please judge and criticize my ship design methidology

[endoric_MatrixForum]

(please note the actual stats are all realative to each other and dependant on current tech levels)

ok without specifics here is how i do it.

i do not use frigates or escorts roles at all.

i use destroyers, crusiers, capitalships and carriers

i divide destroyers into three specialties:

destroyers size 230 speedy lighter shields and armor
heavy destroyers size 250 same but more damage dealing
missile (or torpedo) destroyers size 250 long range stand off ship (think like an archer) i like missiles due to 0 loss of damage with range

cruisers

light cruisers size 300 fastest ship in speed and acceleration better shields and armor than destroyers equal in damage capacity
heavy cruisers size 350 heavier armor and shields than above slowest of destroyers and cruisers but more damage capacity than all
command cruisers size 350 fast enough to keep up with cruisers and destroyers carries fleet bonus mods
recon cruisers size 350 light fast scanner capable ship uses stealth when available.

battleship

battleship size 400 damage dealer slow with heavy shields and armor
command ship size 450 serves as flag ship with fleet bonus mods (battleship without the damage
dreadnaught size 500 slow hard to kill highest weapons damage

carriers

light carrier size 750 fast enough to keep up with cruisers and bring fighters to the battle. used in small fast fleets with command cruisers as lead
carrier size 900 slow lots of fighters and defences
heavy carrier size 1000 less fighters than a carrier more than a light carrier but has fleet bonus modules and hard to kill (think Battlestar)

[Panpiper]

As opposed to my ship design strategy. I use only capital ships. I have just one top tech design built to the maximum size my tech allows. They are fast, maneuverable, have good defense, good electronics, and very good direct fire weaponry (phaser lances). I throw in light point defense and ion defense. If I have allowed disasters, I will also give each of these ships a couple of ion cannons. I also tend to very quickly achieve an extreme tech advantage, so these designs tend to be well above the rest. There is absolutely nothing a concentration of these ships cannot utterly obliterate, and do so fast. The only question is if I have enough of them nearby to cover all bases.

[endoric_MatrixForum]

i play huge with 1400 stars on hard. i find it a decent challenge and affordable ships in larger quantities are nessisary to cover everything and fight wars on several fronts.

[szabferi]

So far - im a beginner tough - I also don't find the reason to have several different kind of ship designs for combat as you described above.

I used to have a top line (max size) combat ship with the best available shields and weaponry plus a carrier design. I don't feel the urge to have small frigates, cruisers etc.... its ok, I need ships in the empire to guard the important colonies, but I prefer to have 1-3 big ships instead of 8-10 small. So I don't think having many small cannon fodder ships have any advantage (eg cost/maintenance) over a few big one. Apart from having clutter on the screen

[Panpiper]

I look at it from a firepower to maintenance ratio. The maintenance cost of two frigates is equal to that of a single capital ship. Yes, two frigates can be in two places at once, but what does that help with? A solitary frigate is insufficient to do anything but chase a pirate away, it lacks the firepower to decisively kill it, so that pirate will be back at some point to be chased away yet again. And that assumes the pirates have not come in force, as if they have, it is the frigate that is in peril.

On the other hand, if one of my capital ships shows up, a solitary pirate is toast. It is very likely to be destroyed. Even a fleet of pirates, perhaps emboldened by their numbers to stick around and fight it out, will find themselves being destroyed by a solitary one of my capital ships. And if and when I find a pirate base, four of those capital ships will make short work of their starbase.

I too play on large maps with 1400 stars. I find even with my empire advisor set to suggest a 'low' quantity of ships (with a 100% allocation to capital ships), I am more than able to completely cover my empire with proper two ship fleet coverage, which frankly is overkill for pirates, and that's with pirates set to max.

[endoric_MatrixForum]

i see how that works and actually i am dismayed that it does. Maybe capital ships should just be more expensive and take long to make?

i mean what fun would it be to have fleets of death stars flying around?

after playing around with things a bit it does seem that the following is true

a ship at 500 size is greater than to two ships at 250 size give the same tech level.

a ship at 500 is Less than the cost and maintenance of two ships at 250 size.

as a mater of fact to make a ship of 500 with twice the armor, shields and weapons than a ship of 250 AND keep both ships the same acceleration and turn rate the capital ship achieves that well before size 500 AND ends up with a faster top speed.

this was all done at tech level 7.

honestly this is disappointing. there is no reason for light ships as its more affordable to have a fleet of capital ships and zero smaller vessels.

so to dominate build as big as you can and maintain only a limited number of ship types.

carriers, battleships, command ships and resupply ships are all one needs.

i say given all that the only way to make small ships worth anything at all is nerf the larger ship sizes. make them more expensive and costlier by making a steeper modifier in cost and maintenance calculation the larger the size goes.

it would be like having a fleet of nothing but aircraft carriers since no other ship types serve any purpose.

meh this revelation is a game killer for me

[Panpiper]

In defense of this game, I tend to do virtually the same thing in every 4X game I have ever played (and I've played a lot of them). ALL of them make this an optimum strategy, though I am sure they did not do it on purpose. I have never seen a 4X game with mechanics that accurately and effectively encouraged a mixed fleet design.

Even PnP games (pen and paper) games have this problem. I can think of only one exception, High Guard, a very old school element of the SciFi RPG game Traveler (first edition), which had a mechanic in it which made it highly effective at least at the higher tech levels to have at the very least two different ship types in fleets and possibly more if actually gaming out strategically as opposed to just fighting it out tactically.

That is not to say that a game could not be constructed that would in fact encourage a mixed fleet structure. However any such game would necessarily introduce a great deal of detail into ship design and fleet management that from the perspective of most game designers would be more likely to harm the marketability of their game than help. While there are those among us in the gaming community that would enjoy this (there is NOTHING I want more in a game than a robust design system, the more detailed the better), the vast majority of people do not. Just look at the number of people who play this game who let the automation handle ship design. I do not understand these people. but they would likely be driven away by a game that required them to delve into such design detail.

[endoric_MatrixForum]

well why have roles then? only two ships mean anything in this game and that's huge capital ships and carriers. I was impressed with this games attempt to make more of ships than the 'as big as it gets' method but i see that was more of a cover as ship roles do not mean anything with the exception of carrier as you can cram more into it if you keep it at 40% hangers. escorts frigates destroyers cruisers capital ships are really all the same thing perhaps just a simple way to sort different ship types in the ship screen but that usefulness is negated by the first point of only needing two ship types.

the only solution to this is that each role has a min and max size AND that the bigger roles cost more per point of size. to make things even better give a speed penalty to larger sizes. escorts would be a .75 modifier per point in size for maintenance and on up the scale to capital ships and carriers that could have a 2.0 modifier per point in size maintenance. without something like that you can just make massive ships and only massive ships which the AI does not do therefor the AI will always be out matched.

Great game i just hope they make something out of ship roles or just remove them all together.

[Panpiper]

Technically there IS a difference in the ship roles, and that is the AI the ship uses. An escort ship will in fact do escort missions, escorting constructors and such as they do their job. I do not know precisely what the differences are in the roles, the differences in AI scripting, but they do behave differently.

The primary reason I stick to only capital ships is because pirates 'steal' the designs of your escorts, frigates and destroyers. So if you make one that is bigger, better or higher tech than the pirates, hoping to get an advantage over them, you are completely wasting your time. Worse, you are needlessly inflating your maintenance budget. Your bigger and better escorts will simply find themselves up against equal bigger and better pirates. By sticking solely with capital ships, I avoid this (to my mind) rather absurd and frustrating game 'feature'.

Actually, now that I am thinking about it, if it was possible to disable this Pirates Use Your Designs 'feature', I might in fact use the different ship classes more as they were intended, so as to take advantage of their different functions. My existing capital ship design would become my cruisers, with the same tonnage being used as for capital ships. The difference would be that the capital ships would become my 'command cruisers', containing those things I only need one of in a fleet. Escorts would be designed more like fast frigates, frigates would be destroyer sized. I am not sure what I would use destroyers for, probably nothing. Fleets would be composed of cruisers and a solitary capital ship. The escorts and frigates would be left solitaire on auto to keep the pirates and critters off my bases and merchant ships.

[endoric_MatrixForum]

the insight you supply on pirates is new to me. they have never posed a problem for me so i never paid them any attention. I find a base i kill it. i see a ship i kill it. they do not really cause me any problems.

if you have every played hearts of iron 3 a mechanic they use to keep you from using nothing but larger capital ships is that there is a penalty applied if there is not at least one escort sized ship (light cruisers or destroyers) for each heavy cruiser Battleship or carrier.

i really just want the makers of the game to use the roles and ship sizes to their full potential as design of ships is the strong point of this game.

[Brainsucker]

I agree with Endoric. The problem of many 4x Games are always classic. Bigger ships >>>> Smaller Ships, thus there is no reason to make the smaller one when you can create the bigger, meany ones.

I think we need to create a penalty for creating a big, meany star ship in order for players to have a reason to create smaller ones. Of course, bigger Star Ship is still needed, but it won't deny the smaller ones.

But for now, just go to hell creating the most efficient star ship by the game mechanic. You want to create all capital ship with 900 Kt, go to it. or you want to create a combination between small and big, don't make the game break your heart.

Although, maybe if we make the reactor cost in the game very expensive, it will prevent people from creating all 5 reactor star ship; because the cost of 1 reactor ship and 2 reactors one will become like heaven and earth

[Bingeling]

When I have played I tend to use fewer and larger ships too, but not as bad as described in this thread. Also, by the time you can field a lot of large ships (lots!) there is usually little point in playing.

Without thinking too much about it, I would figure that to make different sized ships relevant one ought to:

1: Make sure that the smaller escort is the most "bang for the buck". This is the way to get firepower cheaply. And of course have the cost increase with size faster than firepower does.

2: Make some kind of limit to fleet sizes and number of ships in battle. Think that all ships in a skirmish are under the same control structure, and this carries penalties with additional ships. A rather bad penalty.

That way you could balance things so that a 4 ship escort fleet is the cheap fleet of some power. A 4 ship frigate fleet is less bang for the buck, but beats the escort fleet easily. And to create a powerful fleet, you pay a lot to sport 8 capital ships under a leader. A 8 ship fleet that costs a whole lot to maintain. But that leader could allow you to run a 8 ship fleet of any kind.

So maintenance pushes you to build small ships, but control limits and the wish to have powerful fleet pushes you towards larger ships that are more efficient, but cost way more to maintain.

[Arcatus]

KISS: Make lifesupport, or as mentioned earlier, reactors, expensive.

[feelotraveller]

ORIGINAL: Arcatus

KISS: Make lifesupport, or as mentioned earlier, reactors, expensive.

They are relatively. Unfortunately the economy of scale means you need proportionally less for bigger ships. Since for example you are only carrying one hyperdrive, one ecm, etc.

One way to do it would be to make engines (thrusters) more inefficient the bigger the ship gets. This could be done by needing a greater proportion of the ships size in engines to attain the same speed, or by making it guzzle more gas per engine as the size of the ship increases, or both.

[Brainsucker]

Well, just make the reactor very expensive. it will help the game a lot. Because reactors are the sole reason why a ship could become bigger. A ship with 2 reactors definitely could be equipped with more weapons and engines than a ship with a reactor.

[endoric_MatrixForum]

glad to see there was some discussion here. any other ideas?

[feelotraveller]

Well a simple one would be to increase the existing added maintenance by ship size factor.  It's already there but currently pretty much trivial.

[Brainsucker]

Right now, I'm playing Star Trek Picard Mod and become the Klingon Empire, and want a bit role play (rather than to winning the game with the most efficient way). So, anyone has suggestion about what kind of ships that I should make? I want to make it more like the Klingon I know in Star Trek rather than making it all capital ships in my fleet. So maybe Bird of Prey, D-7, Vorcha, and Nerd'var should have distinctive role in the fleet.

Right now, I split my design into 2 different class. The small ships (exploration, frigate, and Escort) with designation of BP (Birth of Pray), while the bigger ships (Troop Transport, Destroyer, Cruiser, and Capital Ships ) with designation of D. You know, D-1, D-2, D-3.... I consider Destroyer as Light Cruiser, while Cruiser as Heavy Cruiser (btw, what is the different of Light Cruiser and Heavy Cruiser anyway, at least in this game)

Any suggestion on how to make a good Bird of Prey (they should be small and agile)? and what should Nerd'var's role do? A heavy armed ship? An attack Carrier? or a heavy troop transport? Well, I play aggressively like Klingons. And for anyone who love Star Trek and know the setup of any Klingon Ships are welcome to give suggestion.

and... I won't refit a unit that has different serial number. For example, D-2 can only be refitted into D-2 Refit, or D-2 ++ and more. They can't refitted into D-4 or D-7, etc. I know that it is silly, but for the sake of Role Play, I willing to do it. Because D-2 and D-7 would have different ship image. plus, for me, D-4 and D-7 are different entity with massively different setup. So it would be not role play if I change a heavily equipped torpedo ship to a full laser ship with pressing the refit button. Of course, D-7 will always more advanced than D-5

BTW, I appreciate if it is not an end game design, but more of early game design (the beginning and the middle) Klingon are s*ck at technology development anyway.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: endoric

the insight you supply on pirates is new to me. they have never posed a problem for me so i never paid them any attention. I find a base i kill it. i see a ship i kill it. they do not really cause me any problems.

if you have every played hearts of iron 3 a mechanic they use to keep you from using nothing but larger capital ships is that there is a penalty applied if there is not at least one escort sized ship (light cruisers or destroyers) for each heavy cruiser Battleship or carrier.

i really just want the makers of the game to use the roles and ship sizes to their full potential as design of ships is the strong point of this game.

Play with max slider pirates and close to your empire. It's not that killing them is the problem, its the fact that you have only X number of ships and they are everywhere. You get overwhelmed with the pure numbers of them attacking you.

[Cruis.In]

what do the devs say about this? Are they gonna fix it?