Yard ideas

posted on July 21st, 2009, 7:29 pm

I have some ideas for the shipyards. Usually in shipyard there are more than one ship being built, as the ship is good enough to leave drydock, the building of new ship begins and usually when the ship can leave the drydock the interiors are constructed later.

Perhaps something similar could be in Fleet Operations, at least for some race or integrated to the Klingon ship building system. The Klingons have at the moment expandable yard, but this would be done in single yard and the total ship building speed would be depended on the queue and wouldn't have the disadvantages of central yard structure.  As the first ship in the queue have been constructed for half of the total time the building of the next one could begin, but there would still be limit how many ships can be built simultaneously. If the yard is destroyed when both ships are being built, the player should lose the resources what were going to be used. The more finished ship could also be targetable.

I also find it odd that you can cancel the ship construction at any time and still get all resources back and begin building another ship instantly after cancellation. Perhaps there could be a cancellation time which would be % of the total build time and how ready was the ship when cancelled and that should also affect the amount of resources that you get back.

posted on July 21st, 2009, 8:46 pm

Interesting idea. I'm not sure that it's possible to offset construction in the way you suggested but I do think it's possible to do something similar.

Let's say you have three Construction Speeds (Standard, +15%, +30%). The three levels could be switched by the player depending on their needs but with certain advantages and disadvantages. For example.

A ship produced at the standard rate would be fully functional but would take the longest to build. If you had a similar shipyard producing the same ship type at the +15% rate then the ships would be released in a serviceable condition at a faster rate. The disadvantage could be that each rushed ship could suffer random systems glitches that affect various aspects of their performance, could be slightly  more susceptible to damage or might not be able to attack so efficiently itself.

Ships produced at the highest rate could suffer a great level of malfunctions and would be noticeably weaker than fully completed ships but at least you'd have them in number and ready for a fight.


To save wasting any ships, you could make it so that when you send them back to the shipyard to repair, then the remainder of their construction time would be added to their repair time, so you'd get a fully functional ship once it is repaired.


I think the best use for this ability would be to supplement a more responsive defensive strategy for a player who is being attacked. It should be a means of providing a quick influx of ships to aid in a desperate defense but the penalties for incomplete ships (random systems malfunctions and reduced performance) should be great enough to deter the player from using these ships in any potential offensive spam strategy. I think this would add a unique twist to Klingon gameplay with a responsive aspect that is similar but not the same as Warp-In (Federation definitely should not have this ability because it'd be a bit OP with Warp-In as well)

posted on July 21st, 2009, 9:24 pm

maybe the Fast-built ships could come with hull damage an damaged systems, so they would be normal later, but weaker in the beginning.

posted on July 22nd, 2009, 11:09 pm

Why would you want to build a ship that comes with hull damage? That means that It would just take longer to build up an efficient task force, besides couldn't you just run those ships with the hull damage right through the shipyard, and that takes like 2 seconds compared to letting it regenerate.

posted on July 23rd, 2009, 7:12 am

if i remember right, repairing costs money...
duunno if right^^

posted on July 23rd, 2009, 7:33 am

What i was proposing was identical ships (all stats can go to 100%) but they will randomly suffer "technical difficulties" like brief losses of engine power and weapons that have targeting issues (they will be resolved temporarily soon after so they act as more a thorn in your side for rushing ships through production). They would cost the same as regular ships so the only advantage is that you can push out significantly more of ships than you opponent. All of these issues could then be resolved by visiting the ship yard for repairs, where they finish the ship off and apply permanent fixes to their problems.

posted on July 23rd, 2009, 7:46 am

but jow could you do this? you would have to make a new odf for every speed, and i don't even konow if random subsystem failure ist possible...

posted on July 23rd, 2009, 10:05 am

It's possible, it's just going to take a long time to set it all up and personally I like the system the way it is, still I think a "toned down" version of this would be cool and, well just realistic. 


again, this is just my personal opinion

posted on July 25th, 2009, 6:09 pm

Perhaps this kind of parallel construction yard could get a small bonus in build speed (10%?) when building more than one of the specific class of vessel consecutively, because same processes could be used in building which would result in better efficiency when building same ship classes consecutively.

posted on July 25th, 2009, 6:20 pm

mabe as idea for the romulans: they can already make that teir turrets are built faster.
so my idea:(could be used for other races aswell)
you could have the research in a yard, to refit it for building especcially one ship.
this ship gets now built faster and a bit cheaper, but the research is kinda expensive(the bigger the ship the more). the research has to be researched for every yard you want to have it, an the research cost would get higher, the more "build-time researches" you already use in a yard.
I think it would make lategame-fleetbuilding a bit easier and you shouldn't have to spam yards to use you 3 moon-pairs.

what do you think about this?

posted on August 8th, 2009, 6:08 am

Why not Build  the ships in a Block of 5's  and give the total build time a Reduction in total time by 20%. so if one was  to build 5 saberes separately that takes say 60 seconds each so it is  5 minutes time to be compleated. However built  in  a "block"  there would be a 12 second reduction per ship from the 5 seperate time of 60 seconds time each. so one could build 5 ships in a block and receive a  whole minute  reduction in time from the  5 seperate ships build time hypothetically speaking.Dont know what the actual build time is.

posted on August 8th, 2009, 6:22 am

Ide like to see 2 new  functions in a yard  . one is  to have a "Master Rally Point" for all yards to aid in large battles. Two ide like to see a "Tech Repair Yard" to give a small bonus  on reparing  captured ships and  give it the ability to  act like a suplus  Depot in storeing  captured hulls for use.You  could use a Mixed tech  type Yard frame to repair  plus a small Station to act as a  ship collection rally point.

posted on August 8th, 2009, 8:57 am

Well, maybe you can upgrade your yards like starbases and you will get a bonus on construction time. If you want to build more ships in a time, this is a balancing factor. Until now, only the klingons can do that. Now, every race should do that - how do you think can you outbalance this?

Under the line, it may be a nice gimmik, but is not really useful, I think. It is only more work for the devs without having a significant gameplay change.

Better is to give damaged ships real hull breaches so that a nacelle would be missing or something like that. THIS feeling is much more worthy to work on than... speed up shipbuildings.
Remember: Every race is down to that point. If you add this feature for every race, the game gets more complicated for the player, but not for the AI.

Make it complex where you can without making the game harder to play. Thats the priority. You know X-3? Very complex...

posted on August 8th, 2009, 10:16 am

Personally, IF there is an upgrade in shipbuilding speed, I strongly suggest leaving the Federation out of it. Fed players favor zergling tactics and don't need any more help in that department, thank you.

Getting attacked by 30 Sabres instead of 20 would only add to the frustration factor.

What good is having good/excellent endgame units if you never reach that stage?

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on August 8th, 2009, 2:55 pm

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on August 9th, 2009, 12:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

If you hate zergling, watch out for TaQ'roja Klingons 

Nobody ever attacked you with (hypothetical) 30 or even 20: I know I had 14 max at one time... and that was Saber dancing, not zergling

Of course, these methods are both countered easily enough if you use the right strategy and don't try to tech up so soon to C-11's, V-15's, and B-5 Carriers *cough*. I beat Mort yesterday when he was using this Fed strategy against me as Dominion.

Back to the issue at hand, I don't like the idea of having an upgrade to increase construction time for yards. I think the resource gathering etc is all balanced for the current system, and having increased speeds would screw up the mechanics in my opinion.