Geoff the Medio wrote:
-Ships all have default minimum speed that requires and consumes no fuel
I don't like the idea of optional speeds, in the home systems with easy access to supply people will always travel at maximum speed. While I think there should be a home field advantage that's a bit too big.
Also if its the default speed that implies its not actually that slow, so travelling anywhere thanks to infinite fuel is possible, it shouldn't be.
Geoff the Medio wrote:-All ships consume equal amount, 1 unit or "1 jump", of fuel per starlane jump
-Ships using fuel travel at different speeds (depends on engine, ship mass, etc.), but always consume one unit of fuel to start a jump along a starlane
I'm not sure about always using the same fuel but that's for another thread. but if so use 100 fuel, that way when creating ship components it becomes possible to have 150 fuel tanks, 3 for the price of 2.
Geoff the Medio wrote:
-Missile ammo, fighters, and crew are consumed similarly to fuel, but only during battles (and perhaps special events)
-Ships need missiles and fighters to fire or launch
--Not having any means those weapons can't be used
-Ships need crews to function
--Having insufficient crew has combat or other penalties, or allows the ship to be boarded and captured more easily
-Similarly to fuel, ships in a fleet can pool their crew and ammo
This is nice, but I would give all guns ammo not just missiles, weather it is pellets of anti-matter, gas that's superheated by plasma cannons, missiles or replacement laser focusing lenses. All the various types of ammo are abstracted into a single value of stored ammo.
Geoff the Medio wrote:
Ship damage / repair:
-Ships can be damaged in battle or by events
-Ship damage is much more difficult to repair than it is to replenish fuel or other supplies
-Fleets are more likely to need to return to a starbase or other suitable repair location to repair damage
-Specialized repair ships may exist that function away from repair locations
All good, I'd limit the abilities of repair ships, they can fix up the hull and do minor repairs to components but nothing more. That's a discussion for another thread though.
Geoff the Medio wrote:
Supply routes and resupply:
-Ships starting a turn in a system can be resupplied on that turn if the system is or has a supply route to a supply source
-Resupply replenishes Y units of fuel per turn, and Z missile ammo, crew or fighters
--Y and Z may vary depending on distance to supply point or tech, or may be fixed (eg. always 1 unit per turn)
Now why is this more complicated system better than a simpler system of "if distance to a supply source < X, supply, ammo and crew are set to 100%?"
Geoff the Medio wrote:
-To have a supply route to a system:
---Sources include any colonized planet, or specialized supply depots that may be built
I don't really like the idea of supply dumps, I just can't see them adding much.
Geoff the Medio wrote:
-Supply routes should be able to exist far enough away from supply sources that blocking supply routes becomes possible. If supply routes are only ~3 jumps long, then it's not likely that it will be possible to get blocking ships between an enemy fleet and their source of supply (in addition to it being too hard to actually get a fleet far from your colonies...)
This kind of supply should be short range since its designed to keep ships inside you're territory supplied, I support blockades more to prevent you're colony sending supply into an enemy empire one star lane away than as a real tactic. I always felt there should a second kind of supply lane for exploration and invasions, that's the one you can realistically blockade.
Geoff the Medio wrote:-There should be some player choice in determining supply range. I like the suggestion of putting supply on the production queue, but I have a specific proposal for how it should work.
Why, what dose it add? You're right to say its un-fun. I think you shouldn't manage supply for fleets inside or near you're empire at all, it just happens.
Geoff the Medio wrote:-I'm not sure whether supply should actually cost anything to provide. Presumably ships have some maintenance cost already... is there any particular reason that resupplying them needs to cost more?
Resupply should be free, it will keep jumping up and down as you're ships change orders and that prevents good economic planning. Per ship maintenance already covers the cost of active ships so leave it at that.
Problems:
Geoff the Medio wrote:-Want to make very large ships slow and short-range, but having all ships consume one unit of fuel per turn to move makes this difficult
--Can distinguish ship sizes just by speed of movement...
---Can't have "fast-long", "fast-short" and "slow-short" as separate speed-range combos
--Could have very large (shorter range) ships have smaller fuel tanks (in turns) than medium (longer range) ships...
---Difficult to explain this
fast-long, fast-short and slow-short can be done in the ship design screen. If you have lots of engines and fuel tanks fast-long. Lots of engines and weapons with few fuel tanks: fast-short. Few engines and fuel tanks for more fire-power, you get the idea
Geoff the Medio wrote:
If your various suggestions for the player to manually create supply routes are meant to apply to fleets, then no. It's not practical or desirable to require the player to manually re-plot supply routes every time they move every ship to a new system.
Where did you get that idea from? Applied common sense means that manually created supply routes to supply ships will automatically readjust every time the relivent ships change system. As for manually plotting them, that could be automatic too, all the player dose is design, build and assign the ships that will run the supply route.
utilae wrote:
No, I wasn't going to have the player do that for ships. I think I would rather abstract supply to ships through some means other than supply routes. If they are in a supplied system, they are 100% supplied. If they are not, then if they are within range/radius X of supplied system, they are x% supplied. If not, they are not supplied. Something like that.
Far better to have ships store their supplies, if they are in supply they're stores are refilling, if they are out of supply they're reliant on their stocks.
utilae wrote:
One thing is that missile ships, having ammo will be subject to supply problems. But what about ships using plasma cannons and lasers. A PP supply required by ships to maintain systems could be used or this could be ammo instead. So what happens if there is no supply. % of plasma cannons wont work. Not enough crew, % lasers wont work. Or not enough ammo % of lasers wont work.
I disagree, all weapons will work, then half way through the battle when the ammo runs out they all stop.
utilae wrote:
"If engine tech only allows 5 turns to get from A to B, then how can supply get there faster?"
I have the answer:
Assume a mine A produces 1 pp per turn. And a factory B uses 1 pp per turn. Fastest engine tech means it takes 5 turns for 1 pp to get from A to B. Oh No. Well, all this means, is that the first shipment takes 5 turns. So the factory does not start until 5 turns are over, and the pp has arived. Since 1 pp is getting to the factory each turn, the factory only has to wait 5 turns for the first shipment and not for any other shipment. Thus, pps travel instantly, except for the initial 5 turn delay.
The simplest awnser is "Screw Realism, it gets their instantly anyway"
unless the 5 turn delay is shown to have gamplay value ignore it. The explanation is good though