Erik Rutins wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 4:30 pm
StormingKiwi wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 5:45 am
It would be helpful if the design hierarchy progressed down: Class>Hull>Role, rather than parsing text.
With custom ROLE templates that allowed the user to define:
1) The types of missions a ship of that role should do.
2) Fleet involvement (you might want your fleets to substitute or trim roles while disallowing a particular design from ever operating as part of a fleet)
3) The categories of components a design should include.
4) The weapon types (pulse, beam, ion, area, missile, kinetic, torpedo, point-defence) a design should include.
So as to guide the ship mission automation and design upgrades and creation.
By having multiple roles for one hull, you'd be able to define, e.g. Standoff Interdicting Colony Guarder, Close-In Boarding Escorts, independent defenders, fleet frigates, etc.
Also - for the three hulls for Escorts:
The basic Escort has two engines with +20% ship speed and maneuvering, the Patrol Escort has three engines with +30% ship speed and maneuvering. The Heavy escort has two engines, 0% bonus ship speed and maneuvering and +10% to countermeasures.
Ships with the same components (except Escort - it has one less fuel tank).
4488 credit Escort: 21.9 Attack, 71.4 Defence, 14.6 S&M, 533M range.
5156 credit Patrol Escort: 21.9 Attack, 71.3 Defence, 20.6 S&M, 628M range.
4960 credit Heavy Escort: 21.9 Attack, 74.3 Defence, 9.8 S&M, 634M range.
I think a 110% increase in S&M at the cost of 4% more credits, 4% less defence and 1% less range is a no-brainer.
Role in existing game terms is what you're calling "Class", like Cruiser or Frigate or Exploration Ship. Let's not create a new definition for an existing game term, that will only cause confusion.
I see you have not understood the post. The post is a suggestion for future improvements. That is the spirit with which it was written. It is part of the conversation occurring for Distant Worlds 2 to support multiple designs of the same class and hull but that have distinct roles to play.
"Role" as it is currently used within Distant Worlds is not used conventionally. This is not a "new definition", it is the conventional definition. In other pop-culture works, authors, screenwriters, and game designers would refer to "Distant Worlds Role" as "Type" or "Class" or similar. Using a specific word in a new and unusual way for the context, as Distant Worlds does, is much more confusing than in my post, where I use it consistently with how it is commonly used while also providing the information of how I am using it.
It's not even consistently used within Distant Worlds 2: ships of role Escort can be core ships in a fleet, while ships of role Destroyer can be close escorts to them.
I repeat myself, it should be:
Class -> Hull -> Role -> Design
Alternatively, Class -> Role -> Hull -> Design.
So right now we have Role -> Hull -> Design. The Design allows a lot of the customization you're requesting.
Every Role already has some assumptions and settings built in by default, which are generally all customizable at the ship design or fleet template level as far as fleet and tactical settings in terms of how that ship will behave.
The separate request of "guided automatic design" to set preferences for types of weapons or components is something we'd like to do in the future, but can't do at this time. If you want specific weapons, you need to design those ships manually. If you do not spread your research around, you can also in effect guide the automated design by only researching those weapons you want it to use and making sure those are more advanced than the other choices and it should generally pick those.
My suggestion is to enable meaningful specialisation of ships while allowing the automation to cope with the changes without bogging down the player with excessive manual play.
The Design allows a lot of the customization you're requesting:
This is not true.
Mission types per design are not customisable.
Fleet involvement per design is not customisable.
In particular:
Every Role already has some assumptions and settings built in by default, which are generally all customizable at the ship design or fleet template level as far as fleet and tactical settings in terms of how that ship will behave.
Those assumptions are not customizable, and the settings are not meaningfully editable.
E.g. 1:
I have a frigate designed with the intention for it to stay close to the damage-dealing ships in the fleet and act as a force multiplier by ensuring kills. Instead, it gets automatically assigned to be a picket ship, flies way out in front of the bulk of the fleet, attempts to solo an enemy target, gets damaged, and retreats, all before the rest of the fleet gets into range.
I would like to say, "Never be a picket ship". I can't. Sure, I could turn off the fleet position automation setting for a fleet, including that ship. Now I am managing the position of every ship in the fleet (remember, the default attack fleet design is 30 ships). Now my empire has three attack fleets, and I am managing 90 separate ships.
E.g. 2:
I have four frigate designs:
- Defenders: these sacrifice fuel for more firepower.
- Brawlers: these have enough fuel to carry out fleet missions but sacrifice some firepower. Close-in weapons.
- Rangers: these have enough fuel to carry out fleet missions but sacrifice some firepower. Stand-off weapons.
- Guardians: these have enough fuel to carry out fleet missions but sacrifice some firepower. PD weapons.
- I want my defenders to be on local guard and patrol missions. I do not want defenders to cripple my offensive fleets by replacing the brawlers/rangers.
- I want my brawlers/rangers to be on distant raid missions or in fleets.
- I want my guardians to be in fleets. I do not want them to attempt to solo-raid a station they are woefully unequipped to handle.
Re point 3: In 1.1.0.0, a fleet of troop transports, each equipped with two PD weapons, will be assigned to attack a mining station while a) colonies they had the ability and range to invade were also listed as attack targets and b) more appropriate raid and attack fleets were nearby and available.
Edit:
An exploration ship is a prime example of the deficiency.
Class: Explorer
Hull: Small Exploration Ship.
Role: Surveyor
Design: Includes resource scanners and survey modules.
Class: Explorer
Hull: Small Exploration Ship.
Role: Discoverer
Design: Designed for speed.
Class: Explorer
Hull: Small Exploration Ship.
Role: Observer
Design: Scanners, stealth and jammers.
End Edit.
Ship components and guiding the automation:
Restricting the automation from having available "advanced techs" of undesired research paths is not a realistic suggestion.
This requires:
- manually managing espionage
- no repairs of derelict ships
- no retiring advanced ships
- no research to unlock techs whose progression is blocked by a tech in an undesired research path.
Then consider there are multiple options for a particular component at the highest tech level (e.g. quantum vs fission vs fusion reactors) and valid reasons a player would want that component on ships of one design and not others.
When you get a new larger hull for the same role, it's generally intended that the smaller/older hull is no longer worth using. However, there are often multiple hulls of the same size (like Patrol or Heavy Escort) which may be worth using in different ways at the same time, which is why the system now supports by default a "Latest Design for Same Hull" upgrade path in those cases.
Regards,
- Erik
I believe you have missed the point as it is written.
When you research one tech, you gain access to "Heavy and Patrol" escorts. Heavy escorts do not appear to be worth using at all.
Refer to the numbers provided:
Their only advantage over the basic design is one extra general component, which I put a fuel tank in, yielding 20% more range.
By the other measures: they are equivalent, almost equivalent, and much worse. Their cost is higher.
"It is generally intended that the smaller/older hull is no longer worth using" - this is my understanding. So why is the Heavy Escort only trivially tanker and marginally better than the Basic Escort on a measure that doesn't even matter for the assumptions baked into a ship of its class/"Distant Worlds role"? This is a clear data error.
I guess the only viable option currently is to stick to one "custom role" per hull. Which is precisely what I sticked to before this version. Quite limiting. Adding the fact that having several hulls means... researching for these first. I have only the first frigate hull? So only one design (one "custom role"). Sure, I can have several active designs for this hull (like before), but now I can only upgrade to the most recent one. Aouch!