Change Log for 6.00 discussion

[Steve Walmsley]

Oh say any words on your new test campaign?

One of the less eventful so far. Mainly just exploration, resource shortages, a couple of minor encounters. I'll post an AAR at some point, more for ship design examples than for exciting action

Steve

[Redshirt]

Thanks for that I can see the new engine design system really giving me a headache until I get used to it.

[LoSboccacc]

regarding the "Production Overview Window"


can we have an auto turn option here? and an additional tab with the event log? less clutter ftw! 

[sloanjh (OP)]

Hi Steve,

  For the new tug fuel usage formula:

Engine Power Used = ((Ship Size + Towed Size) / Ship Size) x (Current Speed / Max Speed).


Do the tow's engines contribute to CurrentSpeed?  In other words, is the formula for MaxCurrentSpeed something other than

MaxCurrentSpeed = ShipSize*MaxSpeed/(ShipSize + TowedSize)?

If the answer is "yes", then I think there's still a problem, since the tug will be paying fuel costs for both its engine power and the tow's engine power.  (I'm assuming here that "Max Speed" is the max speed of the tug when it's not towing anything.)  If the tow's engines contribute, then I think the formulae should be:

MaxCurrentSpeed = (ShipSize*MaxShipSpeed + TowedSize*MaxTowedSpeed)/(ShipSize+TowedSize)
FuelUsageRate = MaxFuelUsageRate*(CurrentSpeed/MaxCurrentSpeed).

Note that I used "MaxFuelUsageRate to get the units right - the formula you gave is actually a (dimensionless) ratio.  This is easy to see if you set TowedSize=0 and CurrentSpeed=MaxSpeed; "Engine Power Used" becomes 1, which is probably not what you're intending

John

[blue emu]

Regarding shore leave and civilian vessels that are intended to remain on-station for years, such as fuel refining stations, terraformers and asteroid mining stations:

Has there been any discussion of this? Is it possible to exempt any civilian ships that have no engines from the shore leave rules? That way, luggables such as engineless fuel miners would not need to be towed back home every few years. Alternatively, we could allow orbital habitats to be set up in orbit around gas giants, which would let us add an R&R facility to our mining stations.

[Nathan_]

Civilan ships don't really suffer the penalty so leaving civ workers to suffer is basically the plan. though I could see crew delivery swaps if you wanted to be realistic.

[Bremen]

Alternately, could there be an "indefinite" level of crew accommodations? Basically something like orbital habitat level, where it can be assumed that the ship is basically a city itself.

[FunnyMan3595]

Hi Steve,

  For the new tug fuel usage formula:

Engine Power Used = ((Ship Size + Towed Size) / Ship Size) x (Current Speed / Max Speed).


Do the tow's engines contribute to CurrentSpeed?  In other words, is the formula for MaxCurrentSpeed something other than

MaxCurrentSpeed = ShipSize*MaxSpeed/(ShipSize + TowedSize)?

If the answer is "yes", then I think there's still a problem, [. . . ]

I've seen this same problem the other way around, at least with the current formula.   A ship (with an engine) being towed by a tug pays immense fuel costs, presumably because it's traveling faster than its max speed.   If tugs are getting fixed to pay appropriate fuel costs, towed ships really need to be addressed as well.

Also, during towing, if the towed ship runs out of fuel, that shouldn't stop the tow, it should just disable that ship's engines (and output a low fuel warning, of course).

[Nathan_]

Updates to Older Posts

The following Morale-related updates apply to older posts in this thread that I have edited. This post is just to highlight the changes for anyone who read those posts before I edited them.

Morale Effect on Surveying
The rate at which a ship generates geological or gravitational survey points is modified by morale

No Life Support
If a ship has no life support remaining, either due to battle damage or maintenance failures, emergency systems will keep the crew alive for a while but within a few days whatever jury-rigged systems the crew manage to create will begin to fail and crew members will start to die. The percentage will vary but on average about 50% of the remaining crew will die during each 5-day update. Any survivors that have been picked up by the ship will also start dying. Instead of the overcrowding modifier, morale is divided by 10.

Undermanning
Morale can also be affected by undermanning. If a ship's crew falls below half its normal complement, morale will be affected. The formula is Morale = Current Morale x ((Current Crew * 2) /  Normal Crew)
This could be made more complex by looking at the crew required to run the remaining undamaged systems but I think that adds complexity without a corresponding improvement in gameplay.

As you can imagine, an undermanned ship without life support is not going to be responding to orders very quickly

Hmm, possibility of derelict ships.

[Steve Walmsley]

Hmm, possibility of derelict ships.

Yes. I considered the idea of a new type somewhere between a normal ship and a wreck. However, that added potential complexities so I thought this would be a good compromise. You can board and capture a ship like this and then attempt to restore life support.

Steve

[Mel Vixen]

Well considering that, having a way to get a derelict ship towed or moved into Hangarbay would be nice. I mean if you find a ship like that you most likely send in a squad of Marines which gets evacuated as soon as the ship is "yours". So i imagine in the future we will have a dedicated scraper-tug or small carrier with some troopers on board.

[Theokrat]

Steve, I have two questions, if I may:

Could you have a look at the mineral requirements of the missile designs you posted in the other thread? As commented here, I am afraid something might be off there and it would be a shame if the new version introduced some bug.

Also, will it be possible to transfer survivors/excess crew between ships? The penalties for carrying too much crew can seemingly get quite large. Suppose you have two ships, one carrying a lot of survivors, the other only its standard crew (but a lot of spare berth). It would feel awkward if there was no means to share the survivors between the crews. And it would certainly be very frustrating gaming wise to have one ship break down because of that.

[Deutschbag]

So 5.70 is officially 6.00 now eh? Thought that might happen! The list of improvements and changes is way too big for a mere incremental update.

[telegraph]

Regarding shore leave and civilian vessels that are intended to remain on-station for years, such as fuel refining stations, terraformers and asteroid mining stations:

Has there been any discussion of this? Is it possible to exempt any civilian ships that have no engines from the shore leave rules? That way, luggables such as engineless fuel miners would not need to be towed back home every few years. Alternatively, we could allow orbital habitats to be set up in orbit around gas giants, which would let us add an R&R facility to our mining stations.

I am for crew rotation using luxury liners. Maybe this job could even be outsorced to civvies? This way we could have a playable military station like Babylon 5, which would suffer if anything happens to the supply lines.

Speaking of Babylon 5, will it ever be possible to have a space trading stations? It might act as a floating werehouse for long-range trade or as a marketplace for non-so-friendly races(I am friendly with A and B, but A and B are not friendly to each other. They trade through my station and I get tolls and fines)?

[ardem]

Having Space Stations that can self maintain and upgrade components would be a start before that.

I still do not see space stations as a viable option at this stage, compared to a planetary military outpost.