Unit upgrades

[Daemon]

Just a quick one,

It would be maybe a nice idea if u unlock say tech II fighters that you could, at a cost, send them back for refit at a shipyard and be upgraded to tech II.

The same with turrets etc, send an engineer to upgrade them, as long as you have the tech?

What do you think?

[x4000]

Just a quick one,

It would be maybe a nice idea if u unlock say tech II fighters that you could, at a cost, send them back for refit at a shipyard and be upgraded to tech II.

What do you think?

You'll still need your Mark I ships all throughout the game, so the refit wouldn't serve much purpose.  With the ship levels being per-type per-level, you'll still be building your Mark I stuff while you are also building Mark IV stuff later in the game.  Plus, I really like having the older, weaker ships be a focus and a strategic factor throughout the game.  This was another thing that was sort of inspired for me by Ender's Game, where their oldest, slowest stuff was what actually went against the bugger homeworld.  In AI War you would probably use the older stuff more for defense or in raids on specific lower-level planets, rather than going against the homeworld, but same sort of general concept there.  Thanks for the suggestion, though, as always!

[keith.lamothe]

The "your old stuff is still important" thing is one of the coolest things about the game.  My initial reactions to the per-ship-type caps was very negative, but now I can't see any other solution to the old-stuff-is-useless problem.

[x4000]

The "your old stuff is still important" thing is one of the coolest things about the game.  My initial reactions to the per-ship-type caps was very negative, but now I can't see any other solution to the old-stuff-is-useless problem.

Thanks!  Yeah, that was something that we discovered pretty late on in. Originally the game had no pop caps at all, but that meant that players picked a favorite ship or two, and only used those.  The only way to force variety and the use of older tech was to implement the ship caps like I did (at least, that's all we could think of).  My original feelings on it were really negative too, to be honest, but it grew on me very quickly once I saw all the benefits.

[keith.lamothe]

It would be good to have some way of scaling those caps up a bit as territory and resources increase, like the command-ship/command-center ideas brought up elsewhere.  A way of investing some ongoing (metal/crystal income) or permanent (knowledge, max number per system) resources into logistical support.  But that's just to take the edge off the cap reaction, the caps themselves seem totally necessary.

[Daemon]

No problem, I'm new to the game and I guess in time i will realise the use of the older units. Need to get out of the build best tech and swarm mode

[x4000]

It would be good to have some way of scaling those caps up a bit as territory and resources increase, like the command-ship/command-center ideas brought up elsewhere.  A way of investing some ongoing (metal/crystal income) or permanent (knowledge, max number per system) resources into logistical support.  But that's just to take the edge off the cap reaction, the caps themselves seem totally necessary.

Well, your caps DO go up as you explore, in two important ways: by unlocking new ship types through capturing Advanced Research Stations, and by increasing your knowledge and thus letting you unlock higher levels of existing ships.  Your ship cap thus goes up and up and up over the entire game, but you have to really make use of the new ships and ship levels you get instead of just continuing to fall back on what has worked so far during the campaign.

I do like the idea of being able to selectively increase the pop cap of a few favorite types with the command-center style idea that has been brought up, and I will definitely pursue that soon, but I see that as a more of a bonus that you find rather than a core game mechanic...

[keith.lamothe]

Yes, you do get to expand into new ship types, and that works very well.  I meant giving the player some outlet for their ship-cap-rage   It may be limited in effect and may cost a lot and may have other negative consequences, but having a "better logistics!" button may go a long way to solving the psychological problem.

[x4000]

Yes, you do get to expand into new ship types, and that works very well.  I meant giving the player some outlet for their ship-cap-rage   It may be limited in effect and may cost a lot and may have other negative consequences, but having a "better logistics!" button may go a long way to solving the psychological problem.

I gotcha -- that makes sense.  Hopefully the command-ship thing will help.  Games like RoN and RoL use a similar system for discouraging overuse of any given unit class, but I don't think it's per-level and they don't have fixed limits and instead have an ever-increasing cost for each unit (in addition to their global ship cap, which I don't have).  I considered doing something more like what they are doing, but felt like that would ultimately be more restrictive and too likely to unbalance the economy.  But hopefully the command-ship thing will help!  I may look at doing that sooner than later, since that seems to be an issue.

[keith.lamothe]

I may look at doing that sooner than later, since that seems to be an issue.

I don't think it's terribly pressing, but ways of nuancing the ship cap would be good at some point.

What are your thoughts on cap-increasing-ships vs. cap-increasing-non-mobile-structures?  I'm thinking that if you went with non-mobile and could only have X such structures per system then the player wouldn't be able to squirrel away all their cap-increasers in the depths of their un-attackable part of the map and that if they really wanted to have the extra cap-increasers that their attackable systems could provide they'd have to deal with the extra vulnerability.

[x4000]

I may look at doing that sooner than later, since that seems to be an issue.

I don't think it's terribly pressing, but ways of nuancing the ship cap would be good at some point.

What are your thoughts on cap-increasing-ships vs. cap-increasing-non-mobile-structures?  I'm thinking that if you went with non-mobile and could only have X such structures per system then the player wouldn't be able to squirrel away all their cap-increasers in the depths of their un-attackable part of the map and that if they really wanted to have the extra cap-increasers that their attackable systems could provide they'd have to deal with the extra vulnerability.

Oh, I meant to be more clear of that. Yes, I would see these as being base ships that you can only have one of per planet, and which are non-mobile.  So yeah, it would greatly add to the vulnerability, an aspect that I really like.