Science Vessels

from GalCiv2 Forums
I know this has been talked about in the past, and i really should have thought to bring it up again sooner, as the new expansion is probably already set in stone by this point. BUT, i would LOVE to see a "laboratory" module introduced as a ship component. Im tired of ships only being good for war! The only other use for ships right now is as surveyors. and you can only have so many of them. What i propose is this:

1. A module that would produce a set amount of research points every turn, but cost extra maintenance per turn. These extra RP would be added into your total each turn and would NOT depend upon how much your slider was set to research (since your already paying for it in maintenance).

2. A series of techs that branch off of stellar cartography. Each tech granting the next level of laboratory.

3. The balance of RP/cost should reflect the idea that Land bases facilities are more efficient and should be the back bone of your RP out put, but if your short on real estate you should still have a way to keep up with the big boys if your willing to commit the cast in maintenance every turn.

4. The size of the Laboratories should take up enough space that the largest hulled ship in that tech era should be able to have both a lab and limited weapons/deff. Thus adding to your military might (as the Federation does in Star Trek). That way depending on your strategy you can have both Purely Science Vessels that have say 3 labs or general purpose with say 1 and average armorment.

This is a great excuse for peaceful civs to have a large standing army during peace time. especially if they are a smaller race that needs their real estate for large banking systems.

Also i did investigate doing this as a mod a while back. I was thinking, modify the survey module to give bonus RP each turn. But every one told me you can only manipulate current bonuses, you cant tell it to give something such as RP. If this is not true, please tell me how it might be possible to mod this in cause i would gladly try, if not. DEVS PLEASE make a way for me to mod this in, if its not going to make it into any future patches or expansions! this would really make for an interesting change in strategy with regards to research and useless standing armies.

P.S. it would also be nice if when war time came around, it was relatively cheep to "upgrade" them getting rid of the labs for more guns and shields. But when the war was over, make it extremely expensive to transfer back, basically you gotta build new ships if you want them to have labs.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1. A module that would produce a set amount of research points every turn, but cost extra maintenance per turn. These extra RP would be added into your total each turn and would NOT depend upon how much your slider was set to research (since your already paying for it in maintenance).
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Not the best of ideas. By the sounds of it, it will be working even when your dept is less than -500 bc. In any case, if it existed, it should be affected by the sliders. To do otherwise would quickly remove the need for the research slider to be anything than 0%.

Think about it, the current system is a balancing act between ship production, social production, and research. If you suddenly could get significant ammounts of research without using the slider system, you would effectively free up to 33.3% of the slider system. Switch to a ratio of 1% mil, and 99% social, and you will quickly build up your planets, and then get large ammounts of military output.

P.S. it would also be nice if when war time came around, it was relatively cheep to "upgrade" them getting rid of the labs for more guns and shields. But when the war was over, make it extremely expensive to transfer back, basically you gotta build new ships if you want them to have labs.
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Bad idea. You could build all research labs to get the massive science output, then when an opponent decides to attack you, you would be able to "cheaply" upgrade your research ships into technologicaly superior attack ships. After you win, you would be able to use your newly conquored planets, with their fresh income, to pay for the "expensive" downgrade, so your attack ships may become research ships again.

________________
Work on it for a bit, maybe the idea might turn out better.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
DivineWrath, I'm not sure I agree with your first concern. Imagine, for example, that a ship provided 4 points of research, with an additional 4 bc maintainence cost (or more!). I don't remember the maintainence to ship cost ratio, but lets say it's 20 to 1 for the sake of argument. That means that the component that gives you a measley 4 TP is costing you 80 BC at most, which is a substantial addition to a ship's cost. More realistically, creating that much output in space (even with the advantages of zero G, no atmosphere, and relative isolation in case of disaster) is going to be expensive. So lets say the module is instead 240 BC, which means you're spending 3 BC for each point of research... only 33% as efficient as the ground based labs! On top of that, you'll be doubling or tripling the cost of your ships in the process.

My point is, it doesn't matter that you can't turn that research off if it's still mandatory to pay the same rate for it.

However, my concern with such a system would be the fact that your research capacity can be independent of your planet capacity. It has its disadvantages, sure. The modules might be less efficient, they're easy targets in war (since they don't leave room for guns) and they mean your military has to be smaller to afford the maintainence, but what's to stop a player from simply loading up a few fleets of cargo hulls with labs and keeping them out of reach?

The solution, I think, is simply finding the right numbers. The space borne research has to be inefficient enough that the land based labs are still the center of your technological development. A player should be allowed to pursue an all factories strategy here, keeping all their research in orbit, but the maintainence costs and capacity of the research ships would need to be set such that they would not be getting the best bang for their buck. The ships would not be an outright replacement for the labs, in that case.

The biggest problem with this suggestion is instead the changes the AI would need to compensate. They're already looking at having to handle a lot of new stuff, needing to manage research ships might be beyond them, making it too advantageous for the player.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
...but the maintainence costs and capacity of the research ships would need to be set such that they would not be getting the best bang for their buck...
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...The ships would not be an outright replacement for the labs, in that case.
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Then why have science vessels? If using them isn't going to be a part of a practical strategy, then what good are they... a money sink?
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What if the space reashearch was simply relayed to you're technological capital, where it would be subject to the same penalties and bonuses as normal RP?
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Im tired of ships only being good for war!
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I very much agree i know devs probably have tons of ideas, but let me just throw a few here anyways:

Spyships (generating one spy on the planet it lands on ... players choice or random)

Scavenger modules (that generates a few credits each won fight)

Food freighters modules (transfers food production from one planet to another)

Bombardment module (dual-purposed: 1.: longdistance space bombardment of stationary bases 1-2 damage a week 2.: reducing enemy advantage during trooplanding)

Improved colonization module (that doesnt disappear after landing colonists, but needs an upgrade after landing)

Here's a few ideas i could go on and on about it!
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Im tired of ships only being good for war!
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I agree with this statement, but I don't like this research idea. What could a ship-based lab possibly bring to the table that a planet-based lab doesn't? A ship would have a small, cramped lab, with jack-of-all-trades equipment; they wouldn't be able to do any intensive research because of this unspecialized, inadequate equipment, and because of a lack of resources (a ship can't hold as much raw and/or processed materials as a planet). The only real contribution that a ship could make is that it can go to distant locations and scan stellar phenomenon; the telemetry could then be processed by a planetary station. GalCiv has, more or less, a system already in place for doing this: anomalies. Now, I would definitely like to see more emphasis placed on these aspects of the game, with a souped-up system for anomalies, but ships themselves doing research is a bad idea I think.

Really, I would say that GalCiv2 already has much of the mechanics for this sort of idea, but it just comes off really stale and uninteresting. The the resource bases comes to mind (Captain, we've spotted some concentrated 'military'. Shall I signal a constructor to mine it?). I think that for starters, Stardock should try grouping all the non-planets: asteroids, anomalies, and resources, into one category, "phenomenon"; then, a survey vessel could be ordered to study it, a process which would take several weeks, which could be lessened by the amount of sensor capability the ship has (or, the ship could distinguish between standard sensors and surveying sensors. The tech branch off of stellar cartography, or perhaps branching off the 'Sensors' tech, would address this type). Then, the identity of the phenomenon, and its uses, would be revealed to the player, anomalies would work like normal, giving a small bonus, resources and asteroids are marked as such on the map, allowing a constructor/miner to come by and claim it, and the ship would move on. Perhaps even planets could follow a similar system; you would have to survey and study a planet before knowing its class and its atmospheric characteristics. Granted, this may be too much for GalCiv2, but hey, it's an idea for the future.

Spyships (generating one spy on the planet it lands on ... players choice or random)

Scavenger modules (that generates a few credits each won fight)

Food freighters modules (transfers food production from one planet to another)

Bombardment module (dual-purposed: 1.: longdistance space bombardment of stationary bases 1-2 damage a week 2.: reducing enemy advantage during trooplanding)

Improved colonization module (that doesnt disappear after landing colonists, but needs an upgrade after landing)
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I like most of these ideas, but they just don't work with GalCiv2. Spyships, for example, would just be plain weird due to the way (crude way, in my opinion; sorry S.D.) espionage works in GalCiv.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
These research laboratories are already set in the game as economic star bases. Plus, I don't want to micromanage all these ships with labs on them.

I would be for the idea of the asteroid belts giving an option of production or research, which I believe this is what they intended, but changed it to only production.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For what it's worth.

I like the idea of reasearch labs on ships/starbases in principle however their contribution would be too small. a city sized research centre produces 1-25 tp, a huge hulled ship would only have about a 100th of that, not really worth it. Where it might benefit is if a ship is equiped with a research facliity it can say increase the luck factor during battle after say 2 rounds then it makes sence that the research has analysed the tactics/weapons/defenses of the enemy and can help in the battle.. well maybe???

Spyships (generating one spy on the planet it lands on ... players choice or random)
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Not keen on this

Scavenger modules (that generates a few credits each won fight)
End of quote

Cool

Food freighters modules (transfers food production from one planet to another)
End of quote

Won't work on GC II population model

Bombardment module (dual-purposed: 1.: longdistance space bombardment of stationary bases 1-2 damage a week 2.: reducing enemy advantage during trooplanding)
End of quote

Cool in principle, however why not create an invasion tactic (InvTactics.xml)

Improved colonization module (that doesnt disappear after landing colonists, but needs an upgrade after landing)
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Colonists would recycle the ship as an initial home. So not keen.

I'd like to see independant sliders for mp/sp/tp if you have the money you should be able to have 100% on each. I'd also like to see espionage being a planetary tile producing espionage units (ep) and have that from 0-100% too.




Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
...but the maintainence costs and capacity of the research ships would need to be set such that they would not be getting the best bang for their buck...



...The ships would not be an outright replacement for the labs, in that case.


Then why have science vessels? If using them isn't going to be a part of a practical strategy, then what good are they... a money sink?
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You only have so many tiles to put labs on. Having your fleet supplement your research would be one way to free up tiles for other uses... albiet expensively.
Im tired of ships only being good for war!


I agree with this statement, but I don't like this research idea. What could a ship-based lab possibly bring to the table that a planet-based lab doesn't? A ship would have a small, cramped lab, with jack-of-all-trades equipment; they wouldn't be able to do any intensive research because of this unspecialized, inadequate equipment, and because of a lack of resources (a ship can't hold as much raw and/or processed materials as a planet). The only real contribution that a ship could make is that it can go to distant locations and scan stellar phenomenon; the telemetry could then be processed by a planetary station.
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Not true. Witness, for example, the international space station and hubble telescope: these are space based tools of science that are extremely valuable. They are short of materials and equipment, yes, but they allow unique perspectives for study, such as zero G and distance from the chaotic, noisy environment that surrounds a planet. The space station and hubble telescope are both part of a modern space program. Imagine what a 24th century society that has the capacity to manipulate gravity would do in that environment! Space would be an ideal place to study interstellar phenomena, build super computers, and mess with things never meant to be messed with. Being distance from anyone who might suffer collateral damage has that advantage.

What if, for instance, a survey module (or maybe an advanced survey module) also contained the ability to add 1 RP to a ship?



Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
international space station
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GalCiv already has research space stations, the research mining resource. But as I said, the system of resource bases aren't that exciting; something to spice it up is in order, in my opinion.

hubble telescope
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What is a telescope if not the earliest form of scanner? And what does it do? *drumroll* Survey stellar phenomenon! Then, we on Earth get the pictures and study them! (forgive me if I'm coming off as snide)

Anyways, the point is, a traveling spaceship wouldn't contribute a significant amount, due to the fact that after you have made it capable of interstellar flight, there simply isn't much room left for research.

Finally, I have to consider that Stardock isn't able to put every possibility in this game, and this idea is just at the bottom of the list for me.

What if, for instance, a survey module (or maybe an advanced survey module) also contained the ability to add 1 RP to a ship?
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It would have to be tied to the sliders somehow. Otherwise it would upset the game mechanics.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
How would it upset the mechanics, aside from denying the player the control over when the research on the ships is done?
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I know this has been talked about in the past, and i really should have thought to bring it up again sooner, as the new expansion is probably already set in stone by this point. BUT, i would LOVE to see a "laboratory" module introduced as a ship component. Im tired of ships only being good for war! The only other use for ships right now is as surveyors. and you can only have so many of them. What i propose is this:

1. A module that would produce a set amount of research points every turn, but cost extra maintenance per turn. These extra RP would be added into your total each turn and would NOT depend upon how much your slider was set to research (since your already paying for it in maintenance).

2. A series of techs that branch off of stellar cartography. Each tech granting the next level of laboratory.

3. The balance of RP/cost should reflect the idea that Land bases facilities are more efficient and should be the back bone of your RP out put, but if your short on real estate you should still have a way to keep up with the big boys if your willing to commit the cast in maintenance every turn.

4. The size of the Laboratories should take up enough space that the largest hulled ship in that tech era should be able to have both a lab and limited weapons/deff. Thus adding to your military might (as the Federation does in Star Trek). That way depending on your strategy you can have both Purely Science Vessels that have say 3 labs or general purpose with say 1 and average armorment.

This is a great excuse for peaceful civs to have a large standing army during peace time. especially if they are a smaller race that needs their real estate for large banking systems.

Also i did investigate doing this as a mod a while back. I was thinking, modify the survey module to give bonus RP each turn. But every one told me you can only manipulate current bonuses, you cant tell it to give something such as RP. If this is not true, please tell me how it might be possible to mod this in cause i would gladly try, if not. DEVS PLEASE make a way for me to mod this in, if its not going to make it into any future patches or expansions! this would really make for an interesting change in strategy with regards to research and useless standing armies.

P.S. it would also be nice if when war time came around, it was relatively cheep to "upgrade" them getting rid of the labs for more guns and shields. But when the war was over, make it extremely expensive to transfer back, basically you gotta build new ships if you want them to have labs.
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I actually love this idea. :CONGRAT: Maybe it can be modded with ToA when that new ship component editor is released.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I doubt the editor will have the required functionality to add that. Alas.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's the reason that the research, military, and social sliders are placed under a master slider: by not being able to run everything at 100% all the time; it deliberately forces you to balance difficult management choices. Free research points would bypass and thereby exploit this system.

I think the best implementation would be to focus on anomalies, like putting greater chances of getting the "increased our knowledge of this tech by 25%" anomaly. Anomalies are, essentially, their own little bits of research, granting small improvements here and there. Additionally, anomalies should regenerate faster.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd like to see a lab modue as well. It is kinda boring to build ships only for wars. What about peacetime? Shouldn't that upkeep be used for something like research?
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Anyways, the point is, a traveling spaceship wouldn't contribute a significant amount, due to the fact that after you have made it capable of interstellar flight, there simply isn't much room left for research.
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the enterprise has more computer space than we on earth do today.

it has to have for its transporter to work.

meaning that it has lots of computer for research as well.

that is standard build for the federation.

but that wasn't enough for kirk, he took one of their rec. rooms and put another computer in it.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's the reason that the research, military, and social sliders are placed under a master slider: by not being able to run everything at 100% all the time; it deliberately forces you to balance difficult management choices. Free research points would bypass and thereby exploit this system.

I think the best implementation would be to focus on anomalies, like putting greater chances of getting the "increased our knowledge of this tech by 25%" anomaly. Anomalies are, essentially, their own little bits of research, granting small improvements here and there. Additionally, anomalies should regenerate faster.
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I don't think this would break the game all that much. As the game plays now, the only thing you CAN'T rush-buy is research. How would giving players an alternative means of research be different than being able to build ships without the industry to do it yourself?

And for anomalies, most AIs lose their flagship one way or another by the time respawning anomalies become important. Since the AI rarely builds aditional survey vessels, respawned anomalies are simply a gift for the human player and a navigational hazard for the AI. The current rate is quite sufficient, IMO.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
a space born lab should only add one point to research. and for every 10 ships it should be cut in half. because your ship labs will start covering the same ground as others are.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

How about ship components that would retard a starbases economic benefit to trading or production such as lowering trade values or lowering the benefit from the resource mining bases?Or a pirating module that would allow you to steal trade from somebody else?
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think my point isn't coming across because I'm not saying it right.
Ships of any kind should have to DO something in order to produce, not merely exist as an extension of planets, cranking out research. If there is some system where a ship can, say, scan a nebula or visit a planet or whatever, and doing so produces research points, I'm fine with that. That would be interesting. But simply packing a cargo hull with research modules and parking it in a corner of the galaxy researching for the rest of the game, in my opinion, would not be a good implementation of this concept. Planets and starbases are the only things that should be stationary in this game; ships should be in motion to function effectively.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The system can be made as not to be abused by simply having a high maintenance cost.

If on a planet you pay for every research point 1cr + the maintenance of the lab, SD could balance the new componet so that you should pay for every space based research point 2cr + the ship's maintenance (which is a hel of a lot more than a lab's maintenance)
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree with this statement, but I don't like this research idea. What could a ship-based lab possibly bring to the table that a planet-based lab doesn't? A ship would have a small, cramped lab, with jack-of-all-trades equipment; they wouldn't be able to do any intensive research because of this unspecialized, inadequate equipment, and because of a lack of resources (a ship can't hold as much raw and/or processed materials as a planet). The only real contribution that a ship could make is that it can go to distant locations and scan stellar phenomenon; the telemetry could then be processed by a planetary station. GalCiv has, more or less, a system already in place for doing this: anomalies. Now, I would definitely like to see more emphasis placed on these aspects of the game, with a souped-up system for anomalies, but ships themselves doing research is a bad idea I think.
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I do like the idea of improving the annomoly system. It does make alot of sense.

BUT I do think it is important to have some sort of a non land based research system. Research mining mases doent count cause they are a multiplyer not strait points. I find in games that the gap between players with lots of planets and those with less, tends to be a slipery-slope. The more planets you get the more powerfull you get. Yes there is reasons for this, but i think the little guy in the corner (if he plays his cards right) should be able to keep up, at least technology wise, with the bigger player. or at a minimum not fall behind. i would like to see this research vessel idea tweeked to allow for players with limited real estate to still have a (expensive) way of getting their research done.

Of course as always there will be bugs that need tweeking to make it fair. Maintenance cost, logistics space, and out put all need to be tweeked to make it not worth the cost for bigger civs that would rather put that monie into land research/big military fleets. BUT a small civ that doesnt have a big fleet or alot of land should be able to utilize this to help them keep up tech wise.

I do think that labs might need to be restricted from cargo hulls. and yes the AI being able to handle the use of labs is important to take into account. But other wise at a minimum id like to see the new ship componant editor be able to handle such a Mod. i would realy like to see this implementable.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I like the idea of a science module used on ships, maybe a special type of ship that can be grouped with a fleet of battle ships. During the battle this science vessel could add an "adaptive" bonus to the other ships in the fleet. Then, after the battle, if it survives, it could do a little analysis of the wreckage and maybe uncover a little tech, or maybe just provide partial credit to researching a tech. The partial credit seems like a good idea since it will keep this from becoming too unbalancing.

I agree that just having the ships shouldn't count for anything. I think some people get the impression that there is a shortage of space on the planet, since we have limited tiles to build on, and so it seems that ships parked in orbit would be useful by providing more space. But I don't think that this is what the planet tiles are meant to imply. In my opinon they are meant as a game mechanic to limit the amount of stuff you can put on a planet for game balancing purposes. Building stuff in orbit around the planet would undo this mechanism and they might as well just put more usable tiles on the planet instead.