When you go bankrupt

[CW]

In 1.41 when you go bankrupt some of your ships get abandoned and these ships seem to be chosen at random. Sometimes you know you are going bankrupt next turn and you might have a junk ship somewhere that you want to ditch to save your precious WP opener from being abandoned, but you have no self-destruct device or another armed ship nearby.

I'd like to see at least a new "abandon" command, or even better overhaul the whole thing completely. What I mean is, you could cut off supply to a ship and it gradually decays, say it loses 50% of components every turn hitpoints-wise if the ship recieves zero maintenance. If you are going bankrupt but you have not chosen which ship to stop supplying, then let the effect spread evenly through out all of your ships. (ie. even if you don't have enough cash to pay off all the maintenance, you probably have enough to pay for part of it. So your ships lose somewhere between 1% and 50% of components hitpoints-wise.)

To stop people from abusing rounding, always round the effect UP. For example you are bankrupt and losing the equivalent of 1 hitpoint worth of maintenance per ship, then the next turn every ship of yours will still lose a complete component. To make the whole thing smarter the AI (for each individual ship) should look at the repair piority list to determine which component is the least important. But I think it should cost some resources to repair components, since people could abuse the rule with repair bays and space yards if repair is free like what it is now.


[This message has been edited by CW (edited 18 October 2001).]

[Q]

I would be perfectely satisfied with the "abandon ship" command, because the more complicated system you propose might be too much work to implement. I never understood why you can't abandon a crippled ship that is out of reach for repair. For the AI this can get quite a problem to pay the continued maintenance, at least when I checked it Last time. Or does the AI send now repair ships to damaged ships that can't move??
To prevent abuse and still save the utility to destroy a ship instead of abandon it, you could let the abandoned ship stay in place for a certain time and any other empires with a ship in this sector could claim the abandoned ship.

[This message has been edited by Q (edited 18 October 2001).]

[bearclaw]

I agree. An abandon ship option would be perfect. Of course, that would totally defeat my tactic of using engine killing ships to disable an enemies ships. After several years of war, the enemy ends up with so much maintance for ships he can't use that he has no choice but to surrender. Quite effective.

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"You don't know the Power of the Dark Side. I must obey my Master"

[Gavin]

I tried that, bearclaw, and found I had to constantly keep monitoring 'the junkyard' for live ones. How did you manage the 'junkyard patrol' ? (constantly having to remember which sectors contain cripples and how many were in there)

I prefer ship capture or just plain destroying now, it's cleaner, I want a fun game, not a micromanagement nightmare that makes my day job look easy.



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'If there are gods, they do not care, and justice always goes to the strong. But know this - all that is done before the naked stars is remembered' - Klingon proverb, the Final Reflection.

[Cheeze]

I disagree with the abandon ship idea. There is such a thing in place already in the game (assuming it works) in the Self-Destruct Device. I've never used it, but that's a cost you have to consider...will I take up space with a device I probably won't use, or do I risk being stuck with a great deal of damaged ships I cannot scrap? If you decide to scrap ships, doesn't that work in time to counteract any automatic and random ship destruction?

[Puke]

thats not exactly the only purpose of the self destruct device.. imagine a foe with large boarding parties. do you waste 60 or so KT per ship with boarding defenses, or drop a SDD on there?

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)