Ship Design AAR

[Gargantou]

Thanks for the great AAR Son_Of_Montfort.

Once I've become more comfortable with the rest of the game mechanics I'll definitely slowly start trying to design my own ships, but I hope I will be able to learn by inspecting the AI designs to see what's effective etc.

[frugaldude]

Excellent post S of M.  

[Joram]

I really like the philosophy of role and size determining what kind of ship.  However, can you explain what difference there is between Escorts, Frigates, Destroyers etc...
Are their different options in how you use a ship based on that role?
Are there more ways to control fleeing behaviour besides the few shown?  For example, what if I didn't want shields to save on energy but had a large amount of armor.  Could I tell it to flee if my armor reached a certain level of damage?

[Wade1000]

Are there more ways to control fleeing behaviour besides the few shown? For example, what if I didn't want shields to save on energy but had a large amount of armor. Could I tell it to flee if my armor reached a certain level of damage?

That would be a good element.

[ASHBERY76]

Now that is what I am talking about.This is the kind of marketing the game needed.The ship design looks very impressive to say the least.

[jnpoint]

oh, I was not aware that there were so many possibilities alone in Ship design.
But what is the difference between them? I mean, of course they're different, you can build them in many ways with many different weapons etc., but is the difference significant, so that you can see that they in fact are importent for the outcome of a war?

[Webbco]

There's a loophole in my knowledge of abbreviations..what does AAR stand for? [&:]

[Barthheart]

ORIGINAL: Webbco

There's a loophole in my knowledge of abbreviations..what does AAR stand for? [&:]

After Action Report

[Gargantou]

And here I always thought it stood for Angry Armed Rabble![:D]

[Webbco]

Thank you Barthheart! 

[Gertjan]

Thanks. Very interesting AAR. THe ship design is much more detailed than I thought. I hope I will be able to master it by myself. Is there also a tutorial in the game for this? Does the AI also come up with different sub classes within ship classes, like a long range cruiser and a short range cruiser? A dreadnought capital ship, but with low fuel in order to focus on combat only or just for defense purposes, in which case you would sacrifice speed of movement? That would be very cool!

[Fishman]

I tend to build ships packing the longest range weapons and the biggest engines...and then I build them as MERCHANT CRUISERS. I have this enormous, heavily armed fleet, that I got paid in spaceport fees to make, and don't have to pay upkeep for. Because they are merchant cruisers, they will shuttle about defending my most important worlds and space lanes, without any management from me. A major world will always have a dozen of these guys hanging around, and anyone dumb enough to pick a fight with one quickly realizes what a horrible mistake picking a fight with a freighter armed with battleship guns is, right before he gets blown to tiny pieces. They fly like the wind and can outrun anything that they can't outgun. Of course, I wind up as the most hated empire in the galaxy with people constantly screaming at me to remove my "military", even though I can't actually control these guys and they don't actually do anything military unless someone unwisely attacks them, but being a galactic pariah is a small price to pay for how much money it saves.

[Kamonrius]

However once your in a full blown war, the enemy empire will recognize them as Combatants and will target them. so if you come across a race who can crack shields in 3 seconds you will lose your entire intercolony economy and war fleet. leaving you massively screwed.
 
Learn that the hard way.
 
Never again

[GaryChildress]

Here is a look at some of the different ship pictures allowed for the design. There are quite a few and they are really pretty cool, and with me only having the beta there might even be some I haven’t seen in the full release. If you get tired of the ones provided, or just want to spruce up or personalize your game, adding ship graphics is extremely easy – especially if you download and follow the customization guide!

Wow! Looks pretty interesting. Can someone briefly explain how to customize the ship graphics? I have a few 3D graphics programs that I could use to make some cool stuff and am wondering if they would work? Are the ship graphics essentially BMPs or are they fully 3D graphics?

Thanks!

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: Kamonrius

However once your in a full blown war, the enemy empire will recognize them as Combatants and will target them. so if you come across a race who can crack shields in 3 seconds you will lose your entire intercolony economy and war fleet. leaving you massively screwed.

Never seen that. Besides, the AI will attack your freighters anyway, armed or not. You may as well be firing back. Additionally, there's the minor problem of CATCHING them. These things are FAST, and they are ubiquitous. When the AI attacks them, it is immediately greeted in a hail of torps. I have seen entire capship armadas roasted alive by these things. Anything heavily shielded enough to withstand this kind of assault is not fast enough to catch it. Anything armed enough to kill it is either not fast enough to catch it, or not shielded enough to chase it as it buttorps. Remember: The stern chase scenario is the worst combat position in the game, because your opponent will always outrange you, and since freighters never take offense, you will always have to chase. The level of aggravation is akin to fighting a Spathi Eluder. It is basically impossible to kill a Spathi Eluder in a fight that isn't to the death.

[ductape]

well, every time i make a new design, the AI erases it or pushes it down with a new design. I want most of the ships to be designed by AI, but a few I want to make myself and I dont want the AI to ignore them.

What can I do?

[Fishman]

Absolutely nothing, although your designs are still there if you uncheck the latest thing. What annoys me more is that the AI keeps designing things even when I have told it not to, and if I intentionally delete all of a design, it will manage to create a design that doesn't even EXIST, as opposed to simply NEVER ATTEMPTING TO BUILD THOSE because I don't want any!

[BigWolfChris]

Also, finding an abandoned  ship/base will tend to loose you your current design as it will usually always contain newer technology

[Interesting]

Very good man.

Thanks for writting this. I appreciate it.

Do you plan on making more AARs explaining, diplomacy, economy, colonization, exploration and other aspects of the game? If so, I will keep an eye on it.

[emeg]

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort

<..>



Speaking of power use, it looks like we have plenty of power to spare from our reactor. It might not hurt to have a little excess power for weapon fire and such, but this amount seems a bit excessive. If this were an actually game, rather than an AAR, I would probably go back and add more power using devices and balances them with more engines, but for ease of writing, I’ll leave it the way it is.

May-be I have missed it but, "speaking of power", you have something forgotten to mention in your AAR. Having a huge excess of energy is very good for a faster interstellar journey. There is a relation to the excess of energy of a ship and its hyperspeed.

All the excess of energy is used to power the Hyperdrive Engine!

That means, having more excess energy left makes that the ship travels faster in hyperspace, thus making the time needed for an interstellar journey shorter. So if you wish to have a fast traveling ship during their interstellar journey you need a ship with a very much excess of energy.

By example to your ship design. Having the Gerax HyperDrive ES on board of your ship having an energy excess of 80 makes that your ship have a hyperspeed of 32000. If the energy excess drops to 67 (your latest shipdesign) the hyperspeed of your ship has dropped to 26799.

So a higher excess of energy will, relative the hyperspeed engine of the ship, result in a higher hyperspeed performance.