Author Topic: Fleet Design Competition  (Read 1438 times)

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Offline Karate Carl (OP)

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Fleet Design Competition
« on: January 27, 2021, 10:43:58 AM »
Hi all! I want to see how optimized we can get a fleet going.  By a "fleet" I mean 6 ships. . .  no more no less.  Tonnage and class is also limited:

"Capital Ship" class.  One ship anywhere between 30,000 - 50,000 tons.
"Cruiser" class.  Two ships anywhere 15,000 - 29,999 tons.
"Escort" class.  Three ships anywhere 14,999 tons and below.

A few rules:

1.  Maintenance life must be deemed "reasonable".  Should make sense for deployment time.  Speaking of. . .
2.  Deployment time must be minimum 12 months.  I feel this is reasonable.

You can of course name your ships and classes anything you like.

The biggest rule of course is tech level.  Not sure where to put this but I'm thinking any tech researched of 20,000 rp's and below.  Start a new game and use SM to instant all tech that level and below.  No limit in component cost.

Anything I miss? Let me know what everyone thinks.  Looking forward to some highly efficient designs!  ;D   
 

Offline Zap0

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Re: Fleet Design Competition
« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2021, 11:04:32 AM »
I like the idea! If this is a competition, are we going to pick winners or have any special parameters we're competing in? Optimized and efficient are otherwise rather ambiguous terms. We setting a timeframe?

Ah, and do you want to include fighter designs in the six classes as part of the escort bracket or would you count them as part of the mothership design? One could potentially abuse that to make many different utility fighters using only one slot.

By a "fleet" I mean 6 ships. . .  no more no less.

Six ship designs that are intended to work together in a fleet in any numbers, or six actual ships, several of which may share the same class if you want them to?
 

Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: Fleet Design Competition
« Reply #2 on: January 27, 2021, 11:24:17 AM »
Hi all! I want to see how optimized we can get a fleet going.

How is "optimized" defined?  If we're looking purely for the fleet that is most likely to win an engagement outright, the answer to that is usually box launcher spam plus enough PD to thwart the NPRs. If we're designing to a more subjective standard this needs to be outlined quite specifically.

Also clarification is needed on the number of ships vs number of classes as Zap0 said.

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The biggest rule of course is tech level.  Not sure where to put this but I'm thinking any tech researched of 20,000 rp's and below.  Start a new game and use SM to instant all tech that level and below.  No limit in component cost.

Two potential issues here. First, a 20k RP limit means no particle lances which means you clearly hate fun.  ;)

Second, it's not very accurate to how most people play the game to define a tech level by number of RPs per tech as I don't think most people define tech levels that way, certain techs are prioritized more in terms of spending of RPs than others, notably propulsion tech is usually researched at a higher priority than most other techs. That's not saying that you can't define tech levels by RP costs, just that doing so is likely to give designs that you wouldn't see in an actual game.
 

Carl Garnham-lee

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Re: Fleet Design Competition
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2021, 11:42:57 AM »
Quote
I like the idea! If this is a competition, are we going to pick winners or have any special parameters we're competing in? Optimized and efficient are otherwise rather ambiguous terms.  We setting a timeframe?

Maybe moderator's could pick winners? No really special parameters as of yet. . .  I was thinking of somehow actually pitting the fleets against each other. . . not sure how we would go about doing that.  No real time frame just want to see the best what people can do.  Optimized and efficient as In the most bang for buck. . . no rp factor the best you can build.  Efficient as in the ships won't run out of fuel or break down straight away.

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Ah, and do you want to include fighter designs in the six classes as part of the escort bracket or would you count them as part of the mothership design? One could potentially abuse that to make many different utility fighters using only one slot.

Part of the mothership design.  Abuse away! If it ends up with carriers being the best then they are the best. . . I'm sure someone will come along and create a fleet to wipe them out. . .  ;D

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Six ship designs that are intended to work together in a fleet in any numbers, or six actual ships, several of which may share the same class if you want them to?

Six that are meant to work together as a fleet.  You must have one capital ship of the correct tonnage.  Two cruiser size ships of the correct tonnage.  Three escort size ships of the correct tonnage.   
 

Carl Garnham-lee

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Re: Fleet Design Competition
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2021, 11:55:43 AM »
Quote
How is "optimized" defined?  If we're looking purely for the fleet that is most likely to win an engagement outright, the answer to that is usually box launcher spam plus enough PD to thwart the NPRs.  If we're designing to a more subjective standard this needs to be outlined quite specifically.

I was thinking more against other player created fleets not npr's.  If box launcher spams with good PD turns out to be the best. . . so be it.  I would like to see someone design a fleet they thought was awesome then for someone else to post a fleet that completely counters that one.  Hence the competition.  I would really like to test each fleet against each other somehow.

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Also clarification is needed on the number of ships vs number of classes as Zap0 said.

6 individual ships not 6 classes.  Carriers are allowed however as long as they fit the tonnage. . . 

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Two potential issues here.  First, a 20k RP limit means no particle lances which means you clearly hate fun.   ;)

I love fun! I almost always go for particle beams/ lance and gauss in my games.  Maybe 20k AND particle lances?

Quote
Second, it's not very accurate to how most people play the game to define a tech level by number of RPs per tech as I don't think most people define tech levels that way, certain techs are prioritized more in terms of spending of RPs than others, notably propulsion tech is usually researched at a higher priority than most other techs.  That's not saying that you can't define tech levels by RP costs, just that doing so is likely to give designs that you wouldn't see in an actual game.

All this is a good point.  However we need to make it fair and equal across the board and I thought 20k was fair to get a decent fleet together.  What do you suggest? Any other way to make it fair? 
 

Offline liveware

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Re: Fleet Design Competition
« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2021, 12:10:08 PM »
One possibility would be to restrict research options to something like "no techs which exceed 8k RP are permitted (possibly with a listed of exceptions)".
Open the pod-bay doors HAL...
 

Offline Iceranger

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Re: Fleet Design Competition
« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2021, 02:28:17 PM »
Interesting, I could see the reborn of the Aurora arena on the Discord server :D
 
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Offline Squigles

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Re: Fleet Design Competition
« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2021, 02:30:39 PM »
I would recommend setting a number of total RPs allowed, period. Then let people spend them in whatever way they prioritize for their designs, much like starting a new game.

I’d also suggest setting a maximum amount of minerals allowed for the build, including MSP and ordnance costs, with certain maximum thresholds for specific types....especially gallicite.
 
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Offline brondi00

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Re: Fleet Design Competition
« Reply #8 on: January 28, 2021, 10:51:20 AM »
Squiggles why do you hate me? 

I often spend way too much gallicite.  LOL.  It's a chronic disease.  I'm addicted.  I need a 12 step program.  I know what my fancy design will cost but I do it anyway and then have to lay waste to planets and asteroids and nprs just to feed my addiction.

Before you know it I'm sticking up old ladies for the tiny gallicite in their car.
 

Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: Fleet Design Competition
« Reply #9 on: January 28, 2021, 11:33:39 AM »
It probably makes more sense to set a limit of RP and BP, and leave it there. As a bonus this would make it easy to boot up a new game with those custom initial free RP and BP amounts and use those to keep track (especially if component research is folded in, which it should be IMO) instead of having to track a bunch of mineral costs by hand, plus is a bit more realistic relative to how players usually design ships.

A reasonable RP limit might be 160k (same as 1000m pop start, but you'll get more out of it due to not researching commercial and ground techs/components) and BP equal to 15% or 20% of the desired total tonnage (this does need to depend on doing tests with the RP to see how much "typical" ships cost, it may be possible that 25% is needed instead depending on these results).

OP should also specify if this fleet needs to be jump-capable, squadron-jump capable (two different things here!), or is expected to work with a tender in practice. This changes designs substantially.