long distances? Why would that make that the game better/give more strategic options?
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Re: Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#5 Post by LienRag »

I like the idea that shipyards would need to be specialized, that's really a good idea.
I found the concept of shipyards needing to be built away from other shipyards very interesting when first reading about it, but now I think it may cause problems: let's suppose that next to my starting planet with a generic specie I get a black hole and a desert planet orbiting around it: in other words, a perfect place for a Mu Ursh military base. Now I won't be able to use it? That's very frustrating imho...

(by the way, will Species's pilot bonuses be specific to ship lines? It would make sense than Scyllor floating in an Organic Hull's symbiotic fluid would be better at manoeuvering it whild Ugmors could have an intuition of the internal tension of Asteroids structures)

Another case: if I happen to get a hot new Scyllor planet next to my Mu Ursh starting position and want to use it to produce Colony Ships rather than populate outposts (in order to be able to go beyond supply lines) how is it possible with your limitation on shipyards?

Wouldn't it be better to just make each new shipyard consume more infrastructure (I very much like the idea of building consuming infrastructure, BTW)? Like twice each time? Let's say making sure that the energy-floculated screws designed for your Quantum Ship built at Taarth doesn't get sent to Aldebaran takes its toll...
Or have them lower happiness on the planet? All this neverending noise and hazardous materials everywhere - did you hear that last night a ship's door fell while they were trying to bring it to orbit and the impact destroyed three buildings? They censored the information but my cousin lost his childhood's sweetheart in the accident...

And, to get back to specialization, I agree that shipyard specialization is important, but what we have now makes some systems combine points of interests (like a black hole for energy compression with asteroids for crystalized plating and a toxic planet for Misiorias) which gives much more strategic values (and then game enjoyability) to these systems than just "a system with a black hole and another one somewhere with asteroids"...
So maybe separating shipline-defining buildings (that will need to be alone on a planet) and parts-defining buildings (that can be built on separate planets of a system and provide for all planets of the system)? Having to own a planet with ferromagnets specials in the same system in order to build the most efficient kinetic gun could be a challenge and provide food for thoughts before choosing this particular weapon line...
Of course you'll have the Asteroid line that depends on an external planet rather than the ship-building planet but it can be fixed by adding a specific building next to the shipyard in order to build Asteroid Hulls (like a space elevator to bring the asteroid parts to the shipyard efficiently), the Asteroid Processor being tasked with the general purveying of parts to all planets.

Is it clear for everyone that all ship hulls will accomodate (nearly) all ship parts that fit in them?
I mean, some exceptions are OK (like how Solarweb is for Organic Hulls and RIS for Robotic Hulls) but it would seriously hamper ship design if it stopped being the exception and started being the rule...

And how does your proposal fix the spamming drydocks problem?

About happiness (minimum for operating and building, and maybe happiness reduction) will it be standard for all buildings or depending on the shipline/on the building?
Maybe there too Species traits can have effects? Like Abbadoni not minding working on asteroid assembling (thus requiring less happiness to work) and Mu Urshes having a dislike towards energy hulls (thus requiring more happiness to build them)...

Are you sure that direct generation of level 2 and 3 monsters is a good idea? How do you plan to have it work?
The current system is flawed by too much randomness (at the beginning of a game it makes a huge difference to have a tamed monster available immediately after establishing an outpost or ten turns later) but I'm not sure how it can be fixed while still making it very different than ship-building.

If you indulge me getting farther than what I think were reasonable ideas so far, what do you think of combination buildings?
What I mean is instead of having total exclusivity (only one shipyard type can exist that will produce only one shipline), having tuples of antagonism (like A cannot be built with B or C nor D, B cannot be built with A or D nor E, C cannot be built with A or D nor F) but still allowing combinations (like B and C or A and D in the previous examples) which will allow for specific hulls and/or parts? For example you can build robotic and nano-robotic hulls anywhere you have a robotic processing unit, but you'll need an energy compressor to build a logistics facilitator hull.
That will make for a wide variety of choices concerning which hulls to build where...

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Re: Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#6 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 11:24 pmlet's suppose that next to my starting planet with a generic specie I get a black hole and a desert planet orbiting around it: in other words, a perfect place for a Mu Ursh military base. Now I won't be able to use it?
You would be able, if you first scrap the nearby shipyard. This means you need sacrifice/commitment to change all your military industry from one planet to another.
Another case: if I happen to get a hot new Scyllor planet next to my Mu Ursh starting position and want to use it to produce Colony Ships rather than populate outposts (in order to be able to go beyond supply lines) how is it possible with your limitation on shipyards?
That one is a good point...
Wouldn't it be better to just make each new shipyard consume more infrastructure (I very much like the idea of building consuming infrastructure, BTW)? Like twice each time? Let's say making sure that the energy-floculated screws designed for your Quantum Ship built at Taarth doesn't get sent to Aldebaran takes its toll...
I like this one.
So, assuming every planet has a base infrastructure and it can be increased by techs (directly affecting the meter or by unlocking certain buildings, policies or planetary focus), you can have a maximum number of shipyards, unrestricted by distances, and you need those infrastructure techs to be able to build more shipyards.
That would work very similar to having increasing influence upkeep for shipyards the more you have, but using influence upkeep I think it would scale up better with the size of the empire, because how can you account for games with very different number of systems in the galaxy using the infrastructure techs? I mean, if you balance techs so that late game you can have N shipyards, how can you make it work nicely for 100 system galaxies as well as 1000 system galaxies? You get to cover very different extensions of space with the same N shipyards... Hmmm... You could make the techs decrease the infrastructure required by every new shipyard relative to the number of systems your empire has, so that you get something like N shipyards per M systemscolonies. But this system means you need to both expand and get the techs in order to build new shipyards... Nah, I still think using influence upkeep it would be easier to balance.
Or have them lower happiness on the planet? All this neverending noise and hazardous materials everywhere - did you hear that last night a ship's door fell while they were trying to bring it to orbit and the impact destroyed three buildings? They censored the information but my cousin lost his childhood's sweetheart in the accident...
I prefer the previous suggestion, I like more the fluff you suggested there (that works charms for the influence upkeep mechanic too), plus I don't like the idea of making my shipbuilding planets more vulnerable to foreign influence.

(by the way, will Species's pilot bonuses be specific to ship lines? It would make sense than Scyllor floating in an Organic Hull's symbiotic fluid would be better at manoeuvering it whild Ugmors could have an intuition of the internal tension of Asteroids structures)
Scylior are supposed to be in a fluid environment within their ships, either they are rocky, metallic, organic or energy ships (have you read The Three Body Problem saga? Very good, BTW).

And, to get back to specialization, I agree that shipyard specialization is important, but what we have now makes some systems combine points of interests (like a black hole for energy compression with asteroids for crystalized plating and a toxic planet for Misiorias) which gives much more strategic values (and then game enjoyability) to these systems than just "a system with a black hole and another one somewhere with asteroids"...
I agree.
I'd say OP's proposal is more about planet specialisation than shipyard specialisation. Shipyard upgrades are already a form of shipyard specialisation (in that only if you get that upgrade can you build certain hulls in that shipyard). But I like being able to build several specialised shipyards in the same system (even if I tend to stick to a single hull line in most of my games unless I'm already winning).

So maybe separating shipline-defining buildings (that will need to be alone on a planet) and parts-defining buildings (that can be built on separate planets of a system and provide for all planets of the system)? Having to own a planet with ferromagnets specials in the same system in order to build the most efficient kinetic gun could be a challenge and provide food for thoughts before choosing this particular weapon line...
I also like this.

And how does your proposal fix the spamming drydocks problem?
IMO, it doesn't.
About happiness (minimum for operating and building, and maybe happiness reduction) will it be standard for all buildings or depending on the shipline/on the building?
Maybe there too Species traits can have effects? Like Abbadoni not minding working on asteroid assembling (thus requiring less happiness to work) and Mu Urshes having a dislike towards energy hulls (thus requiring more happiness to build them)...
More good ideas I like.
If you indulge me getting farther than what I think were reasonable ideas so far, what do you think of combination buildings?
What I mean is instead of having total exclusivity (only one shipyard type can exist that will produce only one shipline), having tuples of antagonism (like A cannot be built with B or C nor D, B cannot be built with A or D nor E, C cannot be built with A or D nor F) but still allowing combinations (like B and C or A and D in the previous examples) which will allow for specific hulls and/or parts? For example you can build robotic and nano-robotic hulls anywhere you have a robotic processing unit, but you'll need an energy compressor to build a logistics facilitator hull.
That will make for a wide variety of choices concerning which hulls to build where...
Too complicated maybe? Plus you can get in the same "problems" that you pointed out at the start of the thread: so I can have my Misiorla to build all I want?

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Re: Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#7 Post by labgnome »

Ophiuchus wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 2:46 pm As discussed in the other thread ("... and Sectors") euclidean distance is preferable to 4-jumps distance (sectors would work fine).
I would find the euclidean distance a bit counter-intuitive, so I will say I'd rather have sectors.
What does reduced infrastructure mean?
Basically that there is less room available for other things that take up infrastructure. I am actually in favor of most buildings consuming infrastructure as a way to limit building spam. Specifically, I would like to see all buildings that cannot be built at outposts consume infrastructure. IE: you can only build so-many buildings on a planet, and run out of space for them before running out of buildings. This could at least partially address the spamming of drydocks.
Why would you want shipyard specialisation and long distances?
I would say that distances are a must and specialization is something I'd very much like to have. Also keep in mind this is supposed to stimulate discussion,especially about the specifics of implementation.
Why would that make that the game better/give more strategic options?
I don't know that it gives more options, but it makes shipyards a far more strategic. You will need to decide not only where you want them, but what you want to do with them. It also encourages specializing in one hull-line or another.
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Re: Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#8 Post by labgnome »

LienRag wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 11:24 pmI found the concept of shipyards needing to be built away from other shipyards very interesting when first reading about it, but now I think it may cause problems: let's suppose that next to my starting planet with a generic specie I get a black hole and a desert planet orbiting around it: in other words, a perfect place for a Mu Ursh military base. Now I won't be able to use it? That's very frustrating imho...
Well then that is where you want to put your shipyard. Now you may need to destroy, another shipyard at a sub-optimal location, but that isn't a bad thing as shipyards already get spammed. Mind you, not every galaxy setup is going to be optimal for every strategy, especially for getting the solar hull.
(by the way, will Species's pilot bonuses be specific to ship lines? It would make sense than Scyllor floating in an Organic Hull's symbiotic fluid would be better at manoeuvering it whild Ugmors could have an intuition of the internal tension of Asteroids structures)
There has been talks before about different hull-lines being tied to the different metabolisms, but I don't think any consensus has emerged as to exactly what that should be or how it would work. Maybe a cost or time reduction in the construction of the appropriate shipyards?
Another case: if I happen to get a hot new Scyllor planet next to my Mu Ursh starting position and want to use it to produce Colony Ships rather than populate outposts (in order to be able to go beyond supply lines) how is it possible with your limitation on shipyards?
I'm not sure I completely understand your question. However if you mean that you want to use the Mu Ursh and it's too close to your Scyllor starting position...

I would say that you could destroy your starting shipyard and build one at the nearby Mu Ursh planet. You could also start a Mu Ursh colony at an outpost far enough away that you can build a new shipyard there.

Now something I have thought about is possibly having high tech planets of species that can build ships have the potential to give you a free shipyard. In that case you could get lucky enough to get a free shipyard with a Mu Ursh planet if they are high-tech natives. Mind you that's not a guarontee, but it is a possibility.
Wouldn't it be better to just make each new shipyard consume more infrastructure (I very much like the idea of building consuming infrastructure, BTW)? Like twice each time? Let's say making sure that the energy-floculated screws designed for your Quantum Ship built at Taarth doesn't get sent to Aldebaran takes its toll...
I'm not sure I get your question here. But I could see the infrastructure consumption being a potentially limiting factor in shipyard construction, more indirectly enforcing specialization.

Or have them lower happiness on the planet? All this neverending noise and hazardous materials everywhere - did you hear that last night a ship's door fell while they were trying to bring it to orbit and the impact destroyed three buildings? They censored the information but my cousin lost his childhood's sweetheart in the accident...
If we did that I would want a way, maybe through policies or species values for that to be optional.

So maybe separating shipline-defining buildings (that will need to be alone on a planet) and parts-defining buildings (that can be built on separate planets of a system and provide for all planets of the system)? Having to own a planet with ferromagnets specials in the same system in order to build the most efficient kinetic gun could be a challenge and provide food for thoughts before choosing this particular weapon line...
I am thinking that parts availability should be defined by supply connection. That way so long as you have the appropriate building in the supply group building you can build a ship with the part. I do like the idea of tying special parts to the metabolism specials, it's been proposed to tie the crystal armor and hulls to the silmaline crystals special. maybe we can think of some more parts to tie to the specials. Personally I would tie advanced mass drivers (railguns?) to the ambient superconductors or monopole magnets special. Maybe tie the spinal antimatter cannon to the positronium ash.
Of course you'll have the Asteroid line that depends on an external planet rather than the ship-building planet but it can be fixed by adding a specific building next to the shipyard in order to build Asteroid Hulls (like a space elevator to bring the asteroid parts to the shipyard efficiently), the Asteroid Processor being tasked with the general purveying of parts to all planets.
Interestingly, in the fluff descriptions it's implied that space elevators should be necessary for the geo-integration facility. I could see it as being a requirement for some of the shipyard buildings. Maybe industrial centers for some of the others?
Is it clear for everyone that all ship hulls will accomodate (nearly) all ship parts that fit in them?
I mean, some exceptions are OK (like how Solarweb is for Organic Hulls and RIS for Robotic Hulls) but it would seriously hamper ship design if it stopped being the exception and started being the rule...
I think I would keep everything that can be used by any hull line usable by any hull line, for now. However I would be open to introducing new parts that were hull-line restricted.
And how does your proposal fix the spamming drydocks problem?
Personally I would like to see how much they are spammed under the new changes, but as this is a major concern, the appropriate consumption of infrastructure might work. Especially if more buildings are made to consume infrastructure. If that cannot be made to work then limiting them to 1 or maybe 2 per sector might work. I do think you should be able to get more drydocks than shipyards. I do want to keep them them divorced form the shipyard.
About happiness (minimum for operating and building, and maybe happiness reduction) will it be standard for all buildings or depending on the shipline/on the building?
I would have the happiness/stability threshholds be the same for all ships, as I think that's the simplest.
Maybe there too Species traits can have effects? Like Abbadoni not minding working on asteroid assembling (thus requiring less happiness to work) and Mu Urshes having a dislike towards energy hulls (thus requiring more happiness to build them)...
I can definitely see species traits effecting happiness/stability
Are you sure that direct generation of level 2 and 3 monsters is a good idea? How do you plan to have it work?
Yes. It helps make them viable as a ship-line to directly compete as you progress through the game. See further comments for how I plan to have it work.
The current system is flawed by too much randomness (at the beginning of a game it makes a huge difference to have a tamed monster available immediately after establishing an outpost or ten turns later) but I'm not sure how it can be fixed while still making it very different than ship-building.
The spawning of monsters would still be a random event, but there could be techs to make it happen more often. Plus tech to ultimately allow you to place monster nests in appropriate locations. There was an old topic where this was actually scripted-out. I have modded my own games in the past to play with it and it's a really interesting play-through.
If you indulge me getting farther than what I think were reasonable ideas so far, what do you think of combination buildings?
What I mean is instead of having total exclusivity (only one shipyard type can exist that will produce only one shipline), having tuples of antagonism (like A cannot be built with B or C nor D, B cannot be built with A or D nor E, C cannot be built with A or D nor F) but still allowing combinations (like B and C or A and D in the previous examples) which will allow for specific hulls and/or parts? For example you can build robotic and nano-robotic hulls anywhere you have a robotic processing unit, but you'll need an energy compressor to build a logistics facilitator hull.
That will make for a wide variety of choices concerning which hulls to build where...
So this already sort-of happens with the xenocoordination facility as it can be build with either the Orbital Incubator or the Maturation Chamber. I could see only partially splitting the robotic hull-line allowing them to still be built together as they are each the most limited hull-lines with 2 or 3 hull each. However I don't know if it wouldn't be a better discussion to expand the current hull-lines in order to fill those lines out more, maybe with a target minimum 4 or 5 hulls per hull-line.
There are currently unused graphical ship-assets we have available that we could utilize for these new hulls ;)
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Re: Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#9 Post by labgnome »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2019 9:44 am So, assuming every planet has a base infrastructure and it can be increased by techs (directly affecting the meter or by unlocking certain buildings, policies or planetary focus), you can have a maximum number of shipyards, unrestricted by distances, and you need those infrastructure techs to be able to build more shipyards.
As all planets get the same amount of infrastructure, this wouldn't limit their location in any meaningful way unless there were shipyard buildings that consumed more than the maximum amount of infrastructure. However that would mean you would need an infrastructure boosting tech or building in order to even build them. That would mean that whatever tech theme had that shipyard would need infrastructure boosting tech, weather that's a strait boost, a building or through policies.
That would work very similar to having increasing influence upkeep for shipyards the more you have, but using influence upkeep I think it would scale up better with the size of the empire, because how can you account for games with very different number of systems in the galaxy using the infrastructure techs? I mean, if you balance techs so that late game you can have N shipyards, how can you make it work nicely for 100 system galaxies as well as 1000 system galaxies? You get to cover very different extensions of space with the same N shipyards... Hmmm... You could make the techs decrease the infrastructure required by every new shipyard relative to the number of systems your empire has, so that you get something like N shipyards per M systemscolonies. But this system means you need to both expand and get the techs in order to build new shipyards... Nah, I still think using influence upkeep it would be easier to balance.
So unless I am misunderstanding you, I think that I would actually prefer not using influence upkeep as there is good reason to want to be able to build more shipyards in bigger galaxies. At the least you will want to be doing more exploring and colonizing, and as larger galaxies have room for more or larger empires, it seems only natural that you would want to build more shipyards. I don't think I'd want to be limited to the same number of shipyards in a 100 star galaxy as I would be in a 1000 star galaxy. I would want more shipyards for sure in the larger galaxy.

And, to get back to specialization, I agree that shipyard specialization is important, but what we have now makes some systems combine points of interests (like a black hole for energy compression with asteroids for crystalized plating and a toxic planet for Misiorias) which gives much more strategic values (and then game enjoyability) to these systems than just "a system with a black hole and another one somewhere with asteroids"...
I agree.
I'd say OP's proposal is more about planet specialisation than shipyard specialisation. Shipyard upgrades are already a form of shipyard specialisation (in that only if you get that upgrade can you build certain hulls in that shipyard). But I like being able to build several specialised shipyards in the same system (even if I tend to stick to a single hull line in most of my games unless I'm already winning).
This is even more reason to have them consume infrastructure from my perspective. If we are not going to mutually restrict their build locations then I would prefer some other way to keep the player from being able to build every hull-line at any location. I'd want that to be a strategic choice.

So maybe separating shipline-defining buildings (that will need to be alone on a planet) and parts-defining buildings (that can be built on separate planets of a system and provide for all planets of the system)? Having to own a planet with ferromagnets specials in the same system in order to build the most efficient kinetic gun could be a challenge and provide food for thoughts before choosing this particular weapon line...
I also like this.
I think in general Free Orion could use more in the way of strategic resources, right now it just has neutronium and the species remains. I personally like the idea of making the metabolism specials into them.

Maybe something like the following...
  • Ambient Superconductors: Railguns (weapon/internal)
  • Caretaker's Fruit: Caretaker's Shroud (stealth+shield/internal)
  • Ferric Minerals: Ferric Armor-Reinforcement (armor/internal)
  • Ki Spice: Foldspace Engine, Foldspace Core (fuel+stealth/internal, speed+stealth/core)
  • Monopole Magnets: Magnetic Screen (shield-boost/external)
  • Native Elerium: Elerium Engine (fuel/internal)
  • Positronium Ash: Antimatter Fuel Tank, Spinal Antimatter Cannon (fuel/internal, weapon/core)
  • Probiotic Soup: Biofuel Tank (fuel/external)
  • Silmaline Crystals: Crystal Armor, Crystal Asteroid Hull (armor/external, hull)
As far as buildings to build these parts, I would go with...
  • Physics Lab: robotic metabolism specials into ship parts
  • Biology Lab: organic metabolism specials into ship parts
  • Geology Lab: lithic metabolism specials into ship parts
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LienRag
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Re: Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#10 Post by LienRag »

I'll let you (collective you) decide whether to go for influence upkeep or infrastructure, but the (general, not specific to shipyards) usefulness of using infrastructure as Labgnome defends it is that building everything on the same planet as the Imperial Palace ceases to be a no-brainer...
It even allows to more buidling lines apart from shipyards as they would have strategic value (if I multiply the numbers of large-infrastructure planets in order to build important constructions on them, I multiply my points of weaknesses and I create more targets for enemy forces).

I'm not sure that consuming infrastructure would solve the drydock spamming problem though, even if it's a good idea: you don't want to make drydocks consume a lot of infrastructure since it's important to allow building at least a few at the beginning of the game, and since FreeOrion chose to manage planet improvement via Empire-wide research (Adaptative Automation and the like) and Supply-group-wide "Small wonders" (Industrial Center and the like) most planets have no building in them, so a lot of "infrastructure room" for drydocks.
Maybe by making Drydock infrastructure cost grow with the number of drydocks already built? But how do you manage then the "put all in a queue at the same time and let them be built one at a time"?

And considering scaling with galaxy size, though I do confess that I didn't think about it, I'm not sure that it's such a problem: yes you'll have to manage a big galaxy with a comparatively low number of shipyards, but that just adds strategy imho. And as a bigger galaxy usually means both more research power and more time to research, adding last-tier expensive techs for reducing infrastructure costs mitigates the problem.

High-tech species giving a free shipyard is interesting indeed, I like that idea (Acirema should definitely do it).

About lowering happiness, I get your points but having to care particularly about foreign influence on shipyards planets adds strategy too imho. I'll let you decide anyway.

Labgnome, if you have tested the "Monster nesting" I guess we should trust you?
Maybe before "more often" the techs should make the monster spawning more regular? That's really the beef I have with the current system, at early game one Outpost is a serious investment, and depending on sheer luck it can pay enormously (get a few monsters early and have them mature enough that you can launch them at unsuspecting enemies) or very poorly (have your first monster come 20 turns later or more)...

Could there be a "adapted monsters" line?
I mean, real monsters (spawned from nests) that with some specialized techs could bear some additionnal slots in them (like war elephants bear archers)? So we'd have laser-wielding Krakens, shielded Snowflakes, things like that...

Defining parts availability by supply connection is probably the way to go indeed, but the problem stays intact: if you remove the interest of systems combining multiple advantages (which are obviously much rarer than systems that have one of these advantages) you remove one way of creating "polarity" on the Galactic map, and as such lessen strategic gameplay.
So I would propose that at least SOME things (particular hull, particular ship engine, particular armor, particular stealth part, particular shield, particular weapons,...) would depend on the combination of factors in the same system.

I very much like your proposals for Growth Specials as strategic ressources (and linked Labs), but note that (if I'm not biased by my own playstyle) usually one has much more Organic (and maybe Lithic) metabolism population than Robotic or Self-Sustaining or whatsnot, so the Ship parts that Caretaker Fruits and Probiotic Soup allows should maybe be less powerful than Native Elerium and the like?
Nor can you forbid any non-Silmaline Crystal empire to use a core ship part like Crystal Armor...

Expanding the Hull-lines is certainly something I'll be in favor of, if they can have distinctive caracteristics without being too powerful (like the Logistics Facilitator).

Oberlus, I don't get your last part? Labgnome's proposal already states that in order to build ships of all possible hulls with your Misiorias, you'd need to have seven different Misiorias planets (give or take) in at least three different systems.
My (possibly too complicated) proposal would require much more planets than that actually (C 2 7 I think?), since for each combination (either hybrid hulls, or hybrid ships) you'll need a different planet.

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labgnome
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Re: Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#11 Post by labgnome »

LienRag wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2019 11:46 pm I'll let you (collective you) decide whether to go for influence upkeep or infrastructure, but the (general, not specific to shipyards) usefulness of using infrastructure as Labgnome defends it is that building everything on the same planet as the Imperial Palace ceases to be a no-brainer...
It even allows to more buidling lines apart from shipyards as they would have strategic value (if I multiply the numbers of large-infrastructure planets in order to build important constructions on them, I multiply my points of weaknesses and I create more targets for enemy forces).
That's kind of exactly the idea. It makes your choices of where to build things far more strategic.
I'm not sure that consuming infrastructure would solve the drydock spamming problem though, even if it's a good idea: you don't want to make drydocks consume a lot of infrastructure since it's important to allow building at least a few at the beginning of the game, and since FreeOrion chose to manage planet improvement via Empire-wide research (Adaptative Automation and the like) and Supply-group-wide "Small wonders" (Industrial Center and the like) most planets have no building in them, so a lot of "infrastructure room" for drydocks.
IMO, I would say that is a reason for drydocks to consume a fair amount of infrastructure. That way you won't be able to build them everywhere.

Labgnome, if you have tested the "Monster nesting" I guess we should trust you?
Maybe before "more often" the techs should make the monster spawning more regular? That's really the beef I have with the current system, at early game one Outpost is a serious investment, and depending on sheer luck it can pay enormously (get a few monsters early and have them mature enough that you can launch them at unsuspecting enemies) or very poorly (have your first monster come 20 turns later or more)...
Making them spawn more often was usually sufficient.
Could there be a "adapted monsters" line?
I mean, real monsters (spawned from nests) that with some specialized techs could bear some additionnal slots in them (like war elephants bear archers)? So we'd have laser-wielding Krakens, shielded Snowflakes, things like that...
I was thinking that's what the "dead" hulls, with the monster parts, could represent.
I very much like your proposals for Growth Specials as strategic ressources (and linked Labs), but note that (if I'm not biased by my own playstyle) usually one has much more Organic (and maybe Lithic) metabolism population than Robotic or Self-Sustaining or whatsnot, so the Ship parts that Caretaker Fruits and Probiotic Soup allows should maybe be less powerful than Native Elerium and the like?
Nor can you forbid any non-Silmaline Crystal empire to use a core ship part like Crystal Armor...
There are more organic species than any of the other metabolisms by far, and I think that lithic is the next most common, but the specials are not distributed according to the abundance of the species. You wouldn't need a species of the metabolism to use the specials as a strategic resource. For example a robotic species could take advantage Proboitic Soup as a strategic resource. Also we can totally forbid non-Silmaline Crystal empire from using crystal armor. Xentronium armor has the same stats, so it isn't necessary.
All of my contributions should be considered released under creative commons attribution share-alike license, CC-BY-SA 3.0 for use in, by and with the Free Orion project.

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Oberlus
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Re: Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#12 Post by Oberlus »

If infrastructure has to be the limiting factor for buildings (actually I don't know if it could be better or not than influence upkeep), it is mandatory to sketch actual mechanics for infrastructure.
Currently there are a few techs that increase infrastructure of all your planets, and I think some buildings maybe do that too. All that must be reviewed.
If infrastructure grows the same in all planets, and the infrastructure required by a (say) orbital drydock is constant, then whenever you can build a drydock in a colony you can build it on all your colonies. So, or we make each extra orbital drydock cost extra infrastructure (and then we get that the infrastructure techs are actually orbital drydock unlockers and we could just set a number of maximum drydocks depending on tech level and forget about infrastructure) or we make colonies to have different amounts of infrastructure (few ideas here, maybe force a planetary focus, so each new orbital drydock means one less influence/research/production colony, which does not balance well with expansion).

On the other hand, with influence upkeep, as long at its growth with the empire size is more or less balanced (that is, you get diminishing returns from each extra colony), you will be able to build few drydocks but not care about the infrastructure (or whatever) of the colony you choose, just the strategic value of the location, and the influence upkeep effectively counts as losing planetary foci. I think that's the way to go.

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LienRag
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Re: Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#13 Post by LienRag »

labgnome wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:52 am
LienRag wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2019 11:46 pm Maybe before "more often" the techs should make the monster spawning more regular? That's really the beef I have with the current system, at early game one Outpost is a serious investment, and depending on sheer luck it can pay enormously (get a few monsters early and have them mature enough that you can launch them at unsuspecting enemies) or very poorly (have your first monster come 20 turns later or more)...
Making them spawn more often was usually sufficient.
I disagree with that...
Making them appear more often means the possibility with a bit of luck (quick maturation) to launch Great Krakens or Juggernauts at neighbors who cannot have had the time to prepare for military counter-measures, except if they themselves went to outpost Monster Nests (and had the same luck that you had maturing them).
Of course if the techs to do that appear only at the end of mid-game, it gives opponents time enough to react, but it leaves open the problem I described with early colonization.
Having early game techs to keep the same mean number of monsters but reducing the uncertainty about their spawning still seems to me an important feature.
Could there be a "adapted monsters" line?
I mean, real monsters (spawned from nests) that with some specialized techs could bear some additionnal slots in them (like war elephants bear archers)? So we'd have laser-wielding Krakens, shielded Snowflakes, things like that...
I was thinking that's what the "dead" hulls, with the monster parts, could represent.
I was thinking more of an ability to retrofit spawned monsters in a way or another (and keeping them alive, of course)...
So basically you'll still get the Monster for free and pay only for the parts (plus probably a "tuning cost").
There are more organic species than any of the other metabolisms by far, and I think that lithic is the next most common, but the specials are not distributed according to the abundance of the species. You wouldn't need a species of the metabolism to use the specials as a strategic resource. For example a robotic species could take advantage Proboitic Soup as a strategic resource. Also we can totally forbid non-Silmaline Crystal empire from using crystal armor. Xentronium armor has the same stats, so it isn't necessary.
What I meant is that Caretaker's fruits and Probiotic Soups are already much better specials to get than Native Elerium, and that your idea of strategic ressources could be a way to restore some equilibrium, if those with less value for growth have more value as strategic ressources (allow to use better parts in ships).

Though your argument is sound, could you please spare Crystaline Armor? I like it so much and it's the main reason to go towards the (very nice from an immersion angle) Asteroid Hull line...

Oberlus wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2019 4:26 pm If infrastructure has to be the limiting factor for buildings (actually I don't know if it could be better or not than influence upkeep), it is mandatory to sketch actual mechanics for infrastructure.
Currently there are a few techs that increase infrastructure of all your planets, and I think some buildings maybe do that too. All that must be reviewed.
If infrastructure grows the same in all planets, and the infrastructure required by a (say) orbital drydock is constant, then whenever you can build a drydock in a colony you can build it on all your colonies. So, or we make each extra orbital drydock cost extra infrastructure (and then we get that the infrastructure techs are actually orbital drydock unlockers and we could just set a number of maximum drydocks depending on tech level and forget about infrastructure) or we make colonies to have different amounts of infrastructure (few ideas here, maybe force a planetary focus, so each new orbital drydock means one less influence/research/production colony, which does not balance well with expansion).

Very thoughtul analysis here...
I still think that Infrastructure as a limit to building is a good idea, so it should be worth it to find a way to make it work.

Not all colonies need to have the same infrastructure, either by having infrastructure depend on size, suitability and population or by having it grow slowly with time (doesn't it already work a bit like that now?) but it's true that it doesn't solve all the problems.

Note that Interstellar Lighthouses could be costly infrastructure-wise and so force the player to choose what to build where?
Maybe Gaia Transformation too?

Another idea would be having different infrastructure-boosting techs which boosts infrastructure differently according to planet parameters (type, size, specials, star, presence of something else in the system)?

Allowing residual (unused) infrastructure to give a combat bonus when on "protection" focus (the ground combat units have more places to hide for hit-and-run tactics) maybe?
Or giving +1 to supply per geometric step of residual infrastructure (can be conditioned by a tech)?

Not wanting buildings that are to be built everywhere is a very sound decision (why are you looking at me, comsats?) but having more "small wonders" buildings would be a good thing imho and with infrastructure limitations that would require careful planning.

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Re: Shipyards and Hull-Lines Rework

#14 Post by labgnome »

LienRag wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2019 10:42 pm
labgnome wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:52 am Making them spawn more often was usually sufficient.
I disagree with that...
Making them appear more often means the possibility with a bit of luck (quick maturation) to launch Great Krakens or Juggernauts at neighbors who cannot have had the time to prepare for military counter-measures, except if they themselves went to outpost Monster Nests (and had the same luck that you had maturing them).
Of course if the techs to do that appear only at the end of mid-game, it gives opponents time enough to react, but it leaves open the problem I described with early colonization.
Having early game techs to keep the same mean number of monsters but reducing the uncertainty about their spawning still seems to me an important feature.
I'm not sure I see this as a problem. But maybe I am just misunderstanding you.

Though your argument is sound, could you please spare Crystaline Armor? I like it so much and it's the main reason to go towards the (very nice from an immersion angle) Asteroid Hull line...
Finding asteroid belts with the crystals special is really easy. I usually find at least a couple. Plus crystal armor has the same stats as the Xentronium armor. There has been talk about making them dependent on the special for years now. This is just a more complete proposal.
All of my contributions should be considered released under creative commons attribution share-alike license, CC-BY-SA 3.0 for use in, by and with the Free Orion project.

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