Can regular ships be produced in squad multiples like in Homeworld 2?

from Sins Forums
In Homeworld 2, some ships are built in squads (strike craft and corvettes). By that, I mean when you build fighters (for example), you get 5 fighters once production is completed. However, these 5 fighters are part of a squad and are given orders as if it was a single ship (similar to how the standard Sins fighters/bombers work).

My question is this, does Sins offer us the ability to make regular shipyard based ships that when built, consist of 2 or more squad based ships?

The reason I am looking into this is for the Star Wars mod. You see, Tie Fighters/Bombers/Interceptors all work fine with the present carrier/hangar based strike craft system (just have to seriously lower the rebuild rate). However, Star Wars fighters/bombers that should be equiped with hyper drives won't work so well for the Star Wars mod if they are chained to their carriers/hangars..kind of defeats the purpose of the hyperdrive.

What I want to do is be able to build these hyperdrive capable strike craft as if they were regular ships. However, I want to come in squads similar to how the regular carrier/hangar based strike craft work.

Anybody know if this is possible?
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10,506 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Just wanted to point out that I know you can make Phase Space Capable strike craftlike regular ships that come as single units. Just am not sure if you can produce them in squads like the regular carrier/hangar based strike craft.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Hmm, you can queue up 5-10 of the same ship...sounds like you'd want this to automatically be put into a hotkey group?
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Nope. What I want to be able to do is produce strike craft sized ships from ship yards. Additionally, I want these strike craft sized regular ships to come in squads (like the carrier based fighters/bombers). You could do this in Homeworld 2...but of course this isn't Homeworld 2

Any ideas if this is possible.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Basically, Yarlen, what he wants is ships that function the same way fighter squads do, only independent of any carrier. Wherein you give orders to the squad, and the squad can't be divided up, and you can't give orders to individual units, and also the icon for all the units is just one icon, rather than many.

Problems come when you consider how do the units "repair" (replace lost units, primarily). You can't do it like a normal ship, because you can't go from 0->1 HP's without raising a few eyebrows. You can't do it like a fighter, because there isn't a carrier to build new vessels. Not sure how such a system would work, unless you simply let any lost units be lost, permanently. (Maybe be able to send the squad back to a construction yard and pay to replace lost units?)
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I think letting them be lost for good would be one way of balancing them.

It would be nice to have a construction yard replace them, but I don't see how that could be done.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Hmm, dunno if I see this one happening.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

It would be nice to have a construction yard replace them, but I don't see how that could be done.


Something like the repair function from star trek armada? (If a ship was damaged, you had to send it back to a construction yard to repair it, and you pay fractional resources for the repair... do the same thing here, only you pay full resources for each lost ship)
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Oh well, I didn't think it would happen.

Still, there is nothing stopping us from making strike craft sized regular ships at a shipyard and then grouping them together into squads. It will still do what I want well enough.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah...but the idea of phase capeable strike craft brings up a whole other catagory of ships that can be produced. A capital ship is already able to rebuild and repair it's own sqadrons as needed, but imagine a carrier with it's compliment of 4 fighter groups being accompanied by 10 bomber squads. When the bombers reach a certain overall damage level (like 25%), they automatically dock with the closest capital with an open bay (whether it just doesn't have the ships yet or they're already out fighting) for repairs and new ships. Once done, they launch and get back to fighting.

This would add another level of strategy to your fleets, because now you have to support fighters that don't have a home. And when the entire squad is gone...it's gone. Yeah, if one fighter makes it back then the facilities on the carrier will rebuild the squad...but it'll cost ya.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
this would be a good idea, heres one way you can add it in,

i dont see it being much good in early gameplay, i always end up changing my fleet composition, but in the late game where i want alot of ships and im building alot of ships, it would make things easyer and cut down on the mass of icons.

so we could include mass production of ship "squads" in the research tree, that way you dont get it untill its needed or not at all if you dont want it.

a note on damaged/destroyed craft, keep them that way, untill the squad dies completly.

Kenetor