Buildings, a list of ideas

[Krikkitone]

If we implement distributed building then that advantage will be gone, but if we have a better battle system then MOO2's then they will probably still have their place: Small ships for flexibility, large ships for that extra womph. I don't think that principal should ever change in an unmodded game.

Well I'd say that
1. The advantage needs to be minimal (so that a mass swarm of small ships is a reasonable strategy/tactic against an equally priced larger ship fleet..possible Rock Paper Scissors effects not withstanding)...NOT like it is in MOO2+3 where bigger is almost Always better

2. I think the problem came with the attempt to eliminate that extreme flexibility advantage.

3. Finally it is not so much making them the same that I argue for in most places but stopping the inevitable tech progression to larger ships (which is partially fixed by making ship cost at a given tech level roughly proportional to industrial output per pop unit.)




Proposal "Square 1"

Each world can build a MIC (Military-Industrial Complex) of any size.

The rate at which that world can spend PPs on ships is directly proportional to the size of the MIC..which is directly proportional to its build and maintenance costs.

All MICs can build all sizes of ships allowed at maximum efficiency.
They can also mobilize ships (where the size of the MIC determines how many PP's worth of ships it can mobilize in a turn...delay time to mobilize is another factor.)

There are no, or VERY minimal techs that influence MIC other than those allowing the construction of larger ships...perhaps a few that make mobilization more effective, but not much.... Perhaps 'Naval Academy' Techs that improve training, and starting experience would work here...

The only choice to make for a world's MIC is how much to spend on it... that's it. (designation of special shipyard worlds would probably mean they spend say 10x as much on it as normal)


If ship spending is only limited by MIC size, and the bigger ships consistently take the output of a few systems for a few turns, players will Want to concentrate their MICs. (as long as they can concentrate resources from all over the empire for no/minimal cost)

The only reason to spread them out would be to allow more rapid mobilization/reaching the front.

[skdiw]

I thought industry = ship builder. What else are you going to do with industry worlds in the long hull? Tax generation and pay an overhead for another colony to produce ships? Unlikely.

1. The advantage needs to be minimal (so that a mass swarm of small ships is a reasonable strategy/tactic against an equally priced larger ship fleet..possible Rock Paper Scissors effects not withstanding)...NOT like it is in MOO2+3 where bigger is almost Always better

Keep in mind that you did spend 999 quadrillion rp and 200 turns to research combat efficiency improvements. Big are suppose to be better overall. I say about 80% or most of the time. The advantage needs to be substantial, not minimal.

2. I think the problem came with the attempt to eliminate that extreme flexibility advantage.

3. Finally it is not so much making them the same that I argue for in most places but stopping the inevitable tech progression to larger ships (which is partially fixed by making ship cost at a given tech level roughly proportional to industrial output per pop unit.)

Production flexibility is more of a perk of small ships and should not consider it as a major advantage. You want small ships for a strategic reason; I don't consider that it builds fast and can be built on any planet a compelling reason to base your almightly epic strategem around.

The progression for better ships is inevitable. Making large ships is one of many way why players dump money into research because large ships = more frags. All 4x game do it that way; that doesn't mean FO needs to be that way; you can do it other ways like making ppl chose whether they want to research large or the small branch (both equally balanced) and improve your ownage rate that way.

The tech tree needs to be exp in cost so that in most games on mid-sized maps, players won't uncover the whole tech tree and stop in mid way one battlecruisers or somehting.

In most games, I only see large late-game fleets running around in uncompetitive games. In real tourney games and such, battle happens almost immediately and players never have the chance to size up 100 leviathans just for a bomb squadran. That only happens against the AI when you snowball and win via research or the death fleet. I believe we already have a thread dealing with that problem.

Back to the topic of buildings: shipyards. I would rather see a simple shipyard level where each level increases the size of ship you can build. Futhermore, the maintenence is small so AI doesn't go crazy and start making shipyard everywhere and then the player have to micro to scrap them. We can make shipyard building purely manual to get around that problem.

I don't see thepoint of having shipyard being expensive. The fixed cost is going to be diluted to oblivion by the variable cost. Plus you already spend millions and many turns developing that industry world in the first place.

I think MIC is good if we wanted a imperial ship build macro approach.

[EntropyAvatar]

So you're saying that you want to be able to write a mod that makes small ships much more efficient then large ships? That could have some interesting repercussions for game play.

It's not that I particularly want to make such a mod, but that a good design leaves open the possibility.

[EntropyAvatar]

If ship spending is only limited by MIC size, and the bigger ships consistently take the output of a few systems for a few turns, players will Want to concentrate their MICs. (as long as they can concentrate resources from all over the empire for no/minimal cost)

I note that this reason only seems to apply to large ships, but maybe that's OK. The rest seems good. I'll try to come up with an alternative model over the weekend.

[EntropyAvatar]

I thought industry = ship builder. What else are you going to do with industry worlds in the long hull? Tax generation and pay an overhead for another colony to produce ships? Unlikely.

I think there's a difference between spending money so you can make money and spending money so you can make ships. The industry worlds are crucial to keep everything running, including building the ship components that are assembled at shipyards. Shipyards themselves will probably be located on (or over?) industrial worlds.

Keep in mind that you did spend 999 quadrillion rp and 200 turns to research combat efficiency improvements. Big are suppose to be better overall. I say about 80% or most of the time. The advantage needs to be substantial, not minimal.

The 999 quadrillion should buy you a cost/performance advantage, but maybe you put it into large ships and he put his 999 quadrillion into better weapons, or technologies that make small ships more effective.

In most games, I only see large late-game fleets running around in uncompetitive games.

This is a good point, but I still think maintenance should prevent people from building up huge active fleets.

I don't see thepoint of having shipyard being expensive. The fixed cost is going to be diluted to oblivion by the variable cost. Plus you already spend millions and many turns developing that industry world in the first place.

The way I see it, if shipyards aren't expensive, then they aren't important. If they aren't important, then why bother having them? One industrial world is much the same as the next, but the world that has 40% of your ship construction capability...


Just remembered one thing that would be fun and encourage concentration of shipyards. Say the shipyard is represented as an orbiting structure on the tactical map. That means it can be destroyed in a raid. Especially if it's small. Even more deliciously, the damage is first applied to vulnerable ships under construction. You were expecting that Leviathan next turn? Whoops... maybe you should have defended your shipyard world a little better.

You could also have damage to the shipyard/MIC get translated into mothballed hulls that are destroyed.

[Krikkitone]

skdiw wrote:
I thought industry = ship builder. What else are you going to do with industry worlds in the long hull? Tax generation and pay an overhead for another colony to produce ships? Unlikely.


I think there's a difference between spending money so you can make money and spending money so you can make ships. The industry worlds are crucial to keep everything running, including building the ship components that are assembled at shipyards. Shipyards themselves will probably be located on (or over?) industrial worlds.

Yeah, I was thinking the MIC would be limited by the standard limitations of planetary spending (declining returns past normal planetary wealth based on Industry).
And the Ships would then get built based on a direct AU from government military budget to ship construction/refit, each having to be done on a particular world and limited by its MIC capacity.

(we could also have 'reserve/mothballed ships located at particular spots)

This means that shipyards would be best at your biggest industrial worlds (ie high population worlds as the largest portion of your worlds would probably be industry focus)

The progression for better ships is inevitable. Making large ships is one of many way why players dump money into research because large ships = more frags. All 4x game do it that way; that doesn't mean FO needs to be that way; you can do it other ways like making ppl chose whether they want to research large or the small branch (both equally balanced) and improve your ownage rate that way.

The progression towards Better ships is inevitable, the progression towards Bigger ships is driven by game mechanics.
For example,
in MOO2 the increase in per person productivity is about 7-9*
the increase in the cost of a fully equipped cruiser is ~2* at most.

This means that you produce ~ 4* as much ship space per person...AND those ships are better.

I think ship system cost:industrial productivity needs to be kept constant, so that a Leviathan is Always a major commitment (taking the whole GWP of a world just to maintain) assuming your Leviathan is top of the line.




Also, I think I like the idea of researching a path... so your 'planning for chosen ship size' is based on the right type of research in advance rather than building the right type of shipyards in advance.

The tech tree needs to be exp in cost so that in most games on mid-sized maps, players won't uncover the whole tech tree and stop in mid way one battlecruisers or somehting.

Well it's not just cost, its cost:productivity ratio... for example in MOO2 it Was basically exponential, but productivity was also nearly exponential (with increasing returns from labs And morale).. meaning that time to tech declined or stayed constant as time went on.

[utilae]

About the idea of small ships being equal to large ships:

It's not a bad idea, I think it's what we want. After all, we want situations where a player with heaps of small ships can take on a player with a few large ships.

One of the main factors about small ships is their cost, they are cheap, so a player who only builds small ships should have HEAPS of small ships. So in battle, a player with HEAPS of small ships should be able to bring HEAPS into battle.

Now lets say:
Small Ships=Large Ships

Here's how:

Small ships:
+Cheap
+Low build time
+Greater numbers (have more ships then if building large ships)
+Less shipyard capacity needed
+Less tech required
+Harder to hit (smaller)
+More manuerverable
-Destroyed easily
-Cannot fit large weapons/equipment
-Can fit less weapons/equipment then large ships
-Cannot be carriers

Large ships:
-Expensive
-High build time
-Fewer numbers (have less ships then if building small ships)
-More shipyard capacity needed
-More tech required
-Easier to hit (larger)
-Less manuerverable
+Hard to destroy
+Can fit large weapons/equipment
+Can fit more weapons/equipment then small ships
+Can be carriers

Look at that, the small ships seem to have more advantages, though large ships have the more important advantages. You could basically say that Small Ships=Large Ships.

[Ace]

Here's a slightly radical idea:

As opposed to buildings you have "system upgrades."

System Research Networks, Artemis Nets, Terraforming etc. would all be "buildings" and they instantly effect the a planet or a system within it.

Other research items would be global upgrades that would update the entire empire. Such as improved computer systems in MOO1, etc.

Overall, fewer but more costly buildings that more directly effect gameplay such as hyperspace inhibitors would be constructed as opposed to laboratories.

[Ablaze]

I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to say here. There's a general consensus around these parts that things like industry upgrades should be handled as a level of infrastructure rather then a series of buildings (similar to how MOO1 did it.)

Your post does remind me of an idea I have been kicking around for a while: Empire buildings. These are buildings which would be built by the empire government and wouldn't be tied to any particular planet. Some of them would be the natural extension of a research project, others might effect a large area of space. For example; researching subspace communications would allow you to build the Subspace Network Backbone which would give you an economy bonus.. so you would have to spend money in addition to research to reap the benefits of subspace.

This would also allow you to build things like remote mining outposts, deep space sensor arrays, or possibly shipyards that have the capacity to move around in space and effect more then one planet, while being supported by your entire empire (treated like buildings rather then ships.)

[EntropyAvatar]

To expand on Ablaze's point, I see two types of buildings. One is just your generic infrastructure (4 different areas) that basically gets built automatically according to player guidelines.

The second type is a more diverse, interesting type of buildings something like what you (Ace) mentioned. You won't be building this type all over the place, as each one is fairly important.

Added to that there would be Achievements (requiring research) and maybe something called Projects (requiring research and investment). Maybe empire-level buildings fit in somewhere as well...

The infrastructure is the 'bread and butter' that doesn't require much attention except during emergencies. We have it represent 'normal' economic investment so that the special stuff is truly special.