You'd haved to ask MStrobel whether he still plans on having ships being able to refuel stranded ships and whether these freighters can play that role aswell?

Regards Wolfe

Wolfe, having stranded ships is DEFINITELY going to be in the game - Mike worked on the code recently so that ships will have visible fuel indicators. It's going to be part of the next Supremacy update, whenever he posts it.

Oh, I don't know if you noticed but Mike forgot to put the editor in the last update, so if you haven't got it dowonload the update again - Mike updated the update.

...

It's an interesting use for the freighter ships, but it still begs the question of whether you would actively build them. Most people would probably just build one as a precaution, or would just be more careful to not let their ships get stranded.

I was also under the impression that command ships would actually fulfill this task - whether they use grappling hooks or tractor beams, command ships are the big, heavy workhorses of the fleet, and we've seen these types of ship use tractor beams on other vessels time and time again.

Maybe we need to thing of another yuse for the freighters. Perhaps they could be a necessary part of station building, for instance.

I see, so a freighter might refuel or tows like a command ship or perhaps work like a transport. Let me know. I have uploaded some freighter models for minor races onto sharepoint per the shiplist.

Well it's something we can discuss. Stick the models in anyway Kenneth - if we eventually scrap the idea the models will remain - we'll just rename them as a pre-existing class of ship, like a Transport or something.

Soo...some questions for people to discuss.

1) Should we have freighters in the game? Or should command ships just get the ability to rescue other vessels? If so, what ships should the minor races that are intended to have freighters get instead?

2) If we kept freighters, what special role would a freighter be able to perform? Would they refuel any stranded ships, or would they tractor the ship back to port?

3) If we kept freighters, could they be used for other uses? Could they somehow boost trade for instance, for example you gain extra credits if there were a freighter at BOTH ends of a trade route? Or could the freighters have a special trade order where they physically follow trade routes that you set? This would make raiding and attacks on shipping lanes MUCH more interesting. (Or just possible lol) TWO of the minor races give raiding bonuses...

4) If we kept freighters, what limits would freighters have? If they have extended range to reach stranded ships, then what stops you from exploring with just freighters?

Discuss.

I would so endorce option 3

Regards Wolfe

Actually i've mentioned this idea before, Wolfe. I just wanted to sneak it back in again to annoy Mike!

...Not that it isn't a good idea, coz it is. Just maybe difficult to program.

I guess making a freighter work like a colony and or transport ship would be the easiest to program. I would think refuel would also be an easier programing job than tow.

The scout ship explores. It finds the bipolarian race. You get on the bipolarian's good side or take it fully into your empire. The bipolarians freighter refuels your exhausted ship and off it goes again.

Good idea Ken

Why to build a freighter ship?

- Is there any major race which builds freighter ship? I dont think so, player can only inherit freighter ship from minor race.

Purpose of freighter ship?

- TRANSPORT, no, major race has own transport ship

- COLONISE, no, as above

- TOW, no use with command ship

so angosian, pakled and others have ships without purpose,unless we give them limited transport and colonise ability :

- freighter preforms terraforming but it can t colonise

- freighter tranports troops but lesser amount then regular transport ship

- freighter is fine mixture of transport and colony ship equiped with solid
weponary

Ooh that sounds like an idea, Zeleni - Minor race Colony ships can only Colonise, and Freighters can only terraform. The Empires are better coz they only need a single ship to do both...

But then there's a problem - EVERY race that can expand would then need a freighter, and then we're left with the old problem of what to give the races that are already given freighters IF they can't expand...

Question is how expandable minor races are going to terraform and colonize systems?

1. Useing colony ships- that way we need colony mesh for every expandable minor race in the game(unlikely)

or

2. Just marking nearby system with grey color (something like in old Botf, terraforming without ships), much easier for Mike.



In second scenario purpose of freighter is irelevant for minor race (its only a defensive or attacking force) but could be important for human player, for example:

-Pakleds with freighters join the player empire... this is moment when ability of the freighter is important, you will not hit scrap button on freighter with tranport and terraform ability.

I am sure Mike will come up with something. (Like minor race freighters are replaced with a colony ship)

In the mean time I will fill slots based on the current list. I also hope to never give control of a fighter to a Packled. (You serve pizza when the mass murderer comes to dinner. You do not put a knife in his hand)

Wouldn't a freighter be used to..you know..TRADE?

You can make it that depending on the siza of a planet you're trading with (and yours) you need a minimum of X freighters to man the route.
So you got to build a few to maximize profits.
Freighters would be assigned automaticly to the routes and you wouldn't see them traveling on the map. They are assigned to the route itself and are not targetable or attackable like a normal ship. Only during raids can one hope to attack them.

Too complicated?

Necro bumping this for a nitpick... (Hey Trash!)

Anyway, try not to get too complicated, multi-tasking can be logical
My suggestions:

Science Ship (Scanning and Surveying/Stellar Experiments)? I suggested Star/System creation so a Science ship would be perfect candidate.

Construction Ship (Building/TERRAFORMING)

Transport (Carries People/TRADE goods/or FUEL!) - that's what they do take items from point A to point B sometimes people call them Freighters or Shuttles depending on size.

Colony Ship (unchanged)

That's just my opinion...

We discussed the idea of having transport ships ferrying fuel around the Galaxy, but we eventually decided against it because it would just be too involved and tedious for players. Just imagine having to send out fuel tankers left, right, and centre every time you sent a ship out. People would stop playing after a few turns if they had to keep doing it.

Ships DO have a fuel capacity in the game, but it is unlimited whilst they are within range of a base or shipyard. Once a ship leaves this range, they start to use up their fuel supplies and become stranded if they run out. (You can send a cruiser to tow them back, but the cruiser may also become stranded if it runs out of fuel!)

The best way to think of it is that the transports are running fuel runs for you automatically, you just don't see them.

Right, I hadn't noticed. I thought maybe my range had increased or something.

I had 4 cruisers explorign 4 corners of the map scoutign planets for me to send colony ships to (even though there is no comabt engien yet) tehn I noticed one hadn't moved in a while... It said <stranded> I was liek wth? Did my shipyard lose power or something? Now I know...

I'm used to getting into HUGE running battles against fleets in SE4/5 and often build a class of transport just to haul fuel and ammo to the "front". If I can't get a toe-hold in enemy territory I need to at least hold the line until I can terraform or build a station nearby and get a proper supply line entrenched. etc..

Same concept I was thinking...

If You make the freighters behave the same way they did in MoO2, where they can be built, but demand for them is dependent on what's needed at the time, it might make them much less cumbersome to use. It will also allow them to be used more often; As in MoO2 you could use them to transport population, and food to colonies which needed it, and they can be blockaded. I feel it would add more dynamics to the game, and give smaller empires an effective method to wage guerilla warfare on larger ones. You could even have it so you can assign starships to 'escort tasks' where instead of being directly controlled, they join the freighter pool. When someone tries to raid and blockade, there will be a chance of allowing the player to engage in combat with the raiders instead, which will depend on the # of ships assigned and the overall stealth/speed ability of the raiders. This will also set it so there will be a need to build smaller/faster ships to discourage piracy, and ensure security for larger empires. You may have to set it so the game evenly distributes which starships will be where at certain times in relation to freighter tasks to avoid an exploit where your entire escort fleet can engage a handful of raiders every time.

The 5 different tech trees I feel are a good idea as races like the feds have banned certain fields of research, and the klingons/cardassians may have no immediate interest in certain techs. Adjusting the research tree for other races may allow for applying research penalties/bonuses for the races, giving a more canon feel to the game.

You have some good ideas. Thanks.

I personally would prefer tedius logistics to be automated or abstracted to the point where I don't have to deal with them.


In a turn based game like this, especially with epic plans of 80x80 maps, imagine trying to actually play a game where you control 100 star systems and actually have to manage transporation between all of them.

Pass.

I know other games have done "transportation" to various effects, but for me personally, they have all just been different grades of tedium. In the end it doesn't actually add any real value, it just complicates a quickly overloaded "what do I have to do before I press End Turn" checklist.

The only game I've seen transportation like this done well is in Aurora where transport ships are automatically built by a populous enough system and it automatically travels between planets. If you really want transports, make them automated but provide a small bump to credits and/or population growth when they hit a system. Then a "pirate" can hit them...and what? Steal a couple credits? Kill some population....

I can't even continue with this line of thinking without rolling my eye and thinking "pointless". BotF had a "raid" feature that stole credits off the top, you can bombard planets to kill people. I don't see any real value in creating a viable military strategy of "attacking your opponents transports" without either dramatically revamping the game to a pirating/logistics game or adding a pirating/logistics game on top of a military 4x strategy.


In conclusion: Please for the love of all that is holy don't include transports. Keep the abstract "auto-refuel" "raid" and "population migration" systems that existed in BotF so we can focus on the important stuff: Bribing minors and shooting aliens.


tl;dr: This is Star Trek, not Space Tycoon.

I know Mike had been planning on an auto mode for running your 100 or so planets. It would be nice if that was automated as well. Leaving the transports out of combat also would make our model burden easier for the combat.

Transports are slow and vulnerable. If even a lowly fighter or scout attacks an unescorted transport, it shouldn't need to trigger combat it should just auto-explodify it.

If the transport is escorted, trigger battle between combatants, leave freighter out of it (for now) and if the attacker destroys the escorts then they get the transport in the aftermath.

Progressive involvement is a core design tenet behind Supremacy. I want to offer plenty of immersion for players who want it, but pretty much everything beyond colonization, basic fleet management, and diplomacy will be optional. Some of it will be opt-in, like using ships to perform research in addition to your regular research facilities. Some of it will be opt-out, like delegating colony management to a "governor" AI. The idea is to let players decide for themselves how intimately involved they want to be with their empires' turn-to-turn operations, and to do so without putting players who "macromanage" at a disadvantage against players who "micromanage"

There are no plans to include freighters.

I guess it would be hard to pull the transports out of combat if they have a key roll in taking planets. Even if you do not show the planet assault in 3d you would expect to see them in the fleet sent to take a world.

Transports are not Freighters in the current implementation. While there has been a discussion on having Freighters in the game, people are against it, and so is Mike, so they're not going to be in. End of discussion.

Transports on the other hand were key in BOTF. They were needed to build stations and invade systems. To my knowledge, we still intend it to be this way. And they won't all be quite as defenceless as they were in BOTF. All Klingon Transports and Colony ships will be armed. The late-tech non-combat ships of all of the empires will also be lightly armed (The early and mid-tech ones won't though). Some minor races will also be able to produce armed non-combat ships, which could make them a useful ally.

I think some of the minors' Transports we have in the database are supposed to be "Freighters", not "Troop Transports". But minors will probably not need them anyway, like colony ships.

Some of them are called Freighters, but they will be Transports. They're called Freighters simply because they were called Freighters in the shows.

Well, yeah, but like I said, in the *game* they're set as (and work as) Transports. Transports, in the game, are Troop Transports. So, like I was trying to say, in the game those ships shouldn't be Transports - trade will be implemented in another way anyway. Most likely those ships will not be used, unless we want to implement them as something else.
Minors ships will probably have to be reviewed, but there's no rush.

We are still using transports to build stations? As I recall there were plans to have minors build outposts at least. Will they use transports or do the stations just appear or am I confused again.

Nope, Construction Ships build Stations.

So we need those minor ships to be called construction ships?

They should only be called Construction Ships if they have the station construction ability. Otherwise they're a Transport.