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Ari

Join Date 04/2006

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Novice Poster - Created 5 Posts

What's the point of saving ship designs?

OK, the obvious 'duh' answer: because then you can use them in the next game.

That's great, but the next time I get to the point where I can build "nova 3's" (or whatever) I might have a better drive technology, which means that I could make the exact same ship, but with an extra pc/wk. Or I might have more miniaturization compared with when I initially designed the ship, and so I could cram more weapons/engines/range into the hull. So the "nova 3's" would be as bad as the pre-made ship designs. Given the way ship components miniaturize as they advance, it's unlikely that you'd want to build the *exact* same ship ever again. So what's the point in saving any ship from game to game? If I seriously kept all ship designs, in a few games I'd have dozens of incarnations of colony ships, constructors, fighters, etc, and most would be way underpowered for my current tech level. I've only played half a dozen or so games, so I'm pretty new to this still. Is there some aspect to ship design I'm completely missing?

On a slightly different note, as far as I can see, there's no way to take a design, and when my miniaturization gets better, start with that design as a template for an upgrade. This would make re-designing ships soooo much easier each time I get better drive/weapon/miniaturization technology. Does this exist and I'm simply not seeing it?

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Fixed in 1.1. There's a new game option that lets you keep functional components when upgrading ships, so you can swap out parts without redesigning it from scratch.

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To be honest, I don't see the point of saving 'full' designs. I've begun saving 'templates', empty versions of my neat and kewl ship designs - but saving the fully-armed and equipped ships is nuts. It's unlikely you'll ever be in exactly the same economic and technological situation again, so you'll want to tweak it anyway. Tweak = lose all your guns etc... so why save them at all?

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Absolutely agree. I clean out ships directory every game. They need an option for this. Perhaps a check mark that you can click if you want a ship available in future games as well. (just the jewelry.)

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Pnakotus, that's a good idea, saving templates. I have yet to create any really beautiful ships, but some folks have, and there's a forum topic on that somewhere. Really, really beautiful ships. Personally, I try to create the ugliest, most unbalanced looking ships possible, but that's not easy either.

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Well, I find that saving designs is most useful for initial scouts (cargo hulls with lots of engines), initial colonizers (cargo hulls with a colony pod and lots of engines), and initial constructors (cargo hulls with 1 construction module and... can you guess? Lots of engines!).

I also find its helpful to name ships what they are (that is, to name a ship "Imp3 Sting2 Min1". It makes for a bit of clutter, but if I keep my playstyle consistent, its not so bad.

For races like the Yor (which have a miniaturization bonus, but share ship types with other races), you may want to put a single letter in there designating which race it is.

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Or you can do what i do, play in tactical view....and you won't give a hoot what your ships look like.

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I save templates.

I have made some cool organic looking ships.

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I finally found the option that lets you keep functional components. Why on earth is that *off* by default (and the "keep turns from auto moving" option being off by default, but that's a different gripe)? Even this is pretty clunky, though, since when you upgrade, you'll want to strip most of those functional components anyway as your tech gets better (which is why you upgraded in the first place). I like the idea of creating templates. Otoh, if I make "cargo+trade", I'll still need to meddle with engines/support each time I get one, and if I add those, templates become useless.

Sigh.

Ooooo, one last gripe: why on earth is everything in the game sorted alphabetically rather than by type? It drives me nuts to hunt through a list of ships merely because my small ship was named "alpha," say, in one game, and "spear" in another. And in the social production list, it's crazy to have the order change throughout the game.

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Ooooo, one last gripe: why on earth is everything in the game sorted alphabetically rather than by type? It drives me nuts to hunt through a list of ships merely because my small ship was named "alpha," say, in one game, and "spear" in another. And in the social production list, it's crazy to have the order change throughout the game.

which is why i resorted to bland functional naming system for my ship:

[hull style][hull type] [ship function] [cheap variant/power variant] [version number]

e.g.

dLg def chp 03 (drengin design, largu hull, planet defender class, i.e. no engines, cheap weaponry, 3rd iteration)

cheap variant is when i use standard weaponry. power variant is when i use the uber-powerful-but-costly superweapons.

this naming convention allows easier sorting of my designs. i have to prefix single digit version numbers with 0 to prevent version 10 and over to be listed between version 1 and 2.

but then, i rarely build obsoleted designs, so prolly i would be better off deleting the old ones after i upgrade it.

an idea, slightly different from galagher's, is having on the save design dialog, a checkbox option to delete/obsolete the original design that you are basing your upgrade from. the checkbox will remember its last setting, until you change it again.

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I do something similar to the above- I've saved hulls that've been stripped of all functional components. That way I can go in, upgrade them, and have them fit watever design I want. I don't need a lot of different hulls, just some basic ones that I can differentiate between.

For instance, I've got only one ship design for the Tiny and Small ship classes, but I have three for the Cargo class. Why? Because I'm not likely to follow multiple weapon/defense paths in one game, unless I go up against somebody who requires it. And if I do, I'll adapt all my ships to that new line. If my opponent's got me in a situation that I need to go from, say, missiles to beam weapons, then there's no point in leaving a bunch of missile ships sitting around.

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