Tweak Fleet Support "Tax"

from Sins Forums

I was playing an end game last night and after mopping up the enemy, decided to kick around a little bit. I looked at the fleet support "tax" and in an effort to bring it down, started destroying ships. After I scuttled all of my ships, I looked at the support tax and it hadn't budged up or down. It had been my assumption that the support tax was somehow based upon the number of ships that I had in service.

I'd like to suggest that the fleet support tax be modified to reflect the number and type of ships you have in service, plus some base factor. The "formula" would look something like this:

(fleet support research level X 5 cr)
                   +
(0.2 cr X number of scout ships in service)
                   +
(0.5 cr X number of frigates in service)
                   +
(1.0 cr X number of cruisers in service)
                   +
(5.0 cr X number of cap ships in service)
                   =
fleet support tax

The numbers above are just place holders to illustrate the possibilities.

4,720 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/348745

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

You pay the money (and take the assocaited tax penalty) for the ability to aquire more fleet points. It is that simple. If you don't want the econ hit, don't build such big fleets. It is one of the things you need to measure off against the other!!!

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Hack78, reply 2
You pay the money (and take the assocaited tax penalty) for the ability to aquire more fleet points. It is that simple. If you don't want the econ hit, don't build such big fleets. It is one of the things you need to measure off against the other!!!
End of Hack78's quote

 

You poor poor simple minded fool.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Would you care to elaborate on that Sanic? Why you think I am a fool??? Since I probably know more about Sins then you, I would love to hear the reasoning.....

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

LOL tax.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Sanic_7, reply 3

Quoting Hack78, reply 2You pay the money (and take the assocaited tax penalty) for the ability to aquire more fleet points. It is that simple. If you don't want the econ hit, don't build such big fleets. It is one of the things you need to measure off against the other!!!
 

You poor poor simple minded fool.
End of Sanic_7's quote

Sanic, if you going to call someone a fool, I suggest you back it up with a valid reason.  Though, I doubt you will.

Hack78 is absolutely right.  The upkeep is there for a reason.  You can't always have your cake and eat it too.... :thumbsup:

 

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

I agree with the idea of having a fleet upkeep proportional to the fleet size, although I can cope with the current system. Perhaps reducing the base upkeep level (the current tax), to reflect that the empire needs a minimum infrastructure to be able to manage the fleet size. On top of that, a per-ship upkeep, which would bring the cost more or less to the same levels we currently have. The point is adding more survivavibility to the player if he takes a severe hit, because he gets to pay less upkeep, thus having more money to rebuild.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

The point is adding more survivavibility to the player if he takes a severe hit, because he gets to pay less upkeep, thus having more money to rebuild.
End of quote

I would agree with this, however I've been told many times this isn't going to happen. Too many planet rapists, who didn't want a challenge left beta-feedback.  Once a major fleet is broken, game over.

DrGonzo

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

The point is adding more survivavibility to the player if he takes a severe hit, because he gets to pay less upkeep, thus having more money to rebuild.
End of quote

Which is precisely why it isn't going to happen.

The goal behind the upkeep system is to make the player manage his fleets carefully, and not just keep pumping out hundreds of ships like more conventional RTS games (see SupCom).

Fleets are made to be managed, not carelessly thrown away. If you make the upkeep system be per-ship or equivalent, a big enough empire can just afford to spam ships ad nauseum since money and resources never run out, and when they drop to low upkeep they'll be raking in huge amounts of money.

The way it is now is that fleet sizes and upkeep scale to the size of your empire. If you have a big empire, you can afford to lose a lot of ships and still be making enough money post-upkeep to afford to rebuild. If you have a small empire and lose your maxed out fleet, of course the upkeep is going to eat you alive when you try to rebuild because a small empire isn't meant to support a huge fleet.

Edit: Oh, and please don't call people who've been on these forums for a very, very long time fools - most of them actually know something, and Hack78 is quite right.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Fleets are made to be managed, not carelessly thrown away. If you make the upkeep system be per-ship or equivalent, a big enough empire can just afford to spam ships ad nauseum since money and resources never run out, and when they drop to low upkeep they'll be raking in huge amounts of money.
End of quote

Large enough empire can do that anyways.

 

DrGonzo

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Did you miss the next paragraph in my post? :P That's the design - economies of scale. If you want huge fleets, you should have empires capable of supporting them. That's how it works.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

If you have a small empire and lose your maxed out fleet, of course the upkeep is going to eat you alive when you try to rebuild because a small empire isn't meant to support a huge fleet.
End of quote

Take a pseudo-realworld example of the United States versus North Korea. There is absolutely no way that NK will ever hope to match the US economically-- however it does maintain a -very large- standing army which is of no doubt an enormous burden on the NK economy. However, if North Korea disbanded their armed forces tomorrow-- they would no longer have that 'upkeep' -- the resources would be freed for other pursuits... How much they initially invested in military infratructure doesn't matter in the slightest if it's simply abandoned. 

Germany is not still paying upkeep on the Bismarck or the Tirpitz.
Japan is not still paying upkeep on the Yamato or the Musashi.

While you could argue, "Well they were sunk, they got the fleet capacity back LOL!!1"-- this is only partially true. They presently have neither the capability nor the desire to field such ships... the penalty for doing so, has been removed.

I understand your point of it takes large economies to maintain large militaries, though I have presented an example for you that this is not -necessarily- true. What is true, is regardless of the size of the economy-- broken and abandoned things do not incur maintenance charges.

Why allow for orbital buildings to be scuttled? Or ships, for that matter? Shouldn't all choices be final? Of course not! That's the point of empire management-- you can progress or regress aspects depending on what is _most necessary for prosperity_

At the very least I think fleet support abandonment should be a game option... like speed, income, culture, or anything else.

This game has always felt somewhat sand-boxy to me, and in a sandbox everyone likes to build their own castle... But there's still no need to limit the tools they use to craft it.

Dr.Gonzo

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

perhaps being able to scale back fleet infrastructure at the rate of say 10 minutes PER TIER. so going from level 8 to 1 would take like 70 minutes...and you have to pay full price to tech back up. but then it's so prohibitively expensive and takes to long that no one wants to anyway, but that's the reality of it...it takes a long time to tear down infrastructure and reintegrate your workforce.