Ideas to Improve Organic Ships
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:59 am
I really like the flavor of organic ships. Unfortunately, the game's current execution falls a bit flat for me. Here are some of the main failings I see, and simple suggestions for improving them.
(1) All organic ships should grow and regrow. One of the main things that's distinctive and flavorful about organic ships is their ability to grow and regrow structure and fuel. Unfortunately, half the organic line lack this feature. I think all organic ships, even hollowed out "zombie" ones, should have some degree of regrowth each turn, and probably also some degree of growth over time.
(2) Distinguish from Robo-ships. The ability to regrow structure also feels less distinctive for organic ships when this ability is done just as well or better in the robotic line, so I would also suggest significantly scaling back this feature from the robo line. The basic robotic ship is pretty much an always-build for me, because its only 24 additional RP off a must-have early tech and requires only a dockyard that comes for free in your cap, and because, aside from being a tad pricy, this ship is pretty clearly better than any alternative that comes anywhere near as soon. I don't think there's any need for the robo ship to dabble in organic ships' specialty too. (2a) So I would remove the robo ship's structure-regrowth. I think the robo ship would still be balanced enough after that "nerf", but it could be slightly cheapened if needed. Later the robo line offers an improved robo ship with nano-robotic repairs. I'm happy having self-repair as a unique ability for this ship, but I wouldn't want it to be nearly so strong as the best offering from the organic line, which is supposed to be the master of self-repair. (2b) So I'd suggest making the nano-robotic ship have something like a flat +5 repair per turn, rather than structure doubling. (2c) I would also suggest removing the free orbital dockyard, and perhaps even tying its construction to an early tech, probably robotic production. This change would make it much less of a no-brainer to go robo in the early game, and would make it comparatively more inviting to take an alternative route instead.
(3) Let organic ships grow bigger! It's flavorful to allow organic ships to start out as fragile babies and eventually grow into ancient juggernauts. However it's disappointing when, after taking lots of care to allow your organic ships to survive, even when fully grown, they're still puny compared to the ships from other lines. As a first approximation, I would suggest doubling the growth period and growth amounts of organic ships. This would allow organics to offer a genuine tradeoff between early vulnerability and actual later strength, not just between early vulnerability and later not-quite-so-much-vulnerability.
(4) Make growth matter more. As we imagine organic ships gradually growing larger, it's sort of disappointing that they just stick with the same set of armaments they had as babies. I don't think there's any feasible way of having larger ships grow additional slots. However, it probably would be fairly feasible, e.g., to make a tech that allows organic ships to gain a +1 level weapons promotion once they reach a certain age or size. E.g., I might make this tech cost 200 RP and put it as having Lifecycle Manipulation (growth) and Organic War Adaptation (organic/weapons) as prerequisites.
(5) Give organics a flavorful armored carapace option for internal slots. Organics are distinguished as having less innate structure than other lines, less external slots to carry armor than other lines, and less access to armor and shields research than some other lines (asteroid line and energy line, respectively) which ends up making their fragility a significant disadvantage. I would suggest offering organic ships easier access to a distinctive armor option, one that can ride in the internal slots that organics tend to have in excess, but the game, in its current alpha state, makes hard to fill. I would suggest calling this something like Regenerative Carapace, making it cost about 100 RP, with prerequisites Xenological Genetics (growth, 150RP) and Contrived Symbiosis (organic ships, 32RP) and having the effect be +12 max structure and +2 structure regen per turn, for a construction cost of about 5PP. (If feasible, I might also make it grow out slowly over the course of several turns. One way of doing this might be to have it modify max-structure, but not newly produced structure.) This would be roughly comparable to diamond and rock armor, but weaker and with a regeneration effect that is highly flavorful for organics. In the flavor text, I'd justify using an internal slot by describing this is a symbiotic relation with some sort of space turtle that is made to have its internal organs live inside the ship and to grow its carapace entwined around the outside of the ship. I'd be fine with allowing this on non-organic ships, if they want to dip into organic research. However, there may be some concerns about people building too-cheap damage sponges by stacking these in ships with numerous internal slots (like the endosymbiotic or camo-asteroid), so if that turns out to be a pressing concern, or perhaps just for flavor reasons, it might make sense to make multiple copies of this not stack.
(6) Provide techs to increase growth-rate. One big disincentive against using organic hulls later in the game is that they are born with such low structure, and won't have time to grow much structure until after the game is already decided. To help make organic ships usable later in the game, I would suggest making techs that increase their growth rate. For example, I would be tempted to put double-growth rate for all organic ships as an additional effect for Mega-Fauna Endocrine Systems, and to double it again with Controlled Ravenous Bioadaptation. (These already have names and prerequisites that seem pretty appropriate, or you could add new techs that do this, or you could let these unlock yet more shipyard additions that have this effect.) Remember that this is a game where at the same level in the tech tree, you can also be discovering "Pure Energy Metabolism" so the idea of growing your space watermelons a bit faster shouldn't seem all that outlandish!
Thanks for your consideration and suggestions!
(1) All organic ships should grow and regrow. One of the main things that's distinctive and flavorful about organic ships is their ability to grow and regrow structure and fuel. Unfortunately, half the organic line lack this feature. I think all organic ships, even hollowed out "zombie" ones, should have some degree of regrowth each turn, and probably also some degree of growth over time.
(2) Distinguish from Robo-ships. The ability to regrow structure also feels less distinctive for organic ships when this ability is done just as well or better in the robotic line, so I would also suggest significantly scaling back this feature from the robo line. The basic robotic ship is pretty much an always-build for me, because its only 24 additional RP off a must-have early tech and requires only a dockyard that comes for free in your cap, and because, aside from being a tad pricy, this ship is pretty clearly better than any alternative that comes anywhere near as soon. I don't think there's any need for the robo ship to dabble in organic ships' specialty too. (2a) So I would remove the robo ship's structure-regrowth. I think the robo ship would still be balanced enough after that "nerf", but it could be slightly cheapened if needed. Later the robo line offers an improved robo ship with nano-robotic repairs. I'm happy having self-repair as a unique ability for this ship, but I wouldn't want it to be nearly so strong as the best offering from the organic line, which is supposed to be the master of self-repair. (2b) So I'd suggest making the nano-robotic ship have something like a flat +5 repair per turn, rather than structure doubling. (2c) I would also suggest removing the free orbital dockyard, and perhaps even tying its construction to an early tech, probably robotic production. This change would make it much less of a no-brainer to go robo in the early game, and would make it comparatively more inviting to take an alternative route instead.
(3) Let organic ships grow bigger! It's flavorful to allow organic ships to start out as fragile babies and eventually grow into ancient juggernauts. However it's disappointing when, after taking lots of care to allow your organic ships to survive, even when fully grown, they're still puny compared to the ships from other lines. As a first approximation, I would suggest doubling the growth period and growth amounts of organic ships. This would allow organics to offer a genuine tradeoff between early vulnerability and actual later strength, not just between early vulnerability and later not-quite-so-much-vulnerability.
(4) Make growth matter more. As we imagine organic ships gradually growing larger, it's sort of disappointing that they just stick with the same set of armaments they had as babies. I don't think there's any feasible way of having larger ships grow additional slots. However, it probably would be fairly feasible, e.g., to make a tech that allows organic ships to gain a +1 level weapons promotion once they reach a certain age or size. E.g., I might make this tech cost 200 RP and put it as having Lifecycle Manipulation (growth) and Organic War Adaptation (organic/weapons) as prerequisites.
(5) Give organics a flavorful armored carapace option for internal slots. Organics are distinguished as having less innate structure than other lines, less external slots to carry armor than other lines, and less access to armor and shields research than some other lines (asteroid line and energy line, respectively) which ends up making their fragility a significant disadvantage. I would suggest offering organic ships easier access to a distinctive armor option, one that can ride in the internal slots that organics tend to have in excess, but the game, in its current alpha state, makes hard to fill. I would suggest calling this something like Regenerative Carapace, making it cost about 100 RP, with prerequisites Xenological Genetics (growth, 150RP) and Contrived Symbiosis (organic ships, 32RP) and having the effect be +12 max structure and +2 structure regen per turn, for a construction cost of about 5PP. (If feasible, I might also make it grow out slowly over the course of several turns. One way of doing this might be to have it modify max-structure, but not newly produced structure.) This would be roughly comparable to diamond and rock armor, but weaker and with a regeneration effect that is highly flavorful for organics. In the flavor text, I'd justify using an internal slot by describing this is a symbiotic relation with some sort of space turtle that is made to have its internal organs live inside the ship and to grow its carapace entwined around the outside of the ship. I'd be fine with allowing this on non-organic ships, if they want to dip into organic research. However, there may be some concerns about people building too-cheap damage sponges by stacking these in ships with numerous internal slots (like the endosymbiotic or camo-asteroid), so if that turns out to be a pressing concern, or perhaps just for flavor reasons, it might make sense to make multiple copies of this not stack.
(6) Provide techs to increase growth-rate. One big disincentive against using organic hulls later in the game is that they are born with such low structure, and won't have time to grow much structure until after the game is already decided. To help make organic ships usable later in the game, I would suggest making techs that increase their growth rate. For example, I would be tempted to put double-growth rate for all organic ships as an additional effect for Mega-Fauna Endocrine Systems, and to double it again with Controlled Ravenous Bioadaptation. (These already have names and prerequisites that seem pretty appropriate, or you could add new techs that do this, or you could let these unlock yet more shipyard additions that have this effect.) Remember that this is a game where at the same level in the tech tree, you can also be discovering "Pure Energy Metabolism" so the idea of growing your space watermelons a bit faster shouldn't seem all that outlandish!
Thanks for your consideration and suggestions!