Okay having gotten a bit into it (which takes a while when my computer keeps telling me I've plugged a new sound thingo in making Supremacy go crazy...) I have a few suggestions about starships. You've probably heard most of this before and are tired of it, so feel free to ignore me.

Anyway my suggestion is to reduce the number of types of starship the Fed's (and others) can build, but space out their development and in every era 'bloc' increase the number of ships that can be built. To use the easiest example, the Federation, what I mean is

Science Ship -- Frigate -- Light Cruiser -- Heavy Cruiser -- Battle Cruiser -- Battleship
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SS Valiant -- NX01
-- Daedalus -- Constitution
Oberth -- Miranda -- Constituion Refit -- Excelsior
-- Miranda Refit -- Constellation -- Excelsior Refit -- Ambassador
-- New Orleans -- Norway -- -- Nebula -- Galaxy
Nova -- Steamrunner -- Sabre -- Intrepid -- Akira -- Sovereign

Now I'm not saying it has to be exactly that, but you get the idea. I just think that having too many starships classes - trying to fit every class in - will make more confusion rather than a good game.

The shiplist is something that has been argued about for almost four years now. The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how it is designed, *some* people will have gripes with it.

I'm not trying to shoot your idea down or anything, it's just that I think it is a bit late to be making any major changes now. On top of that, the modellers have been working on making the models for quite some time now, and it would be unfair to simply drop some of the models that they have made.

...However, even if we do have what seems to be an enormous shiplist, we actually have a ton of "Z" models saved in sharepoint as well - these are ships that people either really wanted in the game but aren't actually in the shiplist, or we managed to acquire them at the same time as models that we needed. And this isn't just for the Federation, we have an extra models section for all the races.

Supremacy is going to be a highly moddable game, which is why we are building this catalogue of extra ships. People will be able to download as many of the extra ships as they want - they could download all of them if they wanted. But it will also be possible to remove ships. It is/was literally as simple as pressing the delete key on the entry of the ship you don't want while you're in the editor. (This feature wasn't working in the last working version of the editor, but it was working before then)

Of course, you will have to be careful about simply deleting ship entries - the game might become a bit difficult if you were to delete colony ships!

I'm sure people will start making their own mods as well in the future - these may do exactly what you want, or you could even request that *someone* makes it for you. Once the game is complete, we will likely create a new forum section for mod requests and the like. We will also come up with modding guides as well, just like they have done over the years for BOTF.

Don't worry, the game will eventually work exactly the way that YOU want it to. It is specifically designed to be moddable to avoid all the problems that BOTF had. And if we were to come across any mod problems, we even have the game developer ready to help...

Well I figured it would be a highly debatable topic, but with the whole insert ship/delete ship thing it sounds superb.

Oh there were two other things I forgot to mention too.

1. Is it possible to upgrade certain ships, like the Constitution to the Constitution Refit?
2. I noticed in Supremacy that for some ships, when you get a new version (say, Frigate II), you can still build the previous one. Is this normal and will it be kept in the game?

Upgrades are in, though they won't be automatic, you'll need to go to a depopt of some kind, decommission, wait a few turns and then out pops the new ship, resources will probably be needed aswell. This way it will be cheaper then just building one.

I believe for some classes of ship there will be some overlap in the level of ship you can build, with the ability to build a previous lower tech class of ship, which should be quicker given production tech should have gone up by then. It adds variety to the mix i guess and i like it

Regards Wolfe

As Wolfe said, auto-upgrades won't be in for Military vessels, but the non-combats WILL auto update. This is actually another option that is/will be in the editor, so people will be able to make mods where ships auto update or they don't to their hearts content.

The case of being able to build older ships IS intentional though. The obsoletion system is slightly more extended than you might expect, so that the game maintains "canonicity"; instead of the last generation of ships being obsoleted, it will instead be ships from two generation ago that will be obsoleted. For example:

Constitution -> Excelsior -> Ambassador -> Galaxy -> Sovereign

The Ambassador is two generations more advanced than the Constitution, so as soon as you gain access to the Ambassador, the Connie will be removed from the list. The Galaxy removes the Excelsior, and the Sovereign removes the Ambassador.

This might sound strange, but we know that some ships are incredibly long-lived - the Excelsior especially comes to mind with its' 70+ year history. This same system will also apply to the other races; we know that the Cardassians prefer to maintain their ships for as long as possible and the Klingons would likely give their older ships to less powerful/old/ill warriors to ensure they can still die in battle.

This system ISN'T hard-coded into the game either - obsoletion is set up via the editor, so again it is highly moddable. It is possible to completely remove obsoletion so that by the end of the game you could still build NX's should you want to (Although i'm not sure how many people would WANT to) or you could change it to one generation, or three generations, or whatever you want to. You could even extend the game by having future ships and technologies that would end up making even the Sovereign obsolete. The game really is seriously moddable.

Understood, and it seems like a workable system.

Personally though what I'd prefer to see (and from what you're saying, I can 'make it so' ) is spreading out the advances in ships and reducing the types of ships that can be built. That way when, for example, you go from the Ambassador to the Galaxy, you can only build the Galaxy-class, yet you'll likely have a pretty large number of Ambassadors still in service.

This basically fits with standard military procedures too - for example you don't see the USN still building Spruance-class DDG's alongside Arleigh Burke's, or Enterprise-class carriers alongside Nimitz-class CVN's. As soon as a new design comes along you stop building the old one, but you'll still have significant numbers of the old type in service for quite a while.

Cost also plays a role though. Just because you have a new ship design, doesn't mean you will automatically choose the new design straight away simply because you may not have the resources - or even the construction facilities - to actually produce it in the first place!

New designs are considerably more expensive than older ones. And remember, it isn't just about money anymore. Supremacy uses raw materials to construct ships, and these will rapidly get in short supply if you have multiple construction projects throughout your empire. It may be more efficient - and effective - to build larger numbers of older vessels. As the Ferengi say, "Superior numbers are just as effective as superior technology..."

There are also multiple levels of shipyard now as well. There are four types in total:

Small yards can build scouts and science vessels. They have one construction/repair slot.
Medium yards can build scouts, science vessels, destroyers, and medium cruisers. They have two construction/repair slots and can build scouts and science vessels 50% faster than small yards.
Large shipyards can build everything. They have four construction/repair slots and can build cruisers 50% faster than medium yards. Large shipyards are extremely expensive to build, however, and require a well-developed system to maintain them.
Fleetyards can build all ships 50% faster than a typical large shipyard, and *some* fleetyards are even more efficient than this; it will be up to players to discover which ones are best. They have six construction/repair slots. The downsides are that Fleetyards are prohibitively expensive to build and require vast amounts of power and resources to maintain, so there are physical limits on the number that you can build per empire. They can only be built in the most advanced systems of the Empire towards the end of the game.

This means that you might not be able to build your new design simply because it is too big or advanced for your current construction facilities to handle; you will then have to decide whether to invest in immediately updating your construction facilities, or whether you need ships NOW. This in itself may also add some strategy to the game.

But after all this, you can definitely mod the game so that research is slower-paced and/or there are fewer ship designs. There are several ways you could change research too. You could increase the research costs, you could reduce the research output from buildings, or you could create new technologies and have each technology give fewer construction benefits. (New ships/buildings etc)

Coming up with new technologies isn't actually as hard as you might think. A looong time ago, myself and another forum member called CVN-65 (Unfortunately he isn't around anymore, but seeing as you know the designations of ships, i'm sure you'll recognise the number and its' significance... ) came up with an alternative - but still canon - techtree. We came up with more than 30 separate weapons technologies alone! Most of the other areas had 15-20 tech levels as well, (WITHOUT going beyond Enterprise-E era) so it shows that it would be perfectly possible to increase the tech levels. Going into the future would allow you to extend it even futher...

Now, where did all those sudden burst of information come from? You guys working in secret?

Anyway, it's still great to know that the game will be moddable. Also I'm pleased to hear that there is Fleet Yard being planned.

Good job, guys!

Burst of info? Planned Fleetyards?

First of all, this is all info that has been freely discussed on the forums - albeit in hundreds of different places at many different times. I kinda got to know things by spending rather more time around here than I should have over the past four years.

Secondly, the Fleetyards are already in the game - there's just a glitch that means the Federation have two medium shipyards and no small shipyard, so you can't actually build ships properly at the moment. The Fleetyards are also a tech level 11 structure - they're the most advanced objects you can build, so you certainly won't be able to build them for a few hundred/thousand turns. (Unless you mod it, of course )

Yeah I'm sort of a weapons specialist so I am aware of CVN-65, pity she's being retired soon.

Anyway I get what you're saying with the whole 'need the shipyard to build the more advanced ships', I didn't really think about that.

Oh one more thing, I was thinking about Scouts. I know they're good for game mechanics, it just seems odd to have them when the whole point of the big ships like the Constitution (TOS) and Galaxy (TNG) for example was to go out and explore new places.

The stature of a strategy game and the TV series Star Trek Universe do not make a perfect match. It does require a little artistic license. Think of the game as one of the alternate universes.

For the same token you could give all other races a specialised Scout ship, whilst instead the Federation gets the specialised Defiant and Prometheus classes. Since the Federation is more about exploration than battle, and the others are more about battle, it would seem to balance itself out.

Oh yeah - why do the Federation scout ships have cloaking devices?

Federaton scouts were given cloaking devices simply to test whether the cloaking code actually worked. But without the other Empires having an AI, and no combat system, we don't yet know for definite whether they work properly. We decided to just leave the cloaking devices for the time being until we can give it a proper test.

...And you guessed it, cloaking ability is something that you can mod in the editor.

The whole point of Scouts is that they have much longer fuel ranges than the other ships. They are designed to be able to go far behind enemy lines to check on fleet movements, then report these movements back to the Empire. They have long range sensors to achieve this - but not neccesarily the most accurate sensors - think of them as mobile sensor platforms rather than actual combat vessels. Their weapons and defense systems are relatively weak, and their engines are designed for efficiency rather than speed. They won't survive long if they are caught.

Federation Explorers are some of the most expensive ships in the game, but they are also the most balanced and capable ships in the game. They don't have the extreme sensor ranges and fuel efficiency of Scouts, but the Explorer's sensors are far more accurate, they are faster, they have labs so are vastly more capable of performing field research, have impressive weapons and defense systems, are capable of commanding fleets, can provide more medical help to systems that are suffering from plagues, have higher population evacuation capacities, and are capable of tractoring stranded ships back to the supply lines.

As you can see, Federation Explorers have vastly different - and better - capabilities, which is why they are different to Scouts. Explorers are also a much later-game type of ship, which slowly replace the Scout type as time goes by. This might sound like the Federation is unbalanced, but the other races rely on much more specialised ships, which means that they often exceed Federation capabilities in particular areas. But this also means that they have to manage their fleets far more carefully, because whilst Federation Explorers can do almost anything, the other races need to build ships of every type. And as I said before, the Explorers are also some of the most expensive ships in the game, so it really does balance out in the end.

Federation explorers also have the best food, more female cure members than any other ship complement and racy paint jobs.

I know I was out of the loop for a while, and some elements might have been changed that I wasn't aware of, but I'm reasonably sure (as Moe alluded) that all these issues were done and dusted a lurrrrng time ago. The shiplist, all the ship stats, ship types and ship descriptions (their roles and deployments) were meticulously compiled in the database, and after tweaking and group discussions at the time were pretty much signed and sealed. But maybe the database has been somewhat forgotten?

...then one should best check it out:

About BOTF2 ships

Full Shiplists

Full Ship Stats

Ah cheers dafedz

I guess we will consider some fine points while play test the balance. Otherwise it is nice to have that all behind us.

It is natural for anyone new to the game's development to make observations about ship and their abilities. I am gland to see the interest. It could lead to some interesting mods.

The main point I'd disagree about having seen the shiplist is having the NX-class as a Cruiser instead of a Frigate. The way I see it, in the ST universe, for Earth in particulr the 'Enterprise-era' is very much like the slightly-post Independence USA. By that I mean they had a small navy that was mostly based upon the six big Frigates (ie USS Constitution) that I see as akin to the NX class, and the role of 'Enterprise'.

Besides moving one class of cruiser to the Frigate list would ensure that there are the same number of Cruisers and Frigates, along with the whole thing of it doesn't make sense to have both the NX-class and Constitution-class available at the same time for the same role.

EDIT: Question: Is the Luna-class (USS Titan) going to be included?

first I say is WOWWWWWWWWWWWW

2- The diferent shipyards would be replacing to the previous?
3- The ship cloaked, is undectable if it is out of the range of sensors capable of detecting it?
3- The tansports could move poblation from one system to another?
4- If a cloaked ship is stranded, it lose its cloacking? One can tractor a clocked ship? :p
6- What happens if a ship lose all their crew within their own space? May this happen?

Full Shiplists
Where we can see screenshots of this ships?

The pre-alpha is so great ^^ I played to the 103 turn and I only explored 25% from Alpha quadrant ^^ and I only explore 70% of the systems I found. I WANT SEE AT LEAST SCREENSHOTS FROM ONE BATTLE

PS: sorry if the doubts do not go here ^^
PS2: Excuse my poor english

Hey ALEKSSANDROS, here's your answers:

2- Yes, the shipyards upgrade - just like the Subspace Scanner upgraded in BOTF. Virtually all systems will be able to build small shipyards, but the medium and advanced shipyards will have huge industrial, raw material, technology, and energy costs, so you will need to plan ahead where you actually upgrade your shipyards. Making the right choices could mean the difference between your empire churning out tons of high-end ships - or collapsing due to a lack of resources and energy.

2- I'm not 100% sure of exactly how the cloaking devices are programmed yet, but it is my understanding that a cloaked ship will be undetectable to a ship of equal tech, but will be detectable to a ship of better tech. Very high scan strengths may be able to detect anomalies that *may* indicate the presence of cloaked ships however. You will also be able to build a small number of cloak-detecting structures - but these will be vastly expensive construction projects that have only a limited range.

3- I'm not actually sure about this one. It was definitely intended, to work this way, but you could easily cheat if it was included. You will definitely be able to evacuate entire systems if you know a major catastrophe or invasion is about to happen though. Evacuees will be able to take *some* technology with them, but what they take will be random. When you colonise a system with evacuees, you will have to check the special structures screen and see what is there. This has not yet been implemented, however.

4- This isn't a situation that will ever happen. If a ship is out of fuel, it will also lose its' cloaking device - cloaking devices require massive amounts of energy, so surely if you can run the cloaking device, you can also run the engines?

6- The ship will either be considered destroyed, or will be stranded in space for anyone to claim. Mike will need to speak on the specifics though - i'm not sure if crews can actually be lost yet. I'll be able to add in some new random events if they can hehe.

...

The ship database is in a bit of a mess at the moment. We really need to have an admin meeting to discuss a few things. But you can find *some* screenshots of the existing models Here, although many of the links may be outdated.



Please don't shout, we can read lol. Supremacy doesn't yet have a combat system built in so we can't give you any combat screenshots. You CAN play around with our combat systems though. Check them out (And yes, I do mean them as in we have TWO competing combat systems) Here.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW

Both looks SO GREAT!!!!!!!!

MOE: Where is this list of tech levels you and CVN-65 thought up? I'd love to look at it and compare notes.

To those who don't know, the home for the pages Dafedz referenced and linked is http://www.trekmania.net/temp_files/botf2_home.htm. It's quite well organized and, Dafedz: Thanks.

Back on topic:
I've been working on my STL mod very, very slowly. To organize the shear number of ships likely to be created, I've done my own definitions for ship types. (I've been using it for stories and the like, as well.) The following is *not* how it's done anywhere else as far as I know --this includes the modern-day navy. But it makes sense to me, so I thought I'd share. It's an inclusive list that each empire would pull selectively from... And I'm not adding this to suggest *anything* should be changed, but merely to share.

~~~~~~~
Fleet vessels: (Vessels meant operate within and complement a collective of other vessels.)
Carrier -- Ship that serves as a base of operations for small craft -- especially attack craft.
Dreadnought -- Ship designed around a big gun or a big engine, often both.
Battleship -- Platform for multiple, large weapons.
Destroyer -- Ship meant to defend a fleet against smaller vessels.
Picket ship -- Long Range Sensors, often placed at the boarders of the fleet.
Tender -- Supply & repair of fleet, usually able to make landfall.
Scout -- Vessel meant to separate from and explore outside the fleet to alert it of the surround environ.

Coastal Patrol: (Vessels meant for continual patrol and defense of and around a given territory.)
Corvette -- Deep water patrol boat.
Cutter -- Shallow water patrol boat, with many ports of call.
Sloop -- Shallow water patrol boat, stationed at one port of call.
Longboat -- Stationed at one port, for that port's emergency defense only.

Small vessels: (Vessels operated by no more than 5 crew.)
Missile boat -- Long range weapons platform, usually larger than a fighter.
Torpedo boat -- Short range weapons platform, usually larger than a fighter.
Fighter -- Small, 1 to 2 man attack vessel that relies on maneuverability for both safety and delivery of ordnance.
Interceptor -- Fighter specifically designed to destroy other fighters and small craft.
Gunboat -- Fighter with long range weapons, often meant to attack capital ships or stations.
Runabout/Knockabout -- Small, well-rounded vessel meant for miscellaneous duties/errands.
Shuttle -- Small, light transport vessel designed for regular service of personnel and small cargo.

Cruisers: (All-in-one vessel meant to operate as its own base of operations, outside or without a fleet.)
Cruiser -- By itself, this designation means a well rounded ship able to complete most missions.
Frigate -- A cruiser meant for convoy escort.
(There are prefixes that can be used --Battle, Assault, Command, etc-- to modify "Cruiser" and "Frigate". These would be used rarely and never in the Federation.)
Surveyor -- A cruiser meant for mapping areas previously visited.
Expeditionary/Explorer -- A cruiser meant to map previously unvisited areas.
~~~~~~~

I've no gotten to classifying other types of vessels.
Again, I wish to stress: I'm using this for internal classifications only! I'm not suggesting they be used for anything else.

dont know if this has been suggested but I think it would be really cool if the scimitar class warbird that is seen in Star Trek:Nemesis is added to the Romulan fleet. I know technically that it is a Remon ship but I think it is too kick ass to leave out, it could be easily balanced with a large built time/high resources etc

offtopic:
I didn't liked the fact that it was able to win against two warbirds and a sovereign, without much trouble. They should have made it a tact war game, between Picard and Shinzon.

ontopic:
However having said that, the Scimitar is 'canon', just like the dominion battleship. And the Dominion did build loads of cruisers and fighters and only a few battleships, so there prob is a way to balance this with AI and resource costs.

Well, it technicely is a remulan ship and only one was ever built...so it's best to not put it in. After all, balancing it with other ship would be a b***, not to mention that it's looks differ somewhat from the standard romulan scheme.

hmm I dont know, I think it is too important to leave out to be honest, I mean yeah there was only one built, but then again there was only one Federation Promethius class built and that is going to be featured in the game, I dont know, maybe it could be a special event that triggers in the game, something like a Reman uprising, its stuff like this that I think real trek fans will like,

Something like that could always make it in as a Random Event. I don't mind Writing The Random Events, Honest.

are the reman race going to be represented in a seperate grid location on the galaxy map, live the Vorta and the Jem'Hadar for the dominion ?

Not to my knowledge, no. This may change in the future though, and it's quite easy to add minor races to the Supremacy database, so even if they don't make the final release, they can always make it in a mod.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/artic ... egrine.htm

I suppose you guys watched alot of the battles in the dominion war and was just thinking if we can implement the above ship types
as they are so small it would be good if you could build a wing of say 5 fighters instead of a single ship and these could be represented in a chevron formation that move as one unit in the battle engine, aswell as that having models of these ships could open up the possibilites of random events such as maquis shipping raids being added to the current "Raider Ships" random event category

what do you think