ship technology

[marhawkman]

That strategy would be ideal if the AI could be that smart. Take an RTS game and tell the unit with more speed and range to attack and they don't quite have as much success.

That's because they can't move and fire at the same time in an RTS game--they must stop to fire. A key limitation of the combat engine, that meant that melee units had a very hard time attacking a moving target.

Moo, on the other hand, will probably allow ships to move and shoot in the same round.

Well to be honest the two scenarios are somewhat different. but RTS is crap..... It DOES make sense for a Crossbowman to need to stop to fire. But a Spaceship? Not really. Computerized targeting can handle all of the minor annoyances that would cause you to need to stop.

[Geoff the Medio]

It DOES make sense for a Crossbowman to need to stop to fire. But a Spaceship? Not really. Computerized targeting can handle all of the minor annoyances that would cause you to need to stop.

Actually, whether a ship has to stop moving to fire a particular weapon or not could be an interesting and/or important property of that weapon, or the targetting systems the ship has built into it. Ships might also be better at scanning, and better at avoiding being scanned / being cloaked, while immobile. If there is a shield facings system implemented, steering into ordinance might make it more / less damaging... or aiming ordinance into the back of a moving ship could be more effective if firing the engines weakens or disables defences in that direction.

[marhawkman]

It DOES make sense for a Crossbowman to need to stop to fire. But a Spaceship? Not really. Computerized targeting can handle all of the minor annoyances that would cause you to need to stop.

Actually, whether a ship has to stop moving to fire a particular weapon or not could be an interesting and/or important property of that weapon, or the targetting systems the ship has built into it. Ships might also be better at scanning, and better at avoiding being scanned / being cloaked, while immobile. If there is a shield facings system implemented, steering into ordinance might make it more / less damaging... or aiming ordinance into the back of a moving ship could be more effective if firing the engines weakens or disables defences in that direction.

Hmm.. The cloaking bit sounds good. But the rest seems like it'd be too much complexity.

[ErikAlbert]

Complexity for its own sake.

Realism arguments.

Because it sound cool and has never being done before.

Nuff said.

[guiguibaah]

That strategy would be ideal if the AI could be that smart. Take an RTS game and tell the unit with more speed and range to attack and they don't quite have as much success.

That's because they can't move and fire at the same time in an RTS game--they must stop to fire. A key limitation of the combat engine, that meant that melee units had a very hard time attacking a moving target.

Moo, on the other hand, will probably allow ships to move and shoot in the same round.

Well one RTS game that does it quite well is Command and Conquer - Generals. If you play as China Nuke (a side that has very large tanks that shoot far, and are fast) you tell your overlord tanks (the big ones) to attack a target, then as your target is approaching you tell them to move away. They'll keep the turret targeted on the nearby enemy and keep firing.

This is really really annoying (to me) as I play GLA a lot - a side that has small, short-firing range tanks. My tanks are about as fast as an Nuke overlord, but once a damaged overlord starts to retreat all it's friends retreat as well, and I suffer huge casualties just chasing them.


That was before I learned to position bomb trucks away from the overlords, so that when the overlords retreat they retreat right into them.


Star Control 2 does this a lot with it's ships as well - they learn to stay out of range of a short-firing vessel (like the vux interceptor) and pummel it from a distance.

[marhawkman]

Well that's part of why you need to be able to design ships. If they keep trying to out range you you can design ships to be faster so that you can outspeed them.

I recently came up with a new idea. hulls have a "size" associated with them. Eg cruiser = 100. But to add a certain amount of flexibility beyond normal, I'm proposing we make it so you can make a "complete" ship design that ranges from 33% of the hull size to 300% of the hull size. Now before people start running around scared..... There is a downside. Making the ship extra large makes it slower and increases the cost associated with it.

Say your ship "hunter" has a set of engines, 1 armor, 1 shield generator, and 3 Pulse cannons. Now this is the "Normal" version. You go and decide to "supersize" it. The new version has a set of engines, 2 armor, 2 shield generators, and 9 Pulse cannons. but since it's twice as big with the same engines, it's gonna be half as fast. In and out of combat. Granted it'd be able to take on 3 regular ships, but it'd cost as much to build as 2 ships. Also with it's reduced speed it'd only go half as far with a full tank of fuel.

EDIT2: Also if you make a "micro version.... It might have engines, armor(or shield) and 2 cannons. Why? Reduced cost and increased speed. Only using half the hull would give you twice the speed, and reduce the total cost by half.

[Krikkitone]

Well in that case there is not much point in having ship sizes, in that case just list a Maximum size your empire can build (ie you can build ships up to size X)

Each extra thing added increases the size and so makes your ship's engines, shields and armor less effective (the latter two because they are more spread out).. it also has whatever other effects of size are desired (less maneuverability, less stealth)
(This assumes that Engines armor and shilds could be added like weapons, ie multiples, stacked)

That might be good, each ship size is actually a Range of sizes (Frigate = size 101-200, Destroyer=201-400, Cruiser=401-800, etc.) and is merely used to describe the ship.

[marhawkman]

Well in that case there is not much point in having ship sizes, in that case just list a Maximum size your empire can build (ie you can build ships up to size X)

Each extra thing added increases the size and so makes your ship's engines, shields and armor less effective (the latter two because they are more spread out).. it also has whatever other effects of size are desired (less maneuverability, less stealth)
(This assumes that Engines armor and shilds could be added like weapons, ie multiples, stacked)

That might be good, each ship size is actually a Range of sizes (Frigate = size 101-200, Destroyer=201-400, Cruiser=401-800, etc.) and is merely used to describe the ship.

Yes!!!! Someone understands!!!! Research to be able to make bigger ships. And ships aren't necessarily the same size even if the same "class". A large part of why I thought of this is how much I get annoyed when a ship design I made needs just a tiny bit more room.

[ewh02b]

under Krikk's idea, we wouldn't have ship sizes so much as we would have engine sizes. is that basically the idea?

[marhawkman]

under Krikk's idea, we wouldn't have ship sizes so much as we would have engine sizes. is that basically the idea?

Nooooo...... The idea is that ship sizes are actually size RANGES...

[utilae]

So, basically the size of the ship = the size of all components.

I think it is quite possible to have both in ship design:
-fit components into hull of X size
-make hull to fit all components of ship, of size X

[marhawkman]

So, basically the size of the ship = the size of all components.

I think it is quite possible to have both in ship design:
-fit components into hull of X size
-make hull to fit all components of ship, of size X

Erm. Sorta. but there's the cost scaling idea for the hull sizes.

[ewh02b]

under Krikk's idea, we wouldn't have ship sizes so much as we would have engine sizes. is that basically the idea?

Nooooo...... The idea is that ship sizes are actually size RANGES...

I was oversimplifying, but that's the unintended consequence of your proposal. If I can take a "frigate" engine, and add 3x the tonnage to it, it goes 1/4th the speed.

If I take the battleship engine, and take away 3/4th the tonnage, I get 4x the speed.

That's what you were saying when you said:

I recently came up with a new idea. hulls have a "size" associated with them. Eg cruiser = 100. But to add a certain amount of flexibility beyond normal, I'm proposing we make it so you can make a "complete" ship design that ranges from 33% of the hull size to 300% of the hull size. Now before people start running around scared..... There is a downside. Making the ship extra large makes it slower and increases the cost associated with it.

[marhawkman]

under Krikk's idea, we wouldn't have ship sizes so much as we would have engine sizes. is that basically the idea?

Nooooo...... The idea is that ship sizes are actually size RANGES...

I was oversimplifying, but that's the unintended consequence of your proposal. If I can take a "frigate" engine, and add 3x the tonnage to it, it goes 1/4th the speed.

If I take the battleship engine, and take away 3/4th the tonnage, I get 4x the speed.

That's what you were saying when you said:

I recently came up with a new idea. hulls have a "size" associated with them. Eg cruiser = 100. But to add a certain amount of flexibility beyond normal, I'm proposing we make it so you can make a "complete" ship design that ranges from 33% of the hull size to 300% of the hull size. Now before people start running around scared..... There is a downside. Making the ship extra large makes it slower and increases the cost associated with it.

You missed the part about adding extra engines to the hull. Or maybe I forgot to post that part. To increase ship speed/range you can add extra engines. Not really that many but some.

[Eddie]

(If i repeat ideas already proposed, please excuse, hadn't time to read all the stuff here yet)

Any of you played a Mechwarrior game? FO could do shipdesign along those lines. Its an intuitive drag and drop system and allows for alot of variety other than "how many guns can i fit on that ship".

Details:
You don't research ship sizes, but ship types. Each type has a fixed size, fixed manuverability (that is muliplied by a modifier dependant on the engine used). Each ship type also has specialised weapon slots (might be universal slots on high tech ships). That means to outfit a ship with rockets, it needs rocket slots. For a carrier, it needs a slot where you can place a fighter bay.
Slots come in different sizes, big weapons need big slots. For example, a stellar converter needs a gigantic weaponslot, and the death star is the only ship type who has one.

In Moo3, more space on a ship would just mean you'd add another laser to the other 30. Kinda bugged me. Logically, if i wanted a stronger laser, i'd just build a bigger one and not use lots of small ones. Mounts somewhat helped this. Someone mentioned using arrays, but an array of lasers is really just the same as one big one.
So i propose weapons are treated more like in Mechwarrior, where you have different sizes of the same weapontype (small, medium and large laser) that have roughly the same abilities (range, rate of fire, not damage though). But the bigger versions have better damage per space ratios.
You can then balance your ship designs. Rather take the smaller model, which is harder to hit and more manuverable, or the bigger model that can be outfitted with a big laser?

Mechwarrior also has the concept of heatsinks. Weapons produce heat each time they fire (some more, some less), and more heatsinks meant higher rate of fire. They were also a great way to use up that little bit of space left. FO could do the same with energy. With generators instead of heatsinks.

On the whole, it could be like this:
You can choose a ship model. Say the Battlecruiser mark IV. He has two large slots for direct fire weapons, four small ones for missiles and one medium universal slot. On top of that, 20 units of free space in his hull.
One direct fire slot i fill with a large gauss cannon, the other with a large plasma cannon. The missile slots i fill with pd rockets, and the medium universal slot i use for a fighter bay. Now i have to decide what to do with the 20 units of hull space. I can either fill them with generators for the plasma gun, fill them with ammunition for my gauss cannon, pd rocket reloads, or fighters. Or i can use some of my hull space for extra armor or shield generators.
Of course, size of the energy weapon determine how many generators actually can be used. More than three generators are wasted on a small laser, but a large plasma cannon reaches maximum fire rate with 20. Same goes for the fighter bay. A medium fighter bay can only support say 20 fighters.

To factor in new technology vs old ship models, weapon slots could have a tech lvl value. Say the Battlecruiser mark I has slots with a tech lvl of 2, and thus can't mount a plasmacannon which is tech lvl 4. Mixed lvls on different slots are also possible (that model was designed with future beamtechnology in mind).

To promote small ships as scouts, smaller ships could have higher tech lvl sensor slots than comparable bigger ones (can't get the new technology running on this big ship. The big plasmaconnon is interefering with the readings)