Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Aurora Suggestions => Topic started by: DFDelta on March 31, 2012, 04:43:39 PM
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I think those suggestions were not made before, at least I can't remember reading them yet. ;D
1.) A greater "range" of wrecks. Currently, as far as I know, a wreck is a wreck is a wreck. I'd like the game to know how badly a wreck is wrecked and put them in different categories. A 8000 ton ship that was abandoned after a few high tech beam lasers punctured the armor and cut out the bridge and most of the life support but hardly anything else could count as a derelict ship instead of a wreck, a 3000 ton missile craft that managed to get hit by a strength 16 missile that blew its magazine should end up as mere ship debris and be called such. This state of the wreck should have impact on just how much you can gain out of salvage operations.
Derelict ship > wreck > ruined ship > ship debris
2.) I'd like an option to transport a wreck or derelict ship home to a shipyard (via tug, or maybe even carry it in a hangar) and just let my technicians have their way with it, giving them a low chance to make that ship functional again, tough missing a few parts.
Maybe a new page on the ship menu (F6) that lists all wrecks/derelicts you have currently stored in your shipyards. There you can see a list of the components that are still functional and the tonnage of this wreck.
At first the components are unknown, and the only thing your techs can tell you if it seems functional or not.
Wreck 2088, unknown origin (pregenerated, or the race name if you shot it down/it was yours to beginn with), 7000 ton
* Unknown weapon (destroyed)
* Unknown weapon (destroyed)
* Unknown weapon (likely functional)
* Unknown electronic hardware (partly funtional) *note: shields, ECM/ECCM, sensors
* Unknown structural hardware (destroyed) *note: crew, magazines, fuel, cargo
... you get the idea.
Now our techs had a few months (and a good Xeno team as backup) and came up with some of the uses of our unknowns.
Wreck 2088, unknown origin, 7000 ton
* Dual Meson Turret ;Cap, Size, RangeMod (destroyed)
* Dual Meson Turret ;Cap, Size, RangeMod (destroyed)
* Triple Laser Turret ;Cap, Size, Wavelenght (functional)
* 4x Shield generator ;Strenght, Recharge (funtional)
- 2x Shield generator ;Strenght, Recharge (destroyed)
* Unknown structural hardware (destroyed) *note: crew, magazines, fuel, cargo
... you get the idea.
Once everything is known you get the options to salvage the whole thing, netting you the same materials as a salvage ship, you can gut it for parts, getting you some of the components (some are destroyed in the process, taking unknown tech apart without knowing how to put it back together and such things...), or you can try to repair it and press it into service. That removes the ship from the wreckage page and moves it into ship designs (F5), where it is on a new page. All the destroyed parts are gone, and you can insert your own components into the hull, until you reached the original size of this ship. Only derelict ships and wrecks can be pressed into service, ruined ships and debris only have the former two options.
Those repurposed ships use up 20% more maintenance and have a 10% shorter clock time, but they might give you pretty nice high-tech equipment. And what beats the awesomeness of defeating some alien race with the repurposed wrecks of their own ships?
Also to be able to do the repurposing you'd need a shipyard with sufficient size and nothing else to do.
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I surprisingly like this idea.
Though I'd be nice if "destroyed hardware" would just be converted to some "destroyed hardware material", and you'd have to leave 10% inside so the ship is less combatready than the real thing.
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+1
Like this idea to!
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+1 as well, thats a pretty cool idea.
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+1, almost like ruins.
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+5, Definitely like this.
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this would be a REALLY cool mechanic if you ask me
+10
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Me like!
+20
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Definitely like this idea... I've always thought that not every ship explodes into a million billion pieces and there should be some rather nice hulks drifting around out there waiting to be salvaged. These could also be salvaged after a time by enterprising individuals looking to go pirating... er privateering.
Adam.
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There are a couple of ways to handle something like this. One is to have some form of ancient wrecks that are recoverable as damaged ships. The other is to have damage that results in a damaged but non-wrecked ship that was abandoned for some reason. The latter is more realistic but more complicated. I think the best way to handle it would be to track life support during the game, not just during ship design. If life support is taken out and you fail to repair it, the crew starts to die. If all the crew dies a ship becomes abandoned rather than wrecked and can be recovered (Salvage Team?).
In addition, if I am going to track crew numbers and life support, I should also track the effects of the crew being reduced below the minimal level required to run the ship. The easiest way would be a negative crew grade modifier and perhaps an increasing inability to control key systems.
Steve
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This suggestion is awesome. Would be awesome too if wrecks and derelict ships could be found in a system with ruins in a planet. If there was an ancient advanced civilization around that system, their old and damaged ships could perfectly be there.
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Another thought I just had - when I eventually get around to plagues and biological warfare, that would be a very good reason for abandoned (but perhaps infected) ships.
Steve
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spinoffs:
a backup control computer component that reduces crew grade loss from damage and if the crew dies attempts to return automatically to a shipyard.
// possible option for robot ships?
// robot ships have a control computer component, ship goes neutral when computer is damaged. Automated repair can try to bring it back online?
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If crew can be reduced to below effective level then crew modules that give life support to more crew members then the required minimum should be able to house reserves. Say staffing on a ship is 550 and you put three full crew chambers in it for a total life support of 750. I should be able to have 200 reserve staff on-board. In a battle my reserves can fill in for casualties. The tradeoff is increased weight and building expense and less flexibility if life support systems are damaged in battle. A maxed out crew would suffer more when life support goes down. Alternatively I could add crew modules with no staff housed in them to have redundant life support systems. This also puts a unique spin on rescuing wreck survivors in/after a battle.
I guess what I am saying is how about letting us decided how many crew to put on board? A ship needs a minimum to fly and cannot house more then max life support but we can designate anything in between during ship design phase.
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If crew can be reduced to below effective level then crew modules that give life support to more crew members then the required minimum should be able to house reserves. Say staffing on a ship is 550 and you put three full crew chambers in it for a total life support of 750. I should be able to have 200 reserve staff on-board. In a battle my reserves can fill in for casualties. The tradeoff is increased weight and building expense and less flexibility if life support systems are damaged in battle. A maxed out crew would suffer more when life support goes down. Alternatively I could add crew modules with no staff housed in them to have redundant life support systems. This also puts a unique spin on rescuing wreck survivors in/after a battle.
I guess what I am saying is how about letting us decided how many crew to put on board? A ship needs a minimum to fly and cannot house more then max life support but we can designate anything in between during ship design phase.
+100
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There are a couple of ways to handle something like this. One is to have some form of ancient wrecks that are recoverable as damaged ships. The other is to have damage that results in a damaged but non-wrecked ship that was abandoned for some reason. The latter is more realistic but more complicated. I think the best way to handle it would be to track life support during the game, not just during ship design. If life support is taken out and you fail to repair it, the crew starts to die. If all the crew dies a ship becomes abandoned rather than wrecked and can be recovered (Salvage Team?).
In addition, if I am going to track crew numbers and life support, I should also track the effects of the crew being reduced below the minimal level required to run the ship. The easiest way would be a negative crew grade modifier and perhaps an increasing inability to control key systems.
Steve
Could crew also abandon (via lifepods) a ship that no longer had any offensive weapon capacity (fire controls destroyed or all weapons destroyed or reactor destroyed) or abandon when the negative crew grade is reached (and the ship is effectively out of control).
Double cool if when they abandon the ship keeps heading on its last course and heading (falling out of formation etc).
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Could crew also abandon (via lifepods) a ship that no longer had any offensive weapon capacity (fire controls destroyed or all weapons destroyed or reactor destroyed) or abandon when the negative crew grade is reached (and the ship is effectively out of control).
Double cool if when they abandon the ship keeps heading on its last course and heading (falling out of formation etc).
I would think that an abandoned ship would be scuttled rather than left to drift. Just in case the bad guys win, you'd be depriving them of a captured hull, whereas a drifter could be caught and utilized.
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I've always thought that it would be nice to have Star Wars-esque escape pods, where you design a ship component that has life pods, which can be designed to have different ranges or speeds, or even large ones with defensive weapons.
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I've always thought that it would be nice to have Star Wars-esque escape pods, where you design a ship component that has life pods, which can be designed to have different ranges or speeds, or even large ones with defensive weapons.
A new component 'Extended Life Pods' which have enough propulsive and life-support power to make it to a rocky body and then act as infrastructure for a finite time?
It would obviously take up space (instead of the current life pods just spawning) and the 'propulsion' would be defaulted to the latest engine tech. So it is something you would put on a command cruiser and it could have the added effect of increasing the chance of your officers surviving.
The survival time could be factor of your current power tech along with the colony cost of the body you land on. Not sure about how much range you would have though - maybe have it be 1 MSP of drone engine tech?
The biggest reason to have it would be for the officer(s) and not the crew which is hard to track in game, I think that when you pickup crew from existing lifepods they just get added to the ship.
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I would be happy to see less complex option so it make it in game sooner.
When eventually the ship becomes a wreck then it is randomly decided how much a wreck it is.
If not this way they look at the damage taken, magazine and power explosions and then decide from there.
We still have too many crew for the components as it is, which I have discussed in a previous post. However I would like to see more casualties when the ship fall apart or if overkilled there is no survivors. There should be more HMS HOOD scenarios when a ship is rocked apart by a size 20 nuclear explosion internally.
Another possibly for those ancient wrecks you mentioned would be the possibility of robots or hibernated aliens still aboard needing you with clear it with marines first. Or lose a good portions of a crew if you board it. OUCH! when that happens the first time.
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Damn, I so want this feature in NA. Realistic life support, reserve staff, automated protocols....
Though I suppose in 90% of cases the ships blown to fine dust there anyways.
But if you go a ahead with the content in the "Thinking out Loud" thread, Steve, then Crew quarters will be a spacce investment, and maybe have a heat signature. I suppose there'd be no harm to have "reserve staff", that prevents further grade loss once the ship is below 100%. Or acts as extra crew but decreases grade gain, if something like "crew rotation" exists.^^
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im liking the idea from steve of an abandoned ship crew dead hweover a salvage team with backup computer and droid assistance can get it going and back to some form of base