What types of ships will DW have?

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What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 12:47:54 AM

magickoji

Posts: 48
Joined: 7/27/2009
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I was wondering what kind of ships classes DW will have. Will it just have the basic types, or can you have specialized ones too.

i.e.

Scouts
Fighters
Escort Destroyers
Destroyers
Heavy Destroyers
Frigates
Light Cruisers
Heavy Cruisers
Battle Cruisers
Battleships
Dreadnoughts
Escort Carriers
Carriers
Space Stations
Space Docks
Death Stars
Cargo Ships
Assault Ships
Troop Transports
Armored Transports

just a few that I could think of.

thanks.

edit:

I just saw that their will be 9 types of ships. Can we find out what those types are?
Here's what I've seen in the video Clips.

Exploration Ship
Colony Ship
Escort
Frigate
Destroyer
Construction ship
Resort Base
Star Bass

< Message edited by magickoji -- 3/8/2010 1:06:48 AM >

Post #: 1

RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 1:17:54 AM

Webbco

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+ capital ships. I think.

(in reply to magickoji)

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 1:24:59 AM

lordxorn

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I don't think there is quite that many types of ships, this is isn't carriers at war in space.

However, there may be a possiblity to mod DW to include those ships.

*After checking the customization guide, I don't see where you can change like the size and slots of each hull, like a Dreadnaught having more weapons. However you can change the ship pictures to ones like Drillermans HW skins.

< Message edited by lordxorn -- 3/8/2010 1:31:11 AM >

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Post #: 3

RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 1:32:21 AM

hadberz

Posts: 1629
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From: Moncks Corner, SC
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Here are all the ship roles, you can design them pretty much however you want up to the size limits.

Let me explain better, I take a destroyer role, I can design the ship however I want within the limits (all ships need life support, engines, etc) and ship size. I design this ship with tons of armor. This destroyer design will be called Tank 1. I can then choose the destroyer role again, name it Attack ship 1 and just put all weapons on it. So you have 2 different ship designs using the same destroyer role.

I haven't tested the design limits, but I'm betting you can have as many designs as you want. Don't hold me to it in case there is a limit.

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by hadberz -- 3/8/2010 1:49:44 AM >

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 2:45:09 AM

Xmudder

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quote:

ORIGINAL: hadberz

Here are all the ship roles, you can design them pretty much however you want up to the size limits.

You can have roaming gas and mining ships as well as stations? Have you ever used them, or is it mainly the civilian economy that does? Do you find yourself building more freighters or letting the civilians doing it?
I'm wondering if a more command and control organization (high taxes) is just as doable as the more lazzie faire approach.
Do resupply ships carry just fuel, or is there expendable munitions and repair capabilities as well?
And what is the difference ebwteen a star base and a space port?

Thanks for the screenshot. I actually thought there would be more combat hulls. Can pirates ever afford cruisers and capital ships? or just the smaller ones?

(in reply to hadberz)

Post #: 5

RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 3:45:22 AM

lordxorn

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So you can take a Destroyer hull, add nothing but fighters, and call it Carrier? =P

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 4:03:09 AM

elliotg

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Just to explain ships designs a bit more:

The different ship and base roles (frigate, destroyer, large space port, mining station, etc) simply determine which components should/need to be in a design, e.g. space ports must have docking bays and construction yards, destroyers must have engines and weapons, etc.

As long as you meet the minimum requirements for a ship role (i.e. required components as described above), you can put whatever you like into your design.

The other constraint is the maximum ship or base size that you can currently build. As your construction tech increases you can build progressively larger ships and bases. Usually at game start you can only build ships up to a size of 200 or so. For military ships this typically means escorts, frigates and destroyers. The ship roles themselves do NOT have size limits, i.e. no hull sizes. The size limits are instead determined by your current construction tech level.

You can have multiple designs per ship role (e.g. more than one type of destroyer). And you can usually put nearly any type of component into your designs - within the limits described above.

So although there's no official 'Battleship' role in DW, you can make a design and call it a battleship, and include whatever components you think a battleship should have. As long as your current construction tech allows building a ship as big as your design, you can then build your new battleship.

Hope that makes things clearer

(in reply to lordxorn)

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 4:30:09 AM

cdbeck

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From: Indiana
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Elliot, this was something I have been meaning to ask and I'm sure others will appreciate knowing the answer as well.

Lets say I design an exploration ship and put a few science labs on it (for those reading, normally labs are most efficient on a starbase). These science labs will still generate research as the ship travels, right? What limits the "mobile science ship" design?

Also, like the above asked, if I put mining equipment on a ship, how does that work? I'm going to assume that I could park it on a world, and let it mine, but that it would need some way - like a dock - for freighters to come and take the mined goods away. Is this feasible?

I actually haven't tried these things while testing, because I didn't know the underlying mechanics behind these systems.

SoM

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 6:36:08 AM

Delta_V

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Elliot,

A couple of things I had a question about:

1.) You mentioned that as construction tech increased the player has the ability to build larger ships and bases. Does that mean research produces additional ship sizes (e.g. you have escort but through research you discover destroyer) or does that mean that each ship size gains an increase in size (e.g. I had Escort I with 150 size units; now I've researched Escort II with 200 size units) or is it a combination of both?

2.) How do ship sizes scale to each other? Is there a great deal of difference, for example, in the size of a destroyer versus a cruiser? In some games (e.g. Space Empires) the space upgrade from a destroyer to a cruiser was more of an incremental upgrade than what I felt personally it should have been. I'm a huge fan of David Weber's Honor Harrington book series and one thing the series portrays really well is the great disparity between ship classes. For example, a destroyer in the "Honorverse" comes in at 80,000 to 110,000 metric tonnes, while a cruiser comes in at around 300,000 to 400,000 tonnes. The recent Nike class battlecruisers come in at around 2.2 million tonnes while superdreadnoughts (the largest warships) come in at between 7 and 8 million tonnes. Of course, its your vision and your game so I'm onboard with however you decide to do it, I was just curious.

3.) Are there any "baseships"? As in extremely large vessels that use a starbase hull equipped with interstellar engines to go around the galaxy causing loads of trouble for everyone

(in reply to cdbeck)

Post #: 9

RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 7:21:46 AM

elliotg

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort
Lets say I design an exploration ship and put a few science labs on it (for those reading, normally labs are most efficient on a starbase). These science labs will still generate research as the ship travels, right? What limits the "mobile science ship" design?

Some stuff only works while a ship is stationary - research is one of those things. So, you could make a ship like you describe, but it would only generate research while stopped.

quote:

Also, like the above asked, if I put mining equipment on a ship, how does that work? I'm going to assume that I could park it on a world, and let it mine, but that it would need some way - like a dock - for freighters to come and take the mined goods away. Is this feasible?

You can put mining components on a design and the mining mission is then available to the ship when built. The default action for mining is for the mobile mining ship to return to the nearest space port when full to drop off the extracted resources.

(in reply to cdbeck)

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 7:35:53 AM

elliotg

Posts: 3597
Joined: 9/10/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Delta_V
1.) You mentioned that as construction tech increased the player has the ability to build larger ships and bases. Does that mean research produces additional ship sizes (e.g. you have escort but through research you discover destroyer) or does that mean that each ship size gains an increase in size (e.g. I had Escort I with 150 size units; now I've researched Escort II with 200 size units) or is it a combination of both?

The size of ship or base you can build has nothing to do with ship roles. There are several ship roles for military ships: escort, frigate, destroyer, cruiser, capital ship, troop transport and resupply ship. When the AI designs ships it will design frigates that are larger than escorts, destroyers that are larger than frigates, etc. But these different military ship roles are not actually constrained by size - e.g. if you want to design frigates that are larger than cruisers, you can. The only limit is the current maximum ship size from your construction tech level.
So with typical designs (or AI designed ships) you normally start the game being able to build escorts, frigates and destroyers. But if you design a really big frigate, you might not have sufficient tech to build it yet. Or you might design a small cruiser, that you can build.

quote:

2.) How do ship sizes scale to each other? Is there a great deal of difference, for example, in the size of a destroyer versus a cruiser? In some games (e.g. Space Empires) the space upgrade from a destroyer to a cruiser was more of an incremental upgrade than what I felt personally it should have been. I'm a huge fan of David Weber's Honor Harrington book series and one thing the series portrays really well is the great disparity between ship classes. For example, a destroyer in the "Honorverse" comes in at 80,000 to 110,000 metric tonnes, while a cruiser comes in at around 300,000 to 400,000 tonnes. The recent Nike class battlecruisers come in at around 2.2 million tonnes while superdreadnoughts (the largest warships) come in at between 7 and 8 million tonnes. Of course, its your vision and your game so I'm onboard with however you decide to do it, I was just curious.

For *typical* designs that honor the typical sizes of these ship roles, here's a rough size difference ratio:
Escort: 1
Frigate: 1.5
Destroyer: 2
Cruiser: 3.5
Capital Ship: 5
Resupply Ship: 11
...but, as described above, you can design anything within the size constraints of your current construction tech. So if you like more dramatic differences in size you can design it that way.

quote:

3.) Are there any "baseships"? As in extremely large vessels that use a starbase hull equipped with interstellar engines to go around the galaxy causing loads of trouble for everyone

Resupply ships are probably the closest to that. There might be some other things tucked away in the galaxy somewhere that meet that description too, but you'd have to check that out for yourself...

But again, you can design anything you like. If you want one mega-super ship instead of several fleets, you can. Will probably take a while to build though, and you'll need very high construction tech as well.

(in reply to Delta_V)

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 8:43:01 PM

magickoji

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Wow lots of information. But there is one critical one missing, that I was looking for and that I should have stated.

With the list of ships classes that you have, does that mean that you can only have one image for that class/ship. Therefore, graphically you can not tell one type of destroyer from another type of destroyer. That the only differences is the internal stuff and the name of the ship itself? Is this correct?

Thank you.

(in reply to elliotg)

Post #: 12

RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 10:02:52 PM

drillerman

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From: Blighty
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Hi Elliot,

Would it be possible to tell us the pixel sizes of the various ships. ie destroyer 100x100 dreadnought 200x200 for example, so we can resize some of the mods?

Thanks

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Post #: 13

RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 10:29:39 PM

Gertjan

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Finally some info on the ships! So the resupplyship will be the toughest ship in the fleet. Doesn't really sound like an attack type of ship. More as something operating behind the lines.

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Post #: 14

RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/8/2010 11:34:03 PM

hadberz

Posts: 1629
Joined: 5/11/2000
From: Moncks Corner, SC
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quote:

With the list of ships classes that you have, does that mean that you can only have one image for that class/ship. Therefore, graphically you can not tell one type of destroyer from another type of destroyer. That the only differences is the internal stuff and the name of the ship itself? Is this correct?

They can be different graphics. You can pick whatever you want for any ship or station. Doesn't matter if you already have a design for that ship/base class.

quote:

Would it be possible to tell us the pixel sizes of the various ships. ie destroyer 100x100 dreadnought 200x200 for example, so we can resize some of the mods?

I think graphics have to be no larger then 200x200, this may have changed. If you mean how to make the ships look larger in game, just add more components when you design a ship. The more you add the larger the ship graphic appears in game.

< Message edited by hadberz -- 3/8/2010 11:47:17 PM >

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/9/2010 12:56:46 AM

magickoji

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Joined: 7/27/2009
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quote:

ORIGINAL: hadberz

quote:

With the list of ships classes that you have, does that mean that you can only have one image for that class/ship. Therefore, graphically you can not tell one type of destroyer from another type of destroyer. That the only differences is the internal stuff and the name of the ship itself? Is this correct?

They can be different graphics. You can pick whatever you want for any ship or station. Doesn't matter if you already have a design for that ship/base class.

Really, Cause that would be really cool. But if you don't mind me asking. How do you know this? Are you a beta tester?

Thanks.

< Message edited by magickoji -- 3/9/2010 12:58:09 AM >

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/9/2010 5:08:41 AM

martok

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Gertjan

So the resupplyship will be the toughest ship in the fleet.

Not necessarily. Given that elliot has indicated we need to devote a certain amount of space to various components (depending on the ship type), a ship's size may have little to do with how "tough" it is.

To take a hypothetical example: While resupply ships appear to be over twice the size of a capital ship, that means diddly-squat if the vast majority of its capacity must be devoted to cargo holds. If only a small percentage of a resupply ship's capacity can be devoted to weapons/defenses, whereas the majority of a capital ship's capacity can be devoted to the same, then a capital ship is still going to be much tougher than any resupply vessel.

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/9/2010 8:21:57 AM

Gertjan

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@Martok thanks for the explanation. But, it still means that the resupplyship is larger than the capital ship when you look at them in the main screen, right?

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/9/2010 11:34:23 AM

Duckfang

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Ship size isn't determined by the job you select for it. Ship size is determined by how large you make it.

The question was which type of ship most fits the description of a mobile staging post, which is a resupply ship.

< Message edited by Duckfang -- 3/9/2010 11:35:11 AM >

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/9/2010 12:21:22 PM

hadberz

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From: Moncks Corner, SC
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quote:

Really, Cause that would be really cool. But if you don't mind me asking. How do you know this? Are you a beta tester?

Yes, I'm a beta tester.

A resupply ship can be made very large.

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/10/2010 5:58:58 AM

martok

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quote:

ORIGINAL: hadberz

quote:

Really, Cause that would be really cool. But if you don't mind me asking. How do you know this? Are you a beta tester?

Yes, I'm a beta tester.

A resupply ship can be made very large.

So, just to clarify (and to make sure I wasn't talking out of my ass in my previous post):

*Does* a resupply ship, in fact, require a larger-than-average percentage of its space be devoted to cargo holds (or whatever component carries fuel/supplies)? Or put another way, do capital ships get a larger percentage of their space devoted to weapons/defenses than resupply vessels?

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RE: What types of ships will DW have? - 3/10/2010 12:19:12 PM

hadberz

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From: Moncks Corner, SC
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quote:

*Does* a resupply ship, in fact, require a larger-than-average percentage of its space be devoted to cargo holds (or whatever component carries fuel/supplies)? Or put another way, do capital ships get a larger percentage of their space devoted to weapons/defenses than resupply vessels?

It's best to have a lot of cargo and docking bays or it will take awhile to refuel a fleet. Same with Capital ships you can design it with less weapons, but don't expect to be very effective with them.

(in reply to martok)

Post #: 22