Free ship hulls for everyone!

[Ed Kolis]

What if all ship hulls were accessible from the beginning of the game?

I know that sounds like a crazy idea, but what about in mods like Proportions where smaller ships have their own advantages (better to-hit chances, defense bonuses, maintenance reduction) - it doesn't seem right to spend hundreds of thousands of research points to get a hull that's intrinsically no better than the ones you have already?

OK, you say, doesn't it take some sort of advanced engineering to build larger ships? Fine, then don't eliminate the research cost altogether, just set it to, say, 2000 instead of 5000.

This idea would work well with SJ's spaceyard expansions - it would kind of work like MOO3's "shipyard capacity" in which the size of ships you can build at a planet is determined by the number of shipyards you have on the planet or something like that, only this way you can build any size ship at any planet, it just takes a real long time to build a big ship at a planet with only a few shipyards...

(Hmm, I wonder if spaceyard expansions work as components as well as facilities... that would be a cool feature for P&N or other mods )

[geoschmo]

This was something I had planned for the AOW mod. Not sure if Dumbluck is still going to do it or not. Basically you would be able to build any hull from the begining, but the bigger hulls would have obscene maintenance charges. As you researched ship construction you would get either new components, or better Versions of the same size hull (hadn't decided which would be better) that would make the larger ships mroe reasonable to build and maintain.

Geoschmo

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
(Hmm, I wonder if spaceyard expansions work as components as well as facilities... that would be a cool feature for P&N or other mods )

No, it doesn't.

[ February 12, 2003, 20:17: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[F Te antKe]

Going with the proffered logic of the same tech that builds 150k can build 600k but the quality / maintenance might be reduced would you also eliminate Weapons Platforms? Would you reduce the number of engines available?

Edit: Actually it as I review Earth history it makes sense that if you can build a 150kT Escort you could build a 600kT or larger ship. I was thinking of Thor Heyerdahl's The Kon Tiki and The Rah.
A brief overview of the ships.
http://folk.uio.no/janrt/hey.html

Conclusion: Even with primitive tech a group of people could build much larger “vessels”.
I’m all for it.

[ February 12, 2003, 22:08: Message edited by: F Te antKe ]

[PvK]

I had been thinking of doing this for Proportions, and worked out most of the variants for several levels of upgrades to each hull size.

I was thinking of separate tech areas for faster ships (more engine capacity), larger ships, and more efficient ships, and possibly ships with better combat modifiers.

I ended up not sure it was so great an idea, mainly because you can't obsolete ship classes, and you can't upgrade a ship class, so the ship size list would get a bit cluttered with obsolete classes, and experienced veteran ships would be stuck with their old hull tech.

So, I like the idea in theory, and might go through with it if I get time to complete Proportions 3, but I'm not entirely happy with the way it operates in practice.

PvK

[dumbluck]

The current AoW Version has all ship hulls available at the start of the game as Geo described, and there are no plans to change this. (in fact, it's one of the main things I liked about the mod idea). There is still a Ship Construction tech field. Researching it yields Crew Areas components that will reduce the maintenance of the vessel. It also yields increasingly more efficient SYs.

Check it out { here } .

Edit: My keyboard can't spell!

[ February 13, 2003, 21:42: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[PvK]

Actually, ya, that would in several ways be a better way to do it than my plan of adding different hull sizes with different abilities.

Even better would be to not just have more advanced components, but to use the tonnage and tech level limits of mounts to allow improvements via mounts. Of course, mounts have similar interface issues to ship sizes (e.g. no obsolescence), but at least size can limit which ones appear on the list.

PvK

[dumbluck]

Yea, I was toying with the idea of using mounts to increase the size of the maintenance reducing components on the larger ships. (In my mod, the maintenance reducers also have the Crew Quarters tag, and it made sense that a bigger ship would need bigger crew quarters...) I still might do it, but it's pretty low on my priority list.

Some of the "Crew Areas" components (maintenance reducers) also have other abilities. For example, the "Small Arms Locker" grants a small amount of the security stations ability. When I get the Medical Bay converted, you will have a mainenance reducer that cures plagues. There will be a base only crew area that can repair one component per turn ("Repair Drone Control Station" or some such technobabble...) Etc. Etc. Etc.

Right now all my Crew areas are priced the same and are the same size, but I'm toying with making these vary (especially for the ones with extra abilities).