Give organics small ship detection

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wobbly
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Give organics small ship detection

#1 Post by wobbly »

Pretty much the tittle unless organics are generally being redesigned with the theme techs. It's hard to build a good organic warship. Organics are cheap for basic colony and troop, but as a warship... 8 turns to build the incubator. 8 turns to research the better symbiotic or static molecular. If it had the detection range of a small scout, a single mass driver organic would compete with a scout/corvette pair. The small has the fuel range, the organic has speed. ...but my organic 1 mass driver, optical scanner organic sees nothing. It sees nothing when the next star system is close, If they were equal, smalls would have better fuel, organics would have better speed. How it is now... organics can't scout unless you are trith or lanfea.

ThinkSome
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Re: Give organics small ship detection

#2 Post by ThinkSome »

As trith I'd never build organic scouts, lol. The 90 speed isn't that much more than 75 of the small hull, and not having the fuel to go deep into enemy territory sucks indeed.

You need the really better organic hulls to make scouts with (bioadaptive, protoplasmic), which have the stealth and adequate fuel slots. But They are locked away behind expensive growth techs, making them a turn 100+ tech.

Ophiuchus
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Re: Give organics small ship detection

#3 Post by Ophiuchus »

I think scouts is not the best niche for organics. Base detection could be standard (or a bit higher even) though.

Maybe up the structure to 6 + 6 growth. And fuel to 4. That would make them a base for reasonable long-range warships.

Multicell hulls are 30% more expensive, but start with 115% more structure and have an extra internal slot.
Researching the next fuel tech, both are even on that level.

With really good armour organic hull might even become more cost efficient.

Instead of 4 effective fuel one could also make em 2 effective fuel and great fuel efficiency.
So adding a tank would make that 4 effective fuel (6 with deuterium and 12 with antimatter tech).
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Oberlus
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Re: Give organics small ship detection

#4 Post by Oberlus »

Symbiotic Hull (8 turns, 32 RP, detection 50, fuel 2, 12 PP) is quite versatile for its cheap cost.

Compared to other hulls:

- Once grown up, it's in the first quartile for structure/PP.
- It's among the 6 hulls (16%) with more detection range, and with cheaper internal slots.
- It's cheap per hull, and fast, so it makes for a good border scout, but not for deep exploration.
- It makes for the best early game bomber.

I never build a single Organic Hull. Symbiotic is cheaper and can fulfill the same roles, plus +10 speed, and I finish the tech at the same time than the Orb. Incubator.

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Re: Give organics small ship detection

#5 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 9:14 am I never build a single Organic Hull. Symbiotic is cheaper and can fulfill the same roles, plus +10 speed, and I finish the tech at the same time than the Orb. Incubator.
Yes, since the time one does not need an extra shipyard to build the symbiotics, the Organic Hull mostly lost its purpose.

As is: Organic Hull still has a good external slots/cost ratio and needs only three instead of four turns to build.

I suggest giving the Organic Hull some niche purpose which the next layer of organic hulls are not able to satisfy so well.
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Re: Give organics small ship detection

#6 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 2:36 pm I suggest giving the Organic Hull some niche purpose which the next layer of organic hulls are not able to satisfy so well.
Smaller ship for scouting: better fuel efficiency (keep 90 speed), and tailor base fuel to give it around 6 fuel without fuel upgrades, 50 base detection, 1 external and 1 internal, less structure (initial and final), around half the PP cost.
Something like that, I didn't crush numbers, but organics don't have a long range hull (late game, with upgrades, most other organic hulls can do reasonably well, but certainly not early game).

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Re: Give organics small ship detection

#7 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 5:02 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 2:36 pm I suggest giving the Organic Hull some niche purpose which the next layer of organic hulls are not able to satisfy so well.
Smaller ship for scouting: better fuel efficiency (keep 90 speed), and tailor base fuel to give it around 6 fuel without fuel upgrades, 50 base detection, 1 external and 1 internal, less structure (initial and final), around half the PP cost.
Something like that, I didn't crush numbers, but organics don't have a long range hull (late game, with upgrades, most other organic hulls can do reasonably well, but certainly not early game).
Less structure and low cost means this is a shot-chaff candidate. How about 3 structure + 3 growth and 8PP? Means it is much sturdier than colony base hull, but a average MD4 can take even the old ones out in a single shot. AD-2 is able to do enough damage to take down two grownups AD-3 kills three of these. This is much worse than the best chaff, but easier accessible. Compared to small hull this is ok (20% cheaper and not fully grown at the beginning).

As a fast scout; great efficiency, 6-fuel, small hull vision: this works well, just add a fuel tank and its still cheaper than a small hull scout and has the same reach. Plus refueling. Plus later fuel tech upgrades. Symbiotic will have less reach until antimatter tanks, but better scan range. So Organic Hull for deep space exploration, symbiotics as war reporter chaff.

as a colonizer: with 6 fuel and being fast a really good long range colonizer. also very cheap, so using this probably instead of colony base hulls quite often. also symbiotic is only better in rare cases. not sure - may be everybody wants this. would one invest in this even if one pursues robotic (no cheap hull with internal slot, uses medium hull) or asteroid line (kind of late, ships really slow)?

as a warship: structure sucks, weapons cost much more than the ship. need to research deeper into organics

as a scout hunter, or kamikaze-blockade: cheap and fast with reach. nothing more efficient along the organic line

i think we could try this
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Re: Give organics small ship detection

#8 Post by Ophiuchus »

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

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ThinkSome
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Re: Give organics small ship detection

#9 Post by ThinkSome »

This kinda makes the small asteroid hull even less useful, no?

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Re: Give organics small ship detection

#10 Post by Oberlus »

ThinkSome wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 1:55 am This kinda makes the small asteroid hull even less useful, no?
SAH costs 6 PP and has 15 structure. Proposed org. hull costs 8 PP and has 3+3 structure. SAH is better for chaff.

wobbly
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Re: Give organics small ship detection

#11 Post by wobbly »

Yeah the small asteroids are increadibly chunky cheap troop ships if you can tolerate the speed.

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Re: Empire Types - "Origins"

#12 Post by wobbly »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 1:36 pm This should come in with a revision of shipyard research and build costs. Currently Energy shipyards are extremely expensive, early robotic shipyard (drydock) is way too cheap while the other two not required by Titanic hull are too expensive, and organics are probably too slow.
I'm not convinced organics are too slow, unless we are talking about the basic organic in its pre-changed form. I did a quick test with humans where I lined up physical brain then contrived symbiosis then algorithmic elegance. I then hit next turn a bunch, lining up the history analyzer and starting the incubator before it finished (this delayed the analyzer 1 turn). There was only a 5 turn gap before I could build the 1st symbiot.

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Re: Empire Types - "Origins"

#13 Post by Oberlus »

Yes, you are right:

With Humans, default values, master:

* Rush contrived symbiosis delaying research and industry boosts:
- Automated History Analyzer built on turn 14.
- Orbital Incubator built on turn 19
- Start building first organic hull (can be symbiotic), with laser, std. armor and fighters on turn 19, to get out the shipyard on turn 27. Or start on turn 22 with also zortrium armor, finish turn 30.

* Rush military robotic control, delaying research and industry boosts:
- Automated History Analyzer built on turn 14.
- Start building first robo hull with MD, std. armor and fighters on turn 14 to finish on turn 24, or on turn 16 with laser (or zortrium) to finish on turn 27.

The point really isn't organics being slow (they are faster to research and build than asteroids and energy). The problem I see is robo hulls are too fast to build.


How would people see removing the starting orbital drydock from the homeworld?

wobbly
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Re: Empire Types - "Origins"

#14 Post by wobbly »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 10:31 am How would people see removing the starting orbital drydock from the homeworld?
4 turns 10 PP and I can start it on turn 1? I don't see the gain. It's also needed for repairs, it'll make bad starts with monsters on worse if you move it later in the research chain. Anyway I've got some opinions/ideas so I'll look for a general hull thread and post them or start a new thread. I think the hulls need to be considered together.

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Re: Empire Types - "Origins"

#15 Post by Oberlus »

wobbly wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 12:11 pm 4 turns 10 PP and I can start it on turn 1? I don't see the gain. It's also needed for repairs, it'll make bad starts with monsters on worse if you move it later in the research chain. Anyway I've got some opinions/ideas so I'll look for a general hull thread and post them or start a new thread. I think the hulls need to be considered together.
I had this draft post lingering for a while, now I've posted it before finishing the main body to get feedback. Feel free to post in there if you don't find a better place:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11850

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