Fishman
Posts: 795
Joined: 4/1/2010
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bebop Cola
Honestly, I'd considered that. It just offends my sensibilities to call my bombardment ship a Frigate because my Destroyers are Escorts for my Cruisers that are really more like Capital Ships(aren't all of these things capital ships?) because Capital Ships are just too damn slow/power-hungry.  It's okay, we've arbitrarily redefined the roles of preexisting ship classes since they were first made. "Destroyers" were originally short for "Torpedo Boat Destroyers", and were a class created to counter a specific type of new threat. Then they came to be torpedo boats themselves, then ASW ships, and now they're being used in the same roles that one might have previously found a "battleship", because no one builds "battleships" anymore. A "cruiser" used to be a type of fast general-purpose warship often used for commerce raiding and anti-commerce-raiding, and now we use them as anti-aircraft ships.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Bebop Cola
I'd like to design a ship with no/minimal hyperdrive just for in-system patrol duties. You can't even make a ship that functions usefully insystem without a hyperdrive, the hyperdrive is also used for insystem teleportation. The Hyperdrive is also a fairly small component that does not really take up much space, and installing a "better" hyperdrive isn't costly or more space-intensive, so you gain nothing there. This role doesn't exist within the mechanics of the game, because the hyperdrive isn't bulky or expensive enough to matter, and the ship doesn't function as a useful ship even insystem without one.
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ORIGINAL: Bebop Cola
Unless I'm misunderstanding how fuel is used by ships and bases, it seems like engines and hyperdrive use energy directly, and fuel is only used to produce the required energy. As such, a ship in hyperdrive when fuel gets depleted briefly drains the current energy reserve before its speed gets cut from lack of power or "fuel." As such, I'd like to have the option of leaving off fuel storage as well as reactors in favor of the solar power generators. Solar power generators would presumably be able to generate sufficient power such that fuel storage and ship reactors would be unnecessary so long as a ship or base is in a system with a star. Energy collectors only function when the ship isn't moving. Energy storage is performed by the reactor. Without a reactor, the ship stores 0 energy, and therefore, cannot do anything and is useless. Without fuel, the ship is incapable of regenerating its energy when moving. So yes, you really do need fuel storage and reactors on a ship. It is, however, entirely possible to install only a single reactor and backup fuel cell and power an entire base on energy collectors alone, as the base will never move and therefore the collectors will always be sufficient the power the base even when the base is never refuelled. Note, however, that you STILL need reactors to store enough energy so that the base can actually operate all of its weapons, otherwise it will cause a brownout every time the guns are fired.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Bebop Cola
Also, is there a thread around here where people post/upload their ship designs for critiquing Not that I know of.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Bebop Cola
For example, the default designs seem to try to adhere to a steady slope in power consumption for engine speed at the very least. Sticking with that model, however, makes my ships a bit slower than I'd prefer, especially my larger ships. The default designs are laughable and default capital ship designs have speeds which translate as "practically immobile". Seriously, those designs are a guideline of how NOT to build a ship.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Bebop Cola
I've played around with it a bit, but the speed increase tends to drop off and power requirements tend to spike pretty quickly. Speed increase "drops off" because of "thrust-to-weight". A ship design has a maximum theoretical speed where it is composed of 100% engines. You can't actually build this ship, however, because you need reactors and fuel cells, at minimum. Additionally, at some point, adding more engines will actually slow your ship down when it no longer generates enough power to run the engines, causing those engines to become deadweight.
In short, the basic premise is that speed increases as the percentage of ship that is engine increases, as well as if the thrust-per-unit-space of your engine increases. As such, you get used to designing ships by engine ratios. If you design your ship such that, say, 30% of your ship is engines, all ships built with this ratio go the same speed. The AI tends to build designs that have a power curve from stop to warp runs "smoothly", which is, of course, stupid, because it results in larger ships being immobile for all practical purposes. This renders them basically completely useless in an active engagement because they are entirely reliant on enemies coming to them, and completely unable to pursue anything. I, on the other hand, design ships, even ginormous ones, to be capable of LUDICROUS SPEED. My empire demand for engine resources is through the roof as a result. A ship that's 40% engines is basically made of 40% Aculon and Carbon Fiber.
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What's the difference in escorts, destroyers, cruisers,... - 
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