Re: Freighter Network
 

Wow! I like that system a lot and I'm going to try too implement it somehow. Question for will though, why do you suggest implementing removoing resupply depots? I understand what you mean by making your military forces use supply as its maintance, but if you just are concerned about building a Freighter Network, you don't have to add that feature, right?

Also, I would imagine it would be too difficult for the AI to use this effectively?

Re: Freighter Network
 

yeah, this would have to be multiplayer-only. theres no way the AI could be scripted to send freighters to the right place for scrapping, or even to scrap them at all.

of course, if you gave the AI enough bonuses or special traits, they wouldnt NEED to have freighters at all. then it would be a human player with a freighter network, vs normal AI.

Re: Freighter Network
 

Well, I was originally thinking maintainence-free freighters only, but since all hulls are going to cost some amount of organics, eventually you will hit a point where the maintainence on those ships would cause problems. You could make it all maintainence-free, though. Come to think of it, just strategizing for the production and delivery of the freighters would be enough of a hassle without having to think about maintainence and/or supply issues.

Modification then: three kinds of spaceyard facilities.
1. Spaceport, same as before; constructs at 3000/100/3000 (might want to tweak those values to account for population bonuses). Produces 2000 organics/turn, stores 2000 organics. Scraps at 110% efficiency, and can resupply. Costs 100k organics to build.
2. Launch Pad, same as before; constructs at 0/2000/0, produces 2000 organics/turn, stores 2000 organics. Costs almost nothing to build (1 organic?), it's assumed that the colony ship already has the materials, and it only requires a bit of work to set it up. Upgrades to Spaceport.
3. Military Base; constructs at 1500/50/1500, produces 50 organics/turn, stores 250. Can resupply ships, and provides extra unit spaces. Maybe higher tech gives ship/fleet training. Costs 20k organics to build, maybe more at higher tech. Possibly would also upgrade to Spaceport (or a derivative, Military Spaceport, with the training, unit spaces, etc included).

Re: Freighter Network
 

There's one major problem with that setup, Will. The Launch Pad is vastly superior to the other two space yard types for any kind of construction. If that's really what you want, fine, but if the Launch Pad is intended solely as a freighter-building place, you need to change it. Maybe make one version for mineral freighters (0/2000/1) and one for radioactives freighters (1/2000/0) and require both resources for non-freighter ships?

Re: Freighter Network
 

AH! See, I knew I was missing something important. The mineral-only Launch Pad and the radioactive-only Launch Pad sounds right. And change non-freighter hulls to require some minerals and rads, to ensure that all ships cost at least some in both resources.

Re: Freighter Network
 

I would not think Maintenance would be a problem. More Maintenance for more frieghters means automaticly more resources coming in to pay for them. It can all be balanced out. The thing then that matters is the time (distance) it takes to get back to a scrap yard.

More distance -> more turns of maintenance -> less profit -> Stretched supply lines.

This sounds like it is as it should be.

Re: Freighter Network
 

Yes, but it becomes a micromanagement headache if maintainence is included for Freighters. You would need to find the nearest Spaceport, figure out how long it would take a Freighter to make it to that Spaceport, figure out how much resources would be returned from scrapping the Freighter, and compare that to the cost of building and transporting the Freighter. This is supposed to be fun, right?

The whole point to this mod (in my view) is: to focus on developing and protecting trade routes within an empire; to introduce real blockading, where you need some firepower to enforce it, not a little scout sitting over a planet; to show the flow of resources, instead of having them magically appear each turn; to add another layer of strategy in economic sabatoge; etc.

Re: Freighter Network
 

Dude, you are way overcomplicating it.

It is a simple scrap profit give 20 turns worth of maintenance, so don't build any freighters more than 20 turns away from the scrap facility.

Where 20 is an arbitrary number depending on how you set it up.

Re: Freighter Network
 

Yes, you could set it so there is a large number of turns that you have to still turn a profit. It would still be micromanagement I think. For one, part of the strategy of playing a mod like this would be organizing convoys with armed escort, which would take some time, which would need to be accounted for in the distance. Also, when you think about it, you would be paying maintainence for what is essentially a big cargo hold of a resource. Say each Freighter has a 15000 mineral "cargo" component. Then you're paying maintainence on that -- paying resources you already have, for resources that you "have" but can't use yet -- until it gets back to the scrap facility. Essentially, the longer a Freighter would travel, the more resources that would "magically" disappear from the hold.

Re: Freighter Network
 

I think I sort of agree with Will, I look at these Freighters as "Civilan" Freighters which would not require your Empire/Military to maintain them as there repective Corperation/Organization would do that for you.

I'm a little confused though why you would need both a Organice type Spaceyard and an Radioactive type space yard to make this work. Could someone please explain why you need to do this to make the Freighter network work right?