Change Log for 6.00 discussion

[bean]

Jorgen:
I suggested something similar a while ago.  Look in "Suggestions for 5.7 and beyond" for an early example, or somewhere in the main suggestion thread for a more recent, cleaned-up one.  (BTW, Steve, can we get a new suggestions thread?  The old one is big and has stuff in it dating back several versions.)

[Person012345]

Playing my first "real" game since 6.00 (I say real, it's more a training game in which I get used to the design requirements and such), and I have to say I'm liking the new survey team mechanics (even if I have only had one hit so far).

[Hazard]

Another possibility is officially creating the 'Starbase' unit type, with different maintenance rules as the curren ones make no sense for long term basing, and create a 'crew exchange' module that ships around crew from planets with Academies to PDCs and Starbases and back. Only bad thing about it is the number of vessels this will eventually end up involving.

[IanD]

I have considered allowing ships with some form of personnel shuttles to rewind the shore leave clock by shuttling crew to an in-system population. I think would be the most realistic option. I just having't found a mechanic I like yet. I don't really want to get into tracking crew off the ship so it would have to be done in some form of abstract. Also, you could end up tracking a lot of shuttles, which would slow down the game. The Shuttle Bay component (without tracking actual shuttles) is possible but how do I tie that in with existing boat bays and hangar decks? I also need to consider that larger ships would need a larger shuttle bay.

One option might be to have a small craft with spare berths that could be designated as "Shore Leave Shuttle" in default orders. This shuttle would go to the ship in a system with the greatest need for shore leave, pick up some of the crew and transport them to a nearby colony for perhaps two weeks then return to the ship. On its return, the shore leave time would be rewound by 20 weeks / percentage of crew on shore leave. The shuttle could be carried by the ship, or based at the colony. This wouldn't be too bad for micromanagement as the shuttle(s) would take care of itself. The downside would be a few more ships flying around. There would also have to be a restriction on the % of crew allowed off the ship. Perhaps 10-20%. However, I have to be careful not to get the point where the deployment time for a ship design is no longer an issue. Otherwise I am adding a lot of management for no game play gain.

Steve

Perhaps the easiest mechanism would be to have a new facility designated the Depot/PX. It would be transportable and could include a real or virtual shuttle (built-in boat bay). This facility would have a number of exchange crew who would replace the crew going on leave. They would then form the replacement crew for the next ship who’s crew required shore leave. The facility could even be upgradeable to operate at one systems distance if jump gates or a jump capable shuttle (real or virtual) were in place. It would be up to Steve to decide whether it had to be located on a nearly Earth-like planet or not. After all Scapa Flow could be described as only Earth-like at certain times of the year!