Ship Class Necessity

[Sirian]

For what I have observed in Legends, Escorts would indeed escort ships and patrol installations. Frigates would patrol your space. These are the only two ship classes I ever set to Auto. I use Destroyers for defense fleets and Cruisers and Capitals and sometimes destroyers for offense fleets.

My Destroyers are anti ship designs for catching and destroying pirates when there are no automatic patrollers nearby, my Cruisers are battleships with long breath (for extended missions) and Capitals are fleet support vessels. Usually I create those design far before they become available, nothing hinders me to create a Cruiser design with size=300. But of course, this is how I play. Your milage may vary.

I thought about giving special bonuses for specific roles (similar to Endless Space where battleships get a bonus to shields and armor) but in the end, I would rather go in the opposite direction. Give me a few more "design slots" and remove the names. Lets say 10 slots and no naming "Escort", "Frigate", etc. This way, newer players do not get fooled into thinking they have to design an escort in this slot or cannot make a CapShip on day 0. The question is, will the AI be smart enough to see what these ships were designed for? (Maybe we could give the AI a hint how to use this design)

Sirian

[Bingeling]

I believe the AI has a value for various mines and colonies, and the automated ships tend to get tasks according to their class. So an escort would patrol a less valuable object than a cruiser.

The AI also uses ship classes when making orders and setting up fleets.

It could work to specify a difference between a class name and a class role. That way the AI could have its default frigates and friends that has fixed names, while the player could set up additional classes, but be force to assign them a role (like escort or frigate) just in case a ship of the class is ever automated.

AI builds could keep to the default classes anyways, including build suggestions.

[Mansen]

More ship classes? What's stoppping you from running multiple designs in the same class? No need to clog it up further.

[Bingeling]

Because running 3 different destroyer designs is so convenient? It is a very requested feature among those that enjoy a ship for every task (and then some).

[Mansen]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

Because running 3 different destroyer designs is so convenient? It is a very requested feature among those that enjoy a ship for every task (and then some).

It's a hell of a lot less cluttered than having even more ship types that are only visual and AI related anyway. Multiple designs is already in the game - you can pull off all the things you want, I really don't see why this is an issue or a priority.

[Bingeling]

Why do we need a gui at all? We could play this game in a spreadsheet.

The clunkiness of everything ship design related is probably my personal main issue with the DW interface. Flexibility in roles of designs is a minor part of this.

I run mostly AI designs for a reason; manual design is a chore.

[ASHBERY76]

I do not find ship design UI that much of an issue.

I would like new designs to mainly help the A.I like a designated command flagship,bombard ships,Escorts carrier,Recon Frigate,Assualt Destroyer.With the new templates if would not be hard.A.I logic would need a bit of work for the flagships and fleet organization.

The player can do these but every A.I cruiser having fleet countermeasures,bombard and fighters,assualt pods,ect makes them much less efficient.

[Mansen]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

Why do we need a gui at all? We could play this game in a spreadsheet.

Come back when you're ready to discuss on an adult level You're not going anywhere by using poor strawman fallacies.

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: Mansen

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

Why do we need a gui at all? We could play this game in a spreadsheet.

Come back when you're ready to discuss on an adult level You're not going anywhere by using poor strawman fallacies.

Have you tried running multiple designs of the same class, and keep them up to date when new tech is available? Do you find it fun to have to sort your ships by maintenance or firepower to get them over on the right design? If they are in fleets and should retrofit at different places and at different times? I am weird and can be picky about when and where a fleet retrofits.

Have you tried changing the components used in many designs when the Auto Upgrade inserts the wrong piece? Swapping 7 torpedoes for another kind in one design is a bit annoying, doing that in 10 designs is a pain. And there is way more than 10 design classes.

It could be fun to try to tune designs properly once. 3 different designs for main fleets. A couple of different designs for defensive fleets. Another couple of designs for fleets meant to bust mining bases in war.

3 + 2 + 2 = 7 different designs.

escort+frigate+destroyer+cruiser+capital+carrier = 6 different designs.

You don't have to be too fancy for the number of different designs to be a part of the challenge.

But sure, the game is fun with auto design as well. And if I only really use 2 designs, correcting the AI when it is stupid with component choices is not that much work. Luckily capitals arrive quite late, and by that time the painful "mid tier" is mostly finished and even the AI can pick the correct components to use. So I don't have to keep 3 frequently updated designs on manual...

[Mansen]

Much better - constructive at least.

Yes, filtering needs some optimization. I'd love to be able to filter out things in the ships list, a real time search tool (filters with every keystroke) and preferably one that is remembered once the window is closed.

But does it work as is? Yes - It's a bother, but it's just as much a bother to find newly created ships.

If Auto-Design is sabotaging your designs, stop using it - I know I had to. It kept removing my fighter bays, so I turned it off completely for all military ships and bases. Takes a few minutes to update designs every so often. I don't find it a chore personally.

[Noble713]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I believe the AI has a value for various mines and colonies, and the automated ships tend to get tasks according to their class. So an escort would patrol a less valuable object than a cruiser.

Sometimes I wonder if this is WAD. If it is, it needs to be tweaked so the AI's tasking of your ships is a bit more rigid according to their classification. Have you ever left individual cruisers on AI control? Sometimes I'll build a few and leaving them sitting around before roping them into a new fleet, then I have to search around for them. Why? Oftentimes they end up running around escorting freighters. IMO, that should NEVER happen. That's what I build escorts and frigates for.

[Bingeling]

It is easy enough to add fighter bays in the designTemplates, and have the autoDesigner insert them for you. It removes the racial feel, though. With your own custom design set, and some care in what is researched, the auto designer could be a lot of help. Too bad the design templates are not quite detailed enough to have full control.

My main beef is when the AI messes up which hyperdrive is used, or inserts the wrong kind of "mid tier" blaster or torpedo. I was not as much speaking of auto design, though, but of the auto upgrade option in the design list. It replaces components with 'newest'. But newest is not always what one wants.

I would love to have some multi-select replacement of ship components in designs. "Update selected designs to use quantum reactor".

I find the ship list a good tool as it is. But if I have to use firepower or maintenance to find specific spic classes, I am in trouble. That is one reason why I would prefer some flexibility in ship classes. They would also allow to specify new paths of retrofitting.

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: Noble713

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I believe the AI has a value for various mines and colonies, and the automated ships tend to get tasks according to their class. So an escort would patrol a less valuable object than a cruiser.

Sometimes I wonder if this is WAD. If it is, it needs to be tweaked so the AI's tasking of your ships is a bit more rigid according to their classification. Have you ever left individual cruisers on AI control? Sometimes I'll build a few and leaving them sitting around before roping them into a new fleet, then I have to search around for them. Why? Oftentimes they end up running around escorting freighters. IMO, that should NEVER happen. That's what I build escorts and frigates for.

I don't usually leave any military ship under AI control.

Turning off "newly built ships are automated" is nice, but maybe not so nice if you enjoy having automated smaller ships fly around.

[Noble713]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I don't usually leave any military ship under AI control.

Turning off "newly built ships are automated" is nice, but maybe not so nice if you enjoy having automated smaller ships fly around.

With a sufficiently large empire (pre-Shadows, haven't played Shadows long enough), when the pirate attacks started to get annoying I'd just queue up the production of ~50 Frigates and hope that solves it. I'm usually a fan of micromanagement but manually tasking and tracking every ship defending every podunk backwater mining station is too much.

[scotten_usa]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling
My main beef is when the AI messes up which hyperdrive is used, or inserts the wrong kind of "mid tier" blaster or torpedo. I was not as much speaking of auto design, though, but of the auto upgrade option in the design list. It replaces components with 'newest'. But newest is not always what one wants.

I would love to have some multi-select replacement of ship components in designs. "Update selected designs to use quantum reactor".

You are spot on, Bing. One of the reasons I prefer to design my own ships is I don't trust the AI to keep the better components.

[Plant]

Do you really need so many designs bingeling? 7 Design is excessive, and would be near impossible to micromanage in battle with the current interface. As it is, there are 5 designs (and carrier) to play around with, mostly speaking, having so many designs reduces flexibility.

Btw Bingeling, I see you talking about ordering by firepower, I use Escort/Frigate/Destroyer and then order by names. Ships ordered will be perfectly ordered by order of being ordered by name. I've had ship/fleets upgraded from beginning to end using this system, the only flaw is that they bear the original name they started with.

ORIGINAL: CyclopsSlayer
It was arbitrary designations yes, but it was done to make the hull names mean Something.
Rather than Escort/Frigate...Capital used currently Which mean NOTHING. What is the difference between a sz1500 Escort, sz1500 Destroyer and a sz1500 Capital? Nothing at all, except the AI will be totally confused in wanting to fill light escort roles with massive Battleships.

Just Call them Hull1/Hull2/Hull3 with no size restrictions. And assign them a Role that the game can understand.
Escort is no longer a Hull name but a Role of the ship.
Bombardment is a Role assigned to say Hull3.
Troop Transport is a Role assigned to Hull4.
Combat is a Role assigned to Hull5 and Hull6.
You could in theory have 10 Hull slots filled with nothing but ships on Escort roles, and no Combat roles at all.

Quite the turnaround, but having Hulls 1 2 3 4 5 6 is exactly what the game is right now. Your escort designs don't have to escort, your destroyer designs don't have to destroy, your cruisers don't have to cruise anywhere in particular, only carriers are the exception.
As to the difference between the size, the game AI doesn't work that way.

ORIGINAL: solops
This discussion bears no resemblance to the thread I thought I started.

When you posted this it did, it was just that you don't like your personal role playing definitions clashing with other people's personal roleplaying definitions.

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: Plant

Do you really need so many designs bingeling? 7 Design is excessive, and would be near impossible to micromanage in battle with the current interface. As it is, there are 5 designs (and carrier) to play around with, mostly speaking, having so many designs reduces flexibility.

Need? My games usually end before capitals do much, so I pretty much get by with 2 designs. Because doing something creative is a pain.

How to spend 7 designs if you optimize a bit? Without being "fleet formation" kind of fancy? Different ships or different tasks.

The main fleet

Well armored, slow, powerful.

A main fleet ship - the cruiser.
A fleet gadget ship - the capital.
A fleet carrier - a massive carrier.

Colony defense.

Not to stop main invasions, though. They need to intercept. They are faster, and less defenses.

A short range, high damage, fast ship to burn down troop carriers.
A faster carrier for better escape when starting in the middle.

A raider fleet

A main raider ship with good firepower, decent range, decent speed, and good defenses. Or maybe crazy fast and long range?
A raider carrier with good defenses but more agile than the main fleet one.


Usually the colony defense fleet will not be the target of attackers, and will be shot at less. Thus, less armor and more hurt. The raiders will be the target of anyone around. And the main fleet ships are brutes that accept to be shot at, and is in no particular hurry.

Would it work? Dunno, I am not crazy enough to try this. Which of these roles fit the escort label? They are multiple variants of cruisers/destroyers and carriers. One could argue that raiders are frigates, but I think mine would be the largest I can make a reasonably fast ship

[jomarmont]

This is totally off topic and I am just a noob but I think there is a feature to save and load your own designs so you do not need to redo them every game.
That said, I am sure someone will come up with an argument about why it is just not enough.
I paid a fortune for this game exactly because it lets you fly with your imagination.
It does not shackle you with definitions and ideologies. It has so many "Oh, shit!" moments it is just glorious.
Please do not change that concept. It is exactly what keeps this game in my hard drive and mind.
If it is too easy or too hard just mess with the settings...and there are so many settings it is just awesome.
Have a great game.

[Brainsucker]

Well, the problem of some people here is that the AI is not effective enough to utilize the 'space', because the AI is strictly follow the size limit rule. If that so, then what the dev needs is to improve them. But be wary, don't make them too effective to kill people's role play here. And of course, the dev should improve the maintain cost of the ships, so people won't limit themselves to a single design of the maximum size.

[DeadlyShoe]

as far as I can tell

Escorts never join fleets, and prefer to protect ships and stations

Frigates are fast attack ships armed with beam weapons

Destroyers are lighter warships that tend towards torpedoes (rarely troops)

Cruisers are heavy slow ships that mount fleet electronics and sometimes fighters or troops

Capital Ships are as strong and big as possible and often mount hyperdeny systems for winning big fleet battles. they often mount fighters.

In space SIZE is irrelevant to speed, all that matters is Thrust/Mass ratios. There's nothing wrong with a size 800 escort, you're just choosing to have fewer more capable escorts.