Proxy Yarding

posted on December 10th, 2010, 12:45 pm

I would like to keep the usability of repair. Repairing starships was always an important gameplay element in FO and Armada1 and we would like to keep this importance. Yet i wan't to build up some walls in order to better control its use.

the current ideas are to give building a yard more impact on gameplay then just the "relatively low" construction costs. There are some idees for that, but that requires the new supply and requirement systems that will be introduced with the faction redos. Giving the decission of building a yard more importance might also produce some new early strategies a bit mor spice, like "Singleyarding" because that might have some advantage too. But i will watch this issue closely till then, nothing is fixed yet

Ideas are of course still welcome

posted on December 10th, 2010, 6:25 pm

I like those forecasts, Optec .

posted on December 10th, 2010, 6:28 pm

Sounds great, Optec.  With you on the job, I'm sure a great system will be thought up.

posted on December 10th, 2010, 6:57 pm

Great, in one or two patches, half the strats will be negated j/k j/k.
But, I'm really glad that there's work being done on the power of proxy yarding, without removing its utility intirely. I'm looking foward to this.

posted on December 10th, 2010, 7:27 pm

the current ideas are to give building a yard more impact on gameplay then just the "relatively low" construction costs. There are some idees for that, but that requires the new supply and requirement systems that will be introduced with the faction redos. Giving the decission of building a yard more importance might also produce some new early strategies a bit mor spice, like "Singleyarding" because that might have some advantage too. But i will watch this issue closely till then, nothing is fixed yet

Perhaps a passive ability such as Ablative Armor or a special to recharge the shields.

posted on December 11th, 2010, 12:16 am

That's an idea, but we need a more dynamic system to care for the number of yards present. I have some ideas with the supply redo, but i will calc them through once more detials of the new supply system are fixed

posted on December 11th, 2010, 2:09 am

That's an idea, but we need a more dynamic system to care for the number of yards present. I have some ideas with the supply redo, but i will calc them through once more detials of the new supply system are fixed

I'm not sure if it is possible, but in general the limit to the speed of repair is the number of spare parts.
Would it be possible to start with an X number of spare parts distributed over the present yards.

More yards, fewer spare parts per yard -> lower repair rate.
Or... the spare parts can only be replenished in a certain radius from the star base. When a yard is build far away from the base it would only have a limited number of spare parts for repair.
Once they have been used they would only regenerate slowly on the far away yard.

posted on December 11th, 2010, 5:14 am

Maybe increase the repair time for a ship 3 times than what it currently is but make the ship thats being repaired protected by the yards shields.

posted on December 11th, 2010, 5:54 am

Buildings being attackable while under construction would be quite nice, tho it might change gameplay a lot.

I feel  the best way to go is take out the constructor while  the building  is being built .You take out the constructor not the building being build the reason are.  Just Taking out the building still leaves your opponent with a constructor  and only the loss of the station  and the resourse costs of them. However taking out the constructor will  do this  damage to the opponent . the opponent loses the cost of the ship as well  the lost station costs , plus the added ship build time and  travel time as well.  So I feel the best route to go is take out the construction ship, not the building being built.

posted on December 11th, 2010, 10:04 am

Well, you HAVE a scout... and if you leave it at the enemy base, you dont see what happends before your base.

The problem is: You cant take out the constructor with a scout, so you have to build ships in order to make it in time. In order to build ships, you need a yard. So take the diff-time the enemy constructor needs to travel to your base and that is your only advantage in those cases. In most cases (small-to-medium maps) this short amount of time isnt enough to produce two destroyers AND find out, where the enemy constructor is.

So maybe, the starbase can produce a single ship in time OR you start not only with a scout, but also with a destroyer, that is available in the starbase. The first destroyer is build like the scout and the two constructors VERY fast... This could give you the chance to hold the enemy off.

posted on December 11th, 2010, 7:47 pm

I feel  the best way to go is take out the constructor while  the building  is being built .You take out the constructor not the building being build the reason are.  Just Taking out the building still leaves your opponent with a constructor  and only the loss of the station  and the resourse costs of them. However taking out the constructor will  do this  damage to the opponent . the opponent loses the cost of the ship as well  the lost station costs , plus the added ship build time and  travel time as well.  So I feel the best route to go is take out the construction ship, not the building being built.

Ah, but if buildings had very low health while building (no shields, and structural integrity fields not up yet), maybe it could be a decision between killing the constructor, its worker bees, or the building it is making.
Pros and cons come with each.
Kill building-denies opponent the building or the res, easy to do, but leaves the cons ship to maybe escape.
Kill bees-someone posted an idea that the construction would be delayed and the cons ship could then replicate them, but slowing down construction. Only delays, but is easiest to do.
Kill cons ship-denies the opponent the resources and a cons ship, but that ship has shields and the enemy could easily decom, just like now.

posted on December 15th, 2010, 12:58 pm

Limits; smart smart smart!  No limit; dum dum dum dum duuuuummm!...        Almost reminds me of somthing, err hmm odd.

Psi-

posted on December 19th, 2010, 7:16 pm

Maybe construction ships could "lock-down" and be more resistant to damage while building, but the building itself is very weak and targettable.

posted on December 19th, 2010, 11:44 pm

My two cents: Make shipyards be an expansion of a station (other than a mining one).

The way teh Klingon yard has 3 yards in one, have the starbases and research stations also have the yards built from them.

If you limit the number of yards to what the starbase and research stations can hold AND you limit the number of research stations, this nullifies proxy yarding for the most part.

If someone rushes to an expansion, and they dont hold it, they are in trouble as they have then lost a research station.

posted on December 20th, 2010, 1:25 am

I have an idea to help detect proxy yards built near your moon pairs, it comes from another idea I had a while ago that people seemed to like (sensors detecting units outside of their strictly visual range.)
Maybe make sensors detect buildings being built up to 25% outside of their visual range. Enemy puts up a yard next to your base mining, then you can see something fishy is going on.