What ship design in Galciv 2 lacks

Take some inspiration from MOO2

from GalCiv2 Forums
This is an idea I've had for a long time, but since playing MOO2 recently and remembering just how important it was to my ship design choices, I thought I should post about it before it slipped my mind again.

In my opinion, besides things like special abilities which aren't really *that* important, one important thing MOO2 has over GC2 is the ability to place extra items on a ship beyond what it is normally allowed. You can research miniaturization, but that's about it.

That's one aspect of MOO2 I really liked, that you could spend extra for Battle Pods and increase your available space by 50% while also increasing price significantly, or not use battle pods and get a more budget-oriented sensible ship design.

It gave you the feeling like you have the flexibility to be a "Zerg" design philosophy race, with lots of cheap small ships, or an "Borg" design, with fewer but massively powerful ships.

I think this could be implemented in GC2 by allowing extra items to be added beyond the ship's capacity limit but at an exponential cost increase.

So let's assume you've got a ship with 100 hull capacity, an engine that uses 20 capacity and costs 20 credits, and a weapon that uses 10 capacity and costs 10 credits. If you want to be sensible you could have 2 engines and 6 guns. Or you might want a fast harassment ship, 4 engines and 2 guns. All of these would cost 100 credits to produce. Or maybe just 3 engines and no weapons at all for a cheap disposable scout at only 60 credits.

But on the other side of the spectrum, you could also have a few "Guardian" ships, the flagships of your fleet, which have 3 engines and 14 guns. That's 60 capacity for the engines and 140 for the guns, doubling the ship's stated capacity, but at great cost. For every percent of components placed over the 100 limit, the price of all the components rises by 1%. There would be an absolute limit at some point, maybe double the original capacity. In the case I just presented, the ship would cost 400 credits (60 for the engines, 140 for the guns, multiplied by 2 because you are at 200% capacity.

Balance-wise, if the cost isn't enough (but remember you're taking a ship that requires 15 weeks to build and making it into a ship that requires 60 weeks to build), you could also increas the logistics points a given ship uses based on how much over the capacity limit it is. Maybe have it be something like, "take the percentage over capacity a ship is, divide it by 10, and add that to the logistics. Always round up."

So a ship which costs 5 logistics would cost 15 if you made it into one of these hero units. Maybe you just want a little extra capacity, like 10% more, then it's 6 logistics. This doesn't really seem fair to the smaller ships...

Maybe something more like, this, take an arbitrary number for each hull class and multiply that by [percentage over capacity divided by 10 always rounded up], add this to the unit's original logistics point requirement.

So tiny ships might be 0.25
Small ships 0.5
Medium ships 1
Large ships 1.5
Huge ships 2

Examples: (sorry I forget what the base logistics points are, bear with me, this is only an example)

Tiny fighter armed to the teeth and with fast engines, at 200% capacity.
Formula is 3 + [0.25[100/10]] = 6 (5.5 rounded up)

A small ship at 150% capacity.
Formula is 5 + [0.5[50/10]] = 8 (7.5 rounded up)

A medium ship is at 170% capacity.
Formula is 7 + [1[70/10]] = 14

A large ship that is at 110% capacity.
Formula is 10 + [1.5[10/10]] = 12

A huge ship that is at 200% capacity. Run for your puny lives.
Formula is 15 + [2[100/10]] = 35

These are the best balancing ideas I could come up with as I was writing this post, I'm sure you clever Stardock guys can come up with much better.

This way you could turn your "Terran Flaghip" into a real Flaghip. You would have a lot more flexibility in ship design and wouldn't get stuck needing to research another level of miniaturization because you need just a little more space. You could make real hero units that might survive the entire game, the units you guard your homeworld with. The units that could allow you to actually fight toe to toe with a technologically superior enemy if your strength was primarily economic, etc.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
btw, I recently noticed that there is a "Free Orion" in the mold of FreeCiv (freeware version of SM's Civilization II) and FreeCol (freeware version of SM's Colonization). Given the other games are excellent I expect/hope FreeOrion would also be. however, I have not actually downloaded or tried it. anyone?

sorry to hijack your thread. interesting.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I tried FreeOrion a little while back, so far there's not much to see and they haven't announced much progress since then.

It sounds like a great project but I'm starting to wonder if they'll ever finish.

Back on topic, I think that besides the added flexibility, this idea would add something much more important and interesting. I mentioned it briefly at the bottom of my original post... If you were an economic superpower with crappy military research, you could still fight a fair fight with a warmongering superpowered race. Basically the game would allow another style of play...

This way you could be a race with great diplomacy and economy, and not also be the race everyone gangs up on just because you haven't spent 75% of your cash on weapons research.

It's also kind of more realistic (the R word, sorry). In the real world the "absolute limits" of a ship or tank is flexible depending on how much you're willing to spend. If you've got the cash for it, make the whole thing out of titanium rather than steel, it will weigh less and allow you to increase its weapon loadout, that kind of thing. You can have two naval vessels which have identical sizes but completely different weapons capabilities because nation A can afford the best while nation B has to settle for what they can get their hands on.

Any Stardock guys or gals reading this? As a part-time amateur game developer, when I make suggestions for others' projects I try to make sure they are those magic kinds of improvements that are easy to do but have a big payoff. I think this is one of those. You'd just need to modify the interface slightly and adjust some formulas, and I'm sure Stardock's legendary AI programmers can handle making the AI know how to decide whether to go for tonnage or cost-effectiveness.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It gave you the feeling like you have the flexibility to be a "Zerg" design philosophy race, with lots of cheap small ships, or an "Borg" design, with fewer but massively powerful ships.
End of quote


Already implemented.

Huge ships = crippling maintenance and cost = powerful but few;

Tiny ships = cheap and not costly for maintenace = weak but THE HORDE IS COMING!

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Already implemented.Huge ships = crippling maintenance and cost = powerful but few;Tiny ships = cheap and not costly for maintenace = weak but THE HORDE IS COMING!
End of quote


Not quite correct. It IS currently implemented in TA, via the hull point modules. They allow you to add extra HP to your ships at very little cost to the space on your ship (the typical hull point module is about 3 space, with no sizemod whatsoever, and gives you 5 extra HP... even better ones exist). However, they cost 10bc per hitpoint that they add... the net result is that any ship using them is going to be more powerful, but much more expensive as well.

Unless a change is made to the game, ship sizes have have not and will not provide the mechanic you're looking for, since they are both more powerful per unit AND more cost effective.

I started a thread on the topic a while back... there was some interesting discussion there, if anyone is interested:
https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=421&aid=177106
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


net result is that any ship using them is going to be more powerful, but much more expensive as well
End of quote


since they are both more powerful per unit AND more cost effective
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Not sure how these two sentences fit.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Not sure how these two sentences fit.
End of quote


They don't. The first refers to hitpoint boosting modules, the second refers to ship sizes.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm aware that we have multiple hull sizes, that's not what this is about, and I'm not talking about a mod but an actual change to the original game. It's a suggestion for SD.

@starstriker I don't know anything about the mod you're talking about, but it doesn't sound comparable to what the OP is about. The idea can be summed up in 4 ways:

1) If you have a ship with 10 hull points and an engine with 5 space required and a gun with 6 space required, it doesn't mean you have to choose one or the other. You can have both, but at a 10% overall cost increase for the hull itself (as it is 1 point or 10% over capacity) as well as all the modules. So in that way it would eliminate something I consider a little troublesome about ship design.

2) Ability to make super-powered ships at a great cost increase, ala Moo2's Orion Guardian. You can have a ship with 100% capacity at 100% cost or a ship with 200% capacity at 400% cost. This adds a lot of design flexibility, you're not forced to research advanced miniaturization tech which is prohibitively time-consuming during much of a typical game. Beyond the first couple of levels, you're better off researching better weapons unless you have large or huge hulls since the payoff isn't enough to make up for falling behind in other areas of research like colonization.

3) Ability for a strong-economy empire to build ships on par with a strong-military empire. If you're a star federation with all the economy tech, a high income pick, and some starbases, you aren't automatically going to lose a war if it comes to fighting. That's way oversimplifying it, I know. I like the idea of an empire that's not penalized for being peace-loving. It would make this style of play a lot more viable.

4) Finally, it's relatively simple to add from a coding standpoint. This isn't a typical "let's add cloaking devices" or "let's add tactical ship combat" or "let's have 3D movement" idea from someone who doesn't realize how much work would be involved. I wouldn't post something unless I thought it was maximum benfit with minimum work - those are the best kinds of ideas and unfortunately in my experience they also seem to be the least common.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@starstriker I don't know anything about the mod you're talking about, but it doesn't sound comparable to what the OP is about.
End of quote


The "mod" I'm talking about is Twilight of the Arnor, the next expansion pack for the game. I am pointing out that TA's new hull point module does allow the mechanic you are desiring (more powerful ships at an inflated cost), even if it is in a different way.

That said, I do kind of like your idea, but I'd only consider it viable if there was an upper limit as well as the cost inflation. Otherwise, it would be far too open to exploitation... after all, you can still quickbuy the ship with a thousand lasers on it if your treasury is in the black, even if it saddles your empire with an irrepayable debt. Besides, there's a canonical reason for the limit as well... there's only so far you can miniturize your stuff, no matter how much cash you throw at it.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Oh, TA=Twilight of the Arnor. I don't really know a lot about the exansion, tbh.... I intend to buy it immediately on release, but I don't really want to ruin my impression by playing the unfinished version.

Yes, certainly there must be an upper limit. I said a couple times I thought 200% should be as high as was allowed, I think. Or maybe I didn't, I just never made any examples above 200%. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

In any case even if that wasn't the hard limit, I don't think you should be allowed at any time to build a ship that is larger than your maximum fleet logistics at the time.

On another subject, maybe you can enlighten me about why Stardock allows people to buy things that are far far beyond their economy? As you say, I can build a 200-turn megabattleship and turn the tide of an entire war even as the game is now, even if I have exactly 1 bc and the ship will cost me 20,000. I'd almost conclude it was an oversight except that it's so easy to do and it's been in every PC iteration of Galciv to date. It's not something I've seen in any other game.

I think one of the catalysts for writing this post was a recent DA game I played, where I was technically superior to all my adversaries mainly because I wasn't wasting much of my income on a military. I had 4 "light cruiser" (roughly precursor avatar) fleets at the corners of my empire and a big enough treasury I could buy a couple more fleets if need be. A single one of my ships could've stopped several fleets from low-tech neighbours, and I had some of my "AWACS" ships scattered around (cargo hull, a million sensors and a couple engines), so I felt prepared for just about anything.

Wasn't prepared for two things. First, mega event happens, reduces the speed of ALL my ships to 5. Almost simultaneously, several of my neighbours decide to pay me a visit with speed 5 heavy troop transports. Well, I'm pretty advanced ground-warfare wise, but that only means they lose a couple extra transports per planet (I mean, there were about 30 transports in all).

I'm rushing around trying to save my planets, but I lose one of them and my now-divided fleets of 2 ships each are beginning to wear down. If I continue to fight with them I'll lose the second ship in each fleet because the HP is wearing down slowly.

So I decide to rush build my crazy-powerful battleship fleet. About 150 defense, 50 attack on each one, to my opponents' average 80 defense, 100 attack, 8-ship fleets.

Guess what happens? First planet those AIs attacked held my "super miniaturization" unit. All my ships are now slighly beyond my building capacity....

I still won the war, I still flattened all their worlds, but it finally convinced me to post the idea.