Diplomacy

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Igard

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

What do you think about the idea of being able to mothball ships?  You would mothball old or obsolete ships, but not destroy them.  They would be put in 'storage' basically to be brought back into service during times of national emergency.  These mothballed ships would not cost anything to maintain or at least very little to keep in mothball.  They would be kept in mothball at a certain planet or major starbase.

We could have great big starship museums! I used to send all my old favourite ships (ancient ships and the sort) to a remote system somewhere to be put into 'mothball' although of course they were still functional and would actually act as a defence force. I liked to think this was a fitting end to a ship with a long and proud history.

I LIKE....I LIKE....

I would keep my mothballed fleet in the Briar Patch..... lol [:D]

[Simulation01]

ORIGINAL: Igard

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

What do you think about the idea of being able to mothball ships?  You would mothball old or obsolete ships, but not destroy them.  They would be put in 'storage' basically to be brought back into service during times of national emergency.  These mothballed ships would not cost anything to maintain or at least very little to keep in mothball.  They would be kept in mothball at a certain planet or major starbase.

We could have great big starship museums! I used to send all my old favourite ships (ancient ships and the sort) to a remote system somewhere to be put into 'mothball' although of course they were still functional and would actually act as a defence force. I liked to think this was a fitting end to a ship with a long and proud history.

Lol....that's an interesting work around, but they are still costing a great deal to maintain...whereas if you had a mothball function or option they would either cost very little to maintain or nothing at all.

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: Simulation01


Lol....that's an interesting work around, but they are still costing a great deal to maintain...whereas if you had a mothball function or option they would either cost very little to maintain or nothing at all.

Money is no object for a sentimental old tyrant like me!

I would say mothballed ships should cost a very small amount as they would need to be maintained by a quartermaster. Trek fans will remember Mr. Dokachin(sp?) the Zakdorn quartermaster of the Starfleet surplus depot.[;)]

[Simulation01]

ORIGINAL: Igard

ORIGINAL: Simulation01


Lol....that's an interesting work around, but they are still costing a great deal to maintain...whereas if you had a mothball function or option they would either cost very little to maintain or nothing at all.

Money is no object for a sentimental old tyrant like me!

I would say mothballed ships should cost a very small amount as they would need to be maintained by a quartermaster. Trek fans will remember Mr. Dokachin(sp?) the Zakdorn quartermaster of the Starfleet surplus depot.[;)]

You ol' softy![;)]


...Zackdorn Quartermaster?...are you referring to the episode of the Next Generation where Data was playing that crazy game, and the Enterprise was conducting war games with the old ship Star Gazer?

[martok]

I'd be down for being able to mothball ships. It's a feature I've always wanted to see in a 4x game.

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

...Zackdorn Quartermaster?...are you referring to the episode of the Next Generation where Data was playing that crazy game, and the Enterprise was conducting war games with the old ship Star Gazer?

He's referring to the TNG episode "Unification Part II". With Picard & Data on Romulus, Riker takes the Enterprise to a Starfleet junkyard in trying to track down some missing mothballed Vulcan ships.

[Carewolf]

The game seems to have some peace brokering built in. Every now and then my advisors suggest I should propose a peace on my friends behalf, but for some reason I am not allowed to take this action on my own, and can only take it when advised to do so.

[Simulation01]

ORIGINAL: martok

I'd be down for being able to mothball ships. It's a feature I've always wanted to see in a 4x game.

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

...Zackdorn Quartermaster?...are you referring to the episode of the Next Generation where Data was playing that crazy game, and the Enterprise was conducting war games with the old ship Star Gazer?

He's referring to the TNG episode "Unification Part II". With Picard & Data on Romulus, Riker takes the Enterprise to a Starfleet junkyard in trying to track down some missing mothballed Vulcan ships.

I've seen parts of that...I'll have to look it up. Thanks.[:)]

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: Carewolf

The game seems to have some peace brokering built in. Every now and then my advisors suggest I should propose a peace on my friends behalf, but for some reason I am not allowed to take this action on my own, and can only take it when advised to do so.

That's interesting, I don't think I've ever tried playing with diplomatic advisors switched on. Might give it a try if it adds to the diplomacy.

Thanks Martok, I couldn't remember which episode that was.[;)]

[Aures]

I use the option to speak on behalf of someone I have a free trade agreement with all the time, really helps keep things calm when aggression is set to chaos.

Regarding the OP explicitly multi-lateral diplomacy is an interesting and ambitious idea. But in my experience the game already has some pretty interesting power bloc dynamics. Scrolling down the list of empires usually reveals a pretty good webs of wars and free trade agreements. But is it kind of messy like system borders. Personally, I like being able to be enemies with the enemy of my enemy, enemies with a friend of a friend, friends of my friends enemy etc. That ability is sorely missing in lots of diplomacy systems. If there was some kind of graphic where all the connections could be seen at once it would make it much easier to see all the different power blocs. I have seen that in pvp diplomacy systems that otherwise aren't more sophisticated than SW and it usually works quite well, especially if the nodes rearrange themselves based on the relationships they have. I think I have even seen it in a 4x but I forget which one.

There is of course a lot of room to extend the diplomacy system. Top on my list would be adding 100,000 and 1,000,000 options to the cash part (or better yet allowing us to just type in whatever we want). The ability to only offer disputed bases and colonies that are in what is regarded as the other player's territory is limiting. So is only being able to demand ones that are in space regarded by the game as yours. I'm not sure if the ability to buy or sell any tech level rather than just the most current would mess up how races with special techs currently works (though there seems to be special mechanics dealing with trading those anyway) but it would certainly add a lot more flexibility. Being able to trade ships would be somewhere on that same list of suggestions.

I am starting to learn how to really bend the diplomacy system to my will. Going to war for just long enough to grab a planet then bribing for peace and swapping the planet back for a tech is a great way to get to the cutting edge of technology at the start of a slow research game. It is also much cheaper than just buying the tech off them. I never even give away my territory map now, I just pay the AI for theirs. If they offer to swap territory maps with me I can usually just open the diplomacy screen and get them to give it to me for nothing. Using the suggest setting on diplomacy (I play with suggest gifts, treaties, war and trade sanctions) to allow me to speak on a friends behalf is part of the mix as well. I'm not 100% sure what the relevant automation setting is, but it would be a simple process of elimination to work it out.

Mothballing ships is another interesting idea but it would have to be worked out properly. You don't want mothballing and unmothballing to be too quick and easy or there is a temptation to always mothball something if you will not be using it for even just a brief period. If the ship can't move until a construction ship comes to unmothball it and it requires a visit from a construction ship to mothball it in the first place that would go a long way towards balancing it.

[Simulation01]

ORIGINAL: Aures

I use the option to speak on behalf of someone I have a free trade agreement with all the time, really helps keep things calm when aggression is set to chaos.

Regarding the OP explicitly multi-lateral diplomacy is an interesting and ambitious idea. But in my experience the game already has some pretty interesting power bloc dynamics. Scrolling down the list of empires usually reveals a pretty good webs of wars and free trade agreements. But is it kind of messy like system borders. Personally, I like being able to be enemies with the enemy of my enemy, enemies with a friend of a friend, friends of my friends enemy etc. That ability is sorely missing in lots of diplomacy systems. If there was some kind of graphic where all the connections could be seen at once it would make it much easier to see all the different power blocs. I have seen that in pvp diplomacy systems that otherwise aren't more sophisticated than SW and it usually works quite well, especially if the nodes rearrange themselves based on the relationships they have. I think I have even seen it in a 4x but I forget which one.

There is of course a lot of room to extend the diplomacy system. Top on my list would be adding 100,000 and 1,000,000 options to the cash part (or better yet allowing us to just type in whatever we want). The ability to only offer disputed bases and colonies that are in what is regarded as the other player's territory is limiting. So is only being able to demand ones that are in space regarded by the game as yours. I'm not sure if the ability to buy or sell any tech level rather than just the most current would mess up how races with special techs currently works (though there seems to be special mechanics dealing with trading those anyway) but it would certainly add a lot more flexibility. Being able to trade ships would be somewhere on that same list of suggestions.

I am starting to learn how to really bend the diplomacy system to my will. Going to war for just long enough to grab a planet then bribing for peace and swapping the planet back for a tech is a great way to get to the cutting edge of technology at the start of a slow research game. It is also much cheaper than just buying the tech off them. I never even give away my territory map now, I just pay the AI for theirs. If they offer to swap territory maps with me I can usually just open the diplomacy screen and get them to give it to me for nothing. Using the suggest setting on diplomacy (I play with suggest gifts, treaties, war and trade sanctions) to allow me to speak on a friends behalf is part of the mix as well. I'm not 100% sure what the relevant automation setting is, but it would be a simple process of elimination to work it out.

Mothballing ships is another interesting idea but it would have to be worked out properly. You don't want mothballing and unmothballing to be too quick and easy or there is a temptation to always mothball something if you will not be using it for even just a brief period. If the ship can't move until a construction ship comes to unmothball it and it requires a visit from a construction ship to mothball it in the first place that would go a long way towards balancing it.

Well, I'm thinking that to bring a ship or ships out of mothball would cost some resources and/or some cash. Also, it would take a turn or so to bring the ship(s) out of mothball.

This idea came from Space Empires V....anyone remember this?

[Aures]

Fair enough, as long as there is enough of a barrier to make it worthwhile if you really aren't going to use a ship for years (or at least a large portion of a year) but not worth doing all the time just to save a few coins. If the cost for mothballing and/or unmothballing was about the maintenance cost for a years operation that would make it counterproductive for shorter periods. If there is still a small but ongoing cost for mothballed ships that would also increase the amount of time it would have to be mothballed to actually save any money.

I can see the argument for giving unmothballing a cost but making mothballing free. Currently if you are low on cash you have to scrap or retire ships to reduce maintenance costs. Giving mothballing an appreciable cost would make it hard to use when you are in financial difficulty, presumably when you would most like to use the function.

I still think construction ships should be considered for inclusion in the mothballing idea. Rather than just right clicking on a ship and selecting "mothball" to instantly mothball it or introducing some sort of timer you would have to direct or queue up a construction ship to visit whatever you want to mothball/unmothball. Not essential for the idea to work but I think it adds to rather than detracts from it.

I remember and have SEV, unfortunately I never really got into it. Never tried mothballing a ship in it.

[Igard]

I think mothballing should only really be practical for larger ships (cruisers, capitals, resupplies). Perhaps the option to mothball a fleet? I agree with Aures about the construction ships being used. Valuable materials, computers etc would probably be removed from the ship during the mothball process.

Would the mothballed ships be included in the empires 'military strength' value? If you go to war with an empire that looks weaker than yours, but has several fleets of mothballed ships waiting to be activated, could produce some difficult situations.

[Simulation01]

Well,  in order to keep from having great huge armada's of mothballed ships waiting to be activated in a war....maybe you should be given a number of ships that could be mothballed without incurring a penalty, but if you go over that number...every ship afterward would cost a considerable percentage of what an active ship would cost to maintain.  That, I think would deter/prevent you from having armada's just waiting to be called up....also, these ships would probably be obsolete any way, so they would only really be effective as a last ditch defense.  You could also use this feature along with my idea for selling ships to other empires.....for instance you could sell ships out of your mothballed fleet.  You could also conduct a 'lend/lease' effort to support your allly in battle by giving them some of your mothballed ships.

The idea of the construction ships is interesting and I understand it, however the idea I have in my head is that the ships would be decommissioned at a large dedicated Starbase or Depot on a planet or moon ( like the Zackdorn Quartermaster episode of TNG....which I looked up and watched this afternoon on You Tube...Thanks Igard and martok ).  These facilities would have the equipment to strip them of their useful or 'dangerous' components.

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

The idea of the construction ships is interesting and I understand it, however the idea I have in my head is that the ships would be decommissioned at a large dedicated Starbase or Depot on a planet or moon ( like the Zackdorn Quartermaster episode of TNG....which I looked up and watched this afternoon on You Tube...Thanks Igard and martok ).  These facilities would have the equipment to strip them of their useful or 'dangerous' components.

That would work quite well I think. I agree with you about keeping the numbers of mothballed ships to a certain limit and having a dedicated starbase/depot with a limit to the number of ships it can maintain in mothball would certainly control the numbers.

So there could be a new component for a starbase; It could be called 'Surplus Depot' or something similar.

; It would be quite large so as to limit the player from placing one on all starbases.

; It would be reasonably costly to build just so much as to limit the player from putting one in every system (We only want about 2 for a medium size empire am I correct?).

; The higher the tech the lower the maintenance cost. The cost of maintenance would be a small percentage of the ships full maintenance.

; The higher the tech the more ships can be placed in mothball. The ships themselves would simply move to a location within a certain range of the Depot.

Any other values that could be added to this component?

[Simulation01]

ORIGINAL: Igard

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

The idea of the construction ships is interesting and I understand it, however the idea I have in my head is that the ships would be decommissioned at a large dedicated Starbase or Depot on a planet or moon ( like the Zackdorn Quartermaster episode of TNG....which I looked up and watched this afternoon on You Tube...Thanks Igard and martok ).  These facilities would have the equipment to strip them of their useful or 'dangerous' components.

That would work quite well I think. I agree with you about keeping the numbers of mothballed ships to a certain limit and having a dedicated starbase/depot with a limit to the number of ships it can maintain in mothball would certainly control the numbers.

So there could be a new component for a starbase; It could be called 'Surplus Depot' or something similar.

; It would be quite large so as to limit the player from placing one on all starbases.

; It would be reasonably costly to build just so much as to limit the player from putting one in every system (We only want about 2 for a medium size empire am I correct?).

; The higher the tech the lower the maintenance cost. The cost of maintenance would be a small percentage of the ships full maintenance.

; The higher the tech the more ships can be placed in mothball. The ships themselves would simply move to a location within a certain range of the Depot.

Any other values that could be added to this component?

I think those are good idea's. The only thing I'm concerned about is having the number of ships able to be kept in the depot tied to tech level. I think the idea is to prevent a player from building massive armada's and placing them in the depot to call up whenever.


Sorry it took me so long to reply.

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

The only thing I'm concerned about is having the number of ships able to be kept in the depot tied to tech level.

I see what you mean now, sorry I didn't read your above post properly.

So the percentage of the upkeep could be raised incrementally as more ships are mothaballed. So maybe after about 12 ships, you find yourself paying around 50% of the maintenance. Would this be about right for a level 1 tech?

[Simulation01]

ORIGINAL: Igard

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

The only thing I'm concerned about is having the number of ships able to be kept in the depot tied to tech level.

I see what you mean now, sorry I didn't read your above post properly.

So the percentage of the upkeep could be raised incrementally as more ships are mothaballed. So maybe after about 12 ships, you find yourself paying around 50% of the maintenance. Would this be about right for a level 1 tech?

Yeah, that's more like what I was thinking...though...the amount of increase in maintenance cost would be something to be worked out in testing to get it to an appropriate level to achieve the kind of effect we're looking for.

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: Simulation01
the amount of increase in maintenance cost would be something to be worked out in testing to get it to an appropriate level to achieve the kind of effect we're looking for.

I agree, I was just taking a wild stab in the dark.