Big zippy dreadnoughts versus slow mini fighters?...

from GalCiv2 Forums
Excellent game, Galciv II is. One thing that bugs me though, is that it seems like the way we have the correlation between speed & hull size right now is a bit unrealistic, i.e. large hulls can fit more engines, and thus go much faster than small hulls. Whereas if we try to recall "real life", big ships lumber by, and small ships zip around...

I think we can change this situation if we have "speed" as the result from interaction between "hull weight" and "engine power". i.e., mod the designs to have hull weight criteria for each hull type, and mod the engines so that they give "engine power" rating instead of "speed". More hull weight would require more engine power to move the ship.

That way, we can have for example small fighters with a warp engine zooming by at 3 parsecs perweek, whereas large dreadnoughts using the same single warp engine can barely cough up 1 parsec, for example. We can of course, install more engines to overcome this.

i've never done any modding, so i dunno how easy/hard to implement this... would be interesting to see though.
modding
18,749 views 29 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually from the steam-age on, larger naval warships ships generally _are_ faster. There are a few exceptions, but most battleships were faster than cruisers, which were faster than destroyers, which were faster than frigates.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The game does scale engine size with hull size, so the same engine component takes more space on a huge hull than a tiny hull.

Your point is correct if the engines work like rockets (Acceleration = Force / Mass). But according to the game text, their main function is folding space. Since we don't know the physics of folding space, we're free to invent our explanation for how it works.

Perhaps the amount of engine necessary to fold space is proportional to the distance folded and volume moved (as opposed to the mass).

If the engines used Newtonian mechanics, travel wouldn't be at a constant rate. You would accelerate for the first half of the trip, than decelerate for the second half. Midcourse corrections would be tough. Also, relativity seems to be thankfully absent from the GalCiv universe, otherwise we'd never get anywhere.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you want to talk about other Sci-Fi that deals with folding space IE StarTrek the larger ships are generally faster then the smaller ships because they have two, three or even 4 "warp drives" while the small DD and DDE only have 1 drive...

If you want to compare it to the Navy, the American Fast Battleship classes were quicker then some countries CA or CL. Typically it harder to go much faster then 30-36 knots reguardless of the size of the ship because of how hull size and flow corralate with internal volume.

Currently the largest ships (CVN and SSN) are faster and have greater endurance then the smaller ships.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Large scale ships do not need to displace water or air, so the only thing that would hold them back is the extra innertia. I don't see why a large scale ship shouldn't be much faster than a small scale ship, because you could put more thrust behind it, since it is larger.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you really want this, just increase the scaling of engines with hull size.

I'm afraid I don't know how to do this, but I'm pretty sure it can be done by editing something somewhere...
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think what's really bothering you is maneuverability. It's really in a pitched battle in which you would see lots of zippy small fighters flying circles around a lumbering dreadnought. And that has nothing to do with the engines. Hell, I don't think that maneuverability is figured into GalCiv's space combat at all.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Echo reply #1. Space sims are based off of a 'naval' model and thus bigger ships go faster. When HMS Dreadnaught was first launched she was the fastest ship in the world, despite being a battleship.

Magnifico
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree with alot of the sentiments here. Firstly, more room for more powerful engines, secondly, space, no air or water drag. Sure smaller ships might have tons of little thruster bits to turn and maneuver them here or there, but that doesn't translate into speed of the engine type. If you'll think back to Star Wars, which is probably the originator of your image of big, lumbery ships: Star Destroyers can jump to hyperspace, TIE Fighters can't, this alone makes destroyers faster, thousands of times so. They don't need to spin around and do crazy maneuvers, they're huge.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I prefer to think of it as engine technology, not specific engines. You research enough technology to go X speed, and then the specific engines with that technology are scaled to the ship size. Smaller ships get smaller engines.

Think of it this way: A Boeing 777 and a Boeing 737 go about the same speed. One could argue that they have the same engine technology (turbo fans). Both have 2 engines, but the ones on the 777 are much bigger than the 737 engines.

Same engine technology, same speed, different size engines. The same thing is relevant in the game, 2 engines of the same technology will take the ship the same distance, but the engines on the larger ships are bigger than the engines on the smaller ships.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The game already models a speed difference in different sized ships via engine size. If you notice, to put the same type of engine on a tiny ship takes less space then on a large ship (or am I just hallucinating?) Anyway their rally shouldnt be any limtiations on speed versus size except that more mass would require more thrust to move. But their is nothing from keeping someone from just putting really big engines on a giant ship and sending it zipping along at incredible speed.

Oh and wet navy ships generally travel faster the larger they are. It actually has to do with the length of a ship and its effects on the water. There is a maximum speed that a ship can go in the water that is affected by its length and width. Which is why the very large and long battleships had a higher top end than the shorter destroyers. The only way around this is to hydroplane the ship to avoid the effects.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

If you really want this, just increase the scaling of engines with hull size.

I'm afraid I don't know how to do this, but I'm pretty sure it can be done by editing something somewhere...



You can do this on a case-by-case basis when buildng your own ships by using the "scale slider" (for lack of a better name) just below the model viewer that displays your hull, weapons, etc.

Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The guy who said your talking about maneuverability and not speed hit the nail on the head.

The game has no tactical component, so there is no need within the context of the game to worry about the implications that newtonian physics have on space combat.

If they were going to worry about this, the ideal way would be to separate engines from maneuvering thrusters. Engines are for folding space and interstellar travel. They dont care about mass. The maneuvering thrusters would care about mass.

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Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ulryk he meant the phsyical size not the appearance size
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Lord Zardoz is right about the question being about maneover vs speed. A capital ship is often way faster than a fighter but, one it takes longer to accellerate and two it cant change directions as easy. Also you have to consider the advantage of a fighter which is avoidance. fighter had no real protection from enemy fire instead they try to make you miss them. Meanwhile big ships try to improve fire solutions or improved aim and tracking to hit faster targets. If anything that balance of maneover to targeting should be a factor in the outcomes of battles.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
yep.. it's really the maneuvaribility. Maybe that should be factored into the game with some future patch?

cheers,
X3R
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
These ships are folding space-time, not firing chemical rockets. They don't actually move, technically speaking. Space warps around them and deposits them into a new location.

Think of two dots on a balloon. Add more air and the dots end up further apart, but they aren't actually moving - the balloon is. With these ships, the balloon is space-time. Adding more engines means they can warp space-time to a greater degree and they end up further away.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
mikeswi, half-correct. If you read the tech descriptions for the various drive techs, you'll notice that the drives consist of two seperate mechanisms, one that folds space, and one that moves the ship through space, in this case the resulting folded space. In fact, at least one of the early drive techs specifically mentions that it's an improvement to the second half.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have to agree with the others, I think your confusing maneuverability for speed. Yes fighters are "zippy" in comparision to the big captiol ships, but you have to remember, fighters are designed to hit a target and withdraw before getting hit with AA fire, where as a capitol ship wants to bring as much of its firepower to bear on its target and slug it out. For example, in Return of the Jedi where the big battle is going on at the end, a Nebulon B Frigate and a Star Destroyer are lumbering pass each other to inflict Max damage, while the fighters are "Getting the hell out of here!"
Now as to capitol ships being slow, again I'll use Star Wars two examples. In the first movie, (Or the fourth one to be correct.) The Millenium Falcon, the "fastest ship in the galaxy" is fleeing Tatooine. Being it has a jump on everyone, it should get away easily. Nope, that Star Destroyer pours on the power and manages to keep up with Han until he makes the jump to light speed. The second one deals with the Falcon again just after it comes out of the asteroid field. The Star Destroyer is hot on its heels, and with the hyperdrive on the fritz, Han knows he cant out run them, so he uses some superior tatics to escape. Or better yet think about the big escape at the end. Vaders flag ship is chasing down the falcon. Dont believe me, watch it and you'll hear Admiral Piett say, "They'll be in range of our tractor beam in moments." which would imply that the biggest ship in the galaxy (at the time) was closing with a tiny little frieghter that could out fly, out race, and out maneuver any fighter out there. Big doesnt mean slower, it just means they arent in a rush to kick your butt.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ya know, I feel that I have to make a comment on this.

Yep, we have definitely decided that fighters have more manoeverability than speed.

The thing that I have an issue with personally is the idea that a capital ship could be chasing down whole fleets of fighters and just gobbling them up without breaking a sweat. Since I last checked, in the game example section, none of the winner examples have used fighters. They have always used the biggest ships they could use.(I have not owned the game for a long time yet, so if anyone has made a huge military victory using just fighters, please speak up.)

Now, I have a few sugestions to fix the problem of fighters being plowed on in combat, without making HUGE changes to the game.

Either A: Change the number of logistics points a fighter has, in order to increase the likelyness of huge fleets of fighters, capable of taking on a cap ship.
B: Add a damn speed bonus to small ships. (Or speed penalty for bigger)
C: Handicap capital ships in some way. (I know this is all bullshit, but im just throwing it out there)

D: Add a hanger module for the ships. I know this is pretty radical, but if you make it so that there is a huge module for carrying fighters at the speed the bigger ship, than you have a slightly more realistic scenerio. The bigger ship carries its fighters at the speed it normally goes at, and the fighters piggyback. You would just add on the hangar module like any other module, and fighters that joined the carrier's fleet/hangar would inherit it's speed characteristics.But, to keep it fair, The fighters wouldn;t be able to engage if they were still stuck in the carrier when it was fighting, so they had to be deployed on the galactic map.

BUT, you don't turn the carrier into an oversized bringer of doom... somehow. Hmmm.THe only way I can think of it is to make the . If the hangar worked similarily to the fleet system, than the hanger could be limited by the number and quality of fighters it was carrying. If you can see any ways to make this possible, post up, and who knows, it might get some attention.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hmmmm....a defensive bonus to fighters for size and "speed" intresting. It would certainly make swarms of fighters more deadly. I like that.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
All this talk reminds me of another recent space sim called Weird Worlds. One thing in that game that I thought was pretty cool was that each ship had two engine slots: one for warp drive, one for sublight (though the smallest fighters generally didn't have a warp drive slot). Warp speed wasn't affected at all by the size of the ship. Given equivalent warp engines all your ships would travel the same regardless of size. Sublight engines affected your speed, including turning speed, during tactical combat. This was very affected by the size of the ship. Small fighters with the worst engines could go about the same speed as the largest ships with the best engines. I always found it hilarious and somewhat sad when my flagship, which was usually my largest heaviest ship, would have bad engines. A lot of times I had a hard time noticing it was moving! And forget about trying to maneuver to bring all your weapons to bear.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Does anyone even use the tiny hull size? I've never found a use for it but maybe that's just me. I'd like to seemore uses for tiny hulls and smaller hulls in the late game but I don't have any good suggestions as to how.

Another thing that puzzles me is that the weapon sizes increase as the hull size increases, why is this? Surely a missile launcher takes the same ammount of room whatever hull it is put on.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This can be handled with a mod. You can edit the "tiny" and "small" hulls to have a higher base speed (and higher cost). That would increase the attractiveness of "tiny" and "small" ships.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I use tiny when I get "uber weaponzzors 0f d00m" like Doom Ray. Enough attack on a tiny hull to wipe out a medium ship. But other than that, small/medium with a huge flagship.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually from the steam-age on, larger naval warships ships generally _are_ faster. There are a few exceptions, but most battleships were faster than cruisers, which were faster than destroyers, which were faster than frigates.


Hello all

I agree that the smaller ships should be at least more
agile and have more effective acceleration with same
engine power. Its a ratio including mass and engine-power.
At least at sub-light speed (if we want to be consistent with
sci-fi literature and films).

I have to be a wise guy though: Some statements (like the
above quoted) are quite incorrect. Smaller "wet" navy-ships
were usually faster than their big counterparts. Examples
with class and max speed from WWII (I only compare ships
that were commissioned around the same time with
similar technological achievements):

Patrol Boats: PT Elco Class / 41 kts
Destroyers: DD Sumner Class / 36.5 kts
DD Fletcher Class / 38 kts
Battleship: BB Iowa Class / 33 kts
Carrier: CV Yorktown Class / 32.5 kts

This is top speed! There seems to be some confusion when
speed ratings are concerned: Top speed and top speed
vs. range. Larger battleships had more fuel (or coal) supply
than f.e. destroyers. BBs could sustain a higher cruise speed
for long ranges. In order to keep up with the big-boys without
running out of fuel, destroyers had to cut their cruise speed.
Modern nuclear-powered CVs and SBNs dont have such a
restriction (or by far less). They can go at top speed with constant
energy supply. Diesel-ships cant.

Also designs were very important. Battleships had a much larger
water displacement and were built much wider in the middle which
on one hand made them slower (more water resistance) but also
more maneuverable (less water resistance sideways). Smaller fleet
vessels were much sleeker and hence faster. As they were shorter
than the big ones they already had sufficient maneuverability to
avoid being hit by torpedoes or shells.

When it came to action smaller vessels sped up to their top speed
and were the considerably faster than the battleships and cruisers.

I just stating this, because wrong facts are used as an example for
"realism".

~S!~

Dioscur