My thoughts on Ship Design/Development

[lazor]

First, let me say 'Hi, everybody', since this is my first post. I have been hanging around the forum for quite some time, i've read alot, but not all of it. Also, I have been playing Moo2, BotF, Ascendancy, etc. and I really like that type of game.

So, i have been thinking about the things I would like to see in a MOO-like 4X Space strategy type of game. And I thought it might be useful to share these thoughts with you aswell, because maybe you like them.

I always thought that creating a new ship design should be something that costs 'money' (command points, credits, whatever) and takes time.

In every game I played so far, when you had the option to design custom ships, as soon as you clicked 'done' on the design screen *poof* the newly 'developed' design is there, without all those testing, analysis and re-design cycles one would expect to happen when you are designing a space ship. Ready to be produced and deployed.

While this isn't so bad per se, I think it forces the player to constantly re-design and update his fleet by making new designs (since it comes at no cost).

What I envision is a system where you have to actually go through some kind of a 'design process', that would be something that takes alot of turns, like techs, and buildings, and the actual production of the ships itself.

The most basic version of this system would be something where you had a development screen on which:

* you could design your ship like you want it to be
* see the time in turns it would take to develop such a ship
* what the development will cost per turn
* and an estimation of the key parameters of the finished design
(speed/strength/production costs/...)

Since the development process would take some time, you could let the player use everything that his researchers already see coming in the near future (as in: is researchable by the player) to design his ship.

You could even go a step farther and make designing a 'prototype' ship design beneficial (or even necessary) to research the newest weapon technologies. For example when the newest plasma gun is researchable, and the player decides to design a ship with those guns, it would have a beneficial effect so the research is finished earlier. Since he is supplying his researchers with actual 'real world' data from the development process of his newest ship design.
On the other hand, it would not be efficient to boost research with a new ship design every time you see something new, because designing a ship + researching the tech, will be more expensive overall than just researching the tech.

On top of that you could make the 'prototype' an actual ship, that gets produced while the whole development process goes on, and then the player could take that prototype to some kind of testing run.

There could be little quirks or setbacks that had to be worked through, as well as the chance to get little improvements that were not forseeable (better accurancy because you made a lot of test runs, more efficient shieldings because you had some breakthroughs in shielding techs during development, earlier finish because you spend so much resources on the project).

That could be used for subtle balancing as well. For example, the underdog player could have slight advantages when designing ships, while the top players, who have a high bureaucracy overhead, have some disadvantages. So the underdog would have less ships, but more quality ones.

I think it would also be beneficial to the 'less ships -> emotional binding to the ships' vs. 'masses of ships -> 'epic' combat feeling' issue mentioned in some thread that I read. I actually like the idea of caring for my ships. But this is not really possible when you have masses of them, and are producing a couple of dozen ships PER TURN to keep up with the losses (or just to be uber-powerful).

The player would have to put a great extent of planning into his ship designs. He would care about his designs, a successfull ship design would be something recognizable, something that somehow makes him feel attached to his creation.

There could be something like a 'ship market'. So the player can decide to give away a successfull design to commercial manufacturers, which will benefit him by lowering the production cost of that design (massproduction, it makes things cheap, so instead of producing a ship in his state run shipyards, he just buys it from the manfacturers for a lower price). Of course, the downside of that would be that those manufacturers would like to sell to anybody who is willing to spend a buck. And that includes even your worst enemies...

---

Ok, now I have written quite alot about all the things I think are positive, gameplay enhancing features of my idea. Now I'm gonna to write something about what I thing is bad and uncertain.

There are two main things that I think are bad:
* it makes things more complex
* it sacrifices some of the players flexibility

With 'more complex' I mean that there are (possibly) all these little side effects that need to be considered when designing a ship. Those must be implemented and balanced. While the most basic version of my idea would not be too hard to do (at least from my naive point of view it looks like it would a pretty 'straightforward' thing to implement), the extended version (the version that has subtle balance effects mentioned above) on the other side would be quite a task to implement and balance.

The other point is that this system will make the player less flexible in his decisions. The player would have to plan out his ship designs more carefully, and I think that is good, but he still could be stuck with a bad design. In the classic MOO model the player would do alot of designs and the testing and evaluating would take place in real battles. With my idea a design must be good enough for the job, because the player cant just scrap it and make a new improved one (at least not so fast).

And this brings me to the issues that I myself are not so sure about how they should be done:

* Up to what extent should testing and re-designing be part of developing a new ship design?

* Should the player really need to take his ship to some kind of testing ground?

* Should there be the possibility to change his initial design decisions somewhere along the development process? For example, I'm half way through developing my new battleship when I change my mind about the strength of the shields, since the simulation/testing suggests that I should have less weapons and more shields on my ship. Should I have the possibility to change my initial design? Should there be limits what can be changed? Will that impose a delay on the development process?

* What about upgrading? Surely I think it should be possible, but how exactly. What restricions would there be for upgrading an existing design? For example, I think it should be possible to upgrade your LR Weapons to the newest type of LR weapon, but it should not be possible to add more LR weapons, or change the LR weapons to SR weapons.

* Should upgrading take time and cost money just like the development took? If yes, how much less time and money will upgrading take to make it an viable option?

...

I'll finish here and let you take my post apart. Feel free to ask, critize or improve on the idea I have formulated. I tried to make it as clear as I could, but I'm pretty sure there might be some things that are not so clear is I hoped them to be.

Also, note that I am not a native english speaker, so please excuse if there are some awkward formulations.

[Alberjohns]

I always thought that creating a new ship design should be something that costs 'money' (command points, credits, whatever) and takes time.

That sounds similar to the system in Alpha Centauri where building the first unit of a new design was much more expensive than the building of subsequent units of that design. The first unit built is the prototype, and working out all the bugs in that first unit is always expensive.

What I envision is a system where you have to actually go through some kind of a 'design process', that would be something that takes alot of turns, like techs, and buildings, and the actual production of the ships itself.

I like the idea in theory. After all, researching and developing a new ship design IS research and development, and should therefore take time and money to occur. With this in mind, I would think that designing new ships should be part of the research and development of technology, and new should be paid for in the same way that research of other new technologies are.

Also, note that I am not a native english speaker, so please excuse if there are some awkward formulations.

I you had not said anything, I would never have known. You speak (or write) English better than many native speakers of English do.

[utilae]

@lazor
Overall I do not like the idea. It just adds alot of unnesecary burocratic filler. There would be no fun, or no benefit, as you point out.

That sounds similar to the system in Alpha Centauri where building the first unit of a new design was much more expensive than the building of subsequent units of that design. The first unit built is the prototype, and working out all the bugs in that first unit is always expensive.

Rise of Legends did the opposite. The first unit built is the cheapest. Every other unit built gets more and more expensive.

I like the idea in theory. After all, researching and developing a new ship design IS research and development, and should therefore take time and money to occur. With this in mind, I would think that designing new ships should be part of the research and development of technology, and new should be paid for in the same way that research of other new technologies are.

One could also assume that research already includes development and prototypes and testing in its current cost. That would be simpler.

[lazor]

Overall I do not like the idea. It just adds alot of unnesecary burocratic filler. There would be no fun, or no benefit, as you point out.

Actually the whole idea of my post was to point out that I think it would be fun and beneficial to gameplay if there was a system like I proposed.

One could also assume that research already includes development and prototypes and testing in its current cost. That would be simpler.

Yes, I thought about that myself, and I agree, one could argue that researching something already includes testing and evaluating prototypes.

But one could also argue that researching technologies is just the process of proving existing theories, by creating working prototypes for example, hence showing that you now have the means to produce such a device, which existence was only theoretical before. And to design a vehicle that combines several of these newly produceable devices, one could argue that this too is a complex and time consuming task, just like the research of the technologies itself.

Look at it from this way: I think it will benefit the overall gameplay because it emphasizes a fact that will add alot to the immersion of the player. The fact that it is consequent to assume ship designing is a process that costs money and time, just like everything else is.

I think it would be totally cool if you had some kind of a high security zone where you test out your newest ship designs, far away in the outer rims, so potential enemy spies among your population won't catch a glimpse of your newest war machinery.

Even if that high security test zone would only exist in my head...

[Muside]

lazor, I salute you. Your design system is identical to the one we're using for our own project. Are you German, by any chance? Then consider yourself part of our team

[Geoff the Medio]

It has been previously suggested that ship designs could need to be researched before they could be built, and there are some good-sounding arguments for such a system.

My concern is that adding another layer or delay before you can build a ship with a new tech might be a bit too much. Assuming ship weapon techs (for example) work like other techs, you'd have to:

* Research a theory to unlock an weapons tech application
* Research the application to unlock the weapon itself
* Make a ship design using the new weapon
* Research the new design
* Produce a ship of the new design
* Move the ship to where you want to use it

That's a lot of steps to get a ship into play. Some are probably unavoidable, but given the necessary length, any additional delays may be too annoying or frustrating, or seem like needless complexity to the player...

[Alberjohns]

One could also assume that research already includes development and prototypes and testing in its current cost. That would be simpler.

Yes. That is a good point, I suppose. Needless complexity which does not add to the enjoyment of the game should be avoided. But on the other hand, there may be good reasons for imposing some cost on the design of new ships. This could be done in many ways.

A very simple way would be to charge money for each new design, and this cost could depend on the size, type, and technological advancement of the ship. Ships designed with older technology would cost very little, whereas ships designed with advanced technology could be very expensive. Some races may be natural engineers, and get a significant discount on the cost of designing new ships.

With this system, It could then become advantageous to trade ship designs. In fact, one race could hire another race to design a ship for them. Ship designs could also be stolen with spies. Such a system could provide elements of enjoyable game play if implemented properly.

[eleazar]

I don't really see benefit in adding extra steps into the design process.
It sounds like mostly busy-work: a series of steps without interesting strategic options that the player will have to repeat every time he wants a new ship.

I do think it's reasonable to apply some sort of extra cost/build-time/tax to prototype ships. Not because it's realistic, but it will make the choice not to design a new ship every time he discovers a new component reasonable.

If there is no "tax" on designing new ships, the best strategy will always be to design a new ship whenever a new useful component is researched. Soon you might have so many variations of ships it will be hard to remember the details of each. A player may want to do that, and that's fine, but he will pay more frequently the "prototype tax" to offset the advantage of always having the latest tech in your ships.

A "prototype tax" could be exacted in two ways:
1) as an additional cost (materials, money, time, whatever) during the building of each prototype/
2) as an increase in the cost of upkeep per ship, as the number of deployed ship designs increases.


I doubt selling/stealing ship designs will be very fun, unless the costs of designing a new ship are excessively high. After all, you will need to have all the necessary tech in place to build it. Wouldn't you rather send your spies after new tech, or valuable strategic info?

[lazor]

I don't really see benefit in adding extra steps into the design process.
It sounds like mostly busy-work: a series of steps without interesting strategic options that the player will have to repeat every time he wants a new ship.

Others said this before, but i disagree. Making ship design a process wouldn't add another step, it would just make one step longer/more expensive.

Adding all that stuff about building a prototype (which I would make something that gets automatically produced while the ship development goes on) and taking that thing to some kind of testing ground (or just a simulation, and then you get the chance to tweak some parameters, change the design a bit, something like that I thought about when writing the corresponding part in my first post) would add some more steps, quite alot actually.

Those steps should then be skippable, I would want that myself. But then you won't get a 'handtuned' ship design.

I do think it's reasonable to apply some sort of extra cost/build-time/tax to prototype ships. Not because it's realistic, but it will make the choice not to design a new ship every time he discovers a new component reasonable.

If there is no "tax" on designing new ships, the best strategy will always be to design a new ship whenever a new useful component is researched. Soon you might have so many variations of ships it will be hard to remember the details of each. A player may want to do that, and that's fine, but he will pay more frequently the "prototype tax" to offset the advantage of always having the latest tech in your ships.

Thats mostly why I came up with my idea on making ship design something that cost money and/or time in the first place. To impose some kind of restriction, so the player cannot just create a new design every time he discovers a new technolgy.

A "prototype tax" could be exacted in two ways:
1) as an additional cost (materials, money, time, whatever) during the building of each prototype/
2) as an increase in the cost of upkeep per ship, as the number of deployed ship designs increases.

I would prefer number 1, because I think creating a ship design would be something that would cost the player time/money once. So, if he can afford to design many ships, he can do so.

I doubt selling/stealing ship designs will be very fun, unless the costs of designing a new ship are excessively high. After all, you will need to have all the necessary tech in place to build it. Wouldn't you rather send your spies after new tech, or valuable strategic info?

I think the ship designs are (or should be) a valuable strategic information for your enemies.

You're right, in those games I played so far, I would not have send my spies after the ship designs of my enemies. But thats mostly because those design wouldn't be so different from my own (in multiplayer), or would just be bad (when playing vs. the AI). [I generalise a bit here, there were some occasions where I would have liked to steal my enemies ship designs, but I say most of the time it didn't matter, but so did stealing ships too for my style of playing]

But I think that is a flaw in those games, I kind of assume that you guys will come up with some ship design possibilities that really do have significant differences, so you have to apply different strategies to counter them. Making the design plans of your enemy a very valueable source of strategic information.

On the market idea: I didn't mean a market where you sell ship designs, I thought of something like a global market for ships.

So, you could sell your old ships instead of scraping them. But you could also sell the license to produce ships to some private manufacturer, making it a mass product, so you can get your own ships cheaper from the global market then producing them yourself.

When I think about that market thing, it is actually quite a complex thing I envision. There would be prices on the market that adjust to the number of ships produced vs. the number of ships bought.
So if a war is brewing somewhere, those numbers would reflect the arms race between the contenders.

Maybe this is all too much economy and not enough 'space strategy'. But I think that good economics are a crucial part of a 4X game, and ships are just something that I think would be a very good 'trading good' for the players (in multiplayer, when the AI comes into play, its somehow a totally different story).

[MikkoM]

One thing this prototype system might do, is add more weight to the ship designing, since if your ships wouldn`t do as well in battle as you thought they would, it would take even longer before you could bring in new designs to the battle field. Now I don`t know if this would be in the end such a good thing, since it might force the player to either design and test multiple versions of the ship that he/she wants to produce or to play it "safe" and produce ships that would be filled with all kinds of components regardless of the production costs and so produce more monotonous designs. Also since there will be a lot of other things for the player to do than just ship design/space battles, I don`t see the need of making ship designing more complex.

I do think it's reasonable to apply some sort of extra cost/build-time/tax to prototype ships. Not because it's realistic, but it will make the choice not to design a new ship every time he discovers a new component reasonable.

If there is no "tax" on designing new ships, the best strategy will always be to design a new ship whenever a new useful component is researched. Soon you might have so many variations of ships it will be hard to remember the details of each. A player may want to do that, and that's fine, but he will pay more frequently the "prototype tax" to offset the advantage of always having the latest tech in your ships.

Is this kind of taxing system really necessary? Now I would imagine that even if you would design a new ship every time you get new technology, you would still have those already build older ships with the old design. And so it would take a lot of time before the ships with the new design would be a majority in your fleet. So you wouldn`t always have the latest tech in all of your ships.

Also maybe there could be some sort of option to upgrade your older ships with new technology, which of course would cost recourses and take time. This way you wouldn`t necessarily be forced to come up with an all new design when you develop new technology, assuming of course that the new technology can be fitted to your older ships.