Ships: Cost and Build Time

Geoff the Medio · **Posted:** Mon Jan 21, 2008 7:29 am

artos_boxcar wrote:

From the way I see it it would be better to use the first method. Since (from what i can understand) production of ships is distributed across the empire, it makes more sense (to me as the player) that all the components of my new Mark VI Titan of Death, the engines, computers, etc. are being built on different factories on different planets, but at the same time.

This is a realism argument, which we don't consider relevant if there is any more important reason, eg. gameplay, which there likely is. And even if realism was important, there's more to building a ship than building the parts... you've got to bolt them together and integrate the systems and such.

Quote:

What's to stop me from building a basically empty hulls (ie Huge hull with 1x laser and engines), at a low build time, then sending it back to a shipyard and "refitting" it for whatever role i need it for? In peace time I just stockpile empty hulls, and when i go to war I upgrade them with the latest and greatest weaponry, and BANG, instant fleet. With method 1 it takes me basically the same amount of time wether I have a bunch of fancy weaponry or not.

This makes some assumptions I don't think are valid...
* We will balance the game at some point, and wouldn't allow obvious abuses such as this. An example of the wrong way to do something isn't a reason to not do that thing a better way.
* Even if one could bang out an instant fleet, there's be some cost or tradeoff to doing so.
* "refitting" as you suggest won't be possible. You'll be able to upgrade the existing parts in a ship, but you won't be able to add new parts or remove parts.

Tortanick · **Joined:** Sat May 26, 2007 8:05 pm **Posts:** 576

Geoff the Medio wrote:

* "refitting" as you suggest won't be possible. You'll be able to upgrade the existing parts in a ship, but you won't be able to add new parts or remove parts.

How flexible will "upgrade existing parts" be, will you for example be aloud to replace an engine with any other engine, including speed optimised engines to stealth engines. Or will every component have direct successors you can upgrade to, or something in-between?

P.S. if you have direct successors, can we give them more imaginative names than mark1, mark2

Geoff the Medio wrote:

* Even if one could bang out an instant fleet, there's be some cost or tradeoff to doing so.

I actually saw a really nice mechanic for something like this in a game called Lords of Magic. You could recruit new units but they were expensive , or you could hire mercenaries who were cheaper, but needed large amounts of upkeep. Since you probably couldn't afford that upkeep for long they're basically paying money for ships that only last a short while.

Geoff the Medio · **Posted:** Mon Jan 21, 2008 10:48 pm

Tortanick wrote:

How flexible will "upgrade existing parts" be, will you for example be aloud to replace an engine with any other engine, including speed optimised engines to stealth engines. Or will every component have direct successors you can upgrade to, or something in-between?

Answered, sort of, here.

This thread is getting a bit off topic. Try to stay focused on the build cost and time issue.

Krikkitone · **Joined:** Sat Sep 13, 2003 6:52 pm **Posts:** 1274

Well this is part of the reason I think hull (and hull alone) should be the basic determiner of how long it takes to build a ship. (that could work with refitting it too) the time to refit a certain hull is 1/2 or 1/4 the time to build it.

marhawkman · **Posted:** Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:46 am

Geoff the Medio wrote:

It seems reasonable to start with the proposed system:
* Hulls have a base cost in PP
* Parts add some additional cost in PP
* Hulls have a minimum number of turns to build

Assuming that, are there any pros or cons to having parts be able to affect the number of turns to build? I see two ways to do this:

1) Parts have a minimum number of turns to build. There is no difference between the hull's minimum time and a part's minimum time, and the whole ship's minimum time is the largest minimum build time of all parts' and the hull.
eg. Hull build time: 8 turns. Part build times: 2, 5, 9 turns. Total build time: 9 turns.

2) Parts may add additional turns to the build time, if added. Each parts could have a property "adds X turns to build time" where X is an integer. The build time of the ship is the sum of the hull's build time and all the parts' build times.
eg. Hull build time: 8 turns. Part build times: 0, -1, 4 turns. total build time: 11 turns.

(minimum possible build time would be clamped to 1 turn, if negative build time parts are allowed)

Thoughts?

I don't think that SHIP SYSTEMS should be able to reduce build time. Racial abilities, technologies, those seem like a good idea. Stuff like a special shipyard, or a tech you research that reduces all hull contruction periods. An actual ship system just doesn't sound like a good idea.

As for how to calculate build time... I'd go with a mix of 1 and 2.
Hull has a base time to build. Parts have their own base turns to build(default is 1), so only really big stuff like Stellar convertor will actually increase the time. Then you have some components that will increase the build time. I wouldn't make this a common attribute though at least not for things that increase it by much.
So:
Schout hull=25 pp (min turns 5)
corbomite armor=30 pp (min turns 3, +1 turns to build)
laser=5 pp (min turns 1)
gatling neutrino cannon=20 pp (and one unit of neutronium) (min turns 1)
Sublight hyperdrive=21 pp (min turns 1)
total=101 pp(6 turns to build)

However, this is assuming we actually use a preset array of hull sizes in the game. If we don't, then we'd make certain types of component always add 1 (like engines armor and weapons). Honestly ship hulls are typically a minor expense anyways.
So:
corbomite armor=30 pp (min turns 3, +2 turns to build)
laser=5 pp (min turns 1, +1 turns)
gatling neutrino cannon=20 pp (and one unit of neutronium) (min turns 1,+1 turns)
Sublight hyperdrive=21 pp (min turns 1, +1 turns)
total=81 pp(5 turns to build)

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Ships: Cost and Build Time

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