Suggestion on Unit cap

[EaglePryde]

I know the unit cap serves a great purpose.

But would it hurt if there would be stuctures we could build that increase the cap?

We could have structures that increase ship cap. Structures that increase def. structures cap..and so on..

Such structures could be easily destroyed that would again lower the cap.

This would balance games if the AI would be able to retake and rebuild systems (idea from another thread) imho.

[x4000]

That question basically gets into this: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Design_Complexity#Why_Does_The_Game_Force_Variety_On_The_Player.3F

And also a bit this: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Lack_Of_Ship_Upgrades

In short: players would use that sort of thing to just build more of their favorite stuff, and leave the other tools languishing.  Having upgradable ship caps is not likely to be part of the main game, though you can use multi planet starts if you really want a larger cap.  Not that that is what you were asking for, I know, but for anyone else reading any wondering.

Hope that helps!

[EaglePryde]

Yes i was reading those and i do get the point.

Just wanted to throw a suggestion in here because i've played some games where you could raise the cap a bit but no by much because there was a hard cap to it where the player couldn't become allmighty.
I though something like this would fit into the picture IF the AI where to be able to retake and rebuild systems in the future. But maybe there are better ways to balance such things.

The game as it is is challeging and fun and i assume you are aiming to let it be that way what is a very good idea. 

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, structures and other ways to boost ship caps have been suggested since back in June I think

It's one of those tricky areas of the design, but the per-type-per-tech-level caps are one of the biggest wins design-wise in the game, in my opinion, as they single-handedly solve some pretty big and longstanding problems in the RTS genre.

I do have a few ideas that will allow a bit of min/max-ing similar to the Riot Starships (where you can make them all super-ff-bearers if you like, or all shotgun-wielding kneecappers-of-doom, etc, or use a balanced mix), as it's nice to have a variety of ways (including the main knowledge-unlock mechanic) to "specialize" one's forces without it becoming a "I only build one ship type" situation.  But those ideas have to be thought through and implemented pretty gradually.

[HitmanN]

I know the unit caps have been discussed to no end, but I'll throw in another suggestion regarding that.

What if there was a limit to the number of ship cap increases, and/or such building wouldn't be constructable by the player.

For instance, roughly one out of ten AI planets could have a special structure you could capture (just like ARS, etc), and it would either randomly (I like the idea of random, because it brings in that variance AI War is good with. ) increase the build cap of one of the player's available ship types by a certain amount, like maybe 20%, or the player could choose the ship type which cap to increase.

This would allow some variance in ship caps for each game, but wouldn't really be enough to make other ships obsolete, unless the player has some mad luck and gets same ship's cap increased multiple times, which in itself would be very unlikely, considering the number of ship types often available.

[ShadowOTE]

A better suggestion: capturable "supply depots" that give the players a boost to their ship cap when captured (say, 10-15%), attract AI attention similar to human colonies, and increase the amount of ships or reinforcements points given to the AI guard posts on the planet (ie, either a higher AI ship cap on the planet, or a bonus to how amount of ships the planet gets when reinforced.

[HitmanN]

So basically, this structure/ship,

in control of AI:
-increased ship cap or reinforcements

in control of Player:
-increased ship cap (to one ship type?)
-AI attraction

Sounds reasonable and makes sense that whoever owns it gets a cap/reinforcement bonus.

I prefer the idea of a ship cap increase of at least 20% though. Mainly for the reason that some ship types have low caps already. With like 10% increase, you'd get three more ships of a type with normal cap of 30. That feels about as much as... nothing.

[ShadowOTE]

Yup, and with a random chance of spawning at most one or two on any size map it would prevent things from getting too exploitable. Another option: lowered ship costs, which is nearlly as good as more fleet to begin with

[HitmanN]

Ship costs are another option, but it doesn't allow a variance in ship quantities, which would make each game more unique.

[x4000]

Why not have NEW ships instead of just ship cap? That is essentially what the Fabricators do, and that seems infinitely kore interesting to me. And definitely something we'll be expanding on, too. The ship cap itself almost feels like a co-out, as a designer -- of course, as a programmer I'm not thrilled with the idea of how much rework that would take, anyway, for what I as a designer am not sure is a good path in general. I'd much rather focus on adding variety instead of more of the same.

[ShadowOTE]

Good point, and it's true we do already have mercenarys if we really need the ships. Still, a capturable that would reduce costs of ships would do roughly the same thing without the issues of a structure to boost ships cap (assuming it's feasible from a coding perspective).

[keith.lamothe]

That is essentially what the Fabricators do, and that seems infinitely kore interesting to me.

I can't determine whether that's a typo or a really, really bad pun

[HitmanN]

Understandable, but if the only type of variance is getting new ships, then that's not as much variance as getting new ship types and also different quantities of ship types. This wouldn't replace the fabricators or ARS's, just add another thing that can vary a bit in each game.