Revamping SEIV Ship Hull Sizes & Features

[Foreman]

And another way to make the balance - ship size does not grow with the technology. Ex:
Ship Construction 1 : 150kt
Ship Construction 2 : 400kt
Ship Construction 3 : 800kt
Ship Construction 4 : 250kt with mounts, combat speed bonus and reduced maintaince
Ship Construction 5 : 600kt with mounts, combat speed bonus and reduced maintaince
and so on...

[Instar]

I know this is probably well nigh impossible to mod, but wouldn't dread naughts need more C&C (bridge) stuff as compared to a frigate? Make dread noughts carry 2x the bridge or something.

[CNCRaymond]

I agree with Instar, the larger ships should be required to carry more in the way of C&C (Command & Control) components.

QNP system? Could someone please post the engine requirements for this. I.E. I assume that the larger ships require more engines to go the same speed as a smaller verhicle.

I like the idea of giving smaller ships more advantages as you research through the Construction Technology like what was posted below.

But what advantages do you think smaller ships should have over their larger counterparts? PCP any thoughts on this?

I have a couple:

Escort/scout/cutter -
Normal starting tech but at ship construction tech 4 bonus given for speed and reduced component size.

Frigate/gunboat/Corvettes -
Normal starting tech at start but at ship construction level 5 tech given for speed and special weapons mounts. (Weapons mounts can be an imporved fire rate or distance bonus to hit ratio to missles or torpedo's)

Destroyer/heavy destroyer
Normal starting tech at start but at ship construction level 6 tech given for armor and special weapons. (Special weapons can be as you said, advanced missiles and torpedo's.)

This kinda spells out what I had in mind.

PCP do you remember that game you authored a few years ago (Q - Experiment?) I still have a print out of it if your interested in reviewing it. Remember all of the detail you went into for each ship class? I hope you still have a copy of it someplace, but it has been four years now.

Also I think it is important to understand that each ship class (Hull size) should have an important role to play in any game/mod. No sense in designing a Destroyer when your going to have Light Cruiser in five turns.

Additionally, here is my list for ship hull sizes:

Ships:
Scouts
Escorts
Cutters
Corvette
Gun Ship
Frigate
Destroyer
Light Cruiser
Cruiser
Heavy Cruiser
Battle Cruiser
Battleship
Dreadnought
Juggernought
Capital Ship

Small Carrier
Medium Carrier
Large Carrier
Super Carrier
Battle Carrier

Space Stations/OutPosts:
Standard
Centenial
Crown
Outland
Frontier

Battle Stations:
Alpha
Beta
Delta
Epsilon
Gama

Star Bases:
Base Star
Battle Star
Death Star

Fighters:
Interceptor
Short Range Fighter
Fighter
Heavy Fighter
Bomber
Heavy Bomber
Fighter Bomber
Long Range Bomber
Shuttles
Runabouts

Support Ships:
Colony 1
Colony 2
Colony 3

Transport 1
Transport 2
Transport 3

Extras:
Salvage ship
Repair vessel
Construction ship
Cargo ship
Specialized ship

PCP you really could make a sweet mod out of that game idea you had for the old FSN Forums. What did they rename it? Domination?

[Suicide Junkie]

QNP system? Could someone please post the engine requirements for this. I.E. I assume that the larger ships require more engines to go the same speed as a smaller verhicle

No problem:
1) Pick a nice scale, that evenly divides all of your ship sizes. 50kt is typically good.
2) For each hull size, set the engines per move to [mass] / [50]
3) Bump up the standard movement points (thrust) of your engines to something around 3 to 7 points per 10kt. Higher tech engines should have more thrust.
4) Remove bonus movement abilities, since they mess up the system. Solar sails can provide lower thrust and use no fuel, to keep them useful.

An escort (150kt /50kt = 3) requires 3 E.P.M. so if you add a single engine with 3 standard movement points, it will have a speed of one.

Note: "Engines per Move" really means "standard movement points per move".

The alternative method is via mounts (mQNP)
1) Scale up all engines to enormous cost and size.
2) Add an engine mount for each hull, which reduces the size (and cost) of the engine appropriately. 1% per 50kt should do nicely.
3) Again remove bonus movement abilities.

[Atrocities]

Thanks SJ.

CNC I do remember the game. I find it very interesting how much that game mirrors SEIV. (IIRC I wrote it in September 98.) I may have an old copy of it on my P2 400, but that no longer works. PS or MB went out.

Random might have a copy it too. I will see if I can get one from him, but I have not seen him on line in over two years.

If you have printed copy, send it buy. I would love to read it.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Instar:
I know this is probably well nigh impossible to mod, but wouldn't dread naughts need more C&C (bridge) stuff as compared to a frigate? Make dread noughts carry 2x the bridge or something.

Make the Bridge 1000 kT. Give each ship a mount that can only be used on the Bridge to scale it's size and cost appropriately.

[QuarianRex]

One thing that I always wanted to see was inherent abilities for the specialized hulls. Like giving the carriers a fighter launch abilitiy of 5/20 or somesuch. It would give a concrete reason to pick the carrier hull when there are larger alternatives available.

Here are some comments on previous ideas. Increasing the cost of the larger ships? Whether this is done through increasing hull cost or boosting maintainance I say thee nay. Making a fleet of dreadnoughts break your galactic bank isn't realistic and is even less fun to play. I don't think anyone likes being forced to make smaller ships. How about giving a severe maint. reduction on the smaller ships. They may have the lifespan of gnats but you could support a horde. That would be a reason to keep the smaller sizes around.

Mounts can be a problem. If you want to go the MOO2 heavy mount route (2x size, 1.5x damage, additional range) then for the love of god don't give them to-hit penalties. Penalties actually shorten the effective range, and besides, you need something to offset the lowered damage ratio. I think that a +10% to-hit bonus per +1 range is needed to make the range increase usable as opposed to being a cruel taunt. Of course this type of mount is really effective when you can combine it with higher damage ratio weapons to give that long/short range punch.

Another problem is that the AI blindly uses the lowest available mount on the list. How to get around that? Perhaps by limiting certain mounts to certain weapons? Maybe the MOO2 heavy mount would be limited to energy weapons while the high damage/low accuracy would be more appopriate to slug throwers and the like? Then you could have a mix of mounts in a given design.

[ March 23, 2003, 22:06: Message edited by: QuarianRex ]