Shipyard & CC_07

[spideycw]

With CC_06 being finished up as we speak - it is time to get the ball rolling on CC_07. This next CC update will endeavor to tackle the current problems many see with Shipyards. If you missed the initial discussion thread it can be found Here

In this thread please include any well thought out ideas or comments you have for possible changes to Shipyard. I cannot stress the fact that if I have to read any crap or random @#(! you obviously haven't spent 30 seconds to think about - I will be very very unhappy.

Now moving along, these are some of the ideas that have been put together so far:

QUOTE SY Revamp

After much thought and reading of the forums I think this is the best option for a revamp of SY to make it both fun and useful.

First off SY will be changed to be a SUPPORT tech for other methods of base killing NOT base killing tech in and of itself. What I see is ships in SY being used as more fire support ships for bomb runs/htt runs/con pushes instead of directly killing bases themselves (Lt bases of course can still be toasted) and being very good at getting through camped alephs

There are several changes that will be made:
A new turret – Mini Skycap/Mini Longtom
Gunships - get Mini Skycap instead of full Skycap
Cost – Caps will be cheaper
Less levels of SY research – and less costly
Cap ship speed and perhaps agility will be increased
Cap ship shields being made more res resistant or making a new shield that is 100% res resistant but dies far easier to everything else
Capital Ship Nans
Regular nan will maybe be 25%-50% effective on all cap hull
All caps can now mount aleph res (aleph 1 will be moved to garrison not starbase)

Let me give you a few examples of how I see SY working if we make these changes. You have an eyed bomb run with 2 destroyers, 1 freighter and 1 attack carrier as escort against mini 3 heavy ints which are camping for you. You have your destroyers fire off their aleph res and then fly through the aleph holding it open for the incoming bomb run with their special large res resistant shield. After the res goes off they swap their shields and begin recharging their regular shields. Heavy Ints boost back to the aleph but the destroyers begin spamming their Quick Fires (let’s say 50 qf per rack) and their turrets use the mini skycaps to soften up the ints. At this time the destroyers die but the bomb run comes in full speed through an uncamped and unproxed aleph. The bomber must hold itself to going 40mps or so to take advantage of the freighter nan it has as well as the regular nans. The attack carrier blazes a trail with the bomber tucked in right to its tailpipes. Any scout nans that get podded can just rip right back in assuming they get picked up for as long as energy holds. This is a good example of how you could go nothing but shipyard and still play a viable game of Allegiance (assuming good teamwork)

So I imagine there will be two levels of SY research. Let’s call them I and II and assume a level I upgrade costs 10k and a level II upgrade cost 20k.
Level I will include:
Freighter – Will mount capital class nan - Slow speed – 40-50mps so a bomber will have to go slower if it wants to be nanned
Corvette – Let’s just say we price this at maybe 1k. Not to expensive and you can afford it off two paydays. However it is essentially just a slightly bigger gunship and will die fairly easily
Attack Carrier
Assault Ship – Perhaps allow mounting of sig cloak or something similar to gt lt cloak
Destroyer
Devastator

All of Level I will be using Mini Skycap for their turrets. The Devastator will be a purely anti-cap ship.

Level II will include:
Battlecrusier
Battleship – Let’s say this is the best of the best capital ship as it provides long range firesupport and is tough to boot. I think $7500 or so is a good price for this

All Level II ships will have regular Skycap for turrets. Perhaps a BC and BS can mount a shorter range version or Rixian Lancer (2k or so)

So to race all the way up to battleships it will cost you 10k for your SY + 10k for Level I and 20k for Level II = 40k + cost of ships which I feel is like too expensive and fairly competitive against the price of other techs. Of course this can be tweaked but it is just a rough starting point.

I also think having caps use QF’s missiles as their primary method of missile attack is perfect. A cap will never be as agile as other ships so they will need to lock on and put as many missiles on target as fast as possible. QF’s are perfect for this and since a cap can hold a very large magazine of them this is the perfect missile for this. Also unlike MRM or LRM these missiles can be found in garrison. Let’s face it capital class missiles take far to long to lock on but if you tweak the agility of caps a bit and remember qf has very good tracking (I have spammed them off in a GS for example and hit a heavy int behind me and podded him) I think this could be a very good use for it.[/quote]

Xeretov's summary and expansion of MadP's ideas

QUOTE (Xeretov)Tech Trees

Madp's idea (link) was to split the tech into different trees to make tech more accessible to 'support' different techpaths. Carriers for sup/tac teams, corvs for defense, etc. Ideally you'd only research or work your way up to the tech you need and spend less than you do now. I think overall the new SY shouldn't be any more expensive than the current one. Where exactly the costs fall for each tech I'm not completely sure.

Madp had four trees - Light, Med, Hvy and Support. I'd rather see these as Defense, Support and Attack. The defense tree would go something like Corvette -> Destroyer -> Devastator. Support tree would go Carrier -> Enh. Carrier -> Ass. Ship. And attack would go Frigate -> Cruiser -> Battleship. I also thought that the base killing tech (Attack tree) should be as much or close to the current prices for Med/Hvy/Super Hvy class research is now, so that teams can't rush their way to battleships. However to keep the costs down, researching each tier in attack should also provide the same tier research in the other trees. Example: Buying Cruisers automatically gives you Destroyers & Enh. Carriers as well. Researching the third tier in Attack would be just like researching Super Heavy class is right now as far as costs & tech available is concerned. These numbers could of course be tweaked depending on testing results.

Researching the first tier of tech should require a basic techbase, and researching the second tier should require an adv. techbase. Alternatively it could be for the 2nd and 3rd tiers of SY.

Currently we use Drydock for Sky3/Longtom research. Under the new system we could make it so that Sky2 requires any 1st tier researched (such as Corvettes), Sky3 would require mid tier (Enh. Carriers), and Longtoms the third tier. Alternatively we could move Skycap into the Defense tree and make a heavier turret weapon as some people have suggested. These would be researched in and mounted on the ships from the Attack tree. I'm not entirely sure SY needs a heavier turret weapon so I won't comment more on that. Its just an option of how to sort the trees if we decide it does.

Another quick point: Besides a lower price, the tech in the Defense & Support trees could take less research time, or alternatively the Attack tree could take longer than it currently does.


Gunships & Freighters

Gunships could be moved to SY as well and would be available for research from the start, although this is a bit of a nerf to Bios since they would have to build the SY before they could start getting GS up. If thats the case then I would leave GS in starbase just for Bios, although that would require another pre/def fiddly bit in ICE. Another alternative is to make GS come with all freshly built SYs, and/or leave Bios as the only faction that has to research them, but they can do so in starbase. Maybe a discussion for another thread.

I figured since Freighters aren't *that* awesome of a tech that they should be available without any research from SY once its built. Again, the alternative is to make it available from any 1st tier tech research.


Weaponry & Unused Tech

A couple points I want to make here. First off, I don't think I've ever seen battlecruisers used in a game since teams would rather save up another 2K for a battleship. I also don't see Devastators used much, although that may be due to their price / location in the SY tree. They'd be a little more convenient to grab under the above system, and might be an option for an Exp team that needs to defend vs. caps but doesn't have a sup rock available, or already has a SY. That said, I didn't include BCs in the above proposal for this reason.

The other point I wanted to make are some of the weapons that rarely get used / never get researched. LRM killer swarm, XRM torpedo, MRM seismic and XRM Cruise all fall under this category. Of the four, XRM Cruise is probably used the most but its never upgraded. I'm going to leave that one to discussion. The other three I've never seen used, or maybe no more than once for some very specific purpose. Just more tech that could be removed or changed without too many problems. I would remove MRM seismic at the least since SRM seismic is available under starbase nowadays.


Lg. Shields and Hvy. Counters

Both of these techs are available from the start at 1st level (l. shield1, h.count1). They could be made available for research with any 1st tier (Frigates could get Lg. shield2 and h. counter 2 then) and then the third tier shields & counters could be made available at the second tier (meaning Cruisers could get lg. shield3) which isn't much different from when they're available now, with the exception of letting corvettes mount shield3 much sooner cost wise than they do now since the defense & support trees are cheaper. Again, the shield tech could be moved into just the attack tree (or just lg. shield3) if it turns out to be a balance issue. I'd also be leaving the cost for weapons, shields & counters where it is now (Base $5000 for each). The savings are in the actual tree research.


Giga SY

Just to throw my 2 cents in here about Giga. I would agree with letting Giga get the higher level tech along with the rest of the factions, although if time/cost is an issue (I'm guessing this is why they need adv. tech to buy a SY) then you could leave SY available from the start but require the adv. techbase to research any 1st tier tech, or just the 1st tier of attack and the 2nd tier in the other trees.


Drydock

Drydock would come with Cruiser research as it does now, although what actually comes with a drydock would be much different than it is now under the above system. Alternatively it could be made available with the 1st tier of Attack (Frigates) although about the only item that would become available from it at 1st tier would be the Speed 2 GA. This also has the effect of alerting the other team(s) that you have attack SY tech, since the other techpaths wouldn't produce a drydock.

I mentioned above that researching attack tiers would provide the other ship tech at the same tier. I also had the thought that researching the third tier in either Defense or Support would automatically give the first tier in Attack (and of course the other tree's first tier as well). Again, this depends on the tech prices & balance.


Pre/Def Limits

I am aware that adding a few more tiers & trees to SY would need more pre/def slots in ICE. This is partly why I suggested removing some of the unused tech like Seismics. Another alternative is to remove the research for stuff like torpedo & seismics and make them available with the appropriate ship/tier tech research instead. Torpedos are mounted on Destroyers IIRC, so torpedo 1 could be made automatically available with the 2nd tier of Defense, and torpedo 2 with the third tier. Another potential pre/def slot is Gunships if they're made available with SY. Regarding XRM Cruise, the first level could be tied Cruiser research and the second one to Tac Nuke 2 research.


Summary

*Leave the price of building a SY con the same
*Split SY into three trees - Attack, Defense, and Support
*Keep the cost of getting battleships the same
*Make getting lesser ships more convenient - price and research wise
*Tie the non ship tech (weapons, shields, etc.) to different tiers rather than drydock
*Possibly make gunships available from SY once built (no research)
*Make freighters available from SY once built, or with any 1st tier research
*Remove/change unused tech to free up slots
*Open up the options for Giga SY
*Tie the Drydock upgrade to the attack tree[/quote]

QUOTE Not sure I like SY being a support only type thing. We'll see I guess. I say keep TacNuke as it is currently and give it to bombers when you research it in SY. It normally takes like 3 to kill a base so it shouldn't be too big of a deal. Nuke2 would stay in the second level of course tongue.gif

Combine HK and Swarm so that you could have a capship version of QF I say. Version 3 of everything SY uses should be in drydock available for research.

As part of our ongoing F/B & XRM dilemma maybe we could move XRM1/2 over to SY? We would have to change the way it's currently setup and change spidey's vision a bit, but it would give SY a base killing capability and a reason to fly in packs beyond protecting a weak ass bomber.

I suggest making the cost of the 1st tier research 5k. Currently the base cost for an enh tech is 17500, while under the suggested system for SY the cost for enh tech is 25000 + ships. Decreasing the research cost for tier 1 to 5k leaves us with 20k enh tech for SY + ships. Unless we split it into base/enh/adv.

If we're not going to give SY direct access to base killing tech I'd say decrease the cost for T2 caps to 20k research. That makes it 40k + ships for T2 caps with base equipment. Compare that to a rush for adv figs with 10k base, 20k adv base, 7.5k enh ship, 10k adv ship, 47.5k total. Theoretically you can get it faster, but in practice as soon as they launch a single enh ship they're ahead of you because your ships cost money smile.gif

Unfortunately you can't decrease the cost of the SY con to 10k. Why? Galvs rely on the fact that you need tech rocks for a forward base, a 10k garr con that you can push anywhere (better because it's another tech!) would nerf sup vs. any.

Tie med shield to large shield. That way SY's bombers get a bit of a boost (or bring back a nerfed version of PNIX's ass shield for research in the SY?).

Take the idea for freighters as scouts further. Give them the ability to mount gat and the ability to drop probes (oh jesus please not prox). Give them the extra 400 scan range to make them the same as a basic scout as well.[/quote]

Alright all get crackin!

[lexaal]

I don't want to demotivate you because the work the CC team does is great, but... Would "keep SY as it is now" also be an option. It's very good as it is. Making SY cheaper could create the same problems as $1 gunships.

[spideycw]

QUOTE (lexaal @ Jul 24 2009, 12:01 PM) I don't want to demotivate you because the work the CC team does is great, but... Would "keep SY as it is now" also be an option. It's very good as it is. Making SY cheaper could create the same problems as $1 gunships.

Leaving it the way it is will be an option - same as all other discussions

[madpeople]

Just to explain a bit more about what's in my SY implementation.

SY is split into a number of sub-tech-paths (light, medium, heavy and support), each of these has three levels (except support which only has two). You only upgrade tech paths, you don't research specific ships or weapons, upgrading a tech path gives you all the weapons and ships for that tech path at that level (upgrading a tech path upgrades all ships + weapons in that path). This is to allow you to get the ships you want at a reasonable price, but stops you getting super awesome ships for very little since you need to upgrade them. Going all SY tech paths costs a lot, and fully upgrading them all is very expensive - I fully planned SY as a support tech, you need people in free ships for alleg to scale, if you make SY a standalone tech path and the game gets big, putting 30 people in ships that cost 1-2k... (oh and then they go and lose them). The idea is you go your normal tech path and then suppliment it with SY based on what area you need to improve, if you need to kill small ships (either defending as tac or to attack things like miners / defending a bomber / pushing a con) go light class, if you need to kill (either attacking or defending) caps go med, if you want to kill bases go hvy class, for doing other things like ass ships & frighters go support class. All the ships are designed for specific functions rather than a generic one ship for all jobs win button, again linking to the SY as a suppliment idea - you can't win the game by only being able to kill small ships very well.

Shield size is linked to class.
Light class get light large shields
Medium class get medium large shields
(Guess what hvy class gets)
Since shields are universal you buy these seperatly from classes, if you get lvl 2 lg shield all classes get lvl 2 lg shield. if you steal and size lg shield, you get that tech level of lg shield.

Dests turn slower, and have no turrets, thus they die to small ships that get close (you need other ships to D them - team work! - SY is a suppliment to other tech paths, in this case it lets you dominate at long range but won't work on it' own as some will get close and stay out of missile lock)
HK locks very quickly, and I think I increased it's damage.
True to form giga don't get HK 3, but when you have more money than god, as giga you can buy HK 3 special edition for $$$ a missile (it's better than HK 3).

Hvy class ships mainly kill bases with their turrets - Their AB turrets aren't very much use for killing anything that moves (they can hit hvy class things and noobs), this means you need to defend the hvy class ships with some other ships (i.e. small ships, maybe some lt class ships). Hvy class ships have lots of hull and shield, you don't really need to worry about nanning them - everyone else in figs shooting stuff instead of nanning the giant bomber = more fun (asking voobs to get ints is easier than asking them to get nans too).

Support class has anew type of ship called the support ship. It's a ship with two laser nan cannons (Imagine blue pnx lasers that fix stuff instead of kill it). Las Nan heals faster than normal nan of equivelent level. Like everythnig else, what you use it for is really up to you, since it's got a larger range and faster projectile speed, you can use it to combat nan a whole swarm of figs in the middle of a dog fight (perhaps the figs are defending a hvy class ship on it's way to the enemy base). The support ship it's self cannot be nanned (same hull type as pnx), so you can't make a chain of these.

GS stay as gar tech, they keep skycap 1 (renamed "skycap" as there is only one level of skycap), "skycap HE" is the SY (light class) tech, it does more damage than skycap and has up to level 3, it can be mounted on GS, but it chews through ammo much faster.

Anyway it's one thing to talk about it and discuss things on paper, but in this case you can actually play the thing and see what works and what doesn't since I've already implemented it in a core.
Capcore version 8
I think it's on the beta servers at the moment, I know when apoch was on the CC team he was talking about getting it on the AU and having CC organised test games on the normal server, I don't know what the situation is with this at the moment (looking at you here spidey ).

There are some other small things like giga's special HK instead of HK 3 in the core too, and a lot of other things which have been discussed in these forums (so playing this core can give feed back on other ideas too).

[Andon]

Aside from the fact that "Laser Nan" makes me twitch due to technical stuff, it sounds like a nice system.

[madpeople]

I could probably have explained it better, but I was busy juggeling a few things, and It's been a while since I made the core and really, I'm more interested in people playing it, since that's what really determines whether the ideas are good, not how well I talk about them (I'm not even saying they are necessarrily good, I'm saying "this is what I think will work [and more importantly be balanced and scale with game size]", I made the core so people can play it and it can be a catalyst for discussion of ideas - so people can say "I thought X worked well, but it needs to be a bit more like this", or "Y was really bad because it causes Z, never ever put something like that in")

[spideycw]

QUOTE (madpeople @ Jul 24 2009, 02:20 PM) I think it's on the beta servers at the moment, I know when apoch was on the CC team he was talking about getting it on the AU and having CC organised test games on the normal server, I don't know what the situation is with this at the moment (looking at you here spidey ).

As far as getting it on AU that is something you have to talk to TE about. If you need help with this send me a PM about it and I will happily post it in the Admin Request forum for you if you do not have access. I wouldn't mind running test games either as that would be a good way to see what works and what doesn't.

Also Madp can you expand a bit more on your system? Specifically how much do you see everything costing and what will the toughness of the caps be? Theoretically of course. Besides that looks like a good and interesting idea.

[Freyja]

Random thoughts and compilation of previous ideas.

New Turret, Mini-Skycap (eqv. to Mini-AC/AC adjust).
New Turret, Nanite Cannon (over regular nanite 1, +25% v hvy hull, +50% v extra hvy hull).

Fighter-Bombers use Mini-AC or Mini-Skycap.
Gunships use Mini-AC or Mini-Skycap.

Gunships now in two flavours, light (25% worse than current GS, cost $5k research, $125 per) and heavy (25% better than current GS, $5k research, $250 per), light reseachable in starbase and heavy in Shipyard, either launchable from any standard base.

Enh Carrier moved from Garrison to Shipyard, cost reduced to $5000.

Change Direct Tactical Nuke Missile (DTNM) to a MRM instead of SRM,
Range 1500 Lock time 2 CM resistance 1 Damage 600 + Area / 200d x 225m

Add SLBM Nuke (ship launched ballistic missile) for Battle Cruisers and Battle Ships,
Range 4000 Lock time 4 CM resistance 1 Damage 1200 + Area / 300d x 450m
Slow but agile missiles with tracking so they can be fired oblique and still turn and track to target, bigger slower though with more hull to take damage)

Add MIRV Nuke (multiple independent reentry vehicle) for Battle Cruisers and Battle Ships,
Range 6000 Lock time 6 CM resistance 1 Damage 900 + Area / 300d x 360m (total, divided by number if missiles)
Multiple missiles are fired in each shot, 4 preferably Slow but agile missiles with tracking so they can be fired oblique and still turn and track to target. Missiles shouldn't be larger than a srm ab missile.

SLBM research 7.5k, requires DTNM & Dry Dock.
MIRV research 10k, requires SLBM & Dry Dock.

Remove MRM Seismic, allow caps to carry more SRM Seismic.



Freighters mount 1 turret Nanite Cannon, pilot has 1 gatt, can use qf missiles. May deploy probes. Increase cost to $1500.

Attack Carrier, Corvette, allowed to use Killer Missiles & Hunter-Killer.

Assault Ship & Freighter, allowed to use LRM.

Destroyer mount 2 turrets, pilot has 1 mini-ac.

Devastators mount 1 turret Nanite Cannon (other 3 as normal).

Cruisers +10% speed, 3 turrets from 4, reduce cost to $7k.

Battlecruisers, these historically are ships similar to cruisers in most ways except firepower, they typically have firepower equal to a Battleship...
+5% speed. 2 turrets skyripper capable.

Battleships -5% speed, 12000 hull (from 10000), $12000 cost (from $10k)

Allow giga stanard sy access.

Reduce cost of upgrading sy by a small amount.

Allow freighters starting tech with sy purchase.

Possibly give all caps +10% speed.

Possibly give belt caps access to a booster of some sort to stick with theme.

[Makida]

I like the idea of freighters mounting a cap nan of some kind, but I think if that's done it should be in the main slot, not a turret. This will make nanning more challenging, especially when the need to cross-nan comes. A turret nan would be much easier and more boring, and might end up being overpowered, while a forward-mounted nan might be more balanced even if more powerful.

The only idea here I really hate is the idea of removing capital ships' ability to attack bases directly (i.e. in the fist quote in the first post, if I am reading it right). O_o They're capital ships. They're huge and powerful and you spend a ton of money on them. Some of them darn well better be able to attack bases. The idea that the only purpose caps would have is to escort comparatively tiny bombers, etc., around just seems silly. O_o

I personally would like to see a return to a shipyard where you can research just the ships you want, instead of researching different levels and more advanced ships becoming available right away. It'd be nice to have more control over where your money is going, buying only what you need, and it just feels right to have control over exactly which ships your team gets, instead of having to buy the ship tech in bulk.

[Freyja]

QUOTE (girlyboy @ Jul 25 2009, 12:33 AM) ...

I personally would like to see a return to a shipyard where you can research just the ships you want

...

It might be nice for each class to get a free ship and option to research the others in that class;

For instance;

LIGHT CLASS
Freighter*
Corvette
Attack Carrier


MEDIUM CLASS
Destroyer*
Frigate
Assault Ship


HEAVY CLASS
Devastator*
Cruiser


SUPER HEAVY CLASS
BattleCruiser*
BattleShip


*Free with that class, others must be researched.

The questions are;

1) Is the concept a good one?

2) What should the cost of researching those ships be?

2a) Does this reduce the cost to research each class by the full or partial amount that it costs to research those ships?

2b) Re 2a, if it does (or even if it doesn't) should the cost of individual ships to buy that have to be research have their cost reduced (if you have to pay extra for a Frigate to research it- does it reduce the cost to research medium class, and regardless- does it reduce the cost of the Frigate to buy from $6k to something less)?

3) ???


So we could look at something for research like;

Pre-Researched
Hvy Gunship*


LIGHT CLASS (free, just takes time to upgrade)
Freighter*
Corvette $1250
Attack Carrier $1250


MEDIUM CLASS $3750
Destroyer*
Frigate $2500
Assault Ship $2500


HEAVY CLASS $3750
Devastator*
Cruiser $5000


SUPER HEAVY CLASS $7500
BattleCruiser*
BattleShip $10000

Cost To Research Ship
Discount To Research Class