[suggestion] New ship design mechanics.

That won't take too much work to implement.

from GalCiv3 Forums

So I really like the ship design system, especially the "offset" option. It's pretty slick.

But I was surprised that the actual gameplay mechanics are nearly identical to GC2. The only difference I could notice was that individual componets now have upkeep costs rather than the whole ship depending on whether or not it's "civilian" or "military". Which is really nice, I like it a lot.

But anyways, here is something that I've been thinking would be nice to have to make the ship design system better. (at least in my opinion)

Specifically, one of the things that has been a minor annoyance for me in GC2 was that non-combat vessels had literally no combat ability.

From a historic perspective, non-combat vessels usually had some cannons on board. Caravels used for exploration usually had at least 5 cannons on board. Even very small ships such as Pinnaces often had 2 cannons on board. 

From a Science Fiction perspective, in series such as Star Trek all the scout ships and science vessels usually had some sort of weapon on board even if it didn't make them "combat worthy".

I see no reason for Galactic Civilizations not to be the same.

So I've been thinking about a way to change this in a way that I think would be applicable to all ship types, evenly balanced, interesting, fun, and also importantly, not take a lot of work to implement.


My idea is to remove all the base stats except hitpoints from ships, such as movement speed, life support range and sensor range then make it so that on the ship design screen instead of having 25 capacity to put components on you'd have a variety of capacity bars, most of which are dedicated to specific components.

So for a tiny ship you currently have:

0/25 Capacity.
3 free movement.
15 free life support range
3 free sensor range.


I'd like to change it to something like this:

0/25 Universal Capacity
And instead of the free stats you'd have:

0/25 Engine Capacity
0/25 Life Support Capacity
0/25 Sensor Capacity

Then throw on:
0/15 Weapons Capacity
0/15 Defense Capacity


That way when designing a ship, you're guaranteed to have space for every important stat, and then would have some excess space that you can use for anything. (ie: specialization) I'd set it up so that whenever you put a component on it uses all the dedicated space it can then switches to using universal space. If you have 1 engine that takes 16 space, then putting a second on would max out the engine bar (25) then take 7 space from the Universal Capacity from the spill-over.

A dedicated combat ship for example would have a lot of firepower and armour, while a scout ship would be designed with life support, engines and sensors in mind. In the end the scout ship would still be able to put on weapons without compromising it's scouting ability, but an early scout would probably have only 4 attack (a single missile pod in the 15 dedicated weapons space, none in it's universal space because that's being used for life support, etc.) while the same sized early combat vessel would have 12 (three missile pods from the 40 space, a combination of the dedicated weapons space and the universal space).

So building combat vessels would still be important, especially during a war, but if you get caught off-guard your scout ships could double as "reserve light fighters" with only 1/3 the combat ability during war time.

When building disposable ships such as constructors and colony ships I think players would forgo putting weapons on anyways, as it'd increase the cost and upkeep of a ship that's not going to exist for a long time. Mining vessels and trade ships on the other hand could have some weapons put on so they aren't totally venerable.

I also think that the system would cut down on players rushing early combat ships as they wouldn't be able to completely "lock down" another civ as easily. The civ under attack would be able to put of some kind of minor defence with whatever civilian ships they had on hand.

...so basically I'd like to give players and the AI a lot more incentive to arm their secondary ships to a small extent by providing them with space that can't be used for anything else. 

Anyways, I thought I'd throw that out there.

Edit: Completely reworded some areas because I din't explain it well. 

51,744 views 20 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

No, it serves nothing. We build ships to be custom already so how is it more innovative? Put one laser on your next colony ship is you want, otherwise IMH this is useless.

I do lobby for a automatic inti weapons on flag ships to start the game.

 

DARCA ;)

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting DARCA1213, reply 1

No, it serves nothing. We build ships to be custom already so how is it more innovative?
It would mean you'd have a bit more leeway in designing your ships. Right now to maximize your playing ability putting weapons on a scout ship makes no sense, as it'll have less range and won't scout as well. But in real life historically and currently scout ships and recon vehicles do have weapons on board even though they aren't designed for direct combat.

Currently if I want to play the game to my maximum ability then all my ships tend to have only 1 role. They literally can't do anything else. While I like ships being specialized, and I like having to rely on combined arms, I think there's a little too drastic of a difference between things as is.

It'd also help balance the game. One game I built ultra-fast ships that put on 1 laser then the rest engines. I could run through an enemies territory and destroy anything that didn't have weapons on board, which incidentally was everything except dedicated combat vessels. With sometimes 40+ moment speed that meant that I could destroy 8-10 ships in a single turn, including troop transports, mining vessels, trade ships, etc. then safely retreat deep inside my territory.

And that was with only 1 ship.

With the new system in place there would be a more delicate balance to achieve when building fast combat vessels. You'd need to carefully choose how many weapons you'd need to kill colony ships, etc. while still being as fast as possible. Imho, that'd make the game a lot more interesting, and add a lot of depth without making it too complicated.

Quoting DARCA1213, reply 1
Put one laser on your next colony ship is you want, otherwise IMH this is useless.

Well maybe you didn't see the part where I said that I'd imagine nobody would arm colony ships and constructors because they're disposable.

Quoting DARCA1213, reply 1
I do lobby for a automatic inti weapons on flag ships to start the game.
That would happen with my idea, even a dedicated survey vessel would then have some space for weapons to be on board without compromising it's ability to be a surveyor.


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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Lets see what the community thinks. Also I do arm every ship. :3

 

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I support the idea that exploration ships having weapons. But I do not support changing the system. Effectively you need to manage the 25 capacity for your ship. The capacity is probably a mix of what your ship has room for or electrical power to run. If you build a scout ship with guns, there is not as much power dedicated to keep the life-support system running. In combat, you don't turn off your life support in order to supply power to your weapons. Also, it has to do with storage of life saving materials. Which means your ship has less room to hold armament.

Your historical example only points out that the people in the past found that it was more important to ensure that the scout vehicles and ships had weapons vs. more supplies to travel farther. If these ships with cannons removed the cannons would there not be more room for other things on that ship? Maybe more supplies to allow for longer trips at sea.

You're essentially asking the developers to decide what pieces your ships should be capable of using. The current system allows me to have ultimate choice of every aspect of the ships capacity. They only dictate the capacity that the size may have and I have to work within that capacity. If you want more capacity make a cargo hull ship. You can add weapons and life support and get a great scout ship with weapons. It won't be tactically fast in combat, and it will cost more than a tiny hull, but it would give you what you want. I find the current system is done quite well.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I only arm ships that need to be armed. You know right now that the an ignores transports untill last unless you arm them. I only arm my warships for this reason. Actually all I can see hear you are trying to increase space or you want a template on how to design ships.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting parrottmath, reply 4
You're essentially asking the developers to decide what pieces your ships should be capable of using. The current system allows me to have ultimate choice of every aspect of the ships capacity. They only dictate the capacity that the size may have and I have to work within that capacity. If you want more capacity make a cargo hull ship. You can add weapons and life support and get a great scout ship with weapons. It won't be tactically fast in combat, and it will cost more than a tiny hull, but it would give you what you want. I find the current system is done quite well.

That's not what I meant at all, sorry if I didn't explain it well. First I'll explain it without the weapons and defense, because it's sort of a different issue. Right now the tiny ship has:

25 capacity
3 free movement speed
15 ship range
3 sensor range

I'm suggesting that gets changed to:

25 Universal capacity
25 engine space (that's about 3 speed worth early game)
25 life support capacity (that's about 15 range worth early game)
25 sensor capacity (that's about 3 sensor range worth early game)
0 free movement
0 free ship range
0 free sensor range.

Maybe I didn't word it well but I'm not suggesting they give us extra space, I'm saying that I think we shouldn't get "free" but forced stats, instead we should get to put the components on ourselves in space designated for those stats. You would still have the Universal Capacity that you can put anything you want into. 

If we just removed the base stats and upped the space to the same level (about 100 capacity early game) to compensate I think it'd cause problems because of the ridiculous ship designs that would come out. I know I'd be designing battleships with 1 movement (only so they can leave the starports), 0 sensors and 0 life support range to defend my planets, simply because I could pack loads of extra guns on them.

Also, it'd make researching new tech increase the stats of all your ships, not just the ones that use that stat a lot. So if you get a new engine type it'll increase the speed of all your designs, not just the ships that you chose to add extra engines to.



So on top of that system I would like to have a small amount of free designated space for weapons and defense. It'd have a very similar effect to giving ships 1 missile, 1 laser, 1 mass driver, 1 point defense, 1 shields, and 1 armour in free stats, except that we'd be able to choose whether or not we want to spend the production and upkeep on them (as we could leave the space empty and unused), and also choose which of those types we want to install based on what we researched instead of only getting 1 stat of each.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

If I understand what you are suggesting is that instead of the base stats that are on the tiny, small, medium, large, cargo hulls, we would have access to create other unique hulls suited to more our needs.

We raise and lower these stats to get more universal capacity for other elements?

Or are you saying that these other elements are a maximum capacity for engines. In other words, you have at most 25 engine capacity, but as we use up the capacity in terms of engines the engine capacity lowers as well, giving the player a more informative view on how the capacity is used. So those that wish for a more balanced ship can see the percentages of usage? So the 25 25 25 25 is really a 25  0 0 0 and as you use up capacity in engines you see 15 10 0 0 and if you use some life-support 10 10 5 0  Adding some sensor range we get 0 10 5 10, and we see this sort of set-up?

Then over and above the electrical power used in this initial stuff we add more capacity specifically only for weapons?

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting parrottmath, reply 7

If I understand what you are suggesting is that instead of the base stats that are on the tiny, small, medium, large, cargo hulls, we would have access to create other unique hulls suited to more our needs.
Nope.  :blush:  I'm saying that you'd still pick from the standard sizes (tiny, small, medium, etc.) and they would all have their own unique capacity sizes like they have now, but instead of getting 1 capacity bar that can be used for anything and free stats you'd get 1 capacity bar that can be used for anything (the universal one) and 1 capacity bar that can only be used for engines, 1 capacity bar that can only be used for sensors, etc.

So in my system each type of capacity can be used for that specific type of component. Once that space is full putting more of that component on board will use universal capacity instead. 

Here, I'll build you a tiny sized scout with my system without the weapons for you:


Tiny ship:

0/25 universal
0/25 engine
0/25 sensor
0/25 life suprort
0 speed
0 sensor
0 range

You decide to first put engines on board, so you place an engine that takes 16 space and gives 2 speed. You now have:

0/25 universal
16/25 engine
0/25 sensor
0/25 life suprort
2 speed
0 sensor
0 range 

You decide that's still a little slow so you put another engine on. Since there's only 9 dedicated engine space left it takes what remains and also takes up 7 of the universal space. You now have:

7/25 universal
25/25 engine
0/25 sensor
0/25 life support
4 speed
0 sensor
0 range

Then you decide it needs some sensors on board, so you put 3 on which cost 8 space each, but give you 1 sensor range each. You then have:

7/25 universal
25/25 engine
24/25 sensor
0/25 life support
4 speed
3 sensor
0 range

Then you decide that since this will be a long range scout it needs lots of life support to explore distant stars, so you put 5 on which cost 8 space each, but give you 5 range each. You then have:

21/25 universal
25/25 engine
24/25 sensor
25/25 life suprort
4 speed
3 sensor
25 range

Now you see that your ship is full because you don't have any components that cost only 4 space, so you save it and start manufacturing it.



PS: Thanks for sticking around and actually trying to figure my strange mind out. :grin:


Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

So given a tiny hull... you have 25 universal spots total, how would it work in this system, because then you are giving it more slots altogether.

So the current game initial is

2 moves

12.5 range

2 sensor

To add 1 move at start of game it costs 16

To add 5 range at start it costs 8

To add 1 sensor at starts it costs 8

By your system you would start with a tiny hull would give basically

0 / 25 Universal (Tiny Hull)

0 / 32 Engine

0 / 20 Life Support or 0 / 16 life support and every ship has a range of 2.5 ;)

0 / 16 Sensor

So your system seems to be just adding complication as the above changes nothing per-say. Why would you want this new system rather than saying your base ship stats are the above and you add to them? Is it your way of changing the way the mechanic works so when you research you increase the Engine Life-support Sensor categories and Universal categories as separate modules?

Why would I not want to fill these other categories up to full? Why would this be more beneficial than what is currently in place?

PS: I just like to know what people are thinking in general. 

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I like it sorta, it reminds me of Armored Core4's tuning points.

what he is saying for those confused (and I'm saying this out loud to make sure I'm not confused either) is that instead of having a hull with set stats, we should be able to adjust what the base stats are in game. I think its brilliant(ish). :thumbsup:

you might be misunderstanding him Parrotman, or me. But the only thing this needs is a amount of points to be distributed into the categories so they don't max out. This might just work.

 

DARCA. ;) 

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting parrottmath, reply 9

So given a tiny hull... you have 25 universal spots total, how would it work in this system, because then you are giving it more slots altogether.

So the current game initial is

2 moves

12.5 range

2 sensor

To add 1 move at start of game it costs 16

To add 5 range at start it costs 8

To add 1 sensor at starts it costs 8

By your system you would start with a tiny hull would give basically

0 / 25 Universal (Tiny Hull)

0 / 32 Engine

0 / 20 Life Support or 0 / 16 life support and every ship has a range of 2.5 ;)

0 / 16 Sensor

So your system seems to be just adding complication as the above changes nothing per-say. Why would you want this new system rather than saying your base ship stats are the above and you add to them? Is it your way of changing the way the mechanic works so when you research you increase the Engine Life-support Sensor categories and Universal categories as separate modules?

Why would I not want to fill these other categories up to full? Why would this be more beneficial than what is currently in place?

PS: I just like to know what people are thinking in general. 

Now you got it.

Yes people would usually just fill up the space to full, in fact the only case I can think of is if weapons and defense each had some dedicated space added to them, such as 0/15 space on a tiny ship. Specifically people would probably forgo putting weapons and defense on colony ships and constructors because it'd increase production costs for something which is going to disappear with use, probably very soon after making it.


So it's not that it changes nothing... it just doesn't change much.  :grin:

With the new system your stats would go up more when you research new techs. So for example if you get better life support systems all your ships can now benefit from it, even if you're building a ship without any extra life support on board. Right now if you build a short ranged defensive ship it won't benefit from new life support tech because it doesn't have any life support components, just the base free amount given to it. With the new system you would replace the old life support systems with new ones.

The other change is non-combat ships would get a small combat ability if we gave ships a bit of designated weapons and defense capacity. (this is why I came up with the whole system)

With 0/15 designated capacity for both weapons and defense that scout ship I designed earlier would have enough space for 1 weapon and 1 defense item without messing up it's scouting ability at all.

A dedicated combat vessel would have slightly more weapons and defense then it does now, because it could use both all the universal space and the new designated weapons and defense space, but that'd be okay because it would affect everybody in the game.

Reply #12 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Don't over think it, the more you say the more info people can ask questions with. Keep it flexible and not brittle that way it can be implemented smoother if the time comes. Fyi.

Reply #13 from GalCiv3 Forums Top
I don't think the idea is to bad except it dummy down the customisability of the game. Actually all other games doesn't have this good cusTomisability so your idea is not to bad. I hope this is an option I would eventually turn off.
Reply #14 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

you don't turn off your life support in order to supply power to your weapons.

Why not its not like your going to suffocate or freeze the moment life support turns off. Youre not going to need that life support if you get blown up.

and if that extra energy could be diverted to weapons or defenses. 


Reply #15 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting androshalforc, reply 14

you don't turn off your life support in order to supply power to your weapons.

Why not its not like your going to suffocate or freeze the moment life support turns off. Youre not going to need that life support if you get blown up.

and if that extra energy could be diverted to weapons or defenses. 

Life support is a very complicated system. Most of it will require a chemical reaction in order to maintain itself. To restart life-support could be a tricky process and the hope is that it works. There are emergency supplies that one could use, but the stopping and starting of a life-support module could prove to be catastrophic. There are no guarantees that the system will turn back on, especially if the system requires a certain balance in the current atmosphere to work.

Although you are not going to suffocate or freeze, how long will the battle last? As O2 levels drop, many of your crew will just black-out and be extra fatigued as opposed to suffocate. I'd also assume the life-support systems include monitoring systems throughout the ship, and if a section of the ship is compromised the life support system is probably going to shut down that area to keep the rest of the ship from losing life support.

Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting DARCA1213, reply 10

I like it sorta, it reminds me of Armored Core4's tuning points.

what he is saying for those confused (and I'm saying this out loud to make sure I'm not confused either) is that instead of having a hull with set stats, we should be able to adjust what the base stats are in game. I think its brilliant(ish). :thumbsup:

you might be misunderstanding him Parrotman, or me. But the only thing this needs is a amount of points to be distributed into the categories so they don't max out. This might just work.

 

DARCA. ;)  

I like it to. It allows for more customization.

Reply #17 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Bellack, reply 16

I like it to. It allows for more customization.

The system proposed does not actually permit a greater degree of customization than a system with a universal pool with a similar number of points to play with. Under the system proposed, I have no way to trade engine space for weapons, life support, sensors, et cetera, beyond whatever fits into the 'universal' slot. As a result, there is no trade-off to having at least a certain minimum amount of space dedicated to engines aside from the maintenance costs. In a system where all the stuff pulls from the same pot, there is an inherent design tension involved - if I add 10 units of weapons to the ship, that's 10 units less of everything else that I can put on the ship, and so my design choices matter more. Under the proposed system using the numbers in the main post, 10 units of weapons does not cost me anything else on the ship. In fact, the only reason not to fill up all the available space for each type of module under the proposed system is to save on the maintenance costs for the design, but based on my experience in GCII maintenance costs will not be a big deal past the early game.

One further flaw, as far as potential customization goes, is that there's less potential difference between your elite battleship design and my elite battleship design (which both use as much as possible of the design space because they're supposed to be superunits), simply because both of us had to dedicate a minimum of, say, 15% of the ship's space to weapons, another 10% to defenses, 20% to engines and life support, and 5% to sensors in order to make full use of the available design space. If we each wanted to use the full design space for our elite battleships, that's half the ship already determined for us, whether or not that's the balance of components we wanted.

That is not to say that the system itself is bad. I personally do not feel that either the proposed system or the current one is inherently superior to the other, though the current system has the obvious advantage of being simpler.

Reply #18 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The only possible benefit from this system is the potential for even cheaper specialized  ships, assuming the cost is adjusted to reflect the "free" components having been removed from the base hull. Colony ships and constructors with zero sensors; hell, even combat ships with zero sensors as long as they're in a fleet with something that does (unless that handicaps their fire control). Defensive ships with minimal/no life support and even less engines than the current base hulls, etc.

That's not really worth messing with the base hulls, IMO.

Reply #19 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Believe it or not something similar to this was coincided, but we found it did not feel like Gal Civ. We really want people to be able to design ships without having to over think each design. The game already gets quite complected, and we did not want to add a source of fatigue. 

That said I admit that more "realistic" ship designs is an itch i would love to scratch. I just don't think if fits in the current design. As much as i hate to admit it, ship design is only part of the game, and we have to really watch all the pressure points. 

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Reply #20 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Theoretically, how many people would have to publicly like this for you to add it?