Status Update

[Lavo]

Not really an update, but I'm taking the opportunity to post a status update. The next update will be a big game changer, implementing something suggested in the past by many people; "regular" ships as capital ships.

 

Some of you will be in support of this, while others will undoubtedly question it, and rightfully so. As such, I will explain why I've decided to go this route and the reasons behind it.

-To start off, everyone is painfully aware of the AI's ineptitude when it comes to planet bombing. Whenever a frigate has planet bombing capabilities, it rushes to siege the planet, regardless of it's frigateRoleType (aka. what the AI uses the ship as). Capital ships do not have this problem.

-Another reason is due to the supercaps; their current build method entirely ignores capital ship crews, even if the ships themselves take up crews. This brings up the question of capital ship crews themselves; as currently they must be researched. Under the new system, everyone will have unlimited (999) capital ship crews.

-It has been previously stated that the reason behind there being both capital ship and cruiser versions of certain ships is due to an inability to make them purely capital ships. This is no longer an issue as supercaps now have a hard cap; in the past one could build fleets of Executors, and capital ship crews served as a sort of limiter.

-XP is also not a problem. While it will take time to properly implement for all ships, there is a way to make it so certain capital ships give more XP than others. Accordingly the default XP values will eventually be retooled to reflect the weakest capital ship, with a special passive ability making up the remainder of required XP.

 

While that's the whole reasoning behind it, here's some additional info on the system:

-Non elite/unique/special ships, and in particular "common" variants of existing capitals (ex. ISD-II vs. ISD-C) will have fixed abilities (i.e. activated from when they are built and cannot be leveled up), less anti-matter than existing capitals (sticking to the 175/250 setup), will not gain as much from leveling up than existing capitals, and will not be able to repel culture (the common ISDs, Miid Ro'ik, and Rejuvinator might be exceptions to this; undecided).

-Common variants of existing capitals will have the same health, armament, and fighter compliment as their elite/unique/special variants, ex. an ISD-II and ISD-C will have the same combat capabilities. The benefits of these elite/unique/special variants versus the common ones are: culture repulsion, powerful abilities, and notably more benefits from leveling up.

-Certain ships, those designated as siege frigates, will also have a frigate version avaliable for purchase. These will also be available to the player, not just the AI, in the frigate build menu. They have the same stats as their capital variants, they merely have frigate versions because they among the bare necessity of any fleet, something all players, not just the AI, should have access to. Ships that fall under this category are: Assault Frigate Mk.I, Acclamator II (possibly), Suuv Band Krid, and either the Battle Dragon or Bothan Assault Cruiser.

 

In addition to this, I have also been playing around with the stats of some ships. The Venator SD and Providence will be nerfed, the VSDs, Dreadnaught, Assault Frigate Mk.II, will be buffed, and the Nebula/Rejuvinator, Miid Ro'ik, Tector, and ISDs will be notably boosted. Supply/construction costs will be modified accordingly. If you have any questions, suggestions, criticisms, or outright complaints, I would be happy to hear them. Nothing here is set in stone.

[Lavo]

A little follow up, so far the ISDs, VSDs, Venators, Procurator, Providences, MC80 Liberty, Wingless, Dauntless and Lucrehulks have had their stats done. Only the ISDs have had their costs/time done so far. Did I forget to mention that this means militia forces will have capital ships and thus properly bomb planets?

 

http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad33/Lavo_02/after35min_capunittest1.png

This is from 35 minutes into a game, with an Unfair AI. It's the guy's biggest fleet, though certainly isn't all of it. I'm very pleased with how the AI is responding after the auto-leveling has been increased to 3 levels.

 

http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad33/Lavo_02/ISDbattle.png

Picture from later on in that test run.