A question about user designed ships (shipyard)

The problem with maxxing out a hull is the cost to make that ship. You can go into a starting game of GC2, in beta 1, and using the freighter hull, design a seriously deadly battleship. But you won't be able to build it. It would take too long to build. You need the industry base to build costly ships. And to get that industry base, you have to first build up your worlds.

Sorry, but I built one in Beta 1 before I had the tech for the more advanced equipment to accomplish the same thing. This creates an advantage to the race that can build it first that can't be countered. I forsee this as a game balancing problem by the time the developers get to Beta level 4. It also shows the need to have restrictions on what equipment can be combined together on which hulls, which should be designed and coded much earlier than Beta level 4.

Stardock has already stated that they don't want to see modules not allowed on any hull that has the room for those modules. A better solution to this is to increase the gap in ship HP between the cargo hull and regular hulls. Already, a cargo hull only has 10 HP. You can go crazy adding weapons and defenses to that hull, but with that few HP, it won't take many combats where the opposing ship survives your first salvo to kill you.

Yay stardock, for not destroying the mechanics.

Jack, how long did it take you? I've noticed that the AI in Beta 1 doesn't start building any "combat ships" until I have comlpeted a few of my own. If I use purely armed freighters, they still won't build any combat ships. I am guessing the freighter is not setting off a "compete on military graph" decision.

Also, right now, ship maintenence cost isn't actually implemented. However, a maxed out freighter would have a significant maintainence cost. Did you check what your final design cost? If it's high enough, and you've spent your time building that instead of colonizing, I wonder if you'd have the money to keep your hyped up freighter?

Right you are, Star Pilot. However, I am a bit leary of what the future will show as the future betas come down the link. It is something to watch (and dread?). If what I fear fails to come to pass, I will be happy.

BTW, I built a ship on a cargo hull with attack = 16, defence = 11, speed = 7, range = 31, and hp = 10, the cost to build was 1287bc (or 1287 shields), but the maintenance was 0bc. Perhaps when they get to balancing the game they will add maintenance cost for weapons, armor, and defensive devices. That could make it an expensive ship, since I had very basic equipment, 3 hyperdrive engines, 8 mini-ball guns, 11 titanium armor plates, and 6 basic support modues.

Perhaps they should put a maintenance cost on the troop module. Not on the colony module or on trade ships, because colony ships need be self sustaining in order to fit the concept engendered by historical earth colonization attempts (self sustaining once the endeavor is financed and initiated, that is), and trade ships are supposed to generate net revenue.

Another thing to consider is the model for a type of combat ship used in the "Honor Harington" series of books by David Weber called "Q" ships. These were basically ships built on a freighter chasis that contained substantial weapons and were used to combat pirate ships that preyed on defenseless freighters. They looked like freighters, acted like freighters, but, surprise, they carried some very nasty teeth instead of freight. So maybe this kind of a ship does fit into GC2.

Lucky Jack, as I said, the maintenance cost isn't activated in the game. But in the ship design screen, it does show you the cost of maintaining just one ship. Troop pods and colony pods do have a basic cost to them. Everything but jewelry has a basic cost. I've built medium sized combat ships that had a listed cost of over 200 BC per turn, and armed freighters that had a listed maintenence cost of 300 BC per turn, AIR. Next time you are in the ship design screen, keep an eye on how that number just goes up and up. When those costs are carried over/turned on in the beta, there's going to be a huge impact.

Historically, privateers and Q ships have long roamed the high seas. The main difference between the two depends on if the ship carries its weaponry openly (privateer/armed merchant) or hidden (Q Ship). Q ships were used extensively in WW1, and saw a fair amount of action in the early part of WW2, AIR.

I certainly see no reason to explode players from strapping whatever amount of weaponry they want on a freighter hull. The freedom you have to design things your way, the better your gaming experience will be.

I'm quite happy with the concept of the trade off, this system offers you a strategic choice. Do you build many cheap ships and swamp the enemy, or do you focus on a few very powerful ships? You can't have both as your economy won't be able to support it, and the more powerful you make the ship the longer it will take to build.

A small number of powerful ships will mean that each ship has to cover a larger area to compensate for the fleet's lack of numbers, and the player will have to be more careful with the ships they do have, as it will take time to manufacture replacements. A player who opts for quantity over quality however will be able to lose and replace their ships without much concern, but will be forced to muster large fleets together to acomplish any military goals.

A player who takes either approach to an extreme will probably find themselves with a very different experience on their hands, which is surely a good thing.

i reckon some add-ons (eg armour, life support) should be a % of hull space. it may be then that if you armor a cargo chassis, you won't have any room left for a colony pod.....

i reckon some add-ons (eg armour, life support) should be a % of hull space. it may be then that if you armor a cargo chassis, you won't have any room left for a colony pod.....

That is the case. Propulsion is a % of hull space + a fixed number.

I wonder whether new sizes of ships could be unlocked by getting new techs? In GC1, battleships tech allowed a whole new kind of ships (capital ships), and dreadnought allowed AMMs. I woncer whether GC2 will sport something like this. I am not sure it's a good idea since imo anti matter missiles and all steep advances unbalance the game and make it hard for the ai if they don't manage to get there first (or don't attack you when they still have an advantage, which was more often the case on higher difficulty levels).
Still, having techs which affect the base hull types could be interesting, if only as a mod. This could also prevent abuse if some kind of hull is too effective in the early game, which I don't think will be a problem.
And what about anti matter missiles and other one-shot weapons with the current design and ship-design screen?

Actually, it would be easy to do "one shot" weapons. SMAC allowed for the creation of custom cruise and ICBM missiles. That worked fine for the player. The AI used pre-designed units, so that was never an issue for the AI.

For GC, imagine that a pre-requisite to get "basic missile hull" is a certain level (probably moderate) of computer tech (for the AI nav and targetting systems), a basic weapon tech (to create the up-sized version of the normal missile warheads), and a basic level of range. Now, you have a one-shot weapon hull. You can decide on just how big it is by picking its max damage (up to your theoretical limit based on your current weaponry tech), and decide how fast you want it to go in one turn (put on amount of engines you want). Done. It's cheap, because it has so little else. As your techs advance, your potential design max goes up. But as you make bigger and faster missiles, your cost of maintaining them goes up. There is no reason that a defensive culture couldn't have a large collection of one shot missiles stationed at their planets and star bases, with a small collection of actual ships to hold their territory. Just a matter of getting the military graph right... as a one shot weapon, it shouldn't yeild that huge spiking that AMMs gave in GC1. It should instead count the equivalent of its max average killing ability (count as one ship, with strength of the average of its damage). After all, you can overcome a dug in enemy with lots of one shot killers by simply flooding it with cheap ships.

Just a matter of getting the balance right. And teaching the AI to actually use them. GC1's AI didn't really utilize them.