[Idea] Fuel

It could be fun from a tactical stand point, however it eould make the game more micro intense, and sometimes a pain in the butt. (In swords fo the stars it was frustrating to have an entire fleet stranded in the middle of nowhere because a random battle or player popped your refulers/refineries. And they;d usually get decimated or abandoned until you could manage to build up a second fleet to escort the refulers all the way to the stranded fleet.)

It could also make retreating from a failed assault back home with your fleet almost impossible if the enemy microed and popped your refuelers during the inital engagement. (or sent in a few disposable long range frigs to pop the refuelers before you got all that close to her world)

Perhaps including a navigational ship as an optional part of the fleet would give you more what you're looking for?

The concept is a ship with a dedicated nagigational array that boosts phase line navigation calculations, making your ships jump the same speed or about 25% faster than they do currently. (both charge up and traveling the phase line)

Without a navigational ship your fleet (or scout) takes 45 seconds (or longer) to plot the phase jump and an additional minute or two to move along the phase line. This way the extra cruiser is a useful additon to a fleets mobility, (and makes scouts less powerful) and losing it won't utterly strand your fleet, just severely hamper it's mobility.

Yes I think there are lots of little things that would have to be addressed. Conquest: Frontier Wars had a great system around this. I would say that for this to work well the following aspects would have to be implemented:

1) Systems that you own grant ships in the systems refuel ability which is passive. It slowly increases your fuel
2) Systems you do not own do not grant this ability and fuel for the ships without the ability will be slowly decreased
3) Travelling through a phase lane will consume a chunk of your fuel as will warping to another star, which will consume a greater chunk of fuel
4) If a ship consumes all fuel, it will only travel at 1/4 its normal speed
5) Refueling tanker ships can be built which do not consume fuel but travel at 1/5 the speed of the other ships
6) Refueling tanker ships either have a radius around them that refuels ships 1/2 the speed of owned systems, or provide the system itself with refueling capabilities at 1/2 the speed of the owned systems

I think by adding these things into a mod we get some good tactical situations. We also don't have an issue of stranding ships completely. It becomes a tactical situation to guard your tankers and to attack others. Perhaps something could be researched that change things:
1) Increase radius in which tankers refuel
2) Increase refueling rate for systems and tankers
3) Increase fuel capacity for ships for increased travel length
4) If enemy enters refuel radius, they loose 10, 20, 30, 50% shield while they are in it

Konnichiwa!

i think the idea is not bad and reminds me of MoO2 and GalCiv2

i liked it that you where only able to fly to point X with your ships, without the worries of Swords.
it is more like, your structures support a maximum line of supplyships what defines the maximum distance between planet/structure and ship without reserves.

GC2 added the wormholes, bringing your ships to places far away from this "border", the only possible target where points within the border, and ships usually only set course, like planning the whole flight, giving an all-out-burst and let themselve drift to the desired location.

i think something like thaat should be implemented. for example giving to begin the posibillity for ships to maybe fly to gravwells 2 lanes away from the next gravwell with a colony (or structures like captured extractors)
with ongoing research the jumpdistance could be increased until maybe unlimited travel

this way it would stop scouts to pop up in your systems right at the start but with ongoing game the ships could travel to the most distant places

If you stop native antimatter recharge, add several frigate hulls with AOE antimatter recharge abilities, and re-do antimatter usage for abilities (or leave it in, up to you).. antimatter essentially becomes fuel

The only issue is I don't know that you could disable phase jumping at low/0 antimatter, but there might be a way.

Why do what ships in star trek or most other science fiction show have done, use your anti-matter reserve as fuel

I don't think you can. Looking at the files, it seems Ironclad had the same idea at one time, but it seems there is a hardcode switch somewhere preventing antimatter usage for jumping. There is a line in the player entity files which sets the base antimatter cost for jumping for all ships, but while its at 100 by default, no antimatter is actually required.

They probably abandoned the idea because of the problems it would introduce with fleet or group jumps (i.e. the whole fleet being stranded because one ship ran out of fuel or something like that). Personally, I'd like to have this in as well... adds logistical challenge to the game.

While it isn't required, it does get deducted from your reserves when you jump. If you don't have enough, it just takes whatever you've got.

on the subject of supply line-type stuff. I think it might be an interesting idea to have ammunition reserves. ships with projectile and missile type weapons would have reserves that deplete as they fire. Laser weapons would be unaffected, and carriers would also have to be carrying weapons for the strikecraft they have on board, (and maybe have fresh strikecraft built count against reserves as well)

 

while this would hurt TEC the most, (and not advent at all) if coupled with a suitable increase in damage it should not be a problem

 

it would add a timer to fleet on fleet engagements, you wont end up slugging it out in a contested gravity well for all eternity (or until one guy gets bored and gives up) it would also prevent massive fleets from traveling well behind enemy lines. effectively it would nuke fast pased gameplay, but make the game more tactically interesting

That would require converting every weapon into an ability, which would probably mean you'd have to drop half the existing ship abilities since there is a limitation on how many of them a single ship can have. I like the idea though.

Personally, I think the best approach (and perhaps the easiest to do) would be to enhance the existing game mechanic of resource and trade ships. Basically, make it so that you do not get resources nor money automatically, but only through relevant structures like refineries and trade posts (obviously they should be made available from the start, requiring no research to unlock). That way you expose a player's economic infrastructure to real raids and blockades. For example, cutting off a string of trade posts might actually cripple a player's economy, rather than cause a minor inconvenience.

But for this to work one thing is vital (and I have to admit I do not know if it so or not) - are refineries and trade posts making their contribution based on the dockings of actual transport/trade ships, or is this simulated? If latter is the case then the whole idea falls apart. Basically, if you prevent the ships from reaching their destinations, does that mean refineries and trade posts do not contribute anything?

By my observations, it's somewhere in-between. It looks to me as if it generates income automatically, based on how many of it's linked ships are alive. If it's only got one trade/refinery ship alive, then it generates x per second, with two alive it generates 2x, etc.

 

Of course I don't actually know for sure...

 

 

an interesting concept ManSh00ter

 

if you have any idea as to how to implement this , i'd like ot know, i want to use a system like this in my own mod Fires of War and maybe in Sins of Alethia

 

EDIT: i'd actually be interested in working with you or someone else to develop a system like this, from looking at the code, it appears as though Refineries have a base income, but the refinery ships have a cargo cap that would appear to adjust the income

 

EDIT2: i was looking at th eadvent tradeport, looks as though for Vasari and TEC it is relegated by number of refinery ships, so this could work

 

samething for tradeports, with the exception that they have a base income

 

i have a few other ideas regarding this but i need to think em through first

This will require playtesting, but for now the key thing to aim for is to maximize the importance of the trade/refinery ships. The ideal solution would be that those ships actually have to reach relevant structures, which would make blockades feasible. Second best would be to make the ships so important that the player feels the need to protect them; perhaps even adjust, if possible, the amount of money/resources a player gets when destroying one of these so that they actually make lucrative raid targets.

I'll have to check the gamefiles for these, not sure what's moddable and what's not.

*EDIT*

Also, the AI may be a concern. Obviously, if the tradeports and refineries are going to be so important, the AI should be made to build them as much as it builds resource extractors. Otherwise it may cripple itself.

yeah

 

i think the ship rewards can be done through an ability

 

please get back to me when you've figured this moddability thing out

the core idea is a really nice one, but AI usage of any of it would not work unless you re wrote the AI in the game. as great of a game as sins is, its ai sucks when you change how it plays (generaly speaking). as far as multiplayer goes, it would make the game a lot less boring in my opinion. (i prefer to micro manage compared to just massing ships, or so to say).

 

a way around this would be to have players start with trade ports and refinery's so it least it has SOME income starting out. its a pitty you cant link trade ships or whatnot to cap ships to give it a "supply" line feal it least.

Hmmm... i like ManShooter's idea of weapons (and perhaps other items as well, say speed? Or armor?) as an ability. What would be nice is if we could use, say 4 or now 5 abilities per ship, but mix and match or change out those for others on a list when on a home world or a world owned and controlled by the player. In effect we would select certain "abilities" depending on what we expect to face in battle. But not be locked into just using those particular abilities all the time. Or worse case scenario, i guess, would be to load them at the beginning of a game and use only those selected for that game. But be able to change them out at the start of a new game. Just a thought, i don't even know what it would take to do such a thing. -Teal</p>


Edit: Small p.s
I was thinking this might be possible using "maps" But of course that means largely creating each map from scratch, with different setups for each map.
But it could be done i think. At least having "different" abilities per ship. Hmmm... let me re-think this, no, not maps by themselves, but small mods, haha, each one incorporating different "sets" of abilities, with just those in the research tree or in the gameinfo folder for that mini-mod. Haha, but the thing is, im not toooooo bad with mini-mods.
So it sounds like a fun project!! But getting out a bunch of them, Haha, that might be sorta like making a storyline, or a mini-campaign.
I think, maybe im just getting carried away here, anyone else think this could be done as small mini-mods that could really be done? If so, then i would like to try it, but whether or not its any fun, after i've done it, may be another thing. As ManShooter said, it would probably take playtesting and multiple people to tweak things that would be interesting for lots of other people.
-T

Oops, second edit:

                               I hope i didnt impy that i could do the "fuel" thingy, because, hmmmm... i dont know even how to approach that. I was just considering using different "sets" of abilities per ship, and have the mini's be sequential, like starting with low power, low speed, low armor and building up through each mini.

But "Fuel" would be cool. But i dont know a way to "stop" the ships if they run out of say... antimatter. I know it disables those abilities that use it of course, but those are mostly weapons or buffs for the ships.

Hmmmm... this is probably over my head to do, but the mini thing still sounds fun,

-Teal

 

well in essence its not hard to do since there are a number of ways to go about it. the problem would arise when you need to have an extra two abilities on EVERY ship just for fuel consumption/phase prevention/other effects. with using Entity bool modifiers you should be able to disable warp, angular engines, subphase engines, weapons, and a few others, the problem comes down to writing the actuall ability and getting the AI to use it properly.

I have a nagging feeling the AI would go bonkers with this. In other words, we'd neuter it completely. It would be possible to disable antimatter regenration, remake all weapons as abilities which consume antimatter, and add, as StCobalt said, an ability which would disable phase jumping when antimatter reaches zero (I believe there's a watch switch which can be activated when antimatter falls below a certain amount, or was that only for hull/shields?)

But that means you would have to drop most of the abilities already present on the ships. For the capitals, for example, it would mean dropping each and every ability they have, since you'd fill all the slots with the fuel/ammo simulation. So I think this is one to leave for when/if they eventually allow us to have at least ten ability slots per ship.

   You know, i'm beginning to think it is all in how we "approach" a problem. For example with this Fuel thingy. If i modify the ceasefire ability which in the buff the ability calls, there is a numownerships and target list, if those ownerships were friendly only, instead of friendly and enemy and was set to happen, say every 10, or 15, or even 30 minutes into the game after having "one" ship carry this ability, say the advent colony ship for the advent, then it would activate every... 30 minutes. So the advent fleet would stop. The length of the ability can be set as well to say how long it lasts, and -1 would make it forever!!!  Haha, so something like maybe 10 minutes would be long enough.

And the range can be increased or decreased, or the number of ships designated as targets, which is currently -1, meaning all, could be adjusted as well, making it say 5 ships at level one, 10 ships at level 2 or 20 ships at level 3.

This would mean not making each ship carry the ability by itself, just one ship for the entire fleet. Or having each ship carry just one ability that would shut down engines, weapons and movement all in one ability instead of having an ability for each of those desired states to produce what we would in-game think of as a fuel deficiency. 

What do you think?  I can test this with a modified ceasefire ability and let you know what happens, but it may be an approximation to what we want, if not the exact state.

Of course if means not having re-fuelers reach the fleet to get them active again, but rather an imobile time, while the engines re-charge, or we could call it that. 

-Teal

 

eh it would probably be a pain, but any ideas on that new economic system ManSh00ter?

 

 

So far it looks like at least some parts can be implemented. Namely making the trade ports and refineries be much more important, as well as their transport ships. However, AI still remains the problem. Unfortunately, I can't find any variable which controls the "priority" of a building... they're most likely hardcoded, probably through the "planetModuleRoleType" and "statCountType" variables in the .entity file. You can change the AI priorities only in general terms (civic structures, defense, ships etc.), but not, it seems, on a per unit/building basis.

Similar to how the AI prioritizes ship classes, for example, always goes for your colony frigates. I can't find any explicit variable which controls that either. Offtopic, that would be very handy to have... anyway, the inability to mod the AI is remaining, in my opinion, one major obstacle to truly game-altering mechanics being introduced. Because even if you somehow manage to dupe the game into allowing you to do stuff differently, the AI will simply stare at it like a half-witted gnu.

There may be a way to trick the AI into using the trade ports and refiners more often if not always... I do not know how the AI algorithms are set up, but the AI might be more inclined to build stuff if its cheaper across the board. So setting the build and slot prices lower for the modules might cause the AI to build them more often. This needs testing. Do not remove the slot cost or the AI will likely spam the modules to no end.

I haven't read anyone's replies but i doubt they would use fuel this far into the future...but rather energy generators to power the engines...

if have any reserves of something other than anitmatter,..have ammo....at least for the static weaponry...energy weapons wouldnt need ammo reserves.

 

  The fun with make believe is you can invent anything.    With energy weapons and with re-charging generator engines you can still invent crystals for focusing the energy through the weapons turret, or for generators, catalytic magnets that focus the gravity waves to produce thrust for an engine.    The crystals and the magnets of course can be decayable, and therefor need replacing.    If they were located on only a few asteroids, say like bonus artifacts, then they can't just be found anywhere, but only occassionally and in random areas. Which means that simply staying mobile, or say the reach of your own fleets is bound by that ability to continue to locate and obtain those items. It could mean strategic situations where we have to locate one or more deposits in order to continue the push outward toward the other empire, and the same for the enemy of course. It could make the game longer, but for interests sake, it might make the games more interesting if there are obsticles to overcome, not just have unlimited fuel or reach. Anyway, just my thoughts. I think it might make a game a little more interesting. 

-Teal

 

Yeah i'm not so fond of fuel. I like the game as is, (except for the f'n mines). Although I did read somewhere in a science magazine that apperently, there may be in the future (100-150 years) a type of Technology called Space Displacement should become available. In theory, this technology would allow any vehicle equipped with it to travel any where in the solar system in a matter of days instead of years. It sounds sci-fi, (But then again 30 years ago cell phones were sci-fi) but instead of having the vehicle move around in space, the vehicle would move the space immediately around it so that the vehicle could possibly travel at faster-than-light speeds, without actually moving. That's what I read anyway.

That'd be cool but sounds real confusing....I'll leave it up to the scientists to make that one work.