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Ship Design - 11/11/2011 5:28:41 AM

balto

Posts: 1123
Joined: 3/4/2006
From: Maryland
Status: offline

I have played about 20+ hours on DW. Am I correct to be greatly disappointed in the AUTOMATED SHIP DESIGN.

I started following up with the latest designs and I found that TONS of weapons I had researched were not loaded into the AUTO designs, especially the small ships.., such as AREA WEAPONS, ION, FIGHTER BAYS, extra FUEL cells, etc.., I could go on. And there is plenty of space for expansion. That really slows things down (micro-manage) but to me, it seems unavoidable. Also, once you click of the AUTO DESIGN, you have to keep manually updating whenever there is new Research. Any feedback on this?

Post #: 1

RE: Ship Design - 11/11/2011 5:36:26 AM

HectorOfTroy

Posts: 312
Joined: 1/9/2011
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At first I played with auto-design on and I didn't find it too bad. There are some people that have been playing DW for years with auto-design on.

I believe with auto-design on you get all the latest designs on your ships. Plus, auto-design will not put some huge, capital-type weapons on ships like Escorts. To achieve that you have to do it yourself.

But IMO auto-design is pretty good at what it does, gives you fairly good attack/defense designs. If you want like 40x shatter-force lasers on your Escort then you have to do it yourself.

(in reply to balto)

Post #: 2

RE: Ship Design - 11/11/2011 5:38:56 AM

balto

Posts: 1123
Joined: 3/4/2006
From: Maryland
Status: offline

How about Private Ships? Does anyone load them with Area Weapons and some Shields?

(in reply to HectorOfTroy)

Post #: 3

RE: Ship Design - 11/11/2011 5:41:12 AM

HectorOfTroy

Posts: 312
Joined: 1/9/2011
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You can if you want, but I don't play with private ships design.

Mate, just visit the war room section and search through it, there are plenty of ship design topics there.

(in reply to balto)

Post #: 4

RE: Ship Design - 11/11/2011 2:00:04 PM

Nedrear

Posts: 702
Joined: 10/29/2011
Status: offline

I always mess with the private ships. Either to boost their speed by sacrificing maintenace and shielding them. I also got three high build transporters. Only difference is the speed and cargo. The bigger the slower. But they can "transport" the hell out of you. Quick or in quantity.

So yes please mess with the private sector. If you got large colony ways mess with their speed and fuel tanks and give some storage away. If you are oftne attacked give them enough shields to jump away... etc. The AI can not "calculate" your current empire outlay. Thats your job!

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(in reply to HectorOfTroy)

Post #: 5

RE: Ship Design - 11/11/2011 2:10:41 PM

Bingeling

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline

I would not tell people how to play the game. The game plays just fine with ship design on auto. If the designer really bugs you, like designing 403 size cruisers when your shipyard is 400 size, you can of course edit and make a custom cruiser you can build by removing something less important (troop compartments is high on my list).

Or compensate by building an armada of destroyers until you research large enough construction yards.

(in reply to Nedrear)

Post #: 6

RE: Ship Design - 11/11/2011 2:57:58 PM

Canute0

Posts: 616
Joined: 4/30/2010
From: Germany
Status: offline

Auto-Design is just an Auto-Update of the current Design's you made.
Auto-Desgin don't mean the AI design the best possible Designs with your current techs, thats YOUR job.
You have to choose what Strategie you want for your Military and private ships/Stations. The AI just try to keep them Up to date.

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 7

RE: Ship Design - 11/11/2011 3:29:07 PM

Bingeling

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Joined: 8/12/2010
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The AI designer ignores your design and does its thing. Which is different for each race. The choice of components is unpredictable by my judgement. Basically they are like:

A destroyer has:

2 reactor
4 lasers
2 torpedoes
..
..
..

Which is the reason why the stupid AI can design cruisers that are just a tiny bit too large to be built. Some component got a new version that was slightly larger than the old one.

So it is a little annoying until you got large enough yards for any cruiser the AI wants to build. Apart from that it is serviceable, and it gives a different flavor to playing different races. At times cruiser version can shift in and out of buildable state depending on things like the current torpedo version of choice.

The game does not support mixing human and AI design well, and this would be a very nice spot for improvements. Screenshots have shown unmodified ship design tools, which is a bit sad, but the old ones works. Kind of. Especially left to the AI.

(in reply to Canute0)

Post #: 8

RE: Ship Design - 11/12/2011 1:50:13 AM

balto

Posts: 1123
Joined: 3/4/2006
From: Maryland
Status: offline

Canute,

If it did that, it would be great. But it does not.

As stated above, as I add on logical enhancements (Countermeasures, Targetting, Extra Fuel, Area Weapon, whatever), then I put it on Auto.., the AI just wipes all of my work out.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but if the AI could somehow not screw with I put on, and yet still do what it thinks is best, than that would be great.

So the problem is, if I make my own ships.., the micromanagement of that skyrockets throughout the entire scenario.

< Message edited by balto -- 11/12/2011 1:51:18 AM >

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 9

RE: Ship Design - 11/12/2011 7:59:24 AM

Bingeling

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline

There are two different things.

One is leaving ship design to the AI. It does its thing and ignore your designs.

The other is pressing the button called "upgrade" or something in the design screen. This will replace the components in the design with the newest ones, and up the version number of the design by one.

The second is useful, but only as a start for the new design, as the newest version is not always the better. There may be a good reason why you want a certain hyperdrive/laser/torpedo, and others may be researched because they are required for upgrades.

(in reply to balto)

Post #: 10

RE: Ship Design - 11/12/2011 9:15:24 AM

Wicky

Posts: 102
Joined: 4/1/2010
From: Linz, Austria
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: balto
So the problem is, if I make my own ships.., the micromanagement of that skyrockets throughout the entire scenario.

The solution is, if you create a new game with tech maxed out (everything researched)
Ok then design your best ships and save the whole into a blueprints-database.
When you start a new game and load up the designs, it will simply not be able to add advanced components, but you can still build ships without them, just using the techs you have researched.
This way you start with a "finished" design that comes as close as possible to "what you still have to research" (<- note the double wildcard "*" expression

)

Disclaimer: It's genius' proof if you don't forget, that ship sizes are down to 230 at the beginning of a game.

Instructions on loading up saved blueprints:
1) open the design screen
2) select show all designs and declare them all obsolete
3) click load designs
and you're done.

< Message edited by Wicky -- 11/12/2011 9:30:14 AM >

(in reply to balto)

Post #: 11