Fuel

[ewh02b]

@Geoff:

I think the proposed system is unrealistic and places unreasonable burdens on the player--

Why can a fuel ship not dispense fuel in small amounts? This seems to be frustrating, rather than helping, to the players. The fuel ship, in order to minimize its' presence in potentially hostile space, should dispense fuel immediately upon arrival at every system, at least every system that the fleet stops at. Once the fuel ship is empty, it should automatically return to the nearest starbase--this is the only logical course of action.

The option to turn off automatic fuel dispersion might be useful in cases where the player wants to drop half his fleet off in system A (to build a starbase, most likely), before continuing on with the rest of the newly refueled fleet to a more distant system. However, this is equivalent to the "fleet fuel reassignment" idea discussed previously, and as discussed previously, easily done using a slider.

[Geoff the Medio]

I think the proposed system is unrealistic and places unreasonable burdens on the player--

In this case, the realism argument is completely irrelivant. A fluff explanation can be found for any desirable game mechanic such as this.

Why can a fuel ship not dispense fuel in small amounts?

Because it makes deciding when to dispense the fuel a decision that can only be made yes/no once per fuel ship, and not in small increments that require repeated micromanagement.

This seems to be frustrating, rather than helping, to the players.

It is also frustrating to have to build ships before you can use them, or to have to explore before you can colonize, or to research theories before you can research the application you actually want, or to have not all planets be perfectly suited for your race. These things are nevertheless part of the game design for reasons other than minimizing player frustrations.

Once the fuel ship is empty, it should automatically return to the nearest starbase--this is the only logical course of action.

This might not be desirable, as ships automatically heading back to starbases would be unprotected, and the "nearest" starbase might not be the one the player would want to send them to.

The option to turn off automatic fuel dispersion...

To be clear, it wasn't an option to give small top-ups whenever possible. You could only give full or no refills. This was a limitation inherent to fuel ships, imposed for gameplay reasons.

[utilae]

Let's define the requirements of a Supply system:

SUPPLY COVERS FUEL/AMMO/CREW/FOOD/ETC
*Fuel should limit range.
*Should be able to travel with safety limits off (ie don't care if you run out of fuel, range increased as a result).
*Ships can refuel, either at a planet, in space (refuel ship), via a fuel stop (fuel scoop planet atmosphere)
*Should not have to distribute fuel (too much micro)
*is there any reason why we need to
*Should a lack of supplies reduce effectiveness of ship functions or stop functions all together (eg no ammo, so no missiles or no ammo so 1 missile every 3 turns)

[Sapphire Wyvern]

Let's define the requirements of a Supply system:

SUPPLY COVERS FUEL/AMMO/CREW/FOOD/ETC
*Fuel should limit range.
*Should be able to travel with safety limits off (ie don't care if you run out of fuel, range increased as a result).
*Ships can refuel, either at a planet, in space (refuel ship), via a fuel stop (fuel scoop planet atmosphere)
*Should not have to distribute fuel (too much micro)
*is there any reason why we need to
*Should a lack of supplies reduce effectiveness of ship functions or stop functions all together (eg no ammo, so no missiles or no ammo so 1 missile every 3 turns)

Practically speaking, there's no such thing as a fuel limit to range. If an empire wanted to expend the effort, they could use the "Napoleon crossing the desert" strategy: send a force out some distance, drop a fuel dump, and then return to home base. Refuel, travel out to the first fuel dump, pick up fuel, travel further out, drop a second fuel dump. Return to base via first fuel dump. Ad infinitum; it's somewhat like solving the Towers of Hanoi puzzle.

Therefore, I think it would be better to simply have a system where the maintenance costs of fleets are proportional to the distance from the nearest Supply Center (traced through non-hostile territory). Researching better fuel tech reduces the constant of proportionality, so that fleets can range further afield without imposing an impossible drain on your resources. This abstracts away all that hassle with dealing with fuel ships whilst retaining the essential strategic limitation. Considering that the time scale of an FO turn is a "galactic year" IIRC, I don't see any reason to model every resupply shipment that occurs. As long as there exists a safe route for resupply convoys to follow, we can abstract away the difficulty of maintaining distant fleets.

Some ships can have a special the reduces or eliminates their maintenance cost (cf Clean Reactors in SMAC). This might be built in to scout ships and/or seedships (colony ships) to remove any early game lameness that might occur.

It would be useful to be able to build "Supply Stations" that act like MoO II outposts, under this system. Fleets present at a Supply Station would be able to resupply and perform at least some repairs. Supply Stations would also act as a sensor (and possibly espionage and trading) outpost.

[Geoff the Medio]

Therefore, I think it would be better to simply have a system where the maintenance costs of fleets are proportional to the distance from the nearest Supply Center (traced through non-hostile territory).

I dislike any system that varies the cost of something in this manner. It's too difficult to plan and anticipate what your supply costs will be in such a situation. Hence, I instead prefer a system where the cost is fixed for each ship, but the rate of supply to the ship varies with distance.

[Daveybaby]

Its very important that, in the day-to-day course of things, the player doesnt have to worry about whether their ships are fuelled or not (this sort of thing was a real chore in Space Empires, for example). So, moving ships around within your empire should never be a problem. And scouts shouldnt ever have to refuel (maybe have something like a fuel scoop tech (like in Elite), which allows refueling in any system, but is either limited to small ships, or is large and bulky, meaning that a warship design would be compromised due to having less space for weapons).

Fuel shortages should only come about through one of two things:

(1) You over extend yourself, moving your fleet too far from home, and have allocated insufficient supply ships to your fleet.

(2) Enemy action, for example attacking and destroying your supply ships, blockading your supply route, or destroying a strategically important fuel depot.

For this reason i think that if youre going to have fuel in the game it should be modelled in the same way as things like missiles and fighters, as discussed in the supply thread.

[Geoff the Medio]

Fuel shortages should only come about through one of two things:

(1) You over extend yourself, moving your fleet too far from home, and have allocated insufficient supply ships to your fleet.

(2) Enemy action, for example attacking and destroying your supply ships, blockading your supply route, or destroying a strategically important fuel depot.

By those specific measures, my latest suggestion seems to work... just replace "supply ships" with "fuel ships" and adjust the possible enemy actions.

[Daveybaby]

True, but i think that if things like missile and fighter resupply were to be a part of the game (which obviously isnt decided yet, but if they are) then it gets a bit silly to have separate ships just for fuel resupply. Roll the whole thing up into one concept and have fuel be one of the things which your fleet's supply ships will provide.

[marhawkman]

True, but i think that if things like missile and fighter resupply were to be a part of the game (which obviously isnt decided yet, but if they are) then it gets a bit silly to have separate ships just for fuel resupply. Roll the whole thing up into one concept and have fuel be one of the things which your fleet's supply ships will provide.

which is exactly what SE3 did. Ships had a certain amount of supplies and needed to return to a planet with a depot to replenish them periodically.

[Daveybaby]

which is exactly what SE3 did. Ships had a certain amount of supplies and needed to return to a planet with a depot to replenish them periodically.

Which was a micromanagement chore. Like i said above, in day-to-day operations, the player shouldnt have to do any extra work just to ensure that their ships still move about. Hence the proposed supply ships system.

[marhawkman]

which is exactly what SE3 did. Ships had a certain amount of supplies and needed to return to a planet with a depot to replenish them periodically.

Which was a micromanagement chore. Like i said above, in day-to-day operations, the player shouldnt have to do any extra work just to ensure that their ships still move about. Hence the proposed supply ships system.

We could add a feature that causes the ship to automatically return when it reaches it's fuel limit. That would sidestep the Micro issue.

[Daveybaby]

Yeah, that wouldnt be annoying at all

[utilae]

We could add a feature that causes the ship to automatically return when it reaches it's fuel limit. That would sidestep the Micro issue.

We could just have a check box, "Fuel Safe Mode"=Yes/No

If "Fuel Safe Mode" is on, then it's like Moo2, you can only travel as far out as you can travel back to a world with a fuel supply.

If "Fuel Safe Mode" is off, then you can travel anywhere. If your fleet cannot travel back cause you have no fuel, then too bad.

[skdiw]

Practically speaking, there's no such thing as a fuel limit to range. If an empire wanted to expend the effort, they could use the "Napoleon crossing the desert" strategy: send a force out some distance, drop a fuel dump, and then return to home base. Refuel, travel out to the first fuel dump, pick up fuel, travel further out, drop a second fuel dump. Return to base via first fuel dump. Ad infinitum; it's somewhat like solving the Towers of Hanoi puzzle.

hence, excessive micro and doesn't really serve the purpose of limiting range.

Therefore, I think it would be better to simply have a system where the maintenance costs of fleets are proportional to the distance from the nearest Supply Center (traced through non-hostile territory).

I dislike any system that varies the cost of something in this manner. It's too difficult to plan and anticipate what your supply costs will be in such a situation. Hence, I instead prefer a system where the cost is fixed for each ship, but the rate of supply to the ship varies with distance.

i don't think sapp's idea is too difficult to plan. there could be a simple formula. or maybe there could be a fee each time you move a fleet and the players know what the fees are.

i interpret sapp's system as a possible fix cost + a supply cost that varies with distance, which is the same as your preference.



i would go for no fuel or some simple moo or variation thereof to limit range. however, i do see the added potential strategic component of supply lines. if we plan on using a supply line, try to make it simple. sapp's maintenence seems plausible, or we can do a automated supply line.

[Geoff the Medio]

...maintenance costs of fleets are proportional to the distance from the nearest Supply Center

...too difficult to plan and anticipate what your supply costs [...] I instead prefer [that] cost is fixed for each ship, but the rate of supply to the ship varies with distance.

i don't think sapp's idea is too difficult to plan. there could be a simple formula.

How can you make a simple formula for multiple fleets moving around at different, changing distances? This isn't like grouping the fuel use of a fleet together because that number only changes when you reorganize a fleet, and it's somewhat easier to understand how a ship that uses 5 fuel / turn adds 5 fuel / turn to the fleet's fuel use, but with variable-with-distance cost to keep fueled, each ship's cost to fuel changes, and/or each fleet's cost changes even if you don't change the fleet... and also if you change the fleet.

You'd probably end up having to maintain a large stockpile of whatever is used to pay for maintenance in case you ever needed to react suddenly... assuming whatever you pay with is stockpilable.

And you wouldn't actually limit range as effectively, since you could often pay a bit more to allow a ship to go a bit further up to the limit of your economy...

or maybe there could be a fee each time you move a fleet and the players know what the fees are.

i interpret sapp's system as a possible fix cost + a supply cost that varies with distance, which is the same as your preference.

The difference is between a fixed cost and a differing rate of supply with distance, and a fixed rate of supply and variable cost with distance.

A cost each time you move a fleet, independent of distance, is a bit better than a variable cost with distance.

However, both also have the (potential) problem that you end up with your economy essentially determining how much or how far (essentially how) you can move your ships around. A fixed cost system (which could be zero or nonzero cost) and variable supply rate means you're still limited in how much you can move around your ships, but you can't overcome this limit by just spending more money / production / whatever on support for your ships, which you could with a variable-cost fixed-rate of resupply / fuel.