Matrix Games Forums

Somewhat less of both, as part of both rebalancing the economy and improving performance and memory usage, as we found that once the economy was working perfectly the game started to exceed our expectations in terms of how much "stuff" was being created.

If this means there will be less colonizable planets, I do not think that it is the right approach. I think that galaxies are already filled with emtpy stars or ones containing only planets of no use to you. One of the design problems of the game is that though it offers hundreds of stars with potentially thousands of objects most of them are effectively of no use to the player. So reducing the number of useful objects is not the way to go, in my eyes, and would only add to the frustration factor, especially in the exploring phase which is so far the most enjoyable part of the game.

ORIGINAL: kafka
... I think that galaxies are already filled with emtpy stars or ones containing only planets of no use to you. One of the design problems of the game is that though it offers hundreds of stars with potentially thousands of objects most of them are effectively of no use to the player...

You can build mining bases on top of every planetoid object to get many of the same benefits of a colony. You can also add construction yards, fuel depots, etc. to planets and anywhere in space as well.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

What is "reasonable" and "defensive weapons"?

Basically, one defensive weapon per civilian ship is considered "ok" by the AI.

Heh, so I guess nothing changes, because one weapon per ship is useful for only the FIRST design, after which the number of weapons starts to rapidly increase as the arms race between marauders and merchantmen takes off. It's gotten bad to the point where I have freighters packing 10-20 torpedo launchers for self-defense. ONE weapon isn't a threat to anything, let alone a suddenly hostile spaceport.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Beyond that, they will consider it less of a civilian ship and more of a privateer of some kind.

Will they actually say that? When can we actually HAVE privateers? Because I *WANT* to flood the galaxy in heavily armed, privately-owned warships. That would be AWESOME. Why should pirates have all the fun?

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I hear you on the rest. Over time as we make further improvements to diplomacy, I think the limits here may become more flexible again. For now, we wanted to allow players to give civilian ships a limited defense without bothering the AI.

A limited defense against what, though? One gun isn't a threat to even the smallest pirate ship at the beginning of the game, unless by "one gun", you mean something like a Death Ray. This seems somewhat backwards, that the AI will complain when you merely build armed merchantmen packing appropriate torpedo broadsides, but doesn't blink when you install a Death Star Gun on one.

Well a freighter isn't supposed to be a threat to anyone. And in no way to any base of any kind.

ORIGINAL: Resan

Well a freighter isn't supposed to be a threat to anyone. And in no way to any base of any kind.

Tell that to Han Solo

Well yeah they shouldn't be a threat but should be able to out run it, if the ship is made for that. Then again that would only be for the small freighters and not the big bulk freighters. Those should be protected by bigger military ships.

ORIGINAL: Resan

Well a freighter isn't supposed to be a threat to anyone. And in no way to any base of any kind.

Tell that to the East Indiamen. Those were merchant craft armed as heavily as a ship of the line. The way I design a merchant cruiser is that I start with a regular cruiser or destroyer, strip the shields and armor down to the level of an Escort, remove troop pods and secondary weapons, and throw in cargo bays. Remember: Because of how Pirates imitate designs, the typical opponent your freighters are going to encounter is going to be your own frigates, and they need to be able to win that confrontation.

And East Inda is a relic of history, replaced by modern merchant fleets that while still facing piracy, do not in fact carry guns. Modern nations do not permit the equivalent of East India ships of the line to operate in their waters.

a more loose ship size limit would make me happier.

Through history our ships have grown in size.

In the 1800's a Battleship was the size of a modern destroyer.

Ships grow in size until they hit a limiting factor... such as the Panama Canal, then they all grew to the very largest they could be.

And there are very few limiting factors to ship size in space. So why limit us?

ORIGINAL: Gerth

And East Inda is a relic of history, replaced by modern merchant fleets that while still facing piracy, do not in fact carry guns. Modern nations do not permit the equivalent of East India ships of the line to operate in their waters.

Because modern navies control the seas--well at least everywhere but the Somali coast. This space is lawless. And if you think merchantmen aren't arming themselves around Somalia think again. Some private security contractors on a freighter actually riddled a pirate skiff with bullets until a Spanish warship arrived to save them -- happened at the end of last month.

Private security contractors with small arms, not cannons. Freighters armed like warships are not sailing into sovereign waters.

Well alot of them are in fact using less lethal weaponry for instance sonic weaponry which you can point at a threat and basically make them wish they were anywhere but where they were since their eardrums are about to explode. Piracy is actually growing more rampant not just off the east african coast but indonesia has been pretty bad for some time now. Dangerous waters is an excellent show and I think History channel is still running it the basic premise is that lack of large navies breeds pirates and history has shown this again and again. It also goes into local police and customs official corruption and kidnapping. The incidents in indonesia where the police come and the boat owners get scared about identifying some of the police as the same pirates who hijacked them are pretty interesting.

All I am saying is that when large navies, in modern times the cold war navies of the ussr/america, diminish then piracy grows and the next effect is that the merchant fleet will begin to take measures to provide for its own security.

http://www.modernpiracy.com/home.htm

Careful, straying into dangerous waters here......close to politics.

NEW FEATURES

* Add auto-refuel option for all ships, even when manually-controlled
* Manually-controlled military ships automatically engage enemies, no need to manually select targets
* Add mass-retrofit option from Ships and Bases screen

Oh man if u pull this off i will stop my overdone complaining and resort to only complaining in a semi-hostile fashion

ORIGINAL: Gerth

And East Inda is a relic of history, replaced by modern merchant fleets that while still facing piracy, do not in fact carry guns. Modern nations do not permit the equivalent of East India ships of the line to operate in their waters.

There are several reasons behind that: First, piracy today is largely a local problem, confined to a single geographical area. The modern sea, as a whole, is not a particularly lawless place filled with heavily armed pirates and warships of hostile powers. Secondly, it's not true. Ships transporting nuclear fuel actually are armed with 30mm autocannons. Thirdly, as recently as WW2, nations on all sides armed merchantmen to protect them from attack by from the other side. Given that the universe of Distant Worlds is a galaxy which is frequently at war, lawless, and filled with rampaging pirates and horrible space monsters that can eat your ship alive, being armed, often quite heavily, is the only sensible move. While in the real world, pirates only frequent certain geographical localities and when you are not in one of those places, you are just hauling around an armed ship and crew for no reason, in DW, space is ugly EVERYWHERE. Hell, I've had my freaking CAPITAL turn into a war zone, and that's in the middle of my empire! You'd better believe people would start arming merchant ships if, say, Chinese naval raids became routine events.

As for whether or not something like this should be permitted, why not make it part of the diplomacy system, and have those ships which are NOT permitted simply NOT GO THERE? I, for one, am perfectly happy not to see my freighters traipsing the space of potentially hostile and unfriendly neighbors, away from where I can keep them safe by arming them heavily.

ORIGINAL: Gerth

Private security contractors with small arms, not cannons. Freighters armed like warships are not sailing into sovereign waters.

That's a simple matter of scale. The freighters are only using small arms because the PIRATES are only using small arms. If you had pirates that started attacking merchant shipping using cannons, I guarantee you someone, probably the Israelis, would start installing their own cannons in short order.

ORIGINAL: Journier

a more loose ship size limit would make me happier.

Through history our ships have grown in size.

Already happens in the game. There is nothing that prevents you from building a 450-size ship and deciding that this is a "Frigate", even though it is now bigger than a capital ship of the beginning the game.

ORIGINAL: Journier
In the 1800's a Battleship was the size of a modern destroyer.

You know, there's a reason why this happens, and it's mostly political. Everyone knows "destroyers" are smaller than "battleships". If you want to build a new ship, you tell them that you're building a new "destroyer", and you are far more likely to get your budget approved than if you tell them that you are building a "battleship", because everyone knows "battleships" are hella-huge and ridiculously expensive, and "destroyers" are small and cheap.

Fishman, I could quibble with your points, but given the game mechanics, they're persuasive. From a gaming stance, I don't want a merchant fleet to obsolete the need for a standing navy, but a more robust diplomatic ai routine might be a solution.

ORIGINAL: Gerth

Fishman, I could quibble with your points, but given the game mechanics, they're persuasive. From a gaming stance, I don't want a merchant fleet to obsolete the need for a standing navy, but a more robust diplomatic ai routine might be a solution.

Won't ever happen. Merchant fleets only defend themselves when they are attacked, they don't hunt your foes for you, and I have noticed that the AI does apparently learn not to pester or provoke them at all, causing them not to contribute to an ongoing battle.

About private ships - they actually don't need any weapons - just give them good speed and they will simply run away from anything. I'm using that tactic (good speed, no weapons, a bit of shields and armor) and it's working.

copy that. All of my private vessels get extra shields and armor at the beginning of the game. So they can even run away from monsters.

ORIGINAL: Drusek

About private ships - they actually don't need any weapons - just give them good speed and they will simply run away from anything. I'm using that tactic (good speed, no weapons, a bit of shields and armor) and it's working.

This works, assuming your concern is keeping them alive, but the mission in question still fails and the problem is left unresolved. This results in a system deadlock as more ships are dispatched to attempt to complete the failed mission, only to also fail because the problem remains unresolved. Additionally, shields are far bulkier and more expensive than weapons! A merchant cruiser with 2 shields and 10 guns succeeds where a ship with 12 shields and no guns fails.

Doing it MY way, the problem solves itself the first time: The offending pirate or annoying Kaltor is turned into space dust and the delivery is completed without incident.

Plus, I don't really care if they SURVIVE or not, what I want is that whatever it is they are supposed to be doing be DONE, or that they DIE TRYING. Since the AI is so lazy about upgrading and will leave garbage scows in service after they are obsolete for 4 generations, I find this attritional process offers a natural survival-of-the-fittest selective pressure to retain only modern craft.

ORIGINAL: Fishman
This works, assuming your concern is keeping them alive, but the mission in question still fails and the problem is left unresolved. This results in a system deadlock as more ships are dispatched to attempt to complete the failed mission, only to also fail because the problem remains unresolved. Additionally, shields are far bulkier and more expensive than weapons! A merchant cruiser with 2 shields and 10 guns succeeds where a ship with 12 shields and no guns fails.

It's not a static system though. Monsters and pirates tend to roam a bit, so a trade route can be "closed" for a while and then reopen. Saving the ships while getting the "under attack" messages also gives the player a chance to route a response force over there to clear out the threat without losing freighters.

Plus, I don't really care if they SURVIVE or not, what I want is that whatever it is they are supposed to be doing be DONE, or that they DIE TRYING. Since the AI is so lazy about upgrading and will leave garbage scows in service after they are obsolete for 4 generations, I find this attritional process offers a natural survival-of-the-fittest selective pressure to retain only modern craft.

I'm glad I'm not in your merchant marine! Point noted though - the AI does upgrade, but it can take time. Priority wise though, it's more important to keep trade flowing. Having the "latest" merchant design is not always that important compared to warships.