For simplified game play, Brad has stated that we will be about to upgrade all of our ships within our influence. No need for shipyards. However, if you can upgrade all units at one time (via an upgrade feature), that will probably allow for the "bug" of upgrading front line ships that are out of your influence. Otherwise, you won't be able to upgrade all your ships at once, will you? That implementation will be interesting.

Realistically, the more ships that use the same components, the cheaper it is to maintain that component, by item. Economy of scale. So, if you have 1000 ships, all using Scanner Mark 1, that spare parts for Scanner Mark 1 would be very cheap, Maintenence wise. If you only have 10 ships with Scanner Mark 9, that will be some costly parts. Until you get nano-manufacturing and the ship can just take it's biowaste, toss it into a NanoVat, and have the nanites make the part for you.

Of course, realistically, the futher a ship is away from a supply point, the more costly it would be to maintain. So, 20 tiles out (using a 3 Range component ship) would cost you more to maintain... until, once again, you get Nano-facturing and then can make anything that they have the info (blueprint/patterns) for. Then maintenence costs drops to the same, wherever a ship is. And whatever its parts may be. So long as the ship can replicate it's own. Realistically speaking.

Is it worth it to have a game that goes so flat for maintenence and supply costs? Consider that you get nano-facturing in mid game in GC1 (and I don't see them dropping the tech out of GC2)... At worst, you'd need to upgrade your old ships to have a "NanoVat" to get the x1 cost (rather then what it was before).

What's the down side? Realistically speaking, if GC ships use some form of material for energy generation, then once they have Nanofacturing and the pattern/blueprint to that material, a ship no longer has range restrictions. It can supply itself with everything it needs, but trained crew. Unless you are using some form of manufactured crew members. Say, AI constructs in artificial/mechanical bodies (and we start off with exactly such a race! Wow! Let's steal their basic tech!). Now, you are only limited by communication (always instantaneous everywhere in GC; probably use quantum entanglement) and encryption standards. You don't want your enemies instructing your war fleets to decimate your own worlds or head out to Andromeda. However, using quantum entanglement communication devices, the enemy would never be able to send an order to your ships unless they capture your HQ's communication center. And if your enemy captures your HQ, you have bigger problems then your ships being told to head for the dephts of the universe.

Humm... so... realistically speaking, it doesn't take much in GC universe for you to get 0 cost ships with unlimited range, unlimited ammo, and unlimted crew. So, why bother with any cost? Realistically speaking, your Nano equipped ships could drop off a few "nano bombs" on convenient free mass (such as all those rogue planets, asteriods, and comets that we know are floating about, or just your enemy ships without their own nanotech), and replicate themselves. That would yield unlimited ships to attack your enemies. Whoops. That would blow out the game, wouldn't it? You'd have two strategies then... crush your opponents before they get NanoFacturing, or rush for NanoFacturing yourself, and then swarm your enemy. Doesn't sound fun, does it? No super transcendance victory. Just get Nano, and the game is done. NanoGendon! Drop nano bombs off to make fleet swarms, and run some nano "FTL" cruiser missiles at your opponents home worlds which are programmed to rebuild them, and everything on them, into your image (or an image specified by you).

I think we should leave reality out of it, and only consider what is fun. After all, FTL starships tends to blow the realism factor.

In the vein of "what is more fun", is it more fun to have the amount of ships you have linked to empire size/treasury, or based off a logistic tech number multiplied by galaxy size and world commonality? Should you need to research a higher level of logisitics tech to get more ships or shift some of your various worlds infrastructure over to money/logisitics generating structures to be able to afford more ships? Personally, either way works for me. But I think that making it purely a matter of money will allow for better scaling for all map sizes and world commonality. And it means that you are back to the old "bread or guns" decision... do you spend your money on domestic (bread) matters or on military (guns)? If you go into high tech ships with high maintenence costs, you won't have as much money available to pay for all those domestic items like entertainment networks, stadiums, etc etc etc (all those things to keep your people happy). And by going money, it means you can customize your fleet to your needs.... swarms of small, cheap craft, or a medium amount of mixed cost ships or a much smaller number of high cost big ships.

I have been thinking a lot about how to deal with custom ships in CG2 and wondering what the devs will do.

My thought is (with all respect toward the nascent logistics system) is to have a cost per military rating. Why? Well, if you have it per ship, you will have people looking to minimize costs through strange roundings up and down to maximize their fleet through odd loopholes. How? Well, why not take a freighter filled with every type of armor known to the universe and send it out with your fleet of fighters all equiped with one capital ship weapon? If that fleet costs less than a battleship with similar armor and weapons, you will use the fighters and ignore heavier vessels. Even if it does not, you might choose the fighters-and-a-freighter fleet since the fighters can be built on worlds without a starport.

Basically, the only sound way to deal with costs (that I see, at least) is to assign a military value (call it MV) to weapons and armor. Now, your fleets yearly cost is just MV*cost/MV. MV has another advantage: it is the absolute strength of the military for comparison purposes (think "Jane's All the Universe's Starships") where you can just examine one number ans see how navies stack up (though weapon and armor systems might not match up). It is just a much cleaner way of dealing with the cost/military effectiveness. This all needs to be elaborated, but if a freighter has 0 armor to start, after you add 20 of each type of armor to it to shield your light fighters (equiped with stupid amounts of weapons), each will have a sensible cost.

I am still leary of the 3 types of armor... why would anyone NOT make a shield craft for the expensive ships to hide behind? You won't lose firepower if they wipe your Brick class unarmed frieghter with shields, armor, and point defense systems to dust, so it will improve your military effectiveness in major conflicts quite a bit (since you get one extra round of shooting per MV).

The only issue I still have with this system is that you get a "Navy In A Box" (c) since you get a LOT more military production than you have any right realistically producing. You can imagine all these farmers on random Outer Rim worlds building these PT Boats designed to harry the capital ships of the invading navy... maybe it isn't such a bad idea after all. I just don't want to have to pilot the space fighter that Bubba produced in the barn.

...I think we should leave reality out of it, and only consider what is fun...

Agreed, but we just seem to have a different definition of "fun". I don't find it fun to have my ships automagically upgrade out in the middle of nowhere. Rather, that's taking fun away, and replacing it with cheese. It's just utter and complete cheese to have a fleet full of these lower technology component, and then you research something better, and then wham - your entire fleet is magically upgraded to a better technology. You may find that fun, but I find it ridiculously stupid. Sure, maybe it's easier, maybe it automates something that you don't want to do, but the key point is that it's not something that you HAVE to do. It's something you can CHOOSE to do. But it's not something that should be given to you free, without any cost whatsoever.

I disagree with you on the automated refitting of ships, Martin the Dane. If you don't want to take the effort to refit a ship, then it shouldn't get refitted......When a U.S. Navy ship is refitted, let's say when the battleships of the late 80's and 90's were refitted with missiles, that wasn't done at sea. They sent them to a shipyard, and made the upgrades. That's how refitting works.

Yes and the president calls up the captain of each ship in turn, and orders them to return to such and such shipyard for refitting Not likely, he will aprove of the new system and the refitt plan but that's it.

But I think you misunderstood me VagabondNomad, I do not suggest that ships should be refitted in deep space, (unless it just happend to be at a deep-space shipyard) what I'm sugesting is that once the player has aproved of a certain upgrade, he will not have to order each ship to go to a space-yard his admirals should be able to handle that. I want to make strategic desiccions I don't want to decide where to upgrade witch ships. I would actually like the ships to have some form of fuel, so that they could only stay away from a resupply base or supply ship for X turns based on the ships supply capacity. So after X turns the ship checks in at a base and if it's sceduled for upgrade, will stay untill the upgrade is completed.

But I can live with friendly space counting as a base or imposing less ware on the ships, and if you equip you ship with some advanced form of reactor, becoming available after a lot of research into resuply, energy, nanotech etc. they should be able to stay out indefinately, but not upgrade themselves, unless they have a spaceyard on board.

If a ship runs out of fuel they should be able to limp home, witch might take a looooooong time, and be quite riscky as you would never know witch gun or protective messure was worn out.

Agreed, but we just seem to have a different definition of "fun". I don't find it fun to have my ships automagically upgrade out in the middle of nowhere. Rather, that's taking fun away, and replacing it with cheese. Sure, maybe it's easier, maybe it automates something that you don't want to do, It's something you can CHOOSE to do. But it's not something that should be given to you free, without any cost whatsoever.

According to Brad... it won't be free or automatic. You will hit choose "Upgrade ship" for an individual ship (in your influence), or you will give an order at your Ship Designer screen to "Upgrade this model". There will be a *cost* to it. We don't know the exact formula that will be used, but we do know that there is a BC cost associated with it.

As I had said, most systems I've seen that do a global update, don't care if the unit is "currently available" for updating. That cheese, I presume, happens because of the designer's code. I'm presuming they are setting all units of type X were globally set to be type Y. Simple and easy. But what is needed is an implementation where having a multi-stage design where all valid updatable units of type X are upgraded, but the design still exists (just not visible to players) and the older units will auto-upgrade when they get into a valid position to do so. Once all those units have upgraded, then, and only then, the game can discard that "universally upgraded" design of unit X to the bit bucket.

If you only plan on your game being "active" for a year, I can see a project lead deciding to implement a simple global replace rather then something more complicated. A simple replace would take a few minutes to code. A multi-stage, non-cheesy system would take considerably longer. And it's not the sort of feature that is going to get you significant nods or high ratings, so there isn't a reason to bother wasting the extra time, when you are on a deadline.

That was my point I was alluding to about "universal" updates. But, this being Star Dock, they aren't tied to some publisher's deadline or schedule for GC2, are they? As long as you and a few other people gripe about cheesy upgrading during the beta, I think we have a chance at getting a non-cheesy implementation.

I can live with cheesy Universal Replacement if I have to, but I'd prefer something not so cheesy. If a ship isn't illegable for upgrading where it is, then a Universal Update/Replacement shouldn't work on it easier. Just one of those little details...

Martin... if you have nanofacturing, as you mention in passing, the a ship could upgrade itself in the field. If it has sufficent implemented nanotechnology and the data plans. It might need to go "offline" for a little while as it updates its components, but with sufficent informant and nanotech, they'd be able to upgrade in place. You just wouldn't want to be around that section while the nanites do their thing. They might decide you make a convenient source of raw material.

Just pointing it out. Of course, there could be reasons that HQ wouldn't want to give the actual technical details/nanite program instructions of how to convert an old style Star Explorer to a cutting edge super high tech Star Ranger. Like, someone on the crew taking the specs, deserting, and selling the instructions to space pirates (so they can buy old Star Explorers and/or their clones and making cheap Star Ranges for themselves). Or your enemy civs... which could find the details of how your implemented systems on the Star Ranger to be very interesting. Doesn't take much to make the government paranoids worry, after all.

Now, your fleets yearly cost is just MV*cost/MV.

I just want to point out, Esnoble, that your formula simplifies to just cost as the MV / MV = 1.

Secondly, I think everyone is confusing the scale of nano machines. Nano machines are by no means sub atomic, or even sub molecular. They have to be molecular in nature since they are made from strings of molecules. Now considering that, there is no way such a machine could be made to alter an atom, as it requires manipulating things millions of times smaller than it, namely the protons and nuetrons. (mostly the protons though) This isn't to say that such manipulations are impossible, just not by nanomachines. Nuclear reactions are how you change an atom from one kind into another, not nanomachines, and would be neccessary if you are doing as you say and transforming general stellar matter into heavier elements. Nano tech then is not the end all technology that Star Pilot envisioned when we really look at realism.

Remember, Total Realism does not always equal fun, but Total Unrealism can ruin a game when noone understands how or why anything works since it makes no sense as we see it. You have to strike a balance, and use some Selective Realism to base the gameplay on, so that people can both understand why what happened happened, and still have the fun they desired.

Zippo342, where on Earth do you get your information on nanotechnology from?

I do agree with you that nanomachines will not be able to alter atoms, but they will be able to alter molecules. You and I alter molecules every day, mostly in our intestines, blod and cells, sometimes we do it with our hands or tools, like a hammer, caserol, oven, or paintbrush, just to list a few.

One of the most promising aspects of nanomachines is making designer molecules. They themselves will most likely consist of designer molecules. Today we have no way of producing a lot of complicated molecules that theory says are possible and desirable, since we relly mostly on chemestry to produce those molecules.

I have seen three different nanomachine concepts.
One concept of nanoproduction of parts for larger machines is that you have a bunch of nanomachines crawling or swimming around in or on some raw material building whatever they are programed to. When they all work together you end up with the desired product. Another is a printer like system, where a grid of programable nanomachines have the raw material on one side, and atom by atom builds the product on the other side of the grid. Finally there is a concept where teh nanite builds copies of itself from som raw material, and then all those nanites are programed to turn themselves into the finished product.

Time will tell witch of these will be the most convinient, I think it will be a combination.

You can read more about nanorobots at wikipedia.org

Isn't this whole nano-bot discussion a bit off topic? No offense, but I'd like to keep the discussion focused on ship numbers in GC2

When a U.S. Navy ship is refitted, let's say when the battleships of the late 80's and 90's were refitted with missiles, that wasn't done at sea.

I have two reactions to this:

1). Some refits can be done at sea, simpler ones to be sure. It is only a matter of getting the materials to the ship.

2). Space forces a different "reality"; that of time and distance. In space you need a crew that can handle upgrades and inovations where they are. When returning to a space dock could take months or years and the lives of your crew are at stake, you have to be able to do more massive upgrades than todays ships need. This also means, in many cases, they would have to fabricate the materials where they are. (This is one of many problems that may have to be solved by our real world scientists before interstellar travel can be achieved.)

3). Some sort of technology (something early in the game) could be required to permit deep space upgrading of ships, perhaps "transmuters"?

You are right VagabondNomad, nanotech in it self has nothing to do with the number of ships, might influence the maintanence of those ships though, so if we .......
Just let me have all the ships my economy and population can handle, and don't pose some artificial restrictions on them. If we have to have limits on the total number of ships, let it be a case of dimishing reurn, so that at some point adding one new ship to the fleet will cost to much to be worth it.

Zippo, you are unfamiliar with the common elements of space? Hydrogen, Helium, Carbon, Iron, and Oxygen? So you disagree that nano-machines, cannot operate on atoms and molecules? That's what they are already operating on.

Reasonable nanotechnologists expect to be able to custom build atoms.... note that, atoms, not molecules! If you can make any atom you want, then starting material because meaningless, other then total mass, and how long it will take to get what you want out of the other end of the process. And, I think it should be noted that GC1 includes matter transmuter techs. So again, even if reality won't permit it (and it wouldn't be the first time "experts" were wrong about what is and will be possible), it isn't applicable as a hard stop for the game framework we are discussing. The game itself provides the fantasy-science to ignore inconveniences of reality.

I'm all for letting the ship number limitation to be tied directly to your economy. If the cost to maintain is generated well (some price based on total cost to build), it should scale well over map size as well as game time. The longer you play, the more you advance your economy, the more ships you can have. The more you cram into a ship, the more it costs, and the less total number of that ship design you can afford to keep. That's seems reasonable and shouldn't ruin any fun.

According to Brad... it won't be free or automatic. You will hit choose "Upgrade ship" for an individual ship (in your influence), or you will give an order at your Ship Designer screen to "Upgrade this model". There will be a *cost* to it. We don't know the exact formula that will be used, but we do know that there is a BC cost associated with it.

This sounds like a reasonable compromise to me, it doesn't create alot of extra micromanagement but is certainly more interesting (dare I say realistic) than the magical mystery upgrades of GC1. Depending on how large fleets will become in GC2, sending ships manually to a spacedock could be a chore, but a simple "upgrade this one right here" option cuts out most of the tedious work.

My only question there is, will a ship be instantly upgraded (once the upgrade is commissioned), or will it be 'out of commission' for a few turns while refitting? Instant upgrade would be easier to manage, but it would involve the ship's Magician working another magic trick.

When returning to a space dock could take months or years and the lives of your crew are at stake, you have to be able to do more massive upgrades than todays ships need. This also means, in many cases, they would have to fabricate the materials where they are.

1. What difference does it make whether you send your single ship-to-be-refitted back to the shipyard, or you send all the stuff from the shipyard to the ship-to-be-refitted? It seems sending the single shipt to the shipyard would be astronomically more efficient.

2. Regarding the possibility of procuring the materials in deep space, this seems highly improbable, unless an entire task force of industrial ships are present in your fleet. You'd need huge capital ships capable of mining and refining, as well as factory ships capable of producing the necessary components. Not to mention a mobile shipyard capable of framing up the ship as the refit takes place. At this point, you essentially have a self-sufficient, mobile colony, which would have to be highly expensive to build out - not impossible mind you - but very expensive. Once built, it should be able to produce enough materials to maintain a fleet of a certain size, depending on the ratio of industrial capacity to ships being maintained in the fleet. In any battle, such industrial ships would be prime targets, as they should be weakly armed and armored since their primary role is industrial output. This idea is plausible, but a civilization should have the economic wherewithall and industrial capacity to buildout and deploy only a small handful of these industrial task forces.

Bringing this all back to ship numbers in GC2, again, I would prefer that the maintenance cost for ships in GC2 be fairly high so that the game doesn't end up with civilizations wielding thousands of ships. Not only would having huge numbers of ships diminish the cool factor you feel when you deploy a new ship, but it would also seem to be leading down the dark path of micromanagement hell. A smaller number of ships should be economically feasible, while also allowing the full array strategic options. Personally, I feel this number is in the ballpark of the low hundreds - I prefer around 100. Again, not a hard limit, but that number could be the number of ships that your civilization could support without going into debt, after your highest level of economic/industrial output has been researched. Obviously you could run deficity in the short term if you needed a larger fleet, provided you had the available funds.

Running a deficity to temporarily to support a larger fleet than you could normally afford brings up the question of mothballing ships for later use. They would still cost a little bit of money to keep them maintained, but it would be far more economical than paying for active ships.

And of course, having mothballed fleets could lead to diplomatic negotiations about arms control, etc, which could be kind of fun. For example, Civ A, who you've had strained relations with, says, "Look, let's east tensions between our two civilizations. If you scrap 20 of your class-D destroyers, we'll scrap 12 of our class-C cruisers". Think of the START arms control agreements.

Just some ideas.

Guys, my point was not regarding the inability of nanomachines to alter molecules, but the ability of them being able to produce heavier atoms needed in higher technology. For example, star ship fuel would likely need some very heavy atoms, like radioactives, in order to operate (or anti-matter.) Neither is in much abundance in general human waste, or anywhere in the universe. Such things need to be made synthetically in a lab using nuclear reactions or found in naturally occurring phonomena that don't occur just anywhere. Also, elements like iron,while they are found in human waste, would be found in very small quantities. Certainly not enough to rebuild a block of armor for a ship, and would likely be needed for recycling into more food for the crew as the human body needs such elements returned to it.