RE: Ship Design AAR (Full Version)

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Gertjan -> RE: Ship Design AAR (3/23/2010 9:18:04 PM)

Thanks. Very interesting AAR. THe ship design is much more detailed than I thought. I hope I will be able to master it by myself. Is there also a tutorial in the game for this? Does the AI also come up with different sub classes within ship classes, like a long range cruiser and a short range cruiser? A dreadnought capital ship, but with low fuel in order to focus on combat only or just for defense purposes, in which case you would sacrifice speed of movement? That would be very cool!



Fishman -> RE: Ship Design AAR (4/2/2010 7:43:49 AM)

I tend to build ships packing the longest range weapons and the biggest engines...and then I build them as MERCHANT CRUISERS. I have this enormous, heavily armed fleet, that I got paid in spaceport fees to make, and don't have to pay upkeep for. Because they are merchant cruisers, they will shuttle about defending my most important worlds and space lanes, without any management from me. A major world will always have a dozen of these guys hanging around, and anyone dumb enough to pick a fight with one quickly realizes what a horrible mistake picking a fight with a freighter armed with battleship guns is, right before he gets blown to tiny pieces. They fly like the wind and can outrun anything that they can't outgun. Of course, I wind up as the most hated empire in the galaxy with people constantly screaming at me to remove my "military", even though I can't actually control these guys and they don't actually do anything military unless someone unwisely attacks them, but being a galactic pariah is a small price to pay for how much money it saves.



Kamonrius -> RE: Ship Design AAR (4/3/2010 7:55:24 PM)

However once your in a full blown war, the enemy empire will recognize them as Combatants and will target them. so if you come across a race who can crack shields in 3 seconds you will lose your entire intercolony economy and war fleet. leaving you massively screwed.

Learn that the hard way.

Never again



GaryChildress -> RE: Ship Design AAR (4/3/2010 8:18:23 PM)

quote:

Here is a look at some of the different ship pictures allowed for the design. There are quite a few and they are really pretty cool, and with me only having the beta there might even be some I haven’t seen in the full release. If you get tired of the ones provided, or just want to spruce up or personalize your game, adding ship graphics is extremely easy – especially if you download and follow the customization guide!


Wow! Looks pretty interesting. Can someone briefly explain how to customize the ship graphics? I have a few 3D graphics programs that I could use to make some cool stuff and am wondering if they would work? Are the ship graphics essentially BMPs or are they fully 3D graphics?

Thanks!



Fishman -> RE: Ship Design AAR (4/4/2010 4:16:44 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kamonrius

However once your in a full blown war, the enemy empire will recognize them as Combatants and will target them. so if you come across a race who can crack shields in 3 seconds you will lose your entire intercolony economy and war fleet. leaving you massively screwed.

Never seen that. Besides, the AI will attack your freighters anyway, armed or not. You may as well be firing back. Additionally, there's the minor problem of CATCHING them. These things are FAST, and they are ubiquitous. When the AI attacks them, it is immediately greeted in a hail of torps. I have seen entire capship armadas roasted alive by these things. Anything heavily shielded enough to withstand this kind of assault is not fast enough to catch it. Anything armed enough to kill it is either not fast enough to catch it, or not shielded enough to chase it as it buttorps. Remember: The stern chase scenario is the worst combat position in the game, because your opponent will always outrange you, and since freighters never take offense, you will always have to chase. The level of aggravation is akin to fighting a Spathi Eluder. It is basically impossible to kill a Spathi Eluder in a fight that isn't to the death.



ductape -> RE: Ship Design AAR (4/5/2010 4:56:02 AM)

well, every time i make a new design, the AI erases it or pushes it down with a new design. I want most of the ships to be designed by AI, but a few I want to make myself and I dont want the AI to ignore them.

What can I do?



Fishman -> RE: Ship Design AAR (4/5/2010 7:39:14 AM)

Absolutely nothing, although your designs are still there if you uncheck the latest thing. What annoys me more is that the AI keeps designing things even when I have told it not to, and if I intentionally delete all of a design, it will manage to create a design that doesn't even EXIST, as opposed to simply NEVER ATTEMPTING TO BUILD THOSE because I don't want any!



BigWolfChris -> RE: Ship Design AAR (4/5/2010 12:45:10 PM)

Also, finding an abandoned  ship/base will tend to loose you your current design as it will usually always contain newer technology



Interesting -> RE: Ship Design AAR (4/6/2010 7:24:31 PM)

Very good man.

Thanks for writting this. I appreciate it.

Do you plan on making more AARs explaining, diplomacy, economy, colonization, exploration and other aspects of the game? If so, I will keep an eye on it.



emeg -> RE: Ship Design AAR (4/18/2010 1:52:56 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort

<..>

[image]http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/5861/mwsnap210.png[/image]

Speaking of power use, it looks like we have plenty of power to spare from our reactor. It might not hurt to have a little excess power for weapon fire and such, but this amount seems a bit excessive. If this were an actually game, rather than an AAR, I would probably go back and add more power using devices and balances them with more engines, but for ease of writing, I’ll leave it the way it is.


May-be I have missed it but, "speaking of power", you have something forgotten to mention in your AAR. Having a huge excess of energy is very good for a faster interstellar journey. There is a relation to the excess of energy of a ship and its hyperspeed.

All the excess of energy is used to power the Hyperdrive Engine!

That means, having more excess energy left makes that the ship travels faster in hyperspace, thus making the time needed for an interstellar journey shorter. So if you wish to have a fast traveling ship during their interstellar journey you need a ship with a very much excess of energy.

By example to your ship design. Having the Gerax HyperDrive ES on board of your ship having an energy excess of 80 makes that your ship have a hyperspeed of 32000. If the energy excess drops to 67 (your latest shipdesign) the hyperspeed of your ship has dropped to 26799.

So a higher excess of energy will, relative the hyperspeed engine of the ship, result in a higher hyperspeed performance.



elanaahova -> RE: Ship Design AAR (1/20/2011 4:24:45 PM)

True, but no matter how much excess energy a ship has, the top speed of the installed hyperdrive cannot be exceeded.



Data -> RE: Ship Design AAR (1/20/2011 7:36:00 PM)

yes, you cannot have infinite speed for infinite power



elanaahova -> RE: Ship Design AAR (1/28/2011 2:05:46 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: emeg

quote:

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort

<..>

[image]http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/5861/mwsnap210.png[/image]

Speaking of power use, it looks like we have plenty of power to spare from our reactor. It might not hurt to have a little excess power for weapon fire and such, but this amount seems a bit excessive. If this were an actually game, rather than an AAR, I would probably go back and add more power using devices and balances them with more engines, but for ease of writing, I’ll leave it the way it is.


May-be I have missed it but, "speaking of power", you have something forgotten to mention in your AAR. Having a huge excess of energy is very good for a faster interstellar journey. There is a relation to the excess of energy of a ship and its hyperspeed.

All the excess of energy is used to power the Hyperdrive Engine!

That means, having more excess energy left makes that the ship travels faster in hyperspace, thus making the time needed for an interstellar journey shorter. So if you wish to have a fast traveling ship during their interstellar journey you need a ship with a very much excess of energy.

By example to your ship design. Having the Gerax HyperDrive ES on board of your ship having an energy excess of 80 makes that your ship have a hyperspeed of 32000. If the energy excess drops to 67 (your latest shipdesign) the hyperspeed of your ship has dropped to 26799.

So a higher excess of energy will, relative the hyperspeed engine of the ship, result in a higher hyperspeed performance.


One other thing, your ship, as designed, is drawing static power, but you have no collector to feed this static power draw. This means that even when your ship is totally still, it consumes fuel. For some ships, (depending on mission, doctrine) a collector will offset this drain.



Data -> RE: Ship Design AAR (1/29/2011 11:17:06 AM)

ehee, SoM is one of the precursors....those days we didn't even understand how fuel related to energy; his was one of the best ship design investigations
really clarified lots of things



elanaahova -> RE: Ship Design AAR (1/30/2011 6:27:16 PM)

Yes, Data, I also learned a very great deal fromhis aar on ship building. I've been teaching a friend of mine how to 'play' DW, and he says its like work... so complicated.



Data -> RE: Ship Design AAR (1/30/2011 6:35:43 PM)

lol...for some of us complicated it's fun, just a fun kind of work
but once you get the hang of it it becomes easy.....i remember when i first read SoM's aar, how impressed I was by how elegant the design screen is; especially the energy section, one of the strongpoints of the game.
This alone hit a very sweet spot for me [:)]

ask your friend to try chess....now that's some hard work to have fun [:D]



huai0592 -> RE: Ship Design AAR (5/17/2011 3:22:35 AM)

Just one quick question how do you keep track of so many different resources?



Data -> RE: Ship Design AAR (5/17/2011 5:43:24 AM)

The expansion planner lists all the good informations about them.



martok -> RE: Ship Design AAR (5/17/2011 7:16:15 AM)

....And once again, I'm dumbsquizzled as to why spambots are invading the DW forums. So very odd!





Data -> RE: Ship Design AAR (5/17/2011 12:33:06 PM)

Damn, once again I fall prey to it...it's the second time, damn romulan ale



martok -> RE: Ship Design AAR (5/17/2011 9:14:12 PM)

Hint: Spambots usually have a small number of posts, and have a link in either their sig and/or their actual post. [:)]




Data -> RE: Ship Design AAR (5/25/2011 11:06:58 AM)

Okay, martok, it has all the symptoms....but it's so damn perseverent as well.



Evrett -> RE: Ship Design AAR (11/29/2011 8:37:57 PM)

I need a frame of reference regarding the component statistics. Is the energy a reactor generates a resources that shields and weapons ect slowly use up? If a reactor makes 84 what can that 84 do? Is that a lot or hardly anything? how much farther does a fuel capacity of x vs y get me? Does having more than 1 resource scanner increase anything? How do I know, besides eventually being told I need more, how much crew support i need or what the max size of my ship is. What does a cargo bay vs docking bay actually do ? I get that static energy generator works when your not moving but is it a separate "well" for weapon/shield energy ? I understand and appreciate the fairly useful graph regarding speed but what acceleration/turning is considered average, bad, good ect? I've found the component information to be VERY sparse and while they often provide a number of some sort with no experience playing the game I cant tell what number to aim for. A useful stat would be "what is the galactic average for a ship of this type".   



feelotraveller -> RE: Ship Design AAR (11/30/2011 2:34:22 AM)

Wow that's a lot of questions. [:)]

Here goes-

Energy is used by weapons, drives and shields when they are recharging. Also used by various ship systems (static energy needs). The reactor generates x (say 84) per second. Weapons, and sometimes drives can use this real fast. Check the details on the design details screen.

Well if y=2x it gets you approximately twice as far. [;)] For starting fuel cells (60 capacity) rule of thumb is about a sector per cell. But it does depend on the other energy needs of the ship (like does it have aircon [:D]). Firing weapons chews through the fuel and reduces travel range.

Only one resource scanner is required. More make no difference (except for redundancy if the first one is damaged in battle), just put one on.

Each life support/habitation gives you a certain amount depending on your tech for crew systems. The is a set amount. So for the starting level of tech it allows size 88 per pairing for ships 1=88, 2=176, etc. Actually this is 85+ the space required for the components. On bases this is doubled 170 + components, although there is an extra 1 size for the first for some reason. So 1=174, 2=347, etc. Later techs allow larger amounts per component.

Cargo bays store resources. Docks transfer them. Each dock can only deal with one ship at a time.

The energy from solar collectors is transferred through/stored in the reactor.

Speed is largely relative to the technology level of the galaxy. What's fast for a car? Depends on what year you are living in, and perhaps where in the world. You will get a feel for this after playing a bit.

As to what to aim for - a good initial plan is to look at the predesigns and try to equal or outdo them in the particular area. Some of this is more a balance issue - fast warships are no good without weapons, a warship bristling with weapons is no good if it can catch anything...

Hope that helps. [:)]



Keston -> Ship Class Roles? (12/13/2011 5:18:27 AM)

The Galactopedia gives general concepts for classes, but what use does the AI actually make of the different classes (Escort, Frigate, etc.) if automated?

Escorts should be obvious, but the Galactopedia suggests Frigates be used to escort constructors. Cruisers are mainforce ships - but what role do Destroyers serve other than smaller, weaker cruisers?

This is important to designing ships if the player intends to let the AI play with them. Knowing what kind of opponents they are likely to face is important in design choices.




Gelatinous Cube -> RE: Ship Class Roles? (12/13/2011 6:07:55 AM)

When using AI Design (which is almost always for me) I use the different ship classes for maintenance reasons. Escorts aren't too good away from your main space-lanes, but frigates make good wolf-pack style escorts. I place small frigate fleets at all my gas stations, and use them to gang up on intruders. Cruisers I use for my main offensive fleets, and my main defensive fleets. Capital ships I use sparingly, or in offensive doom-stacks late-game.

Incidentally, the computer uses the different classes pretty much the same way. It's only impractical once you start designing your own ships, unless you want to design a bunch of different size ranges for different uses.



Keston -> Re: Ship Design AAR (12/13/2011 11:12:58 AM)

It would be odd if the classes exist but the AI uses them the same way (I assume treating them differenlty based on size/firepower) rather than prioritizing them based on class.





Gelatinous Cube -> RE: Re: Ship Design AAR (12/13/2011 11:15:47 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Keston

It would be odd if the classes exist but the AI uses them the same way (I assume treating them differenlty based on size/firepower) rather than prioritizing them based on class.





Right, that's what I meant. I see that that was kind of unclear. It seems to me that the AI differentiates between the different classes pretty well. It just doesn't build enough ships period, though.



Hattori Hanzo -> RE: Re: Ship Design AAR (2/17/2016 7:41:54 PM)

a very interesting thread, but the pictures are disappeared.. [&:]

without them, it's hard to understand the concepts and it loose 70% ot its potential utility.



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