Ship caps? - A backstory theory...

[Voodoomancer]

So, I've been thinking about this, and came up with an idea/theory that explains why you'd have a limited number of ships of each type.

My theory/idea is that all your ships are remotely controlled. The pilots sit in the Home planet command center and pilot them in virtual cockpits (also explains the ludicrous acceleration/trajectory changes some of the ships pull off).

So you have a limited number of pilots available trained to fly each type of ship. When a ship blows up, the pilot just relaxes until you build
a new one for him to fly.


Anyway, it's just a thought I felt like sharing. For the sake of discussion, do you have any thoughts on the game's backstory?

[x4000]

My theory/idea is that all your ships are remotely controlled. The pilots sit in the Home planet command center and pilot them in virtual cockpits (also explains the ludicrous acceleration/trajectory changes some of the ships pull off).

So you have a limited number of pilots available trained to fly each type of ship. When a ship blows up, the pilot just relaxes until you build
a new one for him to fly.

Nice!! I really like that backstory, actually, and it does fit beautifully.  I tend to think of the ships as remotely-controlled also (which fits into how parasites, etc, work), so this would really fit completely well, also.

[HellishFiend]

And obviously the powerful subspace piloting terminals can only be operated out of a home command station, which is why you lose when they're destroyed. 

[Voodoomancer]

And obviously the powerful subspace piloting terminals can only be operated out of a home command station, which is why you lose when they're destroyed. 

Indeed 

[deMangler]

I seem to invent a different backstory fo each game, with corresponding in-game reasons for things like ship caps.
In my current game the reason for the cap is because each autonomous unit requires a certain amount of bandwidth from channels used by the AI, therefore the numbers need to be kept below the threshold of the AI traffic-control alert thingies.
In my last game it was because of a need to have a human commander over a certain number of autonomous units to limit the damage should the units decide to 'rebel' and join the AI....
dM

[Kordy]

Limited amount of pilots commanding ships over space, with starships and other command centers to relay information between the ships and pilots themselves, for me. This also ties in with starship caps, because you have only so much crew to man them (and train new ones while one is away). Also explains the build times, though not so much in the engineering sense.

I have no idea about turret caps, though. Maybe their targeting systems require some terrabytes of memory and every turret is only equipped with a pentium II or something?

[Captain Cake]

My favorite explanation for ships caps is that you have a certain number of pilot "memories" stored and you produce clones for those memories to inhabit. When you produce a new ship you also create an instance of that pilot/crew to fly it, however do to the psychological stress of the process it is deemed "unsafe" (ominous!) so it only allows one instance of each pilot at a time. The caps are where they are at because of finite storage for these memories (keeping in mind many ships have more than 1 crew member) and the best determinable combination of pilots was stored for humanity's final push. This also explains your special ship selection at the beginning of each game, those pilots were set aside as a wildcard to help improve your odds.

Since all AI ships are, well, AI controlled when you capture a research station or advanced factory you gain the appropriate  knowledge to be able to remote control a small portion of those ships without needed a crew. Or maybe remote control pilots residing on your home station, after patching into a small bit of the AI network (assisted by the capture of fabricator, ARS and advanced factories).

I have no idea about turret caps, though. Maybe their targeting systems require some terrabytes of memory and every turret is only equipped with a pentium II or something?

Clearly all the processing for the turret fire control is done by your home station and it only has so much available processing power to deal with the appropriate turret caps. Other command stations that you build just work as a relay to the whole system, which is why your caps don't go up as you build more command stations. This is also why you lose only if you lose your home station, all of the pilot memories and processing power comes from there, so you've got nothing you can do aside from hope for the best of your fleets thats now abandoned in the middle of space.

[Kordy]

So we can produce multi-million dollar worth of spaceships, but not cpu's?

Actually, that gives me an idea. High cost, low maintenance Turret bandwidth increase modules that allows you to build 1/2 more turrets, and each module goes 1/2^x, rounded down to 1, so you get a limited amount in the end.