Civilian contracts for racial tech

[hostergaard (OP)]

So right now the whole company name for racial tech is utterly cosmetic, but it hit me that it does not have to be;

What if instead of having your researchers deal with racial techs (which quite frankly is more engineering problems than research ones) you issue contracts on said systems. That is, you specify the specs on the system and civilian companies design systems and for contracts on that basis. Now, that alone would not make an interesting addition to the game, but imagine what else could be done with said system. Imagine that there is various companies, and all the different companies bid in with different solutions as different companies have different strengths, weaknesses and specialties and so on.

So there will be variation in their solutions, they will all follow the minimum specs you defined, but one might be cheaper than the other, or designed faster, built faster, maybe it perform better in various specs than normal, maybe its really cheap but in the specs you did not define it suffers terribly.  Maybe one is extremely well made but take longer to produce or is more expensive in terms of wealth. So many possibilities!

And its not just limited to variation in system specs. The way you issue contracts could have options too! If you are pressured for time maybe you offer a contract where the first one finished gets it. Or maybe you have specific time limit and only those offered before then is considered. Maybe a bonus if its finished before a given date (which causes all relevant companies to finish it faster) Or maybe instead of a bonus they get a exclusive contract for a given time to produce for your ships. Or maybe every company can produce the design but they get royalties.  Or maybe you make it an open contract and any of the systems that fits the specs are used and its whoever that can provide them at the time. Would work well with my hull based ship system that I suggested here All of these things could give bonuses or penalties to the speed, cost and qualities of the resulting systems that they design. One could take it even further and have contracts on hull/ship designs too.

And every company could have things that they are know for doing, and things they are know for doing well or poorly. And it would reflect into what they bid into. The more experienced with a particular system they are the better systems they produce. Of course, companies rise and fall, a big company might have more resources to design a system, but a young, small and focused company might just have the edge with some genius employee over a bloated company. It would also make a healthy and thriving economy more important, take good care of your civilian sector and there is more companies that can make bids and you are more likely to get better systems.

Of course, when not building systems and ships for you they build for the civilian sectors with the knowlegde they have. Of course, unless its classified systems. But that would likely cause it to much more expensive since they can't recoup their losses in the civilian sector. Or maybe they figure out how to make a civilian variant without the classified bits.

Food for thought. I would love to hear what people think about the concept, and feel free to ask question if I did not make things clear. It was just something that hit me today and I felt I had to write it down before I forgot

Cheers! 

[hostergaard (OP)]

Just a bit of flavor I wrote for fun inspired by my recent suggestions. You can skip this if you want as there is no suggestion in it per se.

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Welcome to Stan's Previously Owned Space Vessels! Or Used space Ship Emporium. Whatever you like to call us I can find the ship or system for you!

Such a fine person as you must be look for a quality ship! You know Ben & Wither stands for quality, expensive quality. They produced the finest most luxurious ships and systems know to man, and with a lifetime guarantee too they are a favorite among the wealthy and those catering to them. Rumors have it that the Intelligence arm of Federation navy also favors  them and that they have contracts for cutting edge stealth ships.  Either way they are know to work closely with certain mercenary spec ops. If ya want ta to start ordering your martini shaken not stirred then B&W Springblossom (tm) is the ship for you! Buy it today and get a free gold plated boblehead of me!

Too expensive? Well, ya know, These claims have never been confirmed or denied and some derisively claim that its all just a marketing stunt to appeal to the bored sons of billionaires who fancy themselves more than just weekend warriors. No, its all glitter and feathers they say, they real bang for the buck you with Sharp Techsystems! Its not fancy smancy B&W, its rugged, its ugly, but its damned reliable! and durable! No matter the situation, if you are  caught flying trough a burst of ice hails on Europa, attacked by Shesowan pirates from the rim, hit by shudden solar storm or any other thing Sharp will see you trough. They are after all the main contractor of the Federation Navy!

No? Well don't you drive a hard bargain! I had you for an expert tradesman the moment you came in! I got just the thing for you! Northern Shipbuilding are experts and building large. They build capital ships with a a capital C! I just got in a Valhalla General Trader. Better volume to fuel ratio can't find. And comes with a Smiths Cargo Loading system. Yes its cheap! Very cheap! Why? Err... Well, nothing serious. See, it transported biomass and to Titan for terraforrming when it got hit by a asteroid impact, some of the biomass got free, including but not limited to a genetically altered fungus, some very rapid breeding rabbits and various harmless predators. The crew tried contain it but most abandoned it but most got lost inside it when the internal mapping system went out. We have already found about 18% of them and we have reports that some formed a tribal community in storage area 456-DC. I am sure we can remove most before your takeover!

Ah, but I can see you are looking for something a bit smaller, something a bit harder to get lost in. Something very cheap? Well, Broson Tech makes, or rather slap, together the cheapest systems and ships you can find. No shame in that tough, many a legendary spacer started out with one, and some still swear to it as you can easily tinker with it and replace systems! No guarantees tough! Ah, you want some good weapons for it? Shing Systems do not build ships on their own, but their lasers are something of legend. Of course, most say they also provide the weapons favored by pirates. But that is not a road a upstanding person such as you would go. Right...?

[Gyrfalcon]

It'd be a great addition to the general system designing process, maybe as a way to use wealth instead of RP to produce ship components. You still want to have the ability to produce government designed and built equipment for when something is too sensitive to contract out to a civilian company.

[hostergaard (OP)]

Yes, then there could be consideration of espionage risk versus cost and so on. For me  the idea is more a way to make the civilian world seem more alive and engaging. Tough simply having a company provide solutions exactly like we specify would not make it functionally different from what we have now, so having multiple companies offer solution on said system spec with semi random variation in each one according to various factor such a company specialty, racial abilities, size, general economy, government type (consider the possibility
of outsourcing the design or production to other empires who might be better at that specific thing for various reasons? Diplomacy ho!)  and so on would make it much more interesting and flavorful.



I also just realized that it may also provide a sliding scale of complexity and make the difficulty curve more benign for new players. Don't get me wrong, I love the complexity of Aurora and fiddling with every single system to make the perfect ship, but it is very intimidating for new players. Combined with my hull based ship design suggestion one could make it so that one can define just how much a civilian company take care of. One could set out contracts for specific systems with very specific specs  and build specific ship design or one could simply set out a contract that say "hey, I want a ship this big, that goes this fast, does this and thisand have these features"  and let the civilian companies figure out the rest that you did not define, such as what subsystems to use, its own design or source it from other companies and so on and then provide a finished design that can then be produced.

Would be great for new players as they would have an easier time initially setting up their empire without having to grasp every single aspect of ship design, or for veteran players for times when there is something they don't really care about designing themselves, like early game cargo and colony ships. I just need something that can deliver what I need reasonably efficiently.

[Frick]

Sounds fun flavour-wise, but what would the difference between specifying a system and designing a system be? Lets say I want an engine (or ten) with various specs, is not defining those specs the same as designing the engines? Not to mention researching the designs is, at least early game, a short process so there's little time between design and production. And as for difficulty you still need to understand the systems, which is the "hard" part. Not to mention we'd still have to evaluate the designs, which would just be another thing to do. Buying pre-made civilan stuff I can probably get behind.