After 7.2 we will be able to have civilian ships equipped with proper MSP storage arrays, for fleet support, and stockpiling MSP at forward bases. Which is nice.
Thus after the change we'll have civilian fuel transport, mineral and installation transport, troop transport, and personnel transport, and MSP transport. This leaves 2 gaps in civilian transport capability.
The ability to move missiles, and the ability to move ships.
Ofcourse we can't have warships loading fighters and missiles out of civilian transports directly in combat and such, so there must be some limiting system to this.
So I've come up with my own view on a set of "rules" for how this could be done, which I will post here. I'll also post the views of another player from the thread the topic originated from and hope perhaps some good discussion can happen.
Idea
Introduce 2 new modules.
Civilian Magazine Standard storage unit for transport of missiles by civilians. Size 10 module (500t) able to store 100MSP (assorted missile size). Research-able after completing the first level of each magazine related tech. Single un-upgradable module. No ejection tech, may detonate when hit.
Civilian Hangar Module Standard storage for transport of warships by civilians. Size 20 module (1000t) able to store 500t of ship (as hangar space already stacks). Research-able after completing the Hangar Deck tech. Un-upgradable. Follows same rules when hit as existing hangars.
Rules governing loading and unloading.
Rule 1. Civilian magazines and hangars can only be loaded and unloaded at a planet with at least 1 active maintenance facility, or maintenance module.
Rule 2. They are loaded/unloaded at a rate of 250tons per maintenance facility, per 5 day increment. OR 100MSP per maintenance facility, per 5 day increment.
These rules operate on a couple of principles.
1. Maintenance facilities make it so that you can't just dump stuff on random planets. Though there is nothing preventing the player from having a maintenance module installed in the transport ship. And if one wishes to dump stuff on random planets quickly, military ammo transports can still drop off on planets at current speeds.
2. 100MSP per 5day is roughly equal to the maintenance facility reload time of a size 100 box launcher. (125hour actual reload time vs 120 hour 5 day increment). This is also equal to a rate of roughly 250t per 5 day increment as 100MSP=5HS=250t. This as the loading and unloading speed is to act as the missiles or ships are being broken down by maintenance crews, made "safe" for transport, and then have to be reassembled at the destination.
Few side thoughts on my own idea is that perhaps some size scaling of the modules would be fine (larger "more efficient" storage versions) however, due ot the cheap civilian nature, shouldn't require extensive research to enable.
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In the changelog 7.2 thread another user had his own thoughts on this.
"alex_brunis"
That all sounds awfully complex with several new separated game mechanics?
Why not instead aim for the common denominator and try to keep the concept as simple as possible?
The common property of all this is that they are "disassembled" into neat packages for transportation, and then assembled on site.
But, Hey don't we already have something like that, but for PDCs only?
So, the conceptually best way to do this (IMO) would be to expand/improve the PDC option to also include fighters and stacks of missiles?!
Construction option "Prefab PDC" could be changed to a more general "Disassemble" command which allows you to take any number of PDCs, fighters or missiles, and "pack" it into one or more pre-set "crates" which is the same standard size as a PDC Component, but the game remembers the contents. The Industrial cost of this derived the same as the PDC assembly cost ( and no minerals here either ), but you now have to build the PDCs first.
This means you can take for example a completed PDC Hangar loaded with fighters which in turn are loaded with missiles, Select the PDC in a single click, add a few spare reloads worth of missiles and have it all neatly disassembled and packed down into a creates for shipping ( via the Industry->Stockpiles menu ). Once on site you give a single order to disassemble the crates and you have a operational PDC Hangar stocked with fighters and missiles!
This also could be an interesting way of doing it in my opinion. Then the missiles and ships could be transported by regular freighters.
However personally I find forward bases are more likely to have a maintenance module, than construction factories or brigades to do the reassembling.
Perhaps a construction module for a ship might help with this?
Another issue I can see is with fighters (or any ship) in particular, in that if it needs to get shipped a second time, "disassembling" them for shipping in this manner would essentially be "destroying" the ship, and "making a new" elsewhere, which might cause issue with the crew and commanders and such. my assumption on the maintenance packaged ones would be that the extra crew just becomes part of the freighter's crew when this happens. However with actually disassembling them, there is no "crew".
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Another post from original thread
"MarcAFK"
Why not just use the preexisting launcher reload system with some modifiers based on tech like reload level, feed system efficiency, and cargo handling multiplier.
Lets assume a missile load speed 10 times slower than launcher reload rate.
We'll look at a tier 2 destroyer from my last game.
Code: [Select]
Portland class Destroyer 9000 tons 256 Crew 1097.6 BP TCS 180 TH 500 EM 0
2777 km/s Armour 5-38 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control 2 PPV 42
Annual Failure Rate: 27% IFR: 0.4% Maintenance Capacity 191 MSP
Magazine 342 Spare Berths 7
10HS 100 EP Nuclear Pulse Engine (5) Power 100 Fuel Use 141.5% Armour 0 Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 360,000 Litres Range 5.1 billion km (21 days at full power)
Size 6 Missile Launcher (R2) (7) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 90
Missile Fire Control 10/5 FC61-R120 (1) Range 61.6m km Resolution 120
Maverick Mk III (57) Speed: 13,800 km/s End: 84.2m Range: 69.7m km WH: 7 Size: 6 TH: 46 / 27 / 13
Active Search Sensor 10 /5 MR65-R120 (1) GPS 14400 Range 65.7m km Resolution 120
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes
Default reload rate is 90 for a size 6 missile, we'll assume it will take 900 seconds to load a single size 6 into the magazine, lets make this per cargo handling system on the ammunition ship, improved can load 2 in this time, advanced 4 in this time. Note that this is reload rate of 1, lets assume that increased launcher reload rate doesn't help magazine load speed, but magazine feed efficiency should however.
Magazine is about 1000 tons and holds 342 in total, that's 57 missiles at 900 seconds each so default reload time is 14.25 hours. Cargo handling systems weigh in at 100 tons a piece, it's not unreasonable to assume that an ammunition ship serving this 9000 ton ship will be of similar size, lets say we put 4 cargo handling system which is a mere 4% of the ship.
Load rate then is 3.56 hours. Which is significant, but compares to loading speed of other cargo, it will certainly prevent immediate reloads of a fleet during a battle, except in the case of box launchers which obviously can reload very fast by comparison. That time will be halved once improved handling is added, and of course if you have multiple ammo ships in the fleet you get improved transfer speed.
Next there magazine feed efficiency, what about each level reducing the speed penalty compared to normal launcher speed, research reducing load rate from 10 times down by 1 per level, the final feed efficiency tech drops it down to merely double.
So by top tech tier loading a size 6 missile would take only 180 seconds, you can load 4 per advanced cargo handling system, the hypothetical ammo tender we had above would reload the destroyer in only 10.6 minutes.
Without going to that extreme lets just assume we increase cargo handling systems to 6, and have researched improved cargo handling (10,000 points) and feed efficiency 80 and 85% (6000 points total).
Load time per size 6 missile becomes 720 seconds, thats 11 hours, divided by 12 for the 6 improved handling systems makes reloading the ship only take 57 minutes.
How does this sound?
Edit: I like the maintenance changes, my last game I placed a single maintenance colony in Barnards star which required either frequent mineral shipments, or mines on 5 movies in the system and even still needed shipping in uridium and neutronium.
Eeh. My intention was to stay away from that level of complexity, as this means that each generation of magazine tech, you'd actually have to update your civilian transports for this "faster" reload rate to remain competitive. Also there seems to be nothing in that idea that actually restricts the player from using your new civilian colliers from rearming ships in deep space. Albeit at a low rate. But it'd be nothing to rendezvous your described collier with a fleet enroute, and have it rearm them over the course of a couple days. Also this would kinda steer players to bring these ships in close to the fleet. And thats what a military ammunition transport should be for.
Also where you are saying 10x slower than normal reload, my suggestion is similar to standard box launcher reload rate.
Though if we go off of what you are working with, perhaps we could compromise.
Rule: Civilian ammo transports can only transplant ammo to and from planets, and to or from military magazines, at a rate set by the civilian magazine reload rate.
This way all ships will load out of a military transport properly, requiring no changes to that system. Or they could be told to load out of the civilians, which they would slowly feed ammo into the ship magazine, and then they themselves would have to use their own reload rate from there. Also prevents people from exploiting and quickly dumping missiles from civilians into military ammo transports.
The magazine is built with a "reload rate" (the extra space in the magazine can be assumed as the space where the missiles are prepped). And this reload rate is teched up at the same time as missile launcher reload tech. This reload rate is 1/10th what it would be for the equal size missile going into the launcher.
Now, your civilian transport, with say 100MSP of storage (in its 1 magazine), reload rate 1: Takes 300 seconds to load or unload 1 size 1 missile (150 seconds faster than hangar reload rate for a size 1 box), and assuming it only has 1 magazine, will take 300,000 seconds to unload into a military ammo ship. Which is 20 days.... which sounds rather abyssmal I know.
But scale it up to reload tech 6.
5 second load time for a size 1 launcher > 50 second load/unload time for a size 1 missile, the transport can dump its load in 5000seconds, which is 83 hours... 3 days to unload 250t worth of ammo... perhaps thats not so bad to do while out on operation. And its a bit faster than my initial suggestion, and certainly not doable during combat.
Also having 2 magazines, it wills till take that much time to unload them if they are full, but they'll move 2x the ammo rate.
And if the magazines are 500T like I suggested above. A 5kt ammo transport (civilian) with 5 of the things and a nice civilian engine could be a handy little thing.
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Dunno, just some thoughts and responses to points made by other players.