my supply battleship!

[YourConscience]

The ship design feature has some ... inconsitencies. It enforces ship size limits (of 200 in the beginning of the game, and I have yet to find out where this limit comes from and how I can raise it), but it doesn't do that for special kinds of ships. For example resupply ships. Hence, instead of building a fleet of destroyers to kill a pirate base, I simply add a bunch of engines, reactors and whatevers to my resupply ship design and voila, a perfectly good capital ship.

I think there should be some kind of limits - like at least 70% of the size of a resupply ship must be filled with appropriate components (fuel tanks, cargo, docking ports).

And actually, I noticed this because my fleet, outgunned at a heavily defended pirate station, fled to its resupply ship, followed by two pirate destroyers. And then, when I though everything is lost, they came into shooting range of the resupply ship and it suddenly blasted them to oblivion. I just built the standard design available at the beginning and didn't even bother looking at it properly.

[PDiFolco]

The size limitations are linked to your Industrial/Construction tech level. But you're right, the resupply ship is an exploit as it uses base size limitation but can move, thus making a cap ship. The game should enforce components limitations based on ship/Base type, or switch the resupply ship to Ship size max -but then it won't be very useful ! Or just scrap it, you can build gas mining bases close to the front with a constructor to have the same "close refuelling" effect.

[Fishman]

Actually, the resupply ship doesn't use base size as a limitation, because it is built at a planet, rather than free-standing, but it gets built at planetary speed, which is snail-slow. I have used resupply ships to create a valid OVER 9000-size Death Star just for kicks. In the time it takes to build one resupply ship of gargantuan size, you could easily make 20 regular ships faster, because the resupply ship is built at a max speed of 400 in serial, whereas warships are built at construction yard speed, in parallel.

[Cindar]

ORIGINAL: Fishman In the time it takes to build one resupply ship of gargantuan size, you could easily make 20 regular ships faster, because the resupply ship is built at a max speed of 400 in serial, whereas warships are built at construction yard speed, in parallel.

This is true early on, but later when you have 30 colonies or so you aren't going to use them to build 30 constructor or colony ships all at once, so you can then once again parallelize.

[BigWolfChris]

But??? Wouldn't the amount of resources and credits required to build and maintain loads of Resupply ships make it too impractical?

Thing is, without a physical limit on weapons/defences for the resupply design, I don't think anything could be done Afterall, even with a 70%, you can just still adding weapons, providing you still much that 70% requirement

[JonathanStrange]

Heh. Good exploit. There must (?) be some sort of maintenance, resource cost, etc. combo that make it less practical. In other games, early large ships (for some unexplained reason) like ark-style colony ships, are virtually always very low in hitpoints/armor/maneuverability making arming and using them in battle problematic.

[Cindar]

ORIGINAL: BigWolf

But??? Wouldn't the amount of resources and credits required to build and maintain loads of Resupply ships make it too impractical?

Not really. Adding a weapon, reactor, shield, fuel tank, engine to a regular military ship costs just the same to build and maintain. The only difference is that the resupply ship requires at least 1 gas extractor, docking bay, and cargo bay. So an over 9000 firepower fleet with 15k combined shielding costs only 1 gas extractor, 1 docking bay, and 1 cargo bay less then the resupply ship with the same stats (assuming you don't actually want those things).

ORIGINAL: JonathanStrange

Heh. Good exploit. There must (?) be some sort of maintenance, resource cost, etc. combo that make it less practical. In other games, early large ships (for some unexplained reason) like ark-style colony ships, are virtually always very low in hitpoints/armor/maneuverability making arming and using them in battle problematic.

The biggest problem by far is speed and maneuverability. Until you get the really great engines, expect your hulk to have trouble catching up to orbital planets, never mind ships.

[FerretStyle]

Simplest thing to do would be to disallow supply ships to attack if not deployed. That is, afterall, the only thing they are really intended to do.

[Shark7]

Honestly, I'd rather have 20 Capital Ships as opposed to 1 Death Star. You can't be everywhere at once, and this is especially true when you are depending on 1 planet destroying battle moon. I can see a point where building such a ship could literally bankrupt the empire, or at the very least leave it very, very vulnerable to multi-vector attacks.

[richieelias]

Personally I like the idea of a supply battleship. Seems like something like that would be integral to any flagship. Also something like that is far too slow to function in a defensive capacity. Just add in some troop pods, beef up the shields, and use it for what it is best at: taking planets/busting bases.   I've built a few, and personally I dont find the 2-3k maintenance to be empire-breaking at all.

[Cindar]

Over the long run, in can actually save you money as long as you can use it effectively. Lets take a hypothetical fleet with 30 ships. If it ran up against a fleet of 35 similar ships, it would be toast. If you combined those 30 ships into a super ship of similar cost, you would probably win. This is because with lots of small ships the more damage you take the more ships fall, reducing your own opposing firepower. But the supply ship will be firing all weapons until you take out every bit of its shields and armor.

[namad]

this is in no way an exploit whatsoever...

that limit refers ONLY to the limit of your space ports construction yards...

spaceship classifications are only for your benefit in terms of management...

the only possible exploit i see here is that large ships suffer from no economies of scale... there is no disbenefit to large ships which makes a few dozen warships built in parallel less useful...

[Fishman]

It's not really a USEFUL exploit because again, resupply ships have very slow construction rates, capped at 400 for the best colony, whereas capital warships built at orbital spaceyards can be churned out MUCH faster, and in parallel. A large stardock can turn out 20+ simultaneously, with no real limit other than how big of a dockyard you're willing to make. You would be better off using your planet to build a giant capital yard and doing that, then building a giant resupply ship Death Star. About the only reason to do such a thing is BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME, and honestly? Merely making something that is awesome but impractical is not a useful exploit.

ORIGINAL:  Cindar

Over the long run, in can actually save you money as long as you can use it effectively. Lets take a hypothetical fleet with 30 ships. If it ran up against a fleet of 35 similar ships, it would be toast. If you combined those 30 ships into a super ship of similar cost, you would probably win. This is because with lots of small ships the more damage you take the more ships fall, reducing your own opposing firepower. But the supply ship will be firing all weapons until you take out every bit of its shields and armor.

On the other hand, a fleet of 35 similar ships is far cheaper and FASTER to build. In the time it takes you to churn out one super-mothership, I can turn out dozens of battleships. Lots of small ships can also WITHDRAW from combat, meaning once you manage to damage one, I can simply withdraw it from the fight, denying you a kill at all, while the rest of the fleet continues to peck away. Furthermore, a fleet of 40+ ships can be in 40+ different places, your massive creation can only be in one.

There's also one even sneakier thing I can do: While you're building the Death Star, I can turn out 5 cruisers and go vulch you while you're building it in the dockyard. Now you've just wasted all of your money because I went and shot you down while you weren't finished building it.

[richieelias]

Uhh... I think you're forgetting one major point: There is nothing stopping you from building at both your spaceyard and your colony at the same time...