if anything here is contradicting, its lets keep this simple by making a bunch of different hulls with all kinds of different values, also well we're at it will make all the weapons look the same but plop a lot of abstract bonuses on them.
as many have mentioned -Ship part types can be specified as mountable on only internal, only external, or both types of slot. Number of each type of slot should be an important property of hull types.
engines are parts - plane and simple, that's not realism its logic. one would replace the engine in one's car to boost its speed not replace the body.
why bother using a visual oriented system such as the slots at all then if its not made full use of its ability to convey visual ques- we could just have a list
also to note - there is in effect is already a size distinction in the slots as the light hull has three slots none of which can hold a colony pod, of course this is in no way noted or differentiated leading one to believe that they could place parts anywhere they so choose.We have no plans to add slot sizes. The simple one-slot one-part system keeps things simple. Unless there's a strong case for making it more complicated, we'll keep it simple.
which is not the case, what other hidden restrictions will need to be placed on this to make the system work as it is once other things like troop transportation, or fighters, are added, not to mention the large ship with 6 shield generators on it and one super weapon or even a moderately equipped ship against a smaller vessel, dang id have a chance if only i had a slot for a weapon.
diversity - small ships can hold 3 things at the moment - note - no colony podsI don't see where you're going with this. Parts can and should have advantages and disadvantages. So they have to be used carefully. You are kind of contradicting yourself with your initial "too simple/boring"-argument IMO.
, that in essence means armor - shields- 1 weapon, throughout the entire game. allowing no flexibility, no sensor upgrades no cloak, etc. this list could go on exponentially on how obsolete these ships would become latter in the gamesize and bonus - this works in theory for weapons, what about sensors/shield's/cloaks - bonuses to these are pointless as it takes the same space as future upgrades would with presumably equivalent values, my system which i point out is a natural evolution of this system allows miniature - battle comp, shields, sensors, cloaks, etc. there by freeing room for more weapons and increasing the viability of smaller class ships latter in the game.Miniaturization and other refinements, can be implement in different ways(by giving a bonus to strength, instead of actually changing size for example)
that's just a few reasons off the top of my head - space combat in the form of ship to ship warfare should play a role in game dynamics as any basic economic theory will show that the natural lack of resources drives expansion, often these resources are acquired from someone else, through several means one of the most prevalent ones being force of arms.
why even have any graphical representation of space combat at all when there is no diversity to the game (ie. largest ship wins, at least in moo i could equip some cheap slow tugs with a ton of missals and jump in and out of a system against a Superior opponent and wear them down with sheer numbers, i used this tactic frequently ), just let the comp crunch it and spit the loser out, because the player has all these other tasks to worry aboutNot enough technologies in general, or not having any in-game concept of any of those examples, are not a problem. We can have plenty of other things for players to think about.
in essence this simplification fixes a ships possible options to the number of its slots throughout the entire game - i don't see how anyone rational could figure that would work in the long run.
also this would add a ton of depth to the game imagine you could have a spinal mounted weapon taking like 10 slots - capable of one shot massive damage, ie take a large ship out in one hit (single target), or equip the same hull with 10 individual weapons capable of targeting multiple smaller targets, two entirely different strategies, a med ship with a BFG could take out a large ship, or the flip a group of small ships attaching one such BFG ship would suffer minimal loss due to the slow rate of fire from the BFG while destroying it, i feel that lack of strategy that simple is a major detractor from the game-play as it is beyond the possibilities of the current system. size is an attribute and i contend a major one if not the most important consideration in ship design and strategy. also note this could apply to any weapon not just some super weapon and would diminish the amount of defensive armament or shielding a ship could have by trading space for power instead of just tech for power, the disadvantage of using the 10 spots would increase the value of space not diminish it. also what about missile interception, point defenses take as much as a much longer range weapon, give them a semi-random number of intercepts per turn, i don't know just seems the way its done now invites too many problems.
furthermore say i encounter a race with more advanced tech/larger ships, im simply dead i see no way to resolve this dilemma, he has bigger ships, (more guns) better tech (more powerful guns) no strategy, this brings several points up presume i have some weapon upgrade that makes my inferior weapon do similar damage as his superior one, does my weapon now cost exponential more to produce then his, if it doesn't why would he upgraded, then he still has advantage in ship size, #of guns and probably quantity in also dead now, if mine cost more now, then i'm even more hard pressed to produce my inferior ships and am still dead.
adding size to this equation, he may opt for the newer guns, they do more damage and take up some average amount of space(4). however now i can opt for 1 spinal mount (16 slots) overall would be cheaper then 4 smaller guns (4 slots) of same type, now i can not only produce more ships but the single shot hit on his larger ships may inflict some considerable damage before my ship is destroyed, while he may get several of mine i at least i have a chance to win now and if he went for the same spinal mounts say his larger ships could take 2 as apposed to the 7-8 average size newer guns with a higher base damage he could loose out on fire power overall, and rate of fire enters here too. a prudent question is do shields regenerate during combat, if they do im even worse off, not being able to scale up my guns, why just miniaturize them i'd say maximize them too.. lol, then i might have some slim chance to win, also i could sacrifice starlane speed and go for the cheaper and fastest combat speed available. also i may have miniaturized cloaking that i could sneak in right behind the BFG, etc. that my 1 last slot may allow, dump armor and shields completely and go for cheap disposable damage.
i could go on ..so explain please a reasonable way to win against said enemy without scaling up my tech and making use of that extra space which is a cost and damage benefit sacrificing fire rate and longevity are not a problem his ships will annihilate mine anyway, im just making the most of the sacrifice while reducing the cost as low as possible, perhaps holding him back long enough to get bigger hulls etc..
anyway the amount of work to upgrade to this now would be much less then when all the "content" is developed, this is a basic fundamental attribute, how many posts have been made on the lack of ship flexibility, muddying everything up with a ton of different hull type and weird bonuses is not the route id pick.
ok ... ill conceded the current system is simpler, but simpler is not superior
further more take this from the design pad
talk about contradiction - ship heath and shields are determined from a ship's design specifically the hull ... "except that" .. Ships without shield parts or some other source of shields at the start of a battle have a max shield meter of 0 ... what lol. anyway just thought id make some fun of that.Ship health and shield maximum values are determined from a ship's design. Specifically, the hull and the ship's part can modify the ship's health and shield max meter values.
Shields generally are only increased by specific shield parts. Ships without shield parts or some other source of shields at the start of a battle have a max shield meter of 0.
Health generally is increased somewhat by a ship's hull, so all ships have a max health meter above 0 from the effects of their hull. Other parts can also increase a ship's health, and armour parts significantly increase a ship's health max meter.
also i would contend that armor is far different then internal systems, what rational would detract from the offensive capability of a ship based solely on the fact that a unit of armor replaces a weapon. that doesn't make any kind of since realistic or otherwise, might as well put propellers on space ships while were at it since realism doesn't mean anything. all ships would potential have the two systems i differentiated, in red and green, this solves staking multiple armor units on a ship, multiple engines,
oops engines aren't even an option currently ... negating the benefit of not having interstellar ships for home defense unless another hull type is added (which you'd have to do and arbitrarily increase the slots, mine is automatic
to get any benefit anyway) - for each size of ship mind u, this is exponentially more complex then just having swappable engine parts.... imagine just 10 different interstellar engines on 5 different size hulls with the addition of 10 non-interstellar ships for those sizes that's around 100 different hull types. 10 interstellar engines X 5 ship sizes and(+) 10 non-stellar X 5 ship sizes (doesn't include mix and matching of these). instead of just 10 interstellar engines + 10 sub stellar engines + 5 hulls which if my math is right gives out a much larger spread of combination (because it can be mixed and matched and omitted). apx. 550 combos (10 interstellar X 10 sub-stellar X 5 sizes + 10 sub-stellar X 5) that in itself wins my case , dare i say 25 elements are much simpler than 550 to manage. 
you see fixing these options to the hull increases the complexity instead off breaking it down into smaller pieces and recombining it in the design ...*might as well just design a million ships and get rid of the design process altogether*..... imagine sorting through over 500 different hull types that's were your present system leads (simple arithmetic guys, reduce the numbers/and types all u want individual parts will still win in diversity every time)...period...... even take just 3 stellar engines X 3 ship sizes + 3 non-stellar X 3 ship sizes, (18 hulls compared to 9 elements composing 36 different ships if parts are used ) ...We can easily just have different hulls, some fast in combat, but slow on the map, some fast on the map, slow in combat, etc.
one could pretend that this would be harder to manage than just having all these different hulls (any rough idea on how many hulls and what combinations or engine performance ratios to select etc.) why bother making and testing all those out for the best fit designing the hulls and implementing some picked out ones..etc.. that's the ships designers concern not the programmers and id say that seeing an actual icon for the drive with relevant info would be much easier to manage also how can u upgrade a hull and keep all the other parts that are bolted to it intuitively that make no since to me.
again simplest solution eliminate non-stellar ships altogether (I do think orbitals should be a different hull type btw.) hell.. like i said why stop there just eliminate combat altogether that would make the programing real easy and allow the player to focus on all these more interesting tasks then defending there worlds from the sloth invaders.
(3.7gpa)
