Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 17, 2007, 08:11:43 AM
Each shipyard now has a name and consists of a Shipyard Complex plus one or more Slipways. The cost of the Shipyard Complex is 3600 (was 4800 in old rules) and it is built exactly as before using construction factories. When completed, the Shipyard Complex has a single Slipway with a capacity of 1000 tons. Additional Slipways and extra capacity for existing Slipways are built by the Shipyard Complex itself (without affecting the building of ships). Each Shipyard Complex is dedicated to building a specific class of ship and may build one of that class in each Slipway. The Complex may be retooled (see below) to build a different class of ship and this does not affect any ships currently under construction but once retooling is underway, no new tasks can be started. This simulates a shipyard getting ready for future construction while completing work on existing shipyard tasks. In effect, a Shipyard Complex has two distinct levels. The Slipway level, where ships are built, refitted, repaired and scrapped at the Racial Shipyard Rate, and the Shipyard level, where extra slipways are constructed, extra capacity is added and retooling is carried out, also at the Racial Shipyard Rate.
The functionality of the existing Shipbuilding tab on the Economics window has been cut down. The tab now shows the list of current tasks and the following buttons (all of which function identically to v2.3): Delete Task, Pause Task, Higher Priority, Lower Priority, Schedule. The list of shipyards has been replaced by a list of slipways, which is identical to the v2.3 shipyard list except that the first column shows the name of the shipyard at which each slipway is located. All the other columns are as before.
A new Manage Shipyards tab has been added. The top section is a grid control for shipyard complexes with the following columns:
? Shipyard Name: Name of the shipyard complex
? Total Slipways: How many slipways are in this shipyard complex
? Capacity per Slipway: The maximum size ship that can be built at this shipyard complex
? Available Slipways: How many slipways are empty. If this is zero, the Add Task button is greyed out when selecting this shipyard.
? Assigned Class: The only ship class that can be built in the slipways of this shipyard complex
? Current Complex Activity: What activity this complex is currently engaged in (this includes no activity, adding a slipway, adding extra capacity to all slipways or retooling for a different class).
? Progress: Percentage of current activity that has been completed
? Completion Date: When this activity is estimated to be complete.
Below the grid control is a section entitled Shipyard Complex Activity. This is where the expansion or retooling of the shipyard is set in motion. The player selects a shipyard complex and can then choose can choose from the following activities:
? Add 500 ton Capacity per Slipway: This tasks adds 500 tons to the capacity of every slipway in the complex and costs 120 BP per slipway. So setting this activity for a shipyard complex with four slipways would cost 480 BP. Mineral use is split between Duranium and Neutronium.
? Add 1000 ton Capacity per Slipway: As above except it costs 240 BP per slipway and adds 1000 tons instead of 500 tons
? Add 2000 ton Capacity per Slipway: As above except it costs 480 BP per slipway and adds 2000 tons of capacity
? Add Extra Slipway: This costs 120 BP for every 500 tons of capacity per slipway at this shipyard complex. For example, if a shipyard had a capacity of 5000 tons per slipway then adding an extra slipway would cost 1200 BP. Mineral use is split between Duranium and Neutronium.
? Retool for Selected Class (class chosen from separate dropdown): Costs 0.5x ship class cost plus 0.25x ship class cost per slipway. So if a shipyard with two slipways wanted to start building a class that cost 800 BP, the cost to retool would be 800 x (0.5+0.25+0.25) = 800 BP. If there were four slipways, the cost would be 800 x (0.5+(0.25x4)) = 1200 BP. Mineral use is based on the minerals used in the class. Only classes that are small enough to fit within the shipyard?s capacity can be selected.
Shipyard Activity can be paused, to conserve minerals, or abandoned. If an Add Extra Slipway or Retool activity is abandoned then all work is lost. If an Add Extra Capacity activity is ended then the percentage of work done on the task will be added to the shipyard, rounded down to the nearest hundred tons. For example, if a shipyard has done 75% of an Add Extra 500 Capacity activity when it is abandoned, then the shipyard gains 300 capacity (500 x 0.75 = 375).
The rate at which extra slipways or extra capacity is added is based on the shipbuilding rate of the population at which the shipyard is based. So adding an extra slipway for 1200 BP would take an amount of time equal to 1200 / pop shipbuilding rate. This includes any bonuses from commanders and any penalties for unrest, radiation, etc. The rate at which retooling takes place is based on the shipbuilding rate of the population at which the shipyard is based multiplied by the number of slipways. So changing to a new class for 800 BP would take an amount of time equal to 800 / (pop shipbuilding rate * slipways). This actually means that shipyards with a lot of slipways will take slightly less time to retool than smaller complexes and will pay a little less per slipway, although the overall cost will still be higher. This is to simulate the benefits of mass production.
While all the above is happening, the shipyard can still build ships. A third section called Create Task is at the bottom of this tab. This is very similar to the existing Shipyard Tab in v2.3 and includes the following controls:
? Task Type dropdown: Tasks available are Construction, Refit, Repair and Scrap
? New Class text box: Shows the class that can be built in the currently selected complex
? Refit Class Dropdown. Slipways can refit any other class to their dedicated class. This dropdown and the accompany ship dropdown allow the user to select a ship to be refitted to the new class. This dropdown is also used (with a different label) for Repair and Scrap. Any Slipway can repair or scrap any ship as long as the ship?s size is within its capacity. At some point in the future I may replace this with some type of Repair Yard
? Ship Name box: Name of ship about to be built
? Build Cost: Cost of the construction, refit, repair or scrap task.
? Task Group: The fleet in which new construction will be placed
? Completion Date: Estimated date on which the task will be finished.
? Required Materials: Shows list of minerals that will be consumed by this task.
The new manning requirement for shipyards is equal to one million for each shipyard complex plus 100 per ton of total capacity. For example, a Shipyard with two 5000 ton slipways would be 1m + (10,000 x 100) = 2m. The new signature of shipyards for sensor purposes is equal to the manning requirement in millions x 20.
Because of these changes and the extra detail they add, shipyards can no longer be transported by freighter. They will also no longer appear in ruins so you don?t have a useless shipyard you can?t move.
New races will get half the number of shipyards they had in the past but each shipyard complex will have 1-3 slipways and will have a capacity of 2D5 x 1000 tons (2000 ? 10,000).
This probably sounds a more complex change than it is in reality. In game terms, the differences are that shipyard capacity is actually a little cheaper than before but takes longer to build. However, because you can build up capacity while your construction factories are working on something else and also while ships are being built, in reality I think that shipyard capacity will grow more quickly than before. It also means that you need to put some thought into buliding your fleet and what ship types you will need in the future. Building additional slipways is easier than creating new shipyards and yards with many slipways are cheaper to retool on a per-slipway basis. However, more shipyards gives you more concurrent classes to build.
Steve
Post by: Randy on October 17, 2007, 11:28:49 AM
1. Retool mineral cost - So for the 1200BP retool cost for the 800 BP ship, does this mean it takes 1.5x the minerals to build the ship to retool to build the ship?
2. Retool time - for a 800BP ship, if the complex has 2 slipway the cost = 800, if four then cost = 1200. If racial build rate = 800 then the 2 SWSY will take 800/1600 or 6 months, while the 4 SWSY will take 1200/3200 or 4.5 months Right?
3. I think given the retool cost, the cost for SW and SY are extremeely high. In the range of 10 to 20 x... But I'd rather see the retool mineral cost be based on the same minerals used to build the SW and SY in the first place.
4. Mass production benefit - this will rarely be seen given the overall philosophy of low ship numbers. You would need to build a lot of ships at the same time to derive any benefit out of it. But you also need a SY complex the right size. For example, if you had a complex with 12 SW and another with 6 SW, but you wanted to build 8 ships of a particular class, which complex should retool to build it? The 12 SW yard will retool for about 13% less cost per SW, but 75% more overall.
This increased cost works out to the cost of 1.5 ships...
5. "Capacity is cheaper to but slower to build"
I believe you will find the reverse is true - you can build capacity faster, but it will cost _much_ more.
For example, considering your Manchu III class battle cruiser (10,000 tons, 1711 BP) and assuming minerals are used 1:1 with build points, under the old rules to be able to build a single one of these on a planet with no SY would cost 4800 BP, 4800 minerals plus ship cost.
With the new rules in the same situation it will cost 5760 BP plus 5760 minerals for the capacity, plus 1283.5 BP and 1283.5 minerals for retooling for a total cost of 7043 BP and minerals plus the cost of the ship. A net 47% increase in cost.
To be able to build 10 at a time the infrastructure costs would be:
Old style: 48000 BP and Minerals
New: 32,400 BP and minerals (1/3 cheaper) - good.
To build 10 each of 10 different designs (assume all designs are equivalent to the Manchu III, and exclude the actual cost of the ships):
Old: 48,000 BP and minerals
New: 78,690 BP and minerals (2/3 more expensive) - bad...
the break even point comes at about the third design built - it would cost about the same both ways.
This says to me that the retool cost is way too high, while the build cost seems about right...
Post by: mavikfelna on October 17, 2007, 12:10:57 PM
Having to have a seperate yard for Geo survey and WP survey ships when the only difference between the two is the sensor type seems really silly. Even the Russian shipyards that you're basing this change on could usually build 2 or 3 different classes of sub, even at the smaller yards.
I'm not sure what limit on the number of classes that are able to be built in a given yard should be. Maybe add 50% to the retooling cost for each class already available in the yard. You can remove a class from the available list at any time for no cost, but if you then want to restart building that class, you have to pay the full retooling cost like any other new class.
So as an example. You could have a commercial yard, making your freighters and colony transports, including jump variants, an auxillaries yard making a collier design and a troop transport, a "littoral" craft yard for your corvettes and 2 gunboat designs, a carrier yard making 1 carrier design, and a cruisers yard making 2 different classes of cruisers. You might have 10 slipways in the commercial yard, 1 in the auxillary yard, 5 in the littorial yard, 1 in the carrier yard and 2 in the curiser yard.
If you then decided to remove a freighter class to replace it with a newer design, it would cost an additional 200% of the normal retooling cost (4 total design). If you decided to remove the carrier design and retool to a new carrier, the retooling cost would be normal, since there would be no additional classes being built. Or if you added a new auxilliar, say a salvage ship, to the auxilliary yard, it would be an additional 150% cost because of the existing two classes and adding a 3rd.
Hope that makes sense.
--Mav
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 17, 2007, 12:13:48 PM
Quote from: "Randy"
1. Retool mineral cost - So for the 1200BP retool cost for the 800 BP ship, does this mean it takes 1.5x the minerals to build the ship to retool to build the ship?Yes for a yard with four slipways, which is 0.375x the ship cost per slipway.
Quote
2. Retool time - for a 800BP ship, if the complex has 2 slipway the cost = 800, if four then cost = 1200. If racial build rate = 800 then the 2 SWSY will take 800/1600 or 6 months, while the 4 SWSY will take 1200/3200 or 4.5 months Right?Yes. I am not completely happy with this but if I don't include a modifier for the number of SW then it would take a long time to retool large SY. I have also considered using racial build rate plus 1/2 racial build rate for every SW. In this case it would 800/1600 (6 months) for the 2 SW shipyard and 1200/2400 (6 months). Bear in mind that you don't have to take the SY offline to do the retooling so with good planning, there should only be minor delays in production.
Quote
3. I think given the retool cost, the cost for SW and SY are extremely high. In the range of 10 to 20 x... But I'd rather see the retool mineral cost be based on the same minerals used to build the SW and SY in the first place.The minerals are based on the class because if you are building cargo ships you will presumably need very different equipment that if you were building warships.
Quote
4. Mass production benefit - this will rarely be seen given the overall philosophy of low ship numbers. You would need to build a lot of ships at the same time to derive any benefit out of it. But you also need a SY complex the right size. For example, if you had a complex with 12 SW and another with 6 SW, but you wanted to build 8 ships of a particular class, which complex should retool to build it? The 12 SW yard will retool for about 13% less cost per SW, but 75% more overall.I think you would avoid getting into a situation where you only have two shipyards with large numbers of SW. Also, bear in mind that you don't have to retool so you can build every ship at once. If you had a SY with 2 SW, you could retool that and build 8 ships over a period of time (as happens in reality)
This increased cost works out to the cost of 1.5 ships...
Quote
5. "Capacity is cheaper to but slower to build"I said later in the same paragraph that "in reality I think that shipyard capacity will grow more quickly than before"
I believe you will find the reverse is true - you can build capacity faster, but it will cost _much_ more.
Quote
For example, considering your Manchu III class battle cruiser (10,000 tons, 1711 BP) and assuming minerals are used 1:1 with build points, under the old rules to be able to build a single one of these on a planet with no SY would cost 4800 BP, 4800 minerals plus ship cost.
With the new rules in the same situation it will cost 5760 BP plus 5760 minerals for the capacity, plus 1283.5 BP and 1283.5 minerals for retooling for a total cost of 7043 BP and minerals plus the cost of the ship. A net 47% increase in cost.
To be able to build 10 at a time the infrastructure costs would be:
Old style: 48000 BP and Minerals
New: 32,400 BP and minerals (1/3 cheaper) - good.
To build 10 each of 10 different designs (assume all designs are equivalent to the Manchu III, and exclude the actual cost of the ships):
Old: 48,000 BP and minerals
New: 78,690 BP and minerals (2/3 more expensive) - bad...
the break even point comes at about the third design built - it would cost about the same both ways.
Which is good, because that is the type of thing I was aiming for. In reality, unit costs fall as you bulid more of a particular class. Also, it is cheaper under the new system to create shipyards to build smaller ships so Empires with less money and smaller ships will be better off than before.
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 17, 2007, 12:43:07 PM
Quote from: "mavikfelna"
I really think you should be able to build multiple classes within a shipyard.
Having to have a seperate yard for Geo survey and WP survey ships when the only difference between the two is the sensor type seems really silly. Even the Russian shipyards that you're basing this change on could usually build 2 or 3 different classes of sub, even at the smaller yards.
I'm not sure what limit on the number of classes that are able to be built in a given yard should be. Maybe add 50% to the retooling cost for each class already available in the yard. You can remove a class from the available list at any time for no cost, but if you then want to restart building that class, you have to pay the full retooling cost like any other new class.
So as an example. You could have a commercial yard, making your freighters and colony transports, including jump variants, an auxillaries yard making a collier design and a troop transport, a "littoral" craft yard for your corvettes and 2 gunboat designs, a carrier yard making 1 carrier design, and a cruisers yard making 2 different classes of cruisers. You might have 10 slipways in the commercial yard, 1 in the auxillary yard, 5 in the littorial yard, 1 in the carrier yard and 2 in the curiser yard.
If you then decided to remove a freighter class to replace it with a newer design, it would cost an additional 200% of the normal retooling cost (4 total design). If you decided to remove the carrier design and retool to a new carrier, the retooling cost would be normal, since there would be no additional classes being built. Or if you added a new auxilliar, say a salvage ship, to the auxilliary yard, it would be an additional 150% cost because of the existing two classes and adding a 3rd.
Hope that makes sense.
It does. At the moment, retooling costs are based on either the new cost of a class or the refit cost from the previous class, whichever is closer. So if you want to build several geo ships and then retool to build several grav survey ships, it would cost you a lot less than retooling a yard currently building colony ships.
One option I considered was allowing a shipyard to also build ships of different classes that are within a small refit cost (perhaps 10% of total cost) of the class they are setup to build. This would allow you to build close variants without having to retool. The drawback to this is that every time you a player selected a shipyard I would have to recheck the refit cost of all classes, which might take a while.
In any event, I think once people start playing with the new shipyards, they may find this isn't a big deal at they might think. Most races are going to start with several shipyards with 1-3 SW per shipyard so unless they want to concurrently build a wide range of different types, the retooling shouldn't be a major issue, given some planning. You could either build the geo and grav survey ships in two separate, small yards or build the geo then sort out the small retooling costs before the geo's are complete so you are ready to immediately build grav survey ships.
Steve
Post by: Doug Olchefske on October 17, 2007, 01:18:12 PM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
In any event, I think once people start playing with the new shipyards, they may find this isn't a big deal at they might think. Most races are going to start with several shipyards with 1-3 SW per shipyard so unless they want to concurrently build a wide range of different types, the retooling shouldn't be a major issue, given some planning. You could either build the geo and grav survey ships in two separate, small yards or build the geo then sort out the small retooling costs before the geo's are complete so you are ready to immediately build grav survey ships.
Steve
This is exactly the issue. I frequently have multiple classes being built at the same time, adding one or two at a time. With this change I'll need multiple shipyards with 1 or 2 slipways and have to track which builds which. This change is fine if you surge out a bunch at once, but I usually don't need a bunch at once.
In this case I think you've added more complexity and micromanagement at the expense of utility and fun. I think you'd be better off having fewer but larger shipyards and have specialization at the slipway level.
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 17, 2007, 01:33:42 PM
Quote from: "Doug Olchefske"
This is exactly the issue. I frequently have multiple classes being built at the same time, adding one or two at a time. With this change I'll need multiple shipyards with 1 or 2 slipways and have to track which builds which. This change is fine if you surge out a bunch at once, but I usually don't need a bunch at once.I would have thought the reverse would be true. This new method favours one or two ships of a particular being built concurrently, as in reality, rather than trying to suddenly build ten at once, which happens in Starfire but not in reality. In terms of tracking what shipyards build what class, that is done for your on the new Manage Shipyards tab
Quote
In this case I think you've added more complexity and micromanagement at the expense of utility and fun. I think you'd be better off having fewer but larger shipyards and have specialization at the slipway level.
I am prepared to reconsider this after playtesting but if specialization was at the slipway level, there is no point having shipyards and slipways. You may has well have the old system and just specialise each individual shipyard. Although having many shipyards with one or two slipways each under the new system will accomplish the same thing.
Steve
Post by: Erik L on October 17, 2007, 01:37:36 PM
Post by: Þórgrímr on October 17, 2007, 01:47:37 PM
Code: [Select]
Shipbuilder Location Type of Vessel Customer Pennant #s Yard # or Contract Status Name Description Price ($mm) Delivery
Bath Iron Works Bath ME Destroyer U.S. Navy DDG 104 501 Sterett 9,238 ldt, FY 02 464.4 9-Nov-07
Bath Iron Works Bath ME Destroyer U.S. Navy DDG 106 502 Stockdale 9,238 ldt, FY 03 409.1 6-Jun-08
Bath Iron Works Bath ME Destroyer U.S. Navy DDG 108 503 Wayne E. Meyer 9,238 ldt, FY 04 485.0 16-Jan-09
Bath Iron Works Bath ME Destroyer U.S. Navy DDG 109 504 Jason Dunham 9,238 ldt, FY 04 524.7 14-Aug-09
Bath Iron Works Bath ME Destroyer U.S. Navy DDG 111 505 Spruance 9,238 ldt, FY 05 488.6 30-May-10
Bath Iron Works Bath ME Destroyer U.S. Navy DDG 112 506 9,238 ldt, FY 06 562.4 31-Dec-10
Bath Iron Works Bath ME Destroyer U.S. Navy DDG 1000 507 Zumwalt 14,564 ldt, FY 07 ~1,292 Dec-12
Electric Boat New London CT Submarine U.S. Navy SSGN 729 Firm Georgia 15,275 ldt, FY 05 120 Sep-07
Electric Boat New London CT Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 778 261 New Hampshire 7,700 ldt, FY 03 1,487 Apr-09
Electric Boat New London CT Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 780 262 7,700 ldt, FY 05 1,533 Apr-11
Electric Boat New London CT Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 782 263 7,700 ldt, FY 07 1,744 Apr-13
Electric Boat New London CT Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 784 Option 7,700 ldt, FY 08 1,902 Apr-15 EDIT: I just noticed the Electric Boat SY is also multiclassing, a SSGN and SSN's at the same time. And if you notice, in each case neither class is within 10% of the tonnage of each other.
So I am also in favor of multiple class types for shipyards.
Cheers,
Post by: Þórgrímr on October 17, 2007, 02:00:20 PM
Code: [Select]
Shipbuilder Location Type of Vessel Pennant #s Yard # or Status Name Description Price Delivery
Marinette Marine Marinette WI Lighterage U.S. Navy (NAVFAC) Firm Year 1 126.0 Dec-07
Marinette Marine Marinette WI Lighterage U.S. Navy (NAVFAC) Options Years 2-3 144.0 Dec-09
Marinette Marine Marinette WI Littoral Combat Ship U.S. Navy LCS 1 Firm Freedom FY 05 188.2 31-Dec-06
Marinette Marine Marinette WI Response Boats U.S. Coast Guard Firm Year 1 Dec-07
Marinette Marine Marinette WI Response Boats U.S. Coast Guard Options Years 2-9 Dec-16
Marinette Marine Marinette WI Tug K-Sea Transportation LOI Dec-09
Marinette Marine Marinette WI Tug K-Sea Transportation LOI Dec-10 Cheers,
Post by: Pete_Keller on October 17, 2007, 02:25:32 PM
Quote from: "??rgr?mr"
Code: [Select]Shipbuilder Location Type of Vessel Customer Pennant #s Yard # or Contract Status Name Description Price ($mm) Delivery
Electric Boat New London CT Submarine U.S. Navy SSGN 729 Firm Georgia 15,275 ldt, FY 05 120 Sep-07
Electric Boat New London CT Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 778 261 New Hampshire 7,700 ldt, FY 03 1,487 Apr-09
Electric Boat New London CT Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 780 262 7,700 ldt, FY 05 1,533 Apr-11
Electric Boat New London CT Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 782 263 7,700 ldt, FY 07 1,744 Apr-13
Electric Boat New London CT Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 784 Option 7,700 ldt, FY 08 1,902 Apr-15
EDIT: I just noticed the Electric Boat SY is also multiclassing, a SSGN and SSN's at the same time. And if you notice, in each case neither class is within 10% of the tonnage of each other.
So I am also in favor of multiple class types for shipyards.
Cheers, ??rgr?mr
??rgr?mr,
The SSGN is an upgrade from SSBN to SSGN. It is NOT new construction.
Post by: Þórgrímr on October 17, 2007, 02:34:53 PM
Cheers,
Post by: Pete_Keller on October 17, 2007, 02:56:10 PM
Where did you get the info?
Pete
Post by: Þórgrímr on October 17, 2007, 03:22:02 PM
Quote from: "Pete_Keller"
??rgr?mr,
Where did you get the info?
Pete
Right here good sir.
http://www.coltoncompany.com/shipbldg/contracts.htm
Cheers, ??rgr?mr
Post by: Randy on October 17, 2007, 03:47:47 PM
Quote
The minerals are based on the class because if you are building cargo ships you will presumably need very different equipment that if you were building warships.
But what you are making the ship out of really has nothing to do with the _tools_ used to build the ships.
If I'm building a gold wiring jig, likely I am not making the jig out of gold just because the wires are gold.
Same for armor - I'll build the tools out of the cheapest materials that can do the job, but I really don't need all the braces used to hold the hull in place before joing the plates together made out of the same high grade armour that I'm using to build the hull...
Same goes for various pieces on all the weapon systems.
On the other hand, the robots used to build each ship are largely the same - they just need different programs (and attachments).
Given the above, I'd assume that building a SW and SY will use roughly the same materials regaurdless of the actual ships being built at that SY.
It just feels so wrong that the actual class determines the minerals required for the tools...
And while we are at it, what happens to the old tools? They can't be getting recycled, otherwise the initial class an SY is tooled for would cost more than subsequent classes. And if they are merely being set aside, then going back to a previous class that an SY was tooled for should cost _much_ less. So which is it?
The retooling times will encourage larger numbers of SW - the optimum seems around 5 or 6 (more results in diminishing returns for the investment, less is lower efficiency). This sort of gets a reasonably fast retooling time and minimizes the cost associated with retooling.
The only way this dosn't work is if you build a lot of one-off designs. Of course, with the retooling rules, there is _very_ little incentive for a one-off. It will tie up an entire SY until done, will cost a minimum of 75% of the cost of the ship, and then there is the retooling time itself - 75% of the construction time of the ship.
Simply going to 2 SW reduces the retool time to 50%, and the retool cost to 100%...
Conceptually, I like the overall idea. I just think that certain parts need to be rebalanced - most importantly the retooling costs in minerals.
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 17, 2007, 04:07:36 PM
Quote from: "Randy"
QuoteThe minerals are based on the class because if you are building cargo ships you will presumably need very different equipment that if you were building warships.But what you are making the ship out of really has nothing to do with the _tools_ used to build the ships.
If I'm building a gold wiring jig, likely I am not making the jig out of gold just because the wires are gold.
Same for armor - I'll build the tools out of the cheapest materials that can do the job, but I really don't need all the braces used to hold the hull in place before joing the plates together made out of the same high grade armour that I'm using to build the hull...
OK, that does make sense. I am convinced
I have changed the retooling so that it uses just Duranium and Neutronium, the same as all other shipyard modifications.
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 17, 2007, 04:33:31 PM
Quote from: "??rgr?mr"
Steve, below is the current schedule for the Bath Iron Works here in the US, notice it is building two different types of DDG's at the same time. And the Zumwalt is just about as different from the other class as you can get.
Yes but if you look at the delivery dates, the Zumwalt isn't being delivered until 2012, 2 years after the last of the other DDs. This is exactly how Aurora works. At some point after laying down the last Spruance, you retool for the Zumwalt class and start work on the first one while you still have several Spruances under construction. The delivery schedule would then look the same as the contract list for that shipyard. If you look through the rest of the contracts on that webpage, in almost all cases each shipyard is building one ship type, very much like the new Aurora situation
This is not going to be easy to explain but we have to be careful to differentiate between an Aurora shipyard complex and a large real-world ship building company. I am sure there are some shipyards in the real world that produce multiple types of ship in different slipways. In game terms, a shipyard complex is a collection of one or more slipways that build the same design plus a central complex headquarters responsible for adding capacity and retooling. A population might have several of these complexes and an Empire may have several populations dedicated to shipbuilding.
In the real world, a large 'shipyard' might comprise several Aurora shipyard complex equivalents and would in effect be more like the population level while a country is the Empire level.
Take the following example. In Aurora terms this looks like two shipyard complexes, one set up to build carriers and the other to build submarines. The carrier yard probably only has one slipway, looking at the delivery dates, while the submarine yard has 2-3 slipways
Code: [Select]
Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Aircraft Carrier U.S. Navy CVN 77 Firm George H. W. Bush 75,000 ldt, FY 01 3,806 Apr-08
Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Aircraft Carrier U.S. Navy CVN 78 Firm Gerald R. Ford 80,000 ldt, FY 07 4,726 Sep-15
Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 777 Firm North Carolina 7,700 ldt, FY 98 1,371 Dec-07
Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 779 Firm New Mexico 7,700 ldt, FY 04 1,485 Apr-10
Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 781 Firm 7,700 ldt, FY 06 1,576 Apr-12
Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 783 Firm 7,700 ldt, FY 07 1,723 Apr-14
Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 785 Option 7,700 ldt, FY 08 ~1,900 Apr-16 EDIT: The point I am trying to get across here is that the carriers and submarines cannot be built interchangeably in the same slipways. There is a set of slipways set up for the carrier class and a set of slipways set up for the sub class. In Aurora terms, those are two separate shipyard complexes, even though they are both Newport News in the real world
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 17, 2007, 05:02:09 PM
In other worlds, if you can build a specific destroyer class costing 1000 BP, then you could build any other class that could be refitted to the specific destroyer class for 200 BP or less. How does that sound?
Steve
Post by: Brian Neumann on October 17, 2007, 05:06:58 PM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
To allay the concerns over similar classes requiring different shipyards, I am considering the idea that in addition to the class a shipyard is set up to build, it could automatically build any other class where the refit cost from that class the to 'normal' class was less than 20% of the normal class cost.
In other worlds, if you can build a specific destroyer class costing 1000 BP, then you could build any other class that could be refitted to the specific destroyer class for 200 BP or less. How does that sound?
Steve
Instead of any other class within that limit, make it a selection that the player does. When the player wants to check what ships could be built they have to look, the screen would only show those within the limit. This would get around the problem you mentioned earlier about the program having to check each time a player clicked on a shipyard complex.
Brian
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 17, 2007, 05:17:10 PM
Quote from: "Brian"
Instead of any other class within that limit, make it a selection that the player does. When the player wants to check what ships could be built they have to look, the screen would only show those within the limit. This would get around the problem you mentioned earlier about the program having to check each time a player clicked on a shipyard complex.
I have written a piece of code since my last post. It checks all the other classes and creates a list in a fraction of a second, so it doesn't have the performance overhead I was worried about.
Steve
Post by: RoguePhoenix on October 18, 2007, 07:55:43 AM
I think alot of this ends up being 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. Indeed most slipways in a shipyard are geared to a certain size of ship and if possible depending on the amount of ships being generated geared towards a specific class. This increases effeciency and reduces cost of course and like your last post would not affect it too much if there were minor changes to an existing design.
Slipways are generally however grouped as many together as there can be because having them in one shipyard also increases the effciency by allowing mutual storage and easier construction on similar components (even carriers, cruisers, and subs have similar components). This effciency is usually increase by the number of slipways you have (i.e. the more ships you are building at once in the same area be they different or not the cheaper it is per ship). How much of a difference this makes and how easy it would be to program either way I know not.
This concept is also complicated by the way you have designed Aurora. In comparison to Starfire there are far, far fewer ships being produced. For the most part maybe 5 to 8 ships of any given design (I think the max I saw was 20 to 25) seem to be produced before technology has moved on to the point where a new design is ready to be made. It is the problem most shipyards are facing today, they really have no time to learn how to produce a particular class more effciently because by the time they have learned a new class or a new phase is being produced or too few ships of that class are going to be made in the first place. The Liberty ship in comparison, which had some 2700 ships produced, was able to make the transition from 240 day construciton to 42 days because of how many they had to learn from.
So... if your looking for realistic I don't know how much a shipyard could gear itself to a particular class of ship when it might only produce a few of each of that class. Now I can see a shipyard gearing itself to a particular type of ship (ie freighter, carrier, missle ship, beam ship) and only be limited to the size of whatever slipway it currently has. A sub is a sub even it is a SSBN or SSN it has simlar needs and overall characteristics, same as a carrier or surface ship.
It's a complicated problem, guess I will have to see how it games out in testing, but I thought I'd toss my 2 cents in.
Also I was curious. How does this affect refits?
Post by: Erik L on October 18, 2007, 08:35:20 AM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
To allay the concerns over similar classes requiring different shipyards, I am considering the idea that in addition to the class a shipyard is set up to build, it could automatically build any other class where the refit cost from that class the to 'normal' class was less than 20% of the normal class cost.
In other worlds, if you can build a specific destroyer class costing 1000 BP, then you could build any other class that could be refitted to the specific destroyer class for 200 BP or less. How does that sound?
Steve
I like this. It cuts my 8 shipyard scenario to 3. Big big savings.
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 18, 2007, 08:37:15 AM
Quote from: "RoguePhoenix"
Steve,That is a very good point. Aurora does have fewer ships than Starfire and the breadth of different technologies means that you can make minor improvements to a design on a regular basis. I guess what I am trying to aim for is a more real-world situation where you keep producing the same basic design for several years while before changing to a new one that includes a lot of new technologies, not just one or two. Of course the other advantage of keeping the same design is the ability to exchange spares between ships of the same class. Now I have added the ability to also build classes with minor differences, the same yard could produce ships with some upgrades but not a significantly changed design.
I think alot of this ends up being 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. Indeed most slipways in a shipyard are geared to a certain size of ship and if possible depending on the amount of ships being generated geared towards a specific class. This increases effeciency and reduces cost of course and like your last post would not affect it too much if there were minor changes to an existing design.
Slipways are generally however grouped as many together as there can be because having them in one shipyard also increases the effciency by allowing mutual storage and easier construction on similar components (even carriers, cruisers, and subs have similar components). This effciency is usually increase by the number of slipways you have (i.e. the more ships you are building at once in the same area be they different or not the cheaper it is per ship). How much of a difference this makes and how easy it would be to program either way I know not.
This concept is also complicated by the way you have designed Aurora. In comparison to Starfire there are far, far fewer ships being produced. For the most part maybe 5 to 8 ships of any given design (I think the max I saw was 20 to 25) seem to be produced before technology has moved on to the point where a new design is ready to be made. It is the problem most shipyards are facing today, they really have no time to learn how to produce a particular class more effciently because by the time they have learned a new class or a new phase is being produced or too few ships of that class are going to be made in the first place. The Liberty ship in comparison, which had some 2700 ships produced, was able to make the transition from 240 day construciton to 42 days because of how many they had to learn from.
Quote
So... if your looking for realistic I don't know how much a shipyard could gear itself to a particular class of ship when it might only produce a few of each of that class. Now I can see a shipyard gearing itself to a particular type of ship (ie freighter, carrier, missle ship, beam ship) and only be limited to the size of whatever slipway it currently has. A sub is a sub even it is a SSBN or SSN it has simlar needs and overall characteristics, same as a carrier or surface ship.A good thing about the code for allowing similar ships is that the percentage of refit cost is a global constant. If playtesting showed that 20% wasn't enough, I could change it to 30% or 40%. That would allow similar types of ships to be built but not radically different ones.
Quote
It's a complicated problem, guess I will have to see how it games out in testing, but I thought I'd toss my 2 cents in.
Also I was curious. How does this affect refits?
For a given yard, you can refit to any class that can be built in the yard (from any other class).
Steve
Post by: Randy on October 18, 2007, 08:57:07 AM
I think it would make some sense that a given SY complex could go back and build any class it has previously built (ie has retooled for at least once) for a much lower cost than retooling to build it in the first place.
Say something like 10%...
This might be an alternative to the "can build anything within 20%" cost solution. It is less prone to abuse, and somewhat realistic as part of the retooling process is learning how to build it in the first place...
This would let you build class A, retool for class B (the grav and geo sensor versions of ships for example). Decide you need more class A, you can switch the complex back to A for 10% the normal switch cost (in both BP and minerals).
Allowing this makes it so the investment to build class A or B isn't lost when going to another class - it will still be recoverable at some point in the future...
Post by: Erik L on October 18, 2007, 09:08:46 AM
Why not call them something like "Terra Yards" "Mars Yards" "Alpha Centauri A III Yards"
Prefix Yards with the colony name. Simple and tells you exactly where it is.
Post by: Pete_Keller on October 18, 2007, 11:03:10 AM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
A good thing about the code for allowing similar ships is that the percentage of refit cost is a global constant. If playtesting showed that 20% wasn't enough, I could change it to 30% or 40%. That would allow similar types of ships to be built but not radically different ones.
Steve
Steve, is it hard coded in the program, or is it in access?
Pete
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 19, 2007, 05:00:31 AM
Quote from: "Randy"
This might be an alternative to the "can build anything within 20%" cost solution. It is less prone to abuse, and somewhat realistic as part of the retooling process is learning how to build it in the first place...
I'll answer the main point separately but I thought I had better cover this first as I may not have properly explained the 20% rule. This isn't any ship within 20% of the cost of the dedicated class. It's any ship that could be refitted to the dedicated class for less than 20% of the main class cost. Therefore it only applies to designs that closely resemble the dedicated class.
For example, a shipyard dedicating to building the Udaloy III could also build the Udaloy IIIC because to refit the latter to the former would cost 125 BP, which is only 18% of the cost of the Udaloy III.
Code: [Select]
Udaloy III class Survey Ship 3750 tons 335 Crew 694 BP TCS 75 TH 300 EM 0
4000 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/0/0/3/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 0
Replacement Parts 5
J375 Jump Drive Max Ship Size 3750 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Sorokin S8 Ion Drive (5) Power 60 Efficiency 0.80 Signature 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres Range 216.0 billion km (625 days at full power)
Gravitational Survey Sensors (3) 3 Survey Points Code: [Select]
Udaloy IIIC class Survey Ship 3750 tons 335 Crew 744 BP TCS 75 TH 300 EM 0
4000 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/0/0/2/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 0
Flag Bridge Replacement Parts 5
J375 Jump Drive Max Ship Size 3750 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Sorokin S8 Ion Drive (5) Power 60 Efficiency 0.80 Signature 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres Range 216.0 billion km (625 days at full power)
Gravitational Survey Sensors (2) 2 Survey Points However, you couldn't build the Kotlin II class Terraformer, which costs 734 (only 40 more than the Udaloy III) in this yard, because the refit cost from the Kotlin to the Udaloy is 625 BP. This system should not be open to abuse because the program performs all the refit calculations and provides only eligible ships as available for construction. The part that will need playtesting is where to set the percentage. I am not sure if the 20% is slightly slow.For example, to refit the Sovremenny IIA to the Sovremenny IIB requires the replacement of all six missile launchers with newer types. This refit costs 225, which is 25.4% of the Sovremenny IIA build cost. So should this new ship be built with no modification to the yard or should the yard retool to build the updated version. In this case the Yard has two slipways and would pay 225 BPs to retool (because the retool cost is based on the lower of the new cost and refit cost). Retool cost calculation is 225 x (0.5(SY) +0.25 +0.25 (2x SW)). The shipbuilding rate for this pop is 784 BP so retooling would take seven weeks, based on 225 / (784x2). Personally I don't think 225 BP and seven weeks is unreasonable as a retooling time and cost so the 20% level may be OK.
Code: [Select]
Sovremenny II-A class Destroyer 6000 tons 693 Crew 886 BP TCS 120 TH 480 EM 270
4000 km/s Armour 1 Shields 9-300 Sensors 1/0/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 30
Magazine 600 Replacement Parts 10
Sorokin S8 Ion Drive (8) Power 60 Efficiency 0.80 Signature 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 90.0 billion km (260 days at full power)
Beta R300/15 Shields (6) Total Fuel Cost 90 Litres per day
Missile Launcher 05-050 (6) Missile Size 5 Rate of Fire 50
M600 Missile Fire Control (1) Range: 600k km
SS-N-2 Scarab (120) Speed: 14,000 km/s Endurance: 50 secs Range: 700k km Warhead: 4 Size: 5
Active Sensor MR20000-R40 (1) GPS 2000 Range 20.0m km Resolution 40Code: [Select]
Sovremenny II-B class Destroyer 6000 tons 693 Crew 946 BP TCS 120 TH 480 EM 270
4000 km/s Armour 1 Shields 9-300 Sensors 1/0/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 30
Magazine 600 Replacement Parts 10
Sorokin S8 Ion Drive (8) Power 60 Efficiency 0.80 Signature 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 90.0 billion km (260 days at full power)
Beta R300/15 Shields (6) Total Fuel Cost 90 Litres per day
Mikoyan M40 Missile Launcher (6) Missile Size 5 Rate of Fire 40
M600 Missile Fire Control (1) Range: 600k km
SS-N-2 Scarab (120) Speed: 14,000 km/s Endurance: 50 secs Range: 700k km Warhead: 4 Size: 5
Active Sensor MR20000-R40 (1) GPS 2000 Range 20.0m km Resolution 40Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 19, 2007, 05:03:00 AM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Regarding yard names...
Why not call them something like "Terra Yards" "Mars Yards" "Alpha Centauri A III Yards"
Prefix Yards with the colony name. Simple and tells you exactly where it is.
There would have to be an additional number because you can have more than one yard per population. So you might have Terra Yard #4, etc.
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 19, 2007, 05:08:11 AM
Quote from: "Randy"
One more thought over night...
I think it would make some sense that a given SY complex could go back and build any class it has previously built (ie has retooled for at least once) for a much lower cost than retooling to build it in the first place.
Not necessarily. The Russians converted some warship yards to build freighters and it was considered very difficult to change back. A US example is the following statement from Northrop Grumman.
According to a Northrop Grumman source, "Our workload forecasting and PERT [Program Evaluation Review Technique] charts show that we will be wrapping up our last contracted DDG-51 for the US Navy at the end of 2006 or early 2007. Once that is done, we will shut down the assembly line. If anyone wants to purchase the DDG-51/AEGIS after we shut down the assembly and lay off the highly trained and skilled DDG-51 craftsmen and technicians, you can imagine the added costs involved. So, if anyone intends to buy this system, they should wisely sign up soon."
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 19, 2007, 05:08:58 AM
Quote from: "Pete_Keller"
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"A good thing about the code for allowing similar ships is that the percentage of refit cost is a global constant. If playtesting showed that 20% wasn't enough, I could change it to 30% or 40%. That would allow similar types of ships to be built but not radically different ones.Steve, is it hard coded in the program, or is it in access?
Coded as a constant, but it could be moved to Access.
Steve
Post by: ZimRathbone on October 19, 2007, 05:56:43 AM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Quote from: "Pete_Keller"Coded as a constant, but it could be moved to Access.Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"A good thing about the code for allowing similar ships is that the percentage of refit cost is a global constant. If playtesting showed that 20% wasn't enough, I could change it to 30% or 40%. That would allow similar types of ships to be built but not radically different ones.Steve, is it hard coded in the program, or is it in access?
Steve
I'd advise moving as many global constants like this as possible to an params table - it makes the configuration of your app much easier in the long run (of course its a royal bitch to do to an established app like this)
Mike
Post by: Pete_Keller on October 19, 2007, 07:34:30 AM
Quote from: "ZimRathbone"
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"Quote from: "Pete_Keller"Coded as a constant, but it could be moved to Access.Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"A good thing about the code for allowing similar ships is that the percentage of refit cost is a global constant. If playtesting showed that 20% wasn't enough, I could change it to 30% or 40%. That would allow similar types of ships to be built but not radically different ones.Steve, is it hard coded in the program, or is it in access?
Steve
I'd advise moving as many global constants like this as possible to an params table - it makes the configuration of your app much easier in the long run (of course its a royal bitch to do to an established app like this)
Mike
I agree, most of the constants should be in access. It is not a royal bitch on an established app. All you do is early in the program startup cycle, open the database and load the values from access. Once they are loaded, they are constants to the program.
Pete
Post by: Randy on October 19, 2007, 01:03:15 PM
Quote
Not necessarily. The Russians converted some warship yards to build freighters and it was considered very difficult to change back. A US example is the following statement from Northrop Grumman.
Using the examples it would suggest that the BP cost should still be high, but the mineral cost should be reduced. Maybe 10% minerals, 50% BP?
just throwing some numbers out. Of course, it might be too mucha of a pain to track this anyways...
Post by: RoguePhoenix on October 19, 2007, 09:05:31 PM
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 20, 2007, 11:01:49 AM
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 20, 2007, 11:58:24 AM
Quote from: "RoguePhoenix"
Hmmm... I was thinking of a lot of things that could be said about this and I started going back over the posts. Besides an attempt to make things more realistic is there a core reason behind adding the slipways to the game? I might have just missed something in the posts but I didn't see anything. I didn't want to make any more comments on it without knowing what you were tying to accomplish with the slipways.
A few reasons. Reality as you mentioned above is a big factor. I also like the idea of named shipyards producing particular types of ships and I have added the shipyard at which a ship is built to the ship history. Originally I considered a simple retool cost per v2.3 shipyard. Slipways were added because a player may build 2 or more of a certain class at once and it makes it cheaper to retool for multiple slipways. It adds more player decision making as they have to decide how to expand their shipyard capacity and shipyard capacity becomes separate from construction factories, enabling the player to work on shipyard capacity as the same time as other construction tasks. Finally, it adds more realistic constraints on what players can build, some forward planning is needed for shipbuilding and you can no longer just design something and start building it instantly, unless it closely resembles an existing class.
Steve
Post by: Brian Neumann on October 21, 2007, 08:02:30 AM
I would suggest that even if you decide to do this that it wait for v2.5
Brian
Post by: Michael Sandy on October 23, 2007, 12:10:17 PM
If I ever get the time for Aurora again, I will see about making survey designs where the Geo, Grav, dedicated scouts and jump tenders can all use the same SY.
Might have to slightly over engine the designs a bit to keep the refit cost percentage on target. Or give them all sensors and/or extra engineering space.
I would see about what other auxiliary ships that shipyard could produce, like a small, fast, troop transport, tanker or collier.
So a race might have 1 Auxiliary shipyard, for size 60 ships (3,000 tons),
1 commercial shipyard, 1 shipyard designed for oversized ships like terraformers, jump gate construction ships, gas miners that gets refit from time to time, and a couple of shipyards for various sized warships.
I can see a lot more mixed design ships for a simple reason:
If a ship class has half lasers, half missiles, a new class with upgraded lasers is much more likely to be within the 20% refit cost than if you had to upgrade the whole ship.
Post by: Kurt on October 23, 2007, 12:30:53 PM
Quote from: "Michael Sandy"
I have noticed a lot of survey designs with their own jump drive lately. Is that partly a result of having more alien race encounters?
If I ever get the time for Aurora again, I will see about making survey designs where the Geo, Grav, dedicated scouts and jump tenders can all use the same SY.
Might have to slightly over engine the designs a bit to keep the refit cost percentage on target. Or give them all sensors and/or extra engineering space.
I would see about what other auxiliary ships that shipyard could produce, like a small, fast, troop transport, tanker or collier.
So a race might have 1 Auxiliary shipyard, for size 60 ships (3,000 tons),
1 commercial shipyard, 1 shipyard designed for oversized ships like terraformers, jump gate construction ships, gas miners that gets refit from time to time, and a couple of shipyards for various sized warships.
I can see a lot more mixed design ships for a simple reason:
If a ship class has half lasers, half missiles, a new class with upgraded lasers is much more likely to be within the 20% refit cost than if you had to upgrade the whole ship.
Mostly, for me, having survey ships with their own jump drives is primarily for efficiency and secondarily for safety if some alien badguy is found. I have found that mixed groups of grav and geo survey ships are hard to coordinate, and generally end up with one or the other wasting a lot of time waiting around.
What I have generally ended up with is either having every ship in a survey group have a jump drive, and generally working alone, or have a jump-capable survey ship with several smaller dedicated non-jump-capable survey ships of the same type along as well. So a squadron might look like the following:
1xJump Ship (Geo-Surv) (8,000 tons)
2xGeo-Surv Ship (4,000 tons)
1xEscort (5,000 tons)
This brings us to a sticky problem. I like to leave a ship on the warp point, to guard the back door, so to speak. However, if that ship doesn't have a jump drive, it is a sitting duck if the squadron jump ship is destroyed further in-system. Creating a dedicated non-survey jumpship that just sits around on the warp point just seems wasteful to me, though. Having a back door guard with no jump-drive of its own is fairly useless, though.
What I've generally ended up with is having single ship exploration groups, so that no other ships are lost if the squadron jump-ship is lost, as the single ship of the squadron fills all roles, or a multi-ship squadron containing at least two jump ships for safety's sake. The second option gets expensive, though.
Kurt
Post by: Erik L on October 23, 2007, 12:41:19 PM
Quote from: "Michael Sandy"
I have noticed a lot of survey designs with their own jump drive lately. Is that partly a result of having more alien race encounters?
If I ever get the time for Aurora again, I will see about making survey designs where the Geo, Grav, dedicated scouts and jump tenders can all use the same SY.
Might have to slightly over engine the designs a bit to keep the refit cost percentage on target. Or give them all sensors and/or extra engineering space.
I would see about what other auxiliary ships that shipyard could produce, like a small, fast, troop transport, tanker or collier.
So a race might have 1 Auxiliary shipyard, for size 60 ships (3,000 tons),
1 commercial shipyard, 1 shipyard designed for oversized ships like terraformers, jump gate construction ships, gas miners that gets refit from time to time, and a couple of shipyards for various sized warships.
I can see a lot more mixed design ships for a simple reason:
If a ship class has half lasers, half missiles, a new class with upgraded lasers is much more likely to be within the 20% refit cost than if you had to upgrade the whole ship.
For a couple of the same reasons Kurt mentions. Mixed groups tend to have a lot of wasted time. And a dedicated jump tender just sits there not providing much of anything (though I suppose you could have a tender/tanker).
I usually run a survey squadron with 5 ships. No weapons/scanners/defenses. They survey the system and move on to the next.
I usually end up with my specialized designs (survey ships, freighters, harvesters, colonizers) having a jump drive. The warships will have one or more assault tenders (max squadron size/distance). The warships don't mount the drive for size/speed/more offense/defense in that spot.
Of course, if the tender is blown the war fleet is hosed.
Post by: Kurt on October 23, 2007, 03:35:49 PM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
For a couple of the same reasons Kurt mentions. Mixed groups tend to have a lot of wasted time. And a dedicated jump tender just sits there not providing much of anything (though I suppose you could have a tender/tanker).
I usually run a survey squadron with 5 ships. No weapons/scanners/defenses. They survey the system and move on to the next.
I usually end up with my specialized designs (survey ships, freighters, harvesters, colonizers) having a jump drive. The warships will have one or more assault tenders (max squadron size/distance). The warships don't mount the drive for size/speed/more offense/defense in that spot.
Of course, if the tender is blown the war fleet is hosed.
Risky, having unarmed survey groups with no defenses or even sensors. I usually at least give my survey units decent passive scanners, so they might have a chance to see something coming and get out quick.
Of course, my current approach, with the Jovians, isn't the best. Their 1st Survey Group, before it got hosed by a precursor, was a Vanguard Class Jump/Geo-Survey ship, a Cortez Class Geo-Survey Ship, and a Tribal Class DDE. The shortcomings in this configuration are numerous, as the recent hosing illustrated. The Vanguard was the first ship to detect the precursor, and if it had been destroyed the other two ships would have been stranded. The only fact that saved the Vanguard was that they had better sensors than the precursor and detected them first, which allowed them to retreat and bring up the other ships. The DDE doesn't really have anti-ship capability, as it only has three 10 cm lasers, which raises the question of why it was there at all. The explanation for that was that the Jovians couldn't spare a larger ship, but felt that they had to have a warship along.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about this subject lately, because of the experience of the 1st Group getting 2/3's destroyed. While their deployment strategy was faulty, the reality was that against a precursor, there was little the Jovians could do. This is kind of an interesting situation, I think.
One of the possible alternatives I came up with is to have all survey ships equipped with jump drives and deploy them independently, on solo missions. That way, if they are lost, no other ships are lost with them or stranded because they don't have their own jump drives. Of course, that also raises the issue of loss of knowledge. If a grav-survey ship goes out and explores a system (system 1A), discovers, say, two warp points, probes both, moves into one of the systems (system 1B) and surveys it and then begins a survey in one of the systems discovered beyond the second system (system 1C), and then is destroyed, that is a lot of information lost and the homeworld will have no way of knowing where to look. Worse, given the fact that missions often last for several years, the homeworld would have no way of knowing anything was wrong until long after it was too late to do anything about it.
Kurt
Post by: Erik L on October 23, 2007, 03:58:34 PM
Of course, that lasts until the first group gets eaten
Post by: Kurt on October 23, 2007, 05:50:28 PM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
True having no sensors is risky. But I usually treat the Survey operations as a civilian effort, and sensors means 1 less geo/grav survey instrument (or more).
Of course, that lasts until the first group gets eaten
I see what you are saying, and efficiency wise it makes sense. I just can't see bold explorers, going where no man has gone before, going without any sensors. Poor sensors, maybe, but from a role-playing viewpoint I have a hard time justifying no sensors.
At any rate, like you said, that will last until the first exploration group gets eaten. Which is exactly what is happening with my Jovians. Now that they lost a survey group, they are re-evaluating their entire strategy.
Kurt
Post by: MWadwell on October 23, 2007, 10:08:51 PM
Quote from: "Kurt"
One of the possible alternatives I came up with is to have all survey ships equipped with jump drives and deploy them independently, on solo missions. That way, if they are lost, no other ships are lost with them or stranded because they don't have their own jump drives. Of course, that also raises the issue of loss of knowledge. If a grav-survey ship goes out and explores a system (system 1A), discovers, say, two warp points, probes both, moves into one of the systems (system 1B) and surveys it and then begins a survey in one of the systems discovered beyond the second system (system 1C), and then is destroyed, that is a lot of information lost and the homeworld will have no way of knowing where to look. Worse, given the fact that missions often last for several years, the homeworld would have no way of knowing anything was wrong until long after it was too late to do anything about it.
Kurt
Well, as to the knowledge situation, what would be a possible solution, would be to leave "bread crumbs" - i.e. powered down satellites (in a known location) that would respond to a signal from a searching ship. The satellite would have the results of the survey, enabling the searcher to retrieve the survey data, and duplicate the path of the lost survey ship.
Of course, this doesn't get around the fact that you still don't know that the ship is lost in the first place......
Post by: Michael Sandy on October 26, 2007, 01:54:39 PM
On the other hand, if you put jump drives on them then you have jump drives +engines to push them that are idle for far longer.
My theory would be to have a survey fleet composed of:
2-4 grav survey ships
2-4 geo survey ships
2-3 tenders
1-2 dedicated scout
The survey ships would have either 2 survey sensors and a size 5 sensor package, or 2 survey sensors, a size 2 sensor package, and an extra engineering system.
My theory would be that for civilian ships, the only safety is in speed and sensors.
Escort warship designs would not be expected to keep up with the survey fleet. There would naturally be some delays in getting them in position, but they would be more to bottle up warp points behind the survey fleet. They could show the flag with the survey fleet, if necessary. For example, there might be a race that would only negotiate with another race if they had a warship present. After all, civilian ships would not be expected to have officers empowered to negotiate.
I would be sure to have at least one troop transport that could be escorted by the survey jump tenders, and at least one bombardment capable ship that could be escorted by them as well.
My plan would be to then have _lots_ of jump tenders. There is a slight problem that the jump tenders themselves would lack serious sensors. But I would rather have a jump tender and a dedicated scout than to have a jump tender with its own sensors, even if it costs a bit less.
If I discovered at any time that I was losing significant survey time, I would just build more jump tenders.