A Poll on "Supplies, Ammo, Fuel and Energy"

[Baron Munchausen]

Adding ALL of these would be a nightmare. I think two much smaller changes would help the game's realism though. Have crew quarters actually USE supplies each turn so ships cannot sit on station for infinity. Right now, even if you set a supply usage for crew quarters they don't have any effect. This would be a good enough approximation of ordinary supply usage without having to have a special type of supplies.

The one "other" type of supplies that might be worth modeling is ORDINANCE. (Or 'ammo' as you call it.) Some types of weapons should realistically have a limited number of shots. Missiles and other seekers, for example. But having to build each missile and carry it in cargo like mines would be a mess. So, let's make a missile component on a ship hold a certain amount of abstract 'missile supplies'. Each shot uses missile supplies instead of normal supplies. When you run out, no more shots. This would put realistic controls on missiles and maybe we could make them more powerful in other ways with this limit in place.

Direct fire weapons are mostly 'energy' weapons and are fine using normal supplies. Torpedos are an interesting case. Some of them might realistically be considered 'energy weapons' but some of them might be 'ordinance' weapons. If there was this 'second' type of supply we could experiment with hybrid weapons and see how the logistics affects their effectiveness.

Solar Collectors should produce supplies only, of course, no ordinance. Being able to regenerate ALL supplies in deep space is an unbalancing aspect of the game. If missiles (ordinance) could not be regenerated but had to be acquired from bases (either planet bases or space bases) it would make the logistical limits on military expeditions more effective.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 05 April 2001).]

[Marty Ward]

I would go for two types of supply, fuel (or energy) and ammo, ammo being used only for non energy type weapons.
I think this would be easier to implement as opposed to doing all the suggestions.

[Suicide Junkie]

Just two supply types would be plenty. Energy-supplies & Matter-supplies, as Baron said.
Then you have solar collectors for energy supplies, and ramscoops (which use lots of energy supplies to function) for matter supplies.

Then you could implement some really cool stuff.

But, one thing that must be done is PREVENT AMMOLESS WEAPONS FROM FIRING! It is really kinda dumb when I'm outta supplies, so I can't move, but I can still fire 10 Massive-mount WMGs at the same time!

[Aussie Gamer]

I think that the game is fine with maybe a couple of tweaks.
Such as weapons stop firing if you run out of supplies DURING combat.

[Marty Ward]

Also is odd that my resupply pod has the exact missles it need for every ship in my fleet.
Two type would do I think. Not to complicated but opening up a lot of possibilities.

[Trachmyr]

Okay, I can live with two types of supplies(Supplies/Energy & Ordinance/Matter)... as long as there is a way to generate supplies (without the need of a star). That way we can finally add power plants!

But weapons MUST stop firing when "out", and some componets need to DRAIN supplies at the start of every turn (like lifesupport), or be deystroyed.

[Lucanos]

I'm actually one of those guys who think that Supplies and Cargo should be stored in the same facillity.

But it's a good idea.