Ship Design

[The_Commentator]

Magus: That's pretty much what I mean about a classification system; the only difference is you'd optionally be able to call the Frigate Class [or any Class] of ships by a proper name: Frigates could be called Titan Class, for instance, until you upgraded, in which case you change the class name to Jovian Class.

That way you distinguish between up-to-date and outdated Frigate Class ships on the map.

Maybe it could identify like this:

Frigate; Jovian Class
or
SpaceDefStation; Saturnian Class

Magus/skdiw: Exactly

--T.C.

[Geoff the Medio]

As far as power goes, how I'd do it is that with advances in power generation technology, the mass of all power-consuming components goes down, reflecting the shrinkage of the reactor necessary to power the devices.

There's been a lot of talk about trying to reduce the need for redesign with new technology. One facet of this was that components should never reduce in thier use of some limit with increasing tech.

Consider mass or volume limits in a ship, with components each using up some amount of mass or volume. If you had a component that at one tech level used 5 units of space / mass, then the next level uses 3, when you get the next level, you need to redesign your ships to use the extra space / mass you could save with the smaller / lighter components.

Conversely, if a given component type always uses the same amount of mass / volume, then there's no need to redesign. The design can be generic, like stating that a ship uses "Beams" rather than "8 Mk. IV Beams". This way, upgrades to ships can be done without changing their design: just replace Beams Mk. II with Mk. IV when they become available, with each ship keeping track of what level its components are (as opposed to the ship design keeping track).

Alternatively, components could be not limited by some total amout of some property, but rather be put into SMAC-like slots.

The same principle applies to power limits, or power modelled as reductions in mass within a mass limit: doing this would require lots of redesign.

[Magus]

So Geoff, what you're saying is that if I make a design like this:

Beams
Shields
Fast Drives
(oversimplified for simplicity)

If I build one of these it would have the best beams, shields, and fast drives that could fit. If I build another one 50 years later, it would still have the best beams, shields, and fast drives, but the one I built before would have 50-year old tech. Is that what you're going for?

The problem I see there is having alot of incremental designs. Its all well and good to have these 50 year old Cruisers and your modern-day cruisers, you can easily tell the difference. But if each new ship is automatically outfitted with all the goodies, you wont have Division A of new ships and Division B with old ships, but Division Sigma with ships all across the spectrum, resulting in a group with mixed effectivness and difficulty in control (especially if speed or weapon ranges change).

Thats why I would prefer a redesign system rather than some kind of autoupgrade system: the ship differences are quantized, command becomes simpler, and deciding when to lay down a new class of vessel becomes a strategic consideration. That said, an AI upgrade option (design me a new one of these, but better) should certainly be an option.


Edit: Commentator, Frigate refers to a size of ship, the name of the class is also another key component. So you could have Hunter-Class Missile Frigates (Name: Hunter, Role: Missileboat, Size:Frigate), Warden-Class Escort Frigates, and Ranger-Class Missile Frigates (replacing the 45 year old Hunter design)

Edit2: Skidw, if there was a good auto-design feature, you basically have the "tweaked templates" option available. Go Build me a Missile Cruiser. Ok, looks decent, but I need it to be evasive, so I'll drop a pair of missile launchers for extra speed.

[skdiw]

So Geoff, what you're saying is that if I make a design like this:

Beams
Shields
Fast Drives
(oversimplified for simplicity)

If I build one of these it would have the best beams, shields, and fast drives that could fit. If I build another one 50 years later, it would still have the best beams, shields, and fast drives, but the one I built before would have 50-year old tech. Is that what you're going for?

The problem I see there is having alot of incremental designs. Its all well and good to have these 50 year old Cruisers and your modern-day cruisers, you can easily tell the difference. But if each new ship is automatically outfitted with all the goodies, you wont have Division A of new ships and Division B with old ships, but Division Sigma with ships all across the spectrum, resulting in a group with mixed effectivness and difficulty in control (especially if speed or weapon ranges change).

Thats why I would prefer a redesign system rather than some kind of autoupgrade system: the ship differences are quantized, command becomes simpler, and deciding when to lay down a new class of vessel becomes a strategic consideration. That said, an AI upgrade option (design me a new one of these, but better) should certainly be an option.

I don't think you understood our design. One key component as Geoff points out is " One facet of this was that components should never reduce in thier use of some limit with increasing tech. " meaning that older techs generally are less effective compared to new ones, but they won't be completely obsolete.

We don't want many small incremental designs. We want significant design changes, so we don't want small powerplant improvements. And also, there if powerplants just gets better in every way, there is no design, but just annoyance for the player to update his ships every 5 turns. It's much better design to say "the new frigate hull equips the latest quatum carbon fuel cell that effectively adds 50 more space or 2 slots to your design." I think Geoff is saying the same thing you are saying. Geoff isn't going for brainless auto-upgrades, but some considerable ship design every now and then.

There are a lot of variables to work with already with our current design. Don't forget the rps elements, so it's not just equip with your best weapon. You may want to chose another kind because it's more effective against your enemy's "organic armor."

As you correctly pointed out, swapping a missile rack for faster speed, is another design consideration. But we need tolimit these considerations at a fun and manageable level (including the macro-game) for the players per turn.

And you can always refit your old designs.

[hasoos]

In Moo1 and Moo2, both successful games, ship design was simple, but very important to the overall scheme of the game. Autodesign was also incorporated for those who don't want to do such things, but I can guarantee that most people who used that option in those games lost, or would lose to those who designed their ships to incorporate a type of combat strategy. The ship design should be important enough of an aspect of the game to do. For those who are seeking every single advantage they can get, it may be the piece that allows them victory, or sends them to defeat with bad planning. Otherwise, we are stuck with a game where it is "My fleet is capable of more points of damage then your fleet, so I win." If you like that just go play moo3 and you already have that crappy system. Your basic options in Moo3: Missile Boats, Carriers, Direct Fire. Missiles and Fighters can hit from real far, so they win. Zzzzzzz.

Make the players have to make choices. Give the players the players the special technologies and weopons needed to counter strategies. Your using fleets of carriers? I'm going to buy Pulsars or area of effect weopons from the psilons. Your ships have super duper shields and hull? I am going to use a Black hole generator on you. You get the point. If you go with a system where it is merely points and range, it will be a bore. If you go with a ship design system where design can be incorporated into strategy, it will be a lot of fun.

[Magus]

Well, here is a submission for a simplified design system. Note that I would still prefer something more similar to my original, but if trends are against that...

Ship Size (Corvette, Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser, Warship, Dreadnought)
Ship Role
Ship Name

-Hull Type
Armor Factor
-Engine Type
Maneuverability Factor

-Primary Defensive System
Factor
-Secondary Defensive System (if Cruiser or Larger)
Factor
-Tertiary Defensive System (if Dreadnought)
Factor

-Primary Weapon Systems
Factor
-Secondary Weapon Systems (if Destroyer or Larger)
Factor
-Tertiary Weapon Systems (if Warship or Larger)
Factor
-Quaternary Weapon Systems (if Dreadnought)
Factor

-Special Equipment

Factor represents the amount of weighting in the design given to that component. This could be done as a percent, a number, or a descriptor (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large). Special Equipment doesn't use the Factor system, instead it takes a set amount of the mass away from the other components.

Let me go through a technobabble filled design process with one of these:
--------------------------------------------------------
I need a Raider-type ship, one for striking through enemy lines and dealing with their fragile missileboats that just sit in the rear and fire hails of missiles at my fleet.

I decide a Cruiser would best suit that need.
Role would be Strike Vessel
Name... Thunderbolt-Class

I need to be able to stand up to the heavy beam bombardment I'll recieve while passing through enemy lines, so I choose a Refractive Hull. However, I assign a small factor to it.

This is so I can take my Plasma Afterburners and assign a large factor, so I can blow through the opposition. The slow FTL speed isn't much of a problem, as this ship would only be with my largest fleet groups.

As a cruiser, I get two Defense systems and two Weapon systems. I need good anti-beam defenses, so I pick Disruption Fields. But I also need fair missile defense so their missileboats don't shread me, so I take Laser Defense System. I assign an equal factor to each.

As for weapons, I can take two, but I only decide to take one. Gauss Rifles do heavy damage for less factor, and the Missileboats aren't maneuverable enough to dodge.

As for Special Equipment, I'll take a set of Single-Use boosters, giving me the extra thrust I need to blow past their battleships.
--------------------------------------------------------

Hope this all makes some sense...

[skdiw]

your idea is pretty much the same. Except for multiple shield slots for larger hulls. I think we gonna have more weapon slots. As for ship role, I'm not sure what are consensus is.

[Robin J. Cartwright]

Likely every ship needs an engine, offensive component and defensive component

Not necessarily. If it's a space station it doesn't need an engine. I don't like being forced to put offensive or defensive componets on my scouts. Allowing more freedom in design, including the freedom not to have offensive or defensive componets, would allow greater flexibility in design.

... though even if they don't, I suggested having each ship have only one of each of these, which would be indicated and specified by the slot mechanism.

Why should only one of each be required? If I want to replace all or most of my defensive systems with engines in order to create a really fast ship that's easy to kill (if you can catch it), why should I be barred from doing that? It seems to me that allowing you to shaft one area in order to build up another just adds more strategy.

Robin: So you basically want a MoO 3 type system.

No, I was thinking more of a Space Empires 4 type system. Its design system worked pretty well. The biggest flaw was that you needed to constantly redesign your ships every couple of turns to incorporate new technology if you wanted to do your best, which is annoying. Your idea for 'engineering' new designs would fix this nicely, since imposing a cost of some sort for each new design means you won't have to constantly redesign your ships everytime you invent a new tech.

If a ship has a list of components 24 entries long compared to a statblock ala MoO1, one is alot easier to understand at a glance.

It need not be a list. SEIV represents each componet graphically. When you scan an enemy ship you see rows & colums of componet pictures along with statistics pertaining to that ship, like total engine speed, total shield strength, etc. You see much the same thing when you review your own designs. Something similar could work for FreeOrion. Larger ships in Moo2 & Moo1 could have 24+ weapons/specials on them.

[Geoff the Medio]

I don't like being forced to put offensive or defensive componets on my scouts.
[...]
Why should only one of each be required? If I want to replace all or most of my defensive systems with engines in order to create a really fast ship that's easy to kill (if you can catch it), why should I be barred from doing that? It seems to me that allowing you to shaft one area in order to build up another just adds more strategy.

My ill-phrased point was that there would be a limit of one offensive / defensive type per ship, not a requirement of one (in effect anyway... likely "none" would be an option, and you'd technically be picking one option if you picked "none")

Allowing more freedom in design, including the freedom not to have offensive or defensive componets, would allow greater flexibility in design.

A profound statement to be sure...

"more freedom" and "more flexibility" aren't always good things. Some restrictions help other aspects of the design, such as UI, AI, and strategic balancing. In this case, UI in battle would be significant simplified if ships had only (at most) one type of weapon and defense each.

[skdiw]

We aren't forcing you to put anything on your ship. You can do anything you want. However, in general, it's more effective to have a bit of everything. That doesn't mean you can't design raiding missile boats with no defense because you just want to launch your missiles and warp out. That's a perfectly fine strategy that our design support. But you probably won't have all missile boat fleet, you probably want some tanks and other ships to clean up so you would want defense on those ships. So overall, a bit of everything.

You don't need to redesign your ships every 5 turns. We are aware of constantly redesign problem like in moo3, so make sure that each of the techs are profound and there are no insignificant benefits (unless they are freebie). We focused our efforts on weapons and defenses so we won't have a huge-ass tech tree.

The limited slot is to simplify things so you aren't always looking at a mess. If you chose stasis armor, you may need to specify its thickness also. If you want an ion beam, you may also need to chose your mods on the beam. The slot mechanism isn't totally decided, it was intended just serves as a guide to basic ship design and helps organize the information (UI) as oppose to a big fat list that sometimes the player forgets to put an engine on their starship. You can chose not to have shields, that might free up some hull space points so you can mount your piercing enhanced death ray.

I'm not sure why you would mount multiple engines or shield. I think having a better engine or mounting a heavier shield serves the same purpose.

[Dreamer]

The slot mechanism isn't totally decided, it was intended just serves as a guide to basic ship design and helps organize the information (UI) as oppose to a big fat list that sometimes the player forgets to put an engine on their starship.

I think I preffer to have 2 lists (columns) one for main (common/basic) components such as engine, armor, shield, etc, and one for weapons and specials. It's important to have some standard default values to avoid the "miss engine" mistake.

I'm not sure why you would mount multiple engines or shield. I think having a better engine or mounting a heavier shield serves the same purpose.

Basically you want to adjust the mass/propulsion proportion. I assume you'll use the best engine you have, but you can need even more speed.

I would settle for an example like this. The percentages measure the ammount of mass devoted to this kind of component. The ship will always use the best tech available. (best engine type, etc):

Engine (12%)
Armor (5%)
Shields (3%)
Point defense beam (7%)
Long Range Missiles (5%)
Bombs (15%)
...
etc.

[Sapphire Wyvern]

As for sensor and ECM, I don't see why you wouldn't always use the best.

Well, probably for the same reason that fighters don't have the sensor suite of a PC-3 Orion radar plane. Different loadouts for different roles.



Of course, this is a special case that should be represented in-game by a piece of Special Equipment, if at all. I agree that every ship would most likely be equipped with the highest-tech gear available; it's just that some have significantly more and better gear than others, disproportionate to the craft size.

For instance, this Special Equipment would be suited to scout and science vessel roles. Super-ECM gear would be useful for ships expected to undergo heavy missile bombardment or for stealth/infiltrator vessels.

[Sapphire Wyvern]

I should also add my voice to those calling for a slot-based system.

However, to add distinctiveness to the SMAC-type model, and make it feel more naval, we should probably have more slots for bigger chassis.

In particular, the number of "Special Equipment" slots should be bigger for larger vessels, I think. We can probably get away with a "Principal Armament" slot and a "Secondary Armament" slot for ships of the line (or wall for Honorverse fans), a couple of defensive slots, and so on.

Stars! had an excellent slot-based design system, but if we're talking fleets of hundreds to thousands of actual starships, not counting parasites, we'll need to simplify further I think. I like skdiw's idea of being able to customise the equipment placed in each slot, though.

Personally I would prefer much smaller battles, with individual ships taking on importance and personality - for instance, a dozen major vessels with maybe 20-30 support vessels + parasite fighters should be a *huge* battle. This is more than enough to be epic - just look at Star Wars for proof. If large vessels look great, fill significant amounts of screen space, and put out a lot of firepower and spectacular SFX, there is no need for sheer quantity of units for an epic feel. If there are regularly hundreds to thousands of vessels in a fight, individual ships become meaningless; metaphorically, they're just nameless, faceless troopers in your infantry battalions, as important and significant as Clone Trooper #4.

Plus it gives an excuse for a cool, detailed ship design system, which would be wasted for a game with thousands of ships in each battle.

[Dreamer]

a dozen major vessels with maybe 20-30 support vessels + parasite fighters should be a *huge* battle. This is more than enough to be epic

Sure enought. that makes 12 + 30 = 42. And extrapolating from there que would probably have around 400 figthers (averaging 10 figthers each). So basically yes, even in your example, we DO have hundreds of ships .

I think that when we speak epic, we mean unlike Moo2, when a battle with 20 ships per side was already eternal and boring to play. Even in Moo1 you can easily have thousands of ships, only represented in 6 or so sprites. IMHO the point is that 20 or so ships is pretty lame for an empire that span for half the galaxy isn't it?

Plus it gives an excuse for a cool, detailed ship design system, which would be wasted for a game with thousands of ships in each battle.

I would rather go for a cooler, simple and fast ship design in witch it's not all about what you put in a ship but how do you use it. Most of the "units" in several RTS games are not that complicated at all but they can be playad very diferently. In starcraft dor example, you have HP, movement speed, range and damage and a couple of specials, that's enought.

[Magus]

Dreamer: Lets look at a game a bit more complex than Starcraft (though you could do this analysis with Starcraft).

A HW2 Hiigaran Destroyer is a fairly simple unit. Its a fairly large heavy combat vessel, easily capable of destroying frigates worth more than it is, and highly flexible for other roles outside of that one. Lets look at a theoretical design process for it.

Hull Size: Destroyer
Armor: Crystal-Polymer Composite
Armor Thickness: Thick (unupgraded, has 7 times the armor of a Torpedo Frigate)
Engines: Vectored Plasma
Maneuverability: Good (the thing can keep up with frigates fairly well, and can turn well for a Capital)
Weaponry
-(4) Arbiter Heavy Railgun Turret
---(Front 3-arc),(Rear 3-arc), (2 All-arc)
-(2) Heavy Torpedo Launcher
Specials
-Hyperspace capable

So there is a simple ship in an RTS game with a middling complexity design system. It still can have quite alot of complexity that ends up with a small amount of statistics