Realistic view of ship construction

[trooper]

I thought about that yesterday, and I'm gonna try to explaim it briefly.

In SE IV, ship construction advances allow races to build bigger and bigger ships, which cost more and more ressources. I think it's not a realistic view.

If we had to built deep space ships now, they would be huge and slow. In the game it would be big ships, with high building cost and maintenance, and few components.

As space tech improve and miniaturization increase, ships would have a tendancy to decrease in size. So, high tech ships would be smaller and smaller, with as much components, more engines and speed and lower building and maintenance costs. Just the opposite of the game philosophy, in fact.

I don't know if a mod has been made following these rules. Perhaps it's more a component pb than a ship size issue (Components should be smaller and smaller as their tech level increase).

Well, that's all.

[dogscoff]

I don't know if a mod has been made following these rules. Perhaps it's more a component pb than a ship size issue (Components should be smaller and smaller as their tech level increase).

Interesting idea. you could have all the hulls available from the start, but introduce smaller and smaller components as the techs progressed.

[Ward]

I believe that the game reflects this well. Even Escort size is big for us and that is only the first step in the game. Miniaturization is covered in next research area. Good example is propulsion. Some parts can�t be smaller(crew quarters). And even Hi-tech escort can beat a Low-tech battleship. Another thing is game progression. In 10 years you can advance from escots to dreadnoughts. That�s fast even compared to our frenetic technology progression. And progressing to new discoveries is slower with each step. Much more unrealistic is population growth.

[Power Man]

The game also shows teck inprovements by having the same size components able to store more as in the case of cargo and storage units. Or your engins move you faster. The master computer item gets smaller as you go up in teck.
I always check to see if my upgrade will let me put in one more item, or swap out a supply for one more armor.

[Foiden]

Good point. I noticed this also with ship engines. For instance, once your engines went up a tech level, the cost for them went down. So in a way, they think smarter and found a way to give you the same performance using a smaller amount of resources. Thus ships that are cheaper to produce. Of course, one issue is that the hull size pretty much puts a standard maintenance cost on you. (If I'm wrong about this correct me). In the early game I practically cringe each time I think about making another ship with a 300kt hull. Those things eat materials like mad, to keep in space. I guess that's a part of upkeep that is important. It certainly makes sure you colonize as fast as possible with each new colony ship you produce so that you can get that mineral sucker out of the air. My first game caught me off guard because one moment I had 70,000 in minerals, the next moment it was all gone in a flash. I was like (what happened?) then I looked at my colony ships sitting there and imagined the captains of them saying, "hehe. Sorry about that."

[Talenn]

My own mod reflected similar concepts. There are larger hull types available at start, but they are 'inefficient'...ie, they have maintenance penalties etc. Researching Ship Construction (and some other prerequisites) allows faster, cheaper, and better defense mod hulls. Also, the sizes of each hull increase slightly as the game progresses (ie, a CA might be 550kt at start, but up to 650 as the tech increases).

I simply like the concept of having a 'balanced' fleet available from the start. I prefer to reward players for using a base fleet of CAs and CLs with various small fry for escorts and using the Capital ships only once real wars are declared...they are simply too expensive to keep around at all times.

These changes allowed (and required) some real tweaks to the overall combat dynamics. I had Armor mounts that only the larger ships could use that made it very difficult for many smaller ship weapons to hurt Capital Ships. So, you have to use CAs+ to really mount weapons capable of taking on BBs and DNs. There are specialized weapons (mostly Torps) that can cause enough damage and are able to be carried by small ships. These weapons are inaccurate enough to be nearly useless against smaller ships, so trade-offs must be made. Capital Ship mounts are also extremely inaccurate vs small ships, so smaller batteries must be included or else escorts assigned to keep them safe from roving hordes of torpedo ships.

All in all, it feels like a more 'traditional' naval model. I really liked the effects, but it was like herding cats trying to make the AI use it effectively. In the end, we gave up on the AI and switched it a MP-only type of mod.

One of these days, I will go back and re-create that mod for the latest Versions of Gold etc.

Sorry for the ramble.

Talenn

[Wanderer]

Two views on this:

1) Roll out Azimov's Foundation again. In brief, the Galactic Empire is huge but corrupt. Their ships are huge but full of out-dated, inefficient, massive technology. On the other hand The Foundation is technologically superior but mineral-poor and builds very small ships packed with highly efficient equipment.

It's worth pointing out that during their first encounters the Foundation ships can't do much more than shake their fists at the Empire behemoths.

2) To build a huge spaceship on Earth and launch it would require a massive technological leap - we simply don't have the power to get something of such mass (even an SE4 escort is twice the mass of American supercarriers) into orbit. The obvious solution is to build segments on the ground, shuttle them up and build the ship in orbit.

This has its limits - I can imagine small ships being constructed from small components that have been built on the planet and shipped up, but can you imagine trying to assemble a dreadnought's power plant in orbit? It makes sense that these problems can be gradually overcome with better technology (which links back to the miniturisation inherent in point 1).

I guess it depends partly on what level of starting tech you're going to assume.

---

Talenn - I like the sound of what you've said. Is your armour mount system anything like this:

I worked out some figures for armour mounts that are based on surface area*, not mass (assuming mass is proportional to volume), so that big ships can have thick armour whilst small ships have to surrender a lot of space just to have weak armour. I've not worked out how to integrate shields (which would surely operate under the same principle) into this scheme yet...

* smaller objects have a higher ratio of surface area to volume, which means any armour is going to take up a higher proportion of the object.

[Suicide Junkie]

My own mod reflected similar concepts. There are larger hull types available at start, but they are 'inefficient'...ie, they have maintenance penalties etc. Researching Ship Construction (and some other prerequisites) allows faster, cheaper, and better defense mod hulls. Also, the sizes of each hull increase slightly as the game progresses (ie, a CA might be 550kt at start, but up to 650 as the tech increases).

In order to cut down on the number of obsolete hulls that players have to pick through in the ship creation screen, why not have a mount or component system?

When you research ship construction, you get a mount to allow better/smaller maintenance reducing components to be placed on the large ships.
Call them "Maintenance-Crew Quarters" or something, and start the component much too big or expensive for practical use. Researching ShipCon 5, for example, would give you a Cruiser-only mount to reduce the cost and size of the maintenance crew.

[dumbluck]

The Art of War mod does something like what SJ was talking about. I liked your ideas about the armor and torpedos, etc. I'd like to take a look at your mod for "insperation" Which mod was it?

Ah, the Foundation series. I haven't read that in a loooooooong time. It might be time for another trip to the local library....

[ March 13, 2003, 12:06: Message edited by: dumbluck ]