Ship Design: Stars! vs Moo vs SEIV

[Sejant Chimera]

That's why I'm suggesting that all systems are defended rather then a concentration of forces. I'd suggest that if the enemy can bypass a system and attack the one 'behind' it, then there is no depth in the static defenses and there must be no reserve available to plug the gap.

True, like the proverbial Starcraft Terran Bunker defence, where if it held, you could withstand even the biggest Zergling attack... But once it breached, you were doomed.

Well, I haven't played it, I think I agree

However, the problem with defences is that to build them you must take money that could go into making ships and divert it into making defences that can easily get overwhelmed.

That is why I suggested that you could build five 'mass production' ships for the price of one. Let me explain a bit better:

In the technology tree might be a series of ship designs such as 'Mass Production Lancer/Defense Lancer', or later 'Mass Production Frigate/Defence Frigate'. You can build three to five (depending on playtesting) of these for the same cost of a larger ship, so 5DF Lancers = 1 Normal Destroyer and 5DF Frigates = 1 Normal Cruiser and would appear at roughly the same level in the tech tree (again, a playtesting issue).

So for five colonies, they could build either ten cruisers or ten defence frigates EACH. And remember that the planets will have their previous planety defences as well. Since production is being split into different areas, you don't get one fleet with hundreds of ships that just blasts everything in sight, but a number of smaller defensive and attacking squadrons, each with a seperate role.

The mass production ships would be limited: can only jump to a friendly system and quite slowly, limited to one weapon type and two weapon mount types, and only one special. To cut down on micromanagement, there are only one or two designs per mass production class, but the refits would be done automatically, like space stations and planetry defences in MOO2. The main ships would therefore be very special since they could have any variation of weapons, turret types and specials. I imagine the mass production ships being the generic ships in the background of an anime space battle (normally coloured light brown, for some reason ) while the other ships you build are the ones that the story focuses one (and normally bothers to name).

In some ways, I like the "Command and Conquer, Generals" idea for defence, where one gattling cannon can a) Massacre enemy troops, b) damage medium-armor vehicles, c) Completely innefective and vulnerable to heavy vehicles and artillery.

[snip]

Of course, your opponent could go the safe way, and build one 'gattling cannon', one 'bunker', one 'sam site' and one 'artillery' so they are generally 'well rounded' in their defence, but it would only be effective against a well-mixed fleet.

Being able to design the space stations and orbital defenses could achieve this. Do you build your orbital platforms with just x2 missiles and fast missile racks, to see them sit around and do nothing when the missiles hit their target and the enemy is left? Or do you go with mass drivers, which can hit a target a very long way, but aren't as powerful as fusion cannons?

Perhaps an option would be to have 2 classes of defences... The standard ones you can fit on any planet that have minimal cost, and the specialized ones that cost a lot more.

I'm not really fond of that idea because I can see the standard ones becoming usless as the better technologies come out and we're back at the same point (as someone recently pointed out) of an advanced scout ship bombarding planets.

[Sejant Chimera]

This is one of the few things that MOO3 did well. You needed point defence ships to withstand missile batteries, but also short/long range ships to engage in combat.

MOO3 did nothing well. NOTHING. I still have emotional scars left from purchasing that monstrosity.

Um, sorry if I've brought up any repressed memories or anything...

One of the WORST aspects of that game was the ship design / ship battle portions of the game, for the following reasons:

a) Ship specialization. In MOO3, each ship could only fulfil 1 function, and you had to produce many very different to create one multipurpose task force. It was the task forces that acted as I feel individual ships should act: capable of both offence and defence, long range and short range battles. In MOO2, you are welcome to make ships with nothing but missiles on them, and indeed these could be effective attackers, but you reap the consequences if the enemy has a Lightning Shield. This is where the strategy of the game comes in: designing based on your strengths and the enemy's weaknesses.

What I was trying to say was that MOO3 at least attempted to get the player to build fleets that looked 'realistic' (for want of a better word). Every ship in a naval fleet is not exactly the same. You need the mine sweepers, the submarine killers, and so on to support that mainstays of the fleet. I do agree however that this was done in a heavy handed way in that you were forced to have two reconnaissance ships in an armada. The AI used to hamstring itself by choosing small ships stuffed to the gunnels with ECM/ECCM, rather then a larger ship with sensor gear/cloak/light turrets. A simpler way would be to allow small ships to manouver faster, a higher evasion, and a greater success rate with spinal and/or heavy turrets.

b) All weapon classes virtually the same. In MOO3, a beam was a beam, a missile was a missile, and a mass driver was a mass driver. There was no strategy to ship design. Just slot in the latest version missile on your missile carriers and you're off!

Oh, I agree with you here. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that MOO3 was a fantastic game, or even a good game, it just had one or two good ideas... just not implimented very well.

c) The "RTS" fighting system. Need to attack a planet? Just build a massive fleet, drag a box around it and send it to attack. If I wanted a game like that, i'd buy Warcraft. I acknowledge the need for "live" battles, rather than turn-based, so that multiplayer games don't last forever, but there still needs to be strategy involved. I'm in the "fewer ships make a better game" camp; space battles should be few but decisive: more like naval battles (few powerful ships) and less like locust swarms.

As I said before elsewhere in this thread, I'm not a fan of grouping all the ships together and just running off to kill the universe. Imperium Galactica 2 was worst for that. I tried to play it with seperate fleets of ships (two defense, one attack) but the way it has been designed (and the storyline... but I'll stop there just in case someone hasn't played it) there's no way you can win unless you combine all your fleets. Grrrr...

To reitterate: MOO3 BAD. REALLY REAAAALLLLLYY BAD.
That's why this project fills me with such hope

I'm looking forward to what this project will produce as well.

[Sejant Chimera]

(Task forces in MOO3 being a summation of a fleet of ships into just one ship.)

It's not the concept of TF is bad, rather, it is how Moo3 requires scout ships be in every large TF. TF helps the player manage his specialized ships. You can mod Moo3 TF system really easy so you don't have weird requirements to form a TF.

I have liked the idea if it was a touch more flexable. Instead of the small fast ships being tied to the slower ships, they should have been allowed to move independantly. Therefore you could see point defence corvettes speeding away from the taskforce to intercept a group of missiles aimed at the capital ship, or see a group of destroyers trying to flank a group of titans to launch torpedoes and missiles at their more vunerable rear sections.

(In MOO3, technology became obsolete very quickly)

Yeah, that's really annoying how techs gets obsolete. That's why we try to come up with unique ideas that balances out in a simple rps system.

Another MOO3 idea which was badly implimented was the, "improved x" for early weapons. In MOO3 the improved version was often still underpowered compared to another tech nearby in the tech tree. After all, instead of going off and trying to invent a whole new weapon system, why not improve the focusing equipment, maximum effective range, and other attributes of an existing weapon? Also, since this would be a (relatively) minor update to a ship, it could benefit the player with a shorter upgrade time. As an example, for lasers:

Laser -> Improved Laser -> Ultra Laser

And each iteration up the chain either deepens the colour of the beam, or increases the thickness of the beam, for example.

However, coming up with ideas is much easier than programming and animating AoE, DoT, penetrating beams, and other special effects.

I appreciate that. This is why I haven't seriously suggested stuff like individual statistics for captains and fighter squadron commanders and seeing them getting commendations after an action, or the generation of a current affairs magazine or broad sheet newspaper based on the universe you are playing that you can read when you quit the game...

This is a big problem with split camps. Traditionally, you research from small ships to larger ships with larger ships being superior, but few. There are player or ppl who feel that certain races should be more the undead, building swarms of small ships to overwhelm their oponents so it will be a better tech system having small and large ship be separate parallel trees.
[snip - about parrallel tech trees and uses for all ship sizes]

Maybe the tech tree with be the same upto heavy cruiser and then pair off, so that the swarmer player might want to research battleship later for a capital ship while the large ship player might want a faster and slightly bigger scout ship?

[snip something we agree on]

[Getix]

I'm not particularly fond of the Inner-Outer Hull method used in Space Empires (I'm glad they droped in in IV). It cant account for the scale or shape the ship very well (a small fighter should realy be all external and a Death Star 90% internal) and seems rather artificialy contraining to me.

I had in mind a system that focuses on what direction (Forward, Aft, Port/Starboard) each part of the ship is oriented (and hence vulnerable from). Components on the inside are in the "Core" Location and get some protection IF their are things between them and the incoming fire (Components or Armor). Armor is alocated in a similar way.

When a ship is hit random rolles determin what gets hit based on a table of componets sizes and location. The overall layout of the ship is completly flexable and we don't force any particular combinations on the player because theirs no requirment that any individual location have anything in it.

in my opinion we should not complicate too much ship creations...

Anyway the 4 sides idea could be a good idea,,,

[guiguibaah]

Moo3 ship fighting is a lot more interesting if you increase the tech research delay, making for onger period warfare.

[Akula]

Sorry in advance for the length of this post, but as I am coming in late to this discussion and I have many things I wish to say, and having not read every post in this thread I will just jump in and give my ideas. If these are repeats of other’s ideas consider them a vote for that idea and if any new points are brought up feel free to comment.

All of the ideas I have seen mentioned so far have their merits, and any combination of these ideas would be good. The real limiting factor is to make it easy to understand so you do not spend hours reading help files to figure out how it works. And secondly it needs to be able to be done quickly if you are pressed for time, but still reward the player who spends the time to really give it some attention. I have played many of these types of games, be it mechwarrior or MOO. And I have to say that the ability to custom design your things is paramount to the game. The more control you have over the individuality of your things the more fun you can have in the game. This includes designing race as well and this is related slightly to my point here.

If each race has some things that will determine the possible end results in ship design this would be very nice. The idea is to make each ship from each player as widely variable as possible, while not over taxing the player in the design process. If say each race had some racial quality that could modify ship design, such as race X may have a bonus in total ship space per hull size, while race Y may have a bonus to damage done by the weapons, and Z may have a bonus to defensive values. Or any of them in combination as racial picks. The actual way this is done is not the key just that my ships may be different from yours in ways based on my racial picks.

Based also on race or maybe other aspects is the idea of “creative” in MOO2. Unlike PAX IMPERIA where eventually every player would research every technology there needs to be a method in place to make each player have differing technologies available to them. Be it based on the idea of “creative” from MOO, or player imposed choices where you are forced to pick a tech tree to research and in doing so it will make another tree unavailable to you. So maybe you research lasers but in doing so mass drivers will never be an option unless stolen or traded from another player. This makes espionage and trade play an important role in the design of ships and your cities as well.

As for the actual ship design method I really liked the MOO2 and PAX IMPERIA methods they were very similar in many ways, yet had a few items that could be combined. Both were basically setup that you had some amount of mass that your hull could hold and this was to be divided between all components. As for armor if it was not added to your hull space or mass as it was “external” it just added to the cost and time to build it. Any other components however were of an “internal” variety. The reason behind this is to make it simple. All items then pull from a single mass pool. All that matters is what they are and how many you put in.


As for weapon facing I think it is a good idea as I am against the large scale combat involving hundreds of ships. In PAX and MOO2 this was done very well in that any weapon setup as point defense had free firing arcs but a very limited range. and all others had to be defined in some covered arc.

For my friends and me the individual ship was much more fun. The idea of task forces in MOO3 totally ruined the game for us. As once you made the TF the individual ships were meaning less and therefore a waste of time and effort to go in and design each one. Now if a TF was more of a “formation” mode to get certain ships to start out and travel in a relative position to one another it would be fine as long as each ship retains it individuality and can be controlled as such. In MOO2 there was times when a fleet would reach unmanageable sizes as well. And this was just as bad. If at end game your fleet had a smaller number of ships and their individuality was emphasized it would be much more fun as the design of the individual ship would be realized. Like the posts about spending all this time researching a tech, and then building a ship only to realize your mega hold gel for the captain’s hair made no noticeable difference in the outcome. If the ships are detailed enough to take on a personality of their own and have a name like “Rampant Rose” rather than “Cruiser Mk, 4 serial no. 254” it is more enjoyable. Thus you may have a ship “template”, but only make 2 or 3 of this design before technology has made it obsolete.

This brings up my next point. A ship needs to be upgradeable as new technology comes out so a crew that has seen a lot of action and has its quality raised to give what ever bonuses that will entail is not lost just because you wish to add a second weapon to the ship. It will be desirable as time to refit a ship will be far shorter than total rebuild, as well as lower costs. It will keep your advanced crews supplied with the latest technologies. And a ship will start to develop a history and a personality of its own and you will identify with it as an individual and not just a nameless table of attack and defense values.


As for details on the actual design process I would vote for a system similar to this:

1. first and foremost there needs to be a method to have the computer design a ship for you based on your current technology, so if you are pressed for time you can quickly get a ship, or for some like a colony ship you may not care to go into detail and just tell the computer to give you the latest technology and be done.

2. Each hull has a fixed maximum capacity be it called space or mass.

3. Armor does not affect this space as it is part of the “hull” of the ship

4. All components will use this mass and will get smaller as tech is researched.

5. You are not forced to use the latest technology. i.e. i have researched shields 3 but may want to use level 1 to save space or something.

6. Covered arc is implemented where point defense weapons are free firing but all others have some covered arc.

7. Have individual components be such that you can destroy them. Weather this is done intentionally as in targeting the ships engine to cripple it. Or just an Aspect of the combat such that after shields and armor are gone your internal components start to take damage and may be destroyed.

8. The design process needs to be more than weapons and armor/shields. There needs to be special items as in MOO2 that can help in some specific and unique way.

9. “fighter” class ships on a carrier do not “need” to be individually designed but if not there needs to be several to choose from so you can mix and match the fighter load-out as you see fit. Or if the player wishes they may be able to customize the fighters as well based on current technology. This is not a big deal really but just a way to let a player express themselves even more if they want.

10. As this is a turn based game you need to be able to design ships while you wait for other players. So after you press “end turn” you can still open your ship design window and spend time on them while not making others wait for you to do this.

11. As technologies are researched there will be “add-ons” to your components like the things in MOO2 of shield penetrating, hard shields, no range dissipation, or MRV missiles, etc.

12. And finally your star-bases/planetary defenses need to be customizable as well. So you may choose to have more of a lesser missile in a missile base for example.

[noelte]

First, i agree with most of what you said. Overall like i have smilar thoughts about what should be done to be fo fun. Second, it's a large post, but i would like to comment some points (as i see them).

idea of task forces in MOO3 totally ruined the game for us.

The idea of task forces are not so bad. Moo3 didn't do it well and ship design was awful.

the ships are detailed enough to take on a personality of their own and have a name like “Rampant Rose” rather than “Cruiser Mk, 4 serial no. 254”

I guess we agreed in having a rather lage fleet. So, i guess we don't have individual ships (not sure) Otherwise (only few ships) task forces wouldn't make much sense.

5. You are not forced to use the latest technology. i.e. i have researched shields 3 but may want to use level 1 to save space or something.

My thoughts, but there was already some discussion about that issue and as i remember it was said that every new tech (e.g. Shield lvl1 ->lvl2) would be better in every aspect (Energy consumption, space, costs), so it would make no sense to use and older type. But i guess thats not written into stone.

7. Have individual components be such that you can destroy them.

as i remember most people liked that idea. Don't remember if there was a final aggreement.

10. As this is a turn based game you need to be able to design ships while you wait for other players. So after you press “end turn” you can still open your ship design window and spend time on them while not making others wait for you to do this.

That's an issue, but IMO it won't be handle anytime soon.

11. As technologies are researched there will be “add-ons” to your components like the things in MOO2 of shield penetrating, hard shields, no range dissipation, or MRV missiles, etc.

We will have something like that (i believe it was called refinement)

[Geoff the Medio]

the ships are detailed enough to take on a personality of their own and have a name like “Rampant Rose” rather than “Cruiser Mk, 4 serial no. 254”

I guess we agreed in having a rather lage fleet. So, i guess we don't have individual ships (not sure) Otherwise (only few ships) task forces wouldn't make much sense.

I don't think any consensus on fleet size (eg. # of ships) was reached. I'd much rather have total empire fleets and fleets in a battle be small enough that each ship can be controlled individually, though I'd also like to optional have the ability to group dissimilar ships as a task force for battles.

5. You are not forced to use the latest technology. i.e. i have researched shields 3 but may want to use level 1 to save space or something.

My thoughts, but there was already some discussion about that issue and as i remember it was said that every new tech (e.g. Shield lvl1 ->lvl2) would be better in every aspect (Energy consumption, space, costs), so it would make no sense to use and older type. But i guess thats not written into stone.

The idea was that refinements would be exactly the same size, so that you wouldn't have to redesign a ship after adding a refined version of a component, which freed up some space that you then wanted to fill with more weapons. If all refinements are the same size, you just swap out the old ones for the new ones, and the ship's design hasn't changed, and you're saved the micro of adding new parts to the old design.

7. Have individual components be such that you can destroy them.

as i remember most people liked that idea. Don't remember if there was a final aggreement.

The level of detail in battles is basically inversely proportional to the numbers of ships involved... if there are 10 ships in a battle typically, then having each one have parts that can individually break is probly a good idea. If there are 1000s of ships, then each will be "dead" or "alive" and nothing in between.

11. As technologies are researched there will be “add-ons” to your components like the things in MOO2 of shield penetrating, hard shields, no range dissipation, or MRV missiles, etc.

We will have something like that (i believe it was called refinement)

We haven't really decided, but I suspect that refinements and mods for ship components will be a separate concepts. Give then above, the idea was to make refinements always better. However, if you can refine to add mods, and there a different options for mods in which one option isn't always better than the other, that breaks the system, and you have to store which type of a particular weapon a particular ship's design includes.

More likely, if there are mods at all, when you design a ship you might be able to specify to add a mod to it for some benefit. There could be separate lines of weapon sub-types for each mod type (eg. lasers with mod1, lasers with mod2) and each mod type of a weapon would be refined separately. There could also be only one line of refinements for each weapon type, but these refinements are researched and applied separate from the mods, so you could have one ship with lasers mk. IV and double-fast firing mod, and another with lasers mk. IV and extra range mod. These would be separate ship classes though, I suspect. Refinement wouldn't change or add mods on on/to a ship.

[utilae]

In terms of refinements:
-Shield mk2 will always be better than shield mk1.
-However, phase shield and absorb shield are not better than each other, they have advantages and disadvantages (these are examples of course).
-Refinements unlock mods, like shield piercing.
-The system isn't broken if you get different mods as a result of refinements. Mods and refinements are independant of each other (in my view).

[Impaler]

As Geoff points out Mk1 -> Mk2 -> Mk3 will all be the same size/volume/mass (what ever the limiting factor for how much "stuff" can go in a ship). This avoids the micro and complexity of filling the now vacated space.

Their will also obviosly be an incresse in raw effect, such as damage for a weapon or defence values for armor. But Costs could go either way depending on what we deside. If costs always incresse at higher Mk level then using older low tec versions might be usefull (this will require good balacing though). If costs are Equal or less then their is no point to using anything less then cutting edge tec. I think incressing cost with Mk level makes the most sense and provides the best options for interesting game play.

To elaborate on Utilae's coments:

If one is familiar with Magic the Gathering then think of Mods as being "Enchant Component" cards that get put onto particular types of components "Echant Lasers", "Enchant Engines" and give them special abilites. Infact now that I think about it perhaps "Enhancments" is a better name then "Mods" as it sounds a bit more flavorfull and descriptive.

As to how they are Researched and unlocked, my poistion is to keep them seperate from the Refinment of the items then attatch too. Rather then have "Mk5 Shields" make the "Phasing Shield Mod" avalible give the Mod its own spot on the tec tree (underneith som generic "Energy Shield Theory") the player can then chosse to focus on Refining their basic components OR developing Mods for them. If one can do both at the same time then things will be very linear and predictable. The only way I would realy "like" Mods being unlocked for refinments is if its a random process, each level of refinment randomly unlocks 1 Mod, when you hit the end of the refinments you will have access to all the Mods (this could perhaps be done at the Theory level rather then the Aplication level). This would make each game much more unique due to the unpredictability of the Mods.

[Ablaze]

Yum! I've always wanted a way to make lasers more flaverful. I can't tell you how many times I've said to myself, "This laser is pretty tastey, but it needs something.."

[Geoff the Medio]

Infact now that I think about it perhaps "Enhancments" is a better name then "Mods" as it sounds a bit more flavorfull and descriptive.

It's more descriptive, but I don't like what the description implies... The mods should be "value neutral", as in that it's not always better to have more mods, or even any mods rather than no mods. Each mod would have advantages and disadvantages, so it would be a difficult and contextually dependent strategic decision as to whether to use one (or more if possible).

The term "modifications" sounds less obviously always advantageous than "enhancements", so is better IMO. But there's nothing sacred about "modification"; another value-neutral term would be fine too...

[discord]

geoff: the only way for more power(in a laser) to have a downside, is if you include heat/power management, and asfar as i know, such will not be in....so the only possible downsides left are 'cost' and space it takes, just pointing out the obviuos here.

[Daveybaby]

Its not that simple. Say you have a multifire mod, which makes the weapon fire 3 times as often for only twice the space. Clearly this mod is going to make the weapon more effective in a point defence role per unit space than an unmodded weapon.

However, if you are going up against heavily armoured capital ships the multifire mod isnt the ideal option. Youre far better off using the space to mount a heavier mount of the weapon than making it multifire.

This can apply equally to most mods, e.g. shield piercing is only cost effective vs a certain thickness of shields.

The way to look at this is: make 'enhanced' a mod. e.g. 'enhanced laser' is an all-round improved laser, i.e. it delivers more power for the same size/power/cost.

[Impaler]

Mods like Refinment should NOT effect the space a weapon requires for the same reasons, it makes upgrading and changing ships an exercise in Micro (one change forces more changes inorder to make most efficient use of space, in general cost should be more important then space).

Mods should be SPACE NUTRAL and only effect weapon Properties and Costs. A Rapid Fire Mod for example could Triple the Rate of Fire but Half the Damage.

My preference would be for Refinment to result in Escalating Cost so a Mk 3 Laser Cost more then an Mk1 but dose considerably more damage (more then balancing the incressed cost). Mods though could be Cost Nutral and simply effect properties in some manor that is going to make the weapon more or less "specialized" (as in the above example) rather then "better", tactical situations will determine if you made a good or bad choice. The Cost of Changing a Mod when a ship is being upgraded/retrofited is based of the Cost of the underlying Component its on. Its half the components cost to Remove and Half to Add (so a switch is equal to the full weapon cost). Upgrading the Base Component ignores the Mods.