Author Topic: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games  (Read 16391 times)

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Offline TheDeadlyShoe

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #15 on: December 21, 2011, 04:36:38 AM »
One concern with SY modules stems from my experience with Orbital Habitats. At low armor technology levels, reasonably sized Orbital Habitats (i.e., towable within the next century or so) have half or more of their cost wrapped up in the single layer of armor.  It tends to bump their cost up into the mostly-prohibitive range.
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Most likely, only one shipyard module will be permitted per ship but you will be able to expand that module after the ship is built.
Have it work like hangar bays.  # of slipways could be configurable via an extension of the retooling mechanism, for a premium cost after the initial free tooling. 

IE, I build 3  space stations with 10 shipyard modules. Each module is worth 1000tons of SY space.  They're all tooled to build single 10000 ton ships at no cost. Later, I change the ship two of them are building and pay the normal retooling fee.  However, I want to convert one of them into a FAC construction plant, so I pay an additional retooling cost to redistribute the # of slipways.   

PS - Wouldn't it be improbably difficult to build a jumpdrive for large stations?   Perhaps there should be a Deploy/Undeploy mechanism that reduces the effective tonnage of space station modules during transport.

 

Offline Yonder

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #16 on: December 21, 2011, 08:59:14 AM »
In principle, the Space Station will be distinguished by having certain types of large, fragile modules such as a Habitat or a Shipyard Module. It will be very restricted in terms of acceleration and limited to minimal armour but you will be able to equip it with an FTL drive and you will be able to build it using construction factories.

It seems odd to me to limit the armor of this class of ship.
 

Offline Mel Vixen

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #17 on: December 21, 2011, 01:08:20 PM »

In all the above scenarios I would still have shipyards operating in orbit of a population and using the existing mechanics. I may allow the use of tiny asteroids though as an anchoring point for those shipyards that have their workers in habitats.

Steve

If you allow habitats for that it you either would need bigger habitats or less workers per slipway. The wiki states that you need "100,000 per shipyard plus 1,000,000 population per slipway". That would be 22 Habitats which makes a Naval shipyard anchored to asteroid a rather expensive option and would limit you to the bigger colonies.   
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Offline Teiwaz

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #18 on: December 21, 2011, 04:38:44 PM »
I don't like the idea of Shipyards being their own special things. I already find their special rules confusing.

I'd make shipbuilding modules modules just like any other. If you find it optimal to build massive, mobile shipyards that take their workers along with them in hab modules so you can hide them, that's your choice to make. Maybe you think it's worth building missile defenses into the shipyards themselves. Or maybe not. Shipyard design can be as interesting as ship design, if we're given the same options. This could substantially inform your overall military strategy.

Of course, if shipyards are ships, you need a way to build ships without a shipyard. So I'd make it so planets can build ships, with penalties of time and material usage (as effectively you're building the ships in open space, without specialized tools, and havingto construct temporary scaffolding on site, etc.) So if you are looking to build multiple ships of a class, building shipyard ships for that is definately preferable. But for one-off designs, or special projects (like a massive space station) you have the option to make those without having to tool up to mass-produce them. (But you'll pay for it!)
 

Offline mavikfelna

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #19 on: December 21, 2011, 05:47:57 PM »
I think you should get rid of the distinction between naval and commercial yards and just give shipyards a x100 or something bonus to size when constructing civilian ships.

--Mav
 

Offline UnLimiTeD

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #20 on: December 22, 2011, 03:18:38 AM »
Because it suddenly inflates when the product has no weapons. ???
 

Offline GeaXle

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #21 on: December 22, 2011, 03:31:00 AM »
Personnaly, I see a shpiyard a as station with floating ships in construction arround. The slipways aren't a big single sctructure but tons of little bit of structure and little ships working around. Therefore I would be fine with Mavikfelna idea. :) I would even find it awesome if the shipyard a capacity of building based on a total volume more than on slipways. So on the same shiwpyard you may build loads of small ships in one go, or a few huge one.
 

Offline chuckles73

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #22 on: December 22, 2011, 08:57:37 AM »
Why not make shipyards moveable in freighters like research labs? They can then travel FTL, be placed wherever you want, etc. I'm sure we can handwave how it's possible given the vagueness around exactly what a space-based shipyard actually is.

Maybe only make them transportable via freighter when they're the lowest size so you don't need to keep track of tonnage on the voyage (and maybe only transportable if they have only one slipway).
 

Offline Yonder

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #23 on: December 23, 2011, 08:46:33 AM »
Why not make shipyards moveable in freighters like research labs? They can then travel FTL, be placed wherever you want, etc. I'm sure we can handwave how it's possible given the vagueness around exactly what a space-based shipyard actually is.

Maybe only make them transportable via freighter when they're the lowest size so you don't need to keep track of tonnage on the voyage (and maybe only transportable if they have only one slipway).

Or you could make one of the Shipyard tasks "Package" (only available when no slipways are active) and it would take X months to turn into a "Compact Yard" or something like that. Compact Yards could be 15th of the size or something and exist in Freighter Load orders (or put them in Hangars?). The only available task for a Compact Yard would be to unpackage, which would once again take X months to turn it back into a normal yard.
 

Offline Ominous

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #24 on: December 23, 2011, 01:45:31 PM »
Quote from: Yonder link=topic=4469. msg44838#msg44838 date=1324651593
Or you could make one of the Shipyard tasks "Package" (only available when no slipways are active) and it would take X months to turn into a "Compact Yard" or something like that.  Compact Yards could be 15th of the size or something and exist in Freighter Load orders (or put them in Hangars?).  The only available task for a Compact Yard would be to unpackage, which would once again take X months to turn it back into a normal yard.

While I like this idea, compacting the shipyard wouldn't reduce the mass of the shipyard, just the volume.
 

Offline Mormota

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #25 on: December 23, 2011, 03:27:00 PM »
Well, I suppose the problem with transporting is not mass but volume, since a higher mass just decreases acceleration, but there is a size limit of the cargo hold that the given object can go over.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #26 on: December 26, 2011, 10:20:19 AM »
As for expansion of shipyards, why not disallow expanding already built shipyards?  I'm not be an engineer, but I can't imagine the frame and infrastructure required for the construction of a 5k ton vessel ever being able to be increased in size to support the construction of a vessel that is 10k tons without taking everything apart and then re-building the facility.   If you allow the construction of shipyards at set sizes, it means that shipyards will not have to grow from the 1k ton sizes they currently start at.   So, if you're building 10k ton ships and then get the urge to build a 50k ton military behemoth, instead of increasing the size by 10k each time, you'd design and build a 50k ton shipyard.

It would also give the player a chance to plan out.   Do you build a 5k ton shipyard to start churning ships out immediately and then build a 10k ton shipyard at a later date for larger vessels, or put a bit more time into the shipyard straight off and allow you a bit more flexibility and the space to grow your ship designs.

This is a valid point. I have allowed shipyards to be expanded mainly because they are a large investment and this allows players to expand an existing investment rather than have to build entirely new shipyards as their industrial base increases. It also takes a very long time to build a large shipyard so building a 50,000 ton shipyard from scratch would be a huge investment in time and materials. Finally, it restricts ship sizes to those of current shipyards whereas at the moment ship sizes tend to grow gradually and shipyards grow to support that. One option would be to make shipyards cheaper, although that would have an unbalancing effect in other areas. On the gripping hand, if they were built as one-off structures some type of discount based on size might be possible.

Overall at the moment I am still inclined toward expandable shipyards, although it would be interesting to hear other views on this.

Steve
 

Offline o_O

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #27 on: December 26, 2011, 02:46:30 PM »
You could allow resizing of existing shipyards with an associated cost, similar to how converting mines to automines works now.   
 

Offline Corik

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #28 on: December 27, 2011, 02:49:32 AM »
I would like to see ship components using factory production as default, and then using the shipyard to put them together and "building" the hull.  Just like now when you build the components before assigning the ship construction at the shipyard manually.  I think it's far more real and, in fact, more effective.  I find myself doing maths and checking how many components I need to build before actually building the ships.  Some kind of automation would be great.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Possible game tweaks for Newtonian games
« Reply #29 on: December 27, 2011, 05:41:05 AM »
I would like to see ship components using factory production as default, and then using the shipyard to put them together and "building" the hull.  Just like now when you build the components before assigning the ship construction at the shipyard manually.  I think it's far more real and, in fact, more effective.  I find myself doing maths and checking how many components I need to build before actually building the ships.  Some kind of automation would be great.

There are a couple of issues with factory production by default. The first one is remembering what to build ahead of time - it can be annoying to be unable to start a ship because you forgot one component (although as you say some form of automation would help) - the second is that you would need construction factories wherever you have shipyards and if you are trying to disperse shipyards to protect them, that becomes far harder. Perhaps some type of automation without it being the default would be best. Maybe you select a class for the factories and all the components are populated.

Steve