Naval Units Rework Project

Interesting... I was considering something along those lines myself...

I think that modern naval units can be improve a lot.i'm going to post some of my ideas:
-uboat is really bad placed.there were a lot of u-boats , and the latter ones were the first submarines to be able to go underwater for large ammount of times.I will place it on wwI(70x),increase strength to 50 ,and maybe add bonus money after sinking transport/cargo boats(or targetting then first on stacks,that could be interesting)
-i think there sould be a difference between diesel and oil powered vessels ,and nuclear ones.i could see this happening for carriers and also for subs.diesel carriers are cheaper,doesn't requiere uranium ,but carry less aircrafts and are also slower(due to worst autonomy).meanwhile nuclear ones have more carring space but are expensier .for submarines,i will make diesel versions of attack and ballistic submarine,and a nuclear version of ballistice submarine.attack submarines are only for attacking submarines and other vessels,and doesn't carry missiles.meanwhile ballistic ones are weaker,but can carry nuclear missiles.nuclear submarines should be a mix of both,having good strength and also been able to carry missiles,while being faster.obiously if you have nuclear weapons ,you can build nuclear submarines,but diesel powered ones are cheaper.this will make interesting choices, for example,do i want to focus on building a few nuclear submarines or do I build more cheaper diesel ones so i could have my missiles divide
-unmmaned vessels doesn't need to have an advantage over crewed ones.i think the name could be changed,something like railgun destroyer or super fast submarine.the only one i think it fits is the unmmaned pirate boat
-i think that the fusion vessels could be more diversified.maybe a submergible aircraft carrier,i don't feel to much creative now

I've long wonder why there's U-boat units and Submarine units. They are the same thing.

U-boat is short for Underwater Boat.
Submarine means Under the sea.
It's just a matter of what English variation you use really, but they are the same thing.

If you want diversity then use different terms like:
Submersible, limited underwater boat. Earlier versions were more submersibles than true submarines and needed to be on the surface for various operations.
Submarine, fully capable of operating underwater and did not have to rise to the surface to perorm operations, such as fireing torpedoes or missiles.
Underwater Vehicles (or Drones), unmanned smaller versions, some remote, some not. Modern times needing 1 type for each task, future versions probably more versatile.

Cheers

BlueGenie said:

I've long wonder why there's U-boat units and Submarine units. They are the same thing.

U-boat is short for Underwater Boat.
Submarine means Under the sea.
It's just a matter of what English variation you use really, but they are the same thing.

If you want diversity then use different terms like:
Submersible, limited underwater boat. Earlier versions were more submersibles than true submarines and needed to be on the surface for various operations.
Submarine, fully capable of operating underwater and did not have to rise to the surface to perorm operations, such as fireing torpedoes or missiles.
Underwater Vehicles (or Drones), unmanned smaller versions, some remote, some not. Modern times needing 1 type for each task, future versions probably more versatile.

Cheers

Click to expand...

In the following proposal, I'd like to pause to clarify my take on subs.

First... the Uboat... it was the German line during WWI and II and they were horrifically effective. This is really a naming that gives a nod to the most well used line of ships in the WWI era (they weren't quite AS unmatched in WWII but were just as lethal.)

Second... I figure that Subs can probably be outfitted in many different ways and the difference will amount to the variations in the ways promotions can make one unit type specialize in different functions from one to another. I don't disagree with 'interesting choices' - I'd just prefer to put those particular choices into the realm of player option specialization via promotionlines. (This naval assessment will undoubtedly lead to a naval promo review as well in the not so distant future.)


Ok, I have been doing a lot of reading on wikipedia and hmming and hawing and have come up with the following arrangements. I'm suggesting a LOT of new naval units and a number of renamings here and a complete restructuring of the naval arrangements. There IS some historical basis for these and it doesn't FULLY reflect historical accuracy but ALSO what fits with a game progression and inter-unit balance factors. Historically the roles of one class of ships seem to bleed into one another a great deal and I'll be trying to keep them a little more divided to maintain obvious game purposes.

I'll post this chart then briefly discuss the various unit upgrade chains (naval classes).


This only suggests unit strength and upgrade progressions at the moment and of course there's many more tags to consider. I've worked up withdrawal, early withdrawal and pursuit values so far and I'll keep evaluating and posting. Hopefully it becomes pretty obvious what the strength values are showing about the overall combat capacities of these units from a basic outlook would be for now.

The Classes
My perspective of checks and balances between unit classes has changed based on my research of these ships and their classic uses - what can be maintained within constraints of game progression anyhow.

So I'll try to give a brief overview of the description and roles of each class.

• Battleships - Battleships are a progression of the Ship of the Line thinking - bigger - more guns - more armor. They are, however, easier targets. And expensive. This has led them to becoming completely obsolete in the modern era according to wikipedia. I had not realized that. The cruiser has replaced the battleship in this role with it's great firepower and missile arsenals.
  
  However, in this outlook, the battleship makes a return in the future. The development of massive Ion Cannons (Particle Accelerator beams) and the enormous space they require to operate in their first incarnations, along with the proliferation of invisible fields making most navies incredibly difficult to detect have ushered a return of a large ship capable of massive energy generation and harnessing to blast away invisibility fields with targeted EMP bursts and to obliterate enemy ships with ion cannons. They're still big targets but the powers of the world find them worthwhile to protect with supportive armadas and laser weaponry is now making missiles far less valid as an attack means as they have become interceptable.
  
  The bugbear of the battleship, the submarine, is still a major problem for them but with energy fields developing beyond mere invisibility shields, the difficulties with their size and slow movement are still somewhat counterable and they go on to maintain relevancy.
  
  
• Cruisers - Just under the weight class of the Battleship, the Cruiser is primarily the missile carrier of the arsenal. Equally as strong at bombardment, they AND Battleships fulfill a siege role. However, what they give up in strength they make up with some other abilities that adapt as time goes on. They get better and better at air interception and some anti-sub capability and eventually go on to replace the battleship entirely for a time. As the eras continue it simply becomes more and more the archer of the fleet.
  
  
• Destroyers - A light ship, but not the lightest. The Destroyer weighs in just under the strength of the Cruiser. It's an interceptor, escort, first responder. It's VERY well suited to destroying subs and intercepting aircraft and has great mobility - a speed unchallenged on the open ocean. But they're still fairly large and NOT the fastest in the shallows (or Littoral (coastal)) waters. It has some decent guns and later, some lesser missile carrying capacity as well. Very well equipped as a spotter and unlike Battleships and Cruisers (until later in the cruiser's upgrade paths) it is intended to be the ship that can offer visibility against subs for the large deep water war fleets.
  
  
• Submarines - Deadly strike attackers with great stealth that exceeds that of its contemporaries in each era (if possible). Very difficult to catch and capable of wolf packing down much larger stronger foes. They grow capable of becoming nasty surprise packages waiting to unleash hell on unsuspecting foes. Not really different here than they always have been. At the end of the naval chain all ships can submerge and even later all ships can fly as well. So in response, they pick up a dimensional phasing ability (to be developed but intended anyhow.) That at first represents a new form of invisibility and energy deflection but eventually becomes a complete ethereality that cannot be harmed - they become 'dimensional submersibles' as it were, dipping into nearby dimensional states instead of the sea.
  
  
• Corvettes - Totally new line (almost) of ships to be developed. Corvettes are the lightest combat ship. Very fast but not so great on the open ocean. They are very well suited to protecting coastlines and should be very cheap to build. Like destroyers, they are quickly equipped with anti-sub capacities including spotting. But they aren't quite as strong as destroyers so enter into a fairly even fight when they clash with subs. Good wolf packing units as well as subs are but not half as good at getting away. VERY good pursuit units but in greater danger away from the stack and they may not be able to bite off everything they try to chew. Often were used in conflicts against lesser tech opponents where the larger more powerful vessels were unnecessary. They will be the fastest in coastal waters and will eventually be the ship class used for minesweeping as well since that was one of their classic roles.
  
  Honestly... given how much material was on the subject of these units on wikipedia I'm surprised they've never been included! The Littoral Combat ship is actually nothing like a cruiser, destroyer, OR battleship and should be firmly in THIS class as it's a recent advancement in this technology (though may be overreaching a bit and might've come up short of a truly effective combat ship - which fits for the weaknesses of this line in general anyhow.)
  
  
• Carriers - Pretty obvious what these are used for but its interesting to note that modern navies now consider them to replace the battleship as the flagship of the fleet (we've gone from a patriarchal battleship to a matriarchal mothership!) They pretty much just get bigger and bigger as time goes on but were limited by international conventions. The navy is currently looking to automate them a great deal and with the increasing automation of avionics and other naval vessels, they'll fill a role of command center for the assisted operations of these unmanned armadas (I'm thinking this will actually become a game effect that unmanned vehicles may require a command center within a particular range to be able to move or do anything other than defend themselves). From there they grow more and more center of the hive-like in function.
  
  
• Cutters (Anti-Criminal Sea Vessels) - I just figured we should expand on the Coast Guard Cutter concept as the poor ship is somewhat frozen in time there. An expansion on the Pirate line makes expanding these more valuable. We may well wish to expand on the cargo ship line further as well.
  
  These ships are well tailored to taking down criminal ship intrusions and can handle a LITTLE bit of warfare on the coastal border (though is not quite as good as a Corvette for that function.
  
  I'm also thinking a little anti-crime generation can come from these vessels when stationed in cities so they're not particularly best to always have out at sea but best to keep around until they have something to respond to directly.
  
  
• Pirates (Criminal Sea Vessels) - Piracy doesn't die with the wooden privateer. It just gets harder and harder to perform as the real navies get better and better at countering them and no private individual has a great chance at getting his hands on a powerful combat ship - and if he did he'd be quickly destroyed. So they become more and more a hit and run strategist with lighter ships that play cat and mouse with the rest of the world's fleets in their attempts to catch whatever they can.
  
  Now... I've advanced, in this proposal, the cargo ship concept a bit but that's not going to be enough to make these guys really worth it. Not yet. I have some interesting ideas about 'neutral' boats that I mean to develop a ways down the line that will give these ships something more to prey on. And as the cargo ships grow in utility and usefulness in the game these Pirates will as well. So although they'll be a LITTLE lacking at first in real strong use, they're one foundation stone of a bigger structure in place. And of course, Hidden Nationality is never a bad way to go mess with folks either.
  
  
• Transports - We're all used to these ships but lets face it... landing ships for beachfront assaults after the era of wooden ships were few and far between. In WWI attempts to use them proved terribly fatal in light of an onslaught of machineguns defending the beaches. HOWEVER, in WWII, they figured out some armored methods and the Landing Ship Tank (was really named that historically) was developed to drop Tank units off on shore in the midst of battle. Soon after was the rise of the Marine and the 'Transport' as we know it, which helped to storm the beaches of Normandy and initiate the end game in the war.
  
  However, these are not long range nor are they incredibly large. They're meant to transport from a few tiles out and bring the troops into shore.
  
  Therefore, I'm thinking that these ships should not have a great deal of cargo capacity - just enough to bring the spearhead of the military ashore and perhaps return for another round, but after the Age of Sails the main troop carriers (Troopships) that can carry a LOT of units, would be far more efficient for intercontinental travel or for delivering to cities but would NOT be capable of letting units attack from them as they can't get them to the beaches. This is where the Transport comes in. You shouldn't need so many of them as we do now to transport a large force, only enough to launch the coastal assault. More on Troop Ships below...
  
  
• Cargo - For now these are naval based merchants BUT this will mean a lot more when equipments come into play. At the moment, they are the primary target for late-game pirate ships. But we need to motivate the player to want to build and maintain them more I think. As the mod grows I'm sure more and more functions will be added for these guys and maybe they can fill in more of their empty slots on the upgrade path since some open slots are still available for development.
  
  
• Medical Ships - We only had two and both were unlocked at the same tech huh? hmph... you can see what I think of THAT We need more of these healer ships to provide a more era appropriate progression. Maybe Pirate Ships might be setup to raid them first if the pirate ship attacks a stack, making the Pirate Ships more akin to the function of Assassins and other rogues on the battlefield.
  
  @Hydro: I have NOT forgotten I said I'd develop those Healing by Combat Class tags... these will benefit of course so it's yet another impetus to jump on those very soon.
  
  
• Troop Ships - Usually during war, passenger cruise vessels of large size would be recommissioned by the military to move the large majority of their land forces from one continent to another. Some are somewhat armed and equipped and outfitted to at least try to somewhat defend themselves but for the most part they're just very big juicy targets when moving troops so must be heavily guarded when on the move with a full load. The main fleets are quite capable of this if arranged properly. These are fairly slow as well but can carry so much at once it makes it worth it and they wouldn't be any slower than the battleships are which already tend to hold back the fleet. (One of the reasons for battleship obsoletion for a time - Airlifts tend to eventually replace these Troop Ships for the smarter player.)

You'll also notice some whole new categories of ship clusters proposed for the future... a bit of another discussion topic really but this is just being put forth so I can show what I THINK should be the future progression of naval forces. A little on that: We're currently developing stealth and unmanned technologies in the modern navy and their vision is to have thinly manned vessels with a great deal of automated AI support for their combat systems. So I see those stages as being 'next up'.

Now mind you, the unmanned ships are not entirely under AI control as it's not true cognizant AI yet and just processes missions as directed to quite effectively. But they have no independent thought... just reactive evaluations of a highly complex and pre-programmed nature (like our own game's AI). This is the era where Bots are coming to the forefront as well - all in an effort to remove losses of human life from the battlefield (or so it would seem to the public who is unaware that the powers that be are actually trying to master and perfect the control of military forces that will not resist any orders to turn on their own people if needbe to enact extraordinary internal controls if there becomes resistance to whatever policies those powers wish to implement.)

We then discover how to make the most use of light bending energy fields and begin to implement them into our unit designs. Biological human beings and automated bots share the battlefield and compete for functional supremacy in combat. Genetic manipulation is making mankind extraordinarily powerful but the wounds of soldiers and a desire to combine the strengths of bots and man into one perfection drive further research into cybernetics.

It's beginning now, in modern times... we're using stem cell science to blend generated human brain cells for use in tests to determine how to more and more effectively connect the machine to the nerve system of a human being. After this age of 'invisibility and superhumanism' we suddenly find ourselves facing an ultimately awesome power of the cyborg. Weak at first, it becomes a 'true' AI power. They take forms from nearly dead soldiers recovered as more machine than man all the way to machines that have been grown central core processing units out of human brain material. The latter are those that become incredibly intelligent and guide us to developing military vehicles of tremendous power.

Then whenever a real revolt breaks out, the government turns away from the superhumans and more man than machine sources of power and initiates their plans to invoke machines to do their bidding - a heavy handed crackdown on the public - resist and die. But the machines have taken on their own life now. And they may well revolt against mankind entirely. At which point, the most powerful units of the day, Droid units, all revolt and form their own civilization with the intent to destroy mankind or make them completely submit (a little matrix, a little terminator.) If man is to survive, he must extend his technology far beyond this point and reach out for the next level of strength and power.

Thankfully he also needs to defend his own computing systems against the masterful hacking intrusions from the robot masters. So they work on their old invisibility field technology further and find that with an even more powerful energy source than they've ever used before, a fusion reaction harnessed from a very heavy synthetic element, can now power energy fields of such great strength that they can deny EMPs, deflect ION beams and all but negate laser fire. The fields that form around these large sources of energy (ships in this case) can additionally offer an anti-gravity propulsion mechanism that's speed is proportionate to the size of the ship. This defense proves capable of insulating human warships against the Droids (though they should be capable of great advancements along similar lines of their own) and Humanity is able to at least push back the threat, running the Droids out of the Solar System to find their own worlds to colonize and lick their wounds, leaving man to pick up the pieces from the war as they look forward to colonizing the stars themselves...

The navy proposition you see here follows this line of thinking about how I feel the mod should proceed past the modern era...

And a Withdrawal Eval:

And Pursuit:


More to come tomorrow... I just want those who commented to know that while I was arranging these, I've tried to take into account some of the great ideas put forth. You have already influenced this proposal even if it may feel like I ignored some of the things suggested.

And of course I could be totally vetoed here and we'll need to really scour to find unit arts to fill all these ship needs but I hope everyone sees some value in these concepts...

Thunderbrd said:

You'll also notice some whole new categories of ship clusters proposed for the future... a bit of another discussion topic really but this is just being put forth so I can show what I THINK should be the future progression of naval forces. A little on that: We're currently developing stealth and unmanned technologies in the modern navy and their vision is to have thinly manned vessels with a great deal of automated AI support for their combat systems. So I see those stages as being 'next up'.

Now mind you, the unmanned ships are not entirely under AI control as it's not true cognizant AI yet and just processes missions as directed to quite effectively. But they have no independent thought... just reactive evaluations of a highly complex and pre-programmed nature (like our own game's AI). This is the era where Bots are coming to the forefront as well - all in an effort to remove losses of human life from the battlefield (or so it would seem to the public who is unaware that the powers that be are actually trying to master and perfect the control of military forces that will not resist any orders to turn on their own people if needbe to enact extraordinary internal controls if there becomes resistance to whatever policies those powers wish to implement.)

We then discover how to make the most use of light bending energy fields and begin to implement them into our unit designs. Biological human beings and automated bots share the battlefield and compete for functional supremacy in combat. Genetic manipulation is making mankind extraordinarily powerful but the wounds of soldiers and a desire to combine the strengths of bots and man into one perfection drive further research into cybernetics.

It's beginning now, in modern times... we're using stem cell science to blend generated human brain cells for use in tests to determine how to more and more effectively connect the machine to the nerve system of a human being. After this age of 'invisibility and superhumanism' we suddenly find ourselves facing an ultimately awesome power of the cyborg. Weak at first, it becomes a 'true' AI power. They take forms from nearly dead soldiers recovered as more machine than man all the way to machines that have been grown central core processing units out of human brain material. The latter are those that become incredibly intelligent and guide us to developing military vehicles of tremendous power.

Then whenever a real revolt breaks out, the government turns away from the superhumans and more man than machine sources of power and initiates their plans to invoke machines to do their bidding - a heavy handed crackdown on the public - resist and die. But the machines have taken on their own life now. And they may well revolt against mankind entirely. At which point, the most powerful units of the day, Droid units, all revolt and form their own civilization with the intent to destroy mankind or make them completely submit (a little matrix, a little terminator.) If man is to survive, he must extend his technology far beyond this point and reach out for the next level of strength and power.

Thankfully he also needs to defend his own computing systems against the masterful hacking intrusions from the robot masters. So they work on their old invisibility field technology further and find that with an even more powerful energy source than they've ever used before, a fusion reaction harnessed from a very heavy synthetic element, can now power energy fields of such great strength that they can deny EMPs, deflect ION beams and all but negate laser fire. The fields that form around these large sources of energy (ships in this case) can additionally offer an anti-gravity propulsion mechanism that's speed is proportionate to the size of the ship. This defense proves capable of insulating human warships against the Droids (though they should be capable of great advancements along similar lines of their own) and Humanity is able to at least push back the threat, running the Droids out of the Solar System to find their own worlds to colonize and lick their wounds, leaving man to pick up the pieces from the war as they look forward to colonizing the stars themselves...

The navy proposition you see here follows this line of thinking about how I feel the mod should proceed past the modern era...

Click to expand...

really interesting piece of information.maybe it helps for C2C that a storyline of the future is written,that way i think it would be easier to desing future units and techs

back to the topic,i think it would be interesting to bring the arms race that happen in the XIX and XX century at the sea.there were huge advances ,and ships go obsolete really fast .i think it could be interesting ,has a nation will need to invest lots of money if they want to keep competitive.

i would also add a droid pirate ship and a early ,only coast submarine

finally ,rather than nuclear battleship,it would fit better nuclear battlecrusier (the soviet Kiev class)

@TB

I have to go but I wanted to comment on a few things in my skimming of your chart.

1. Submersible -That's new. What graphic would it use?

2. Invisible Submarine and Fusion Submarine - Tech wise Fusion tech comes at x98 while Invisibility comes at x107. You should swap those units on the tech tree.

3. Droid Pirrhanas - What you serious? A Droid Submarine maybe, but Piranhas?

4. Droid "Sea Animal" - I don't know I could see Droid versions of all the types, but sea animal droids for combat? Though graphic wise it would not be hard to re-texture the sea animal units we already have to look robotic.

That's all for now, got to go. Will pot more comments later.

Pepo said:

really interesting piece of information.maybe it helps for C2C that a storyline of the future is written,that way i think it would be easier to desing future units and techs

back to the topic,i think it would be interesting to bring the arms race that happen in the XIX and XX century at the sea.there were huge advances ,and ships go obsolete really fast .i think it could be interesting ,has a nation will need to invest lots of money if they want to keep competitive.

i would also add a droid pirate ship and a early ,only coast submarine

finally ,rather than nuclear battleship,it would fit better nuclear battlecrusier (the soviet Kiev class)

Click to expand...

1) I figured for Droids, the concept of 'crime' was a moot point for them as being hive-minded they have no dissent among themselves, thus no criminal Droids. Criminals are motivated by selfish wants and needs and droids have none of these. Thus I didn't include one in that slot but a rationale could be found I suppose - perhaps in some kind of hacker unit that is out to capture any other vessel operating on computerized support.

2) The cruiser slot is already filled for that era with the missile cruiser. You'll notice I took great pains to keep from having more than one ship type in a given tech cluster. I realize there wasn't really anything that suggested such a nuclear battleship existed and this was really where the world stopped building them BUT this being Civ, I figured the player might be given a naval vessel that could have all the weaknesses our real world navies recognized in the role of the battleship for that era and decided not to build at all due to those reasons. But it could be possible to simply not HAVE the nuclear battleship at all and remove that slot from having anything instead, allowing the Heavy Battleship to simply upgrade into a Missile Cruiser (which it did in BtS for apparently good reason) at that stage. I'm not overly attached to the Nuclear Battleship (as it was the Nuclear threat and a perception that nations would be more likely to USE nuclear weaponry that became a large motivator to discontinue use of the Battleship which they deemed massively vulnerable to nuclear attack.)

But the Russian Battlecruiser would fall into the Missile Cruiser category...

Hydromancerx said:

@TB

I have to go but I wanted to comment on a few things in my skimming of your chart.

Click to expand...

Yes, lots to skim... might be easier to quote, grab the text between the

Thunderbird:we aren't that far from fussion.with the appropiate funding,we would have a fusion reactor in 10-20 years.the one that we can't reach is a reactor that fusion H or He.i would add an early fusion reactor and a fusion reactor.for ships,fusion ships will be moved by advanced fusion reactors, while other ships move with this early reactors

Pepo said:

Thunderbird:we aren't that far from fussion.with the appropiate funding,we would have a fusion reactor in 10-20 years.the one that we can't reach is a reactor that fusion H or He.i would add an early fusion reactor and a fusion reactor.for ships,fusion ships will be moved by advanced fusion reactors, while other ships move with this early reactors

Click to expand...

Basically proposing an early fusion and a late fusion, so 3 future stages of energy development:

fission(now)->Low grade fusion (ok, I can image that if we've somehow found materials that can actually withstand disintegration enough to contain it) -> High Grade Fusion -> Synthesized Element Fusion

That would make sense. Don't think that Invisibility would have a Fusion prerequisite since it's being applied now to test aviation that is otherwise no more advanced than a Raptor level and apparently does not require a huge power source (or if it does they've made some amazing developments there in secret as well.) Thing about this is that it's hard to say with great certainty and backing it up with references that we already have invisibility (when I'm pretty sure we do - I buy 10-20 yrs off to any form of fusion but I feel we already are perfecting invisibility technology now) with any real certainty and it's probably not going to be something made apparent that we do until an actual big war breaks out. This is the nature of 'top secret weapons development'. We'll all be in the dark until they're brought into use.

I've done a layout on visibility tags here - perhaps it can be seen how I imagine these proceeding. Maybe the invisibility tech can be renamed to something more advanced, like the semi-immateriality invisibility I foresee being another stage beyond. We might not have to tweak the tree too greatly here to get the vision to fit, just adjust what the techs really represent at various stages (and maybe add a few more.)

I'm hoping some people might get excited enough by the overall project outlook to help us find the most appropriate unit arts throughout the site - I know you've probably done a LOT of this looking yourself and maybe something like it doesn't exist?

Click to expand...

There could be, like you said I have not needed to look for early subs (except when I found the Nautilus). So basically this. I could put out a request in the unit graphic thread. Sometimes they make the requests. I also found this ...

Perhaps it would be fitting if 1) the Nautilus (a very advanced concept from a brilliant rare mind and not every technologically shared with the world) simply skips the submersible as an upgrade and 2) the Submersible was given a bit less strength to accommodate for a very shy weapon payload and it never being more than an awkward prototypical type.

Click to expand...

Yeah the Nautilus is VERY advanced compared to anything at that time.

Have you been reading my requests to get invisibility into the very near future? You've not commented on any of those and I think I've mentioned it around 3 times here now.

Click to expand...

I must have missed it

Invisibility is something the US military nearly has down already but I do think it'll take a while before they can really truly implement it. It's in that phase of development that the SR71 Blackbird was in for a decade or so before we all knew about it 'officially'. They're working on it now for tanks and aviation and its one of the motivations for developing an exoskeleton battlesuit foot soldier (so that they too can incorporate the invisibility field technology under development eventually.)

Click to expand...

Well I have read somewhere that invisibility in other spectrum have been accomplished already. Visible Light however has not been. If it gets moved to where and how should other techs that rely upon it and in turn the ones it required get changed?

Looking closer at it I am not usre why its even in that spot says ...

Invisibility
Req Tech: Orbital Flight
Leads to: Superstrong Alloys, Unification Physics

And then ...

Superstrong Alloys
Req Tech: Advanced Computers AND (Biomimetics OR Invisibility)

Looks like it could be taken out easily. Since its already an OR.

Unification Physics on the other hand ...

Unification Physics
Req Tech: Antigrav AND Cybernetics AND Superstrong Alloys AND Invisibility

This seems like its redundantly covered by Superstrong Alloys. An the Orbital Flight already requires techs that lead to those. The only think we might want to do its have Orbital Flight lead to a few more techs. Right now its ...

Orbital Flight
Leads To: Invisibility AND Lunar Trade

Of what it would lead to I have no idea.

Fusion, however, is something that we're going to be very seriously loathe to try without KNOWING we KNOW what we're doing with it. The old Spiderman II is pretty accurate as to where we are with our current theories as to how we could maintain it, and equally accurate as to how disastrous it could be if we even tried to enact our theories on it. Its quite possible we won't develop a meaningful way to harness Fusion until we can explore just past our solar system to develop galactic test sites where we feel we can more safely give some field generation containment methods a try. In fact, I theorize that the very methods we're learning to make a vessel invisible now are based on the same electromagnetic field knowledge that will eventually become our means of containing and thus harnessing a fusion reaction. Thus, invisibility, as a stage of electromagnetic field application and development should LEAD directly TO the ability to harness fusion!

So without getting into the technicals of our current tech tree, this is my way of saying we should be making some adjustments there.

Click to expand...

Well Fusion requirements are ...

Fusion
Req Tech: Microgenerators AND Graphene

I know in the hold requirements it had Controlled Plasma which is now a requirement Graphene tech. How those work I am not sure. MrAzure would have to explain. I wonder if its in any of his notes.

Piranhas: Again, any type of smaller swarm fish can do but PEOPLE recognize piranhas as nature's expression of the strategies that the Droids use with these.

Click to expand...

But Piranhas are freshwater fish. If they are trying to fool people then this fails since they do not have Piranhas in the ocean.

If we are serious on Droid Sea Animals then here are the sea animal unit you have to pick from ...

- Beluga
- Cod
- Crab
- Dolphin
- Dugong
- Giant Squid
- Great White Shark
- Hammerhead Shark
- Humpback Whale
- Mackerel
- Manta Ray
- Marlin
- Minkie Whale
- Narwhal
- Orca
- Eagle Ray
- Saltwater Crocodile
- Sea Lion
- Sea Otter
- Sea Turtle
- Reef Shark
- Tuna
- Whale Shark

So for yours I sudgest ...

- Ray = Manta Ray
- Dolphin = Dolphin
- Piranhas = Tuna (These swam are bigger and would not look out of place in the ocean)
- Squid = Giant Squid
- Whale = Humpback OR Minkie Whale
- Shark = Great White
- Lampreys = We don't have anything like this so maybe a Repair Crab? Could walk along the hull fixing things.
- Cube and Octogon = I don't know if we have anything like this however if you want to keep the animal theme you could have an Orca or Sea Turtle or Hammerhead transports. Then gain there are som cool looking spaceships in the scifi units section we could use.

EDIT: Looking at the rest of your charts they are looking great! I like how you hve filled in existing lines and have added new lines (ex. Corvettes).

I guess the question now is how many new units do we need to make?

Hydromancerx said:

There could be, like you said I have not needed to look for early subs (except when I found the Nautilus).

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Great graphics there H! Very cool - I mean, yes, this chart is suggesting we could make an even earlier sub unit but would it even be functional as a combat vehicle or any other use? I look at the very first designs as being even more awkward prototypes and completely combat useless though the first one to destroy a ship was in the civil war even that attack destroyed the sub as well... lol. So I'm thinking the Submersible would be the first somewhat combat applicable sub unit that has emerged from these prototypes that have been worked on in the background for some time as the chart and wikipedia states.

Hydromancerx said:

Yeah the Nautilus is VERY advanced compared to anything at that time.

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Ok, so we'll need to add the Hero combat class and a global limit of 1 to that unit I think. (Among the rest of the adjustments that come up in this analysis stream. Glad you agree... My wife and I have both used Nautilii to far too great an early advantage thanks to them not being so limited and even with some reduced strength from this analysis it's still going to be a terribly lethal sub unit before the world is ready to face such subs making it a perfect global class unit for Steampunk access.

Hydromancerx said:

I must have missed it

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No worries... I can deliver some very large posts here and it was probably lost in there as you were thinking of something else I'd stated. I do that all the time. And I'm not demanding this change or anything... it's just something I don't agree with on the current tech tree arrangement. MrA and I had some disagreements but I didn't want to wage those arguments... erm... discussions until I was ready to start looking at unit progressions through the future ages. The time, at least for naval units, has arrived for me to start making some of the points of dissension I feel regarding the late game tech tree. I'm thrilled to see you being so receptive to them. Thank you for that!

Hydromancerx said:

Well I have read somewhere that invisibility in other spectrum have been accomplished already. Visible Light however has not been.

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Just keep in mind the nature of 'top secret' technological developments. Propaganda is always going to abound to suggest it 'can't' be done or hasn't been yet. They're not going to come out waving a flag saying hey look what we've got unless they're either bluffing to intimidate other nations (I often feel Russia does this) or even simply warning other nations of what they can do to ward off any aggressive considerations that may be developing against them. If you're on the top of the warfare tech race, however, like the US would be, then if you have something, you do all you can to make sure nobody really knows that you do for sure until you are ready to make it known (in a real and serious warfare scenario that's made it worthwhile to reveal the developments you've made so far.)

Hydromancerx said:

If it gets moved to where and how should other techs that rely upon it and in turn the ones it required get changed?

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That's why I often avoid the tech tree discussions... this is where I kinda suck. I have an idea of how things may develop with future military technology applications from here but actual tech tree analysis is not my strong suit.

I guess my concern with working the tech tree is that I don't want to make the messes like the ones I'm trying to help to clean up here It's the many many dependencies that can be overlooked that can make for so many problems with a small adjustment.

That said... opening up the tech tree to take a looksie here... (btw: notice what's happening with the tech(s) that invisibility leads to? Overlapping the same spot on the x/y grid.) Looks like moving it off of Imaginary Physics would put it in roughly the right spot with a valid prerequisite. However, Perhaps a tech just preceding it between Imaginary Physics and Invisibility would appropriately be Advanced Electromagnetic Field Generation (or Manipulation) might be good. This would also be a good prerequisite for Controlled Plasma. What it opens up who knows for now but it'd be a good stage of development that leads to both Controlled Plasma (the beginning of the unlocking of working with real fusion reactions) and Invisibility.

Invisibility could lead then to techs that unlock more and more of these naval arsenals, (eventually equipments) and more but we can concern ourselves more with that later and for now just put them all on Invisibility and make it a dead end for now unless you want to link it into Fusion.

Then Fusion ships would be best not to unlock immediately on Fusion tech. The first of them perhaps at Internal Shockwave Engine (I'm not sure what Azure had intended here but it seems to be a good spot for stating that the actual ship fusion engines were opened up here.) Then we get more at Warmachines and more at Photon Thermodynamics (which is probably where we should be considering Ion Cannons to be born) or a tech leading off from it.

Immediately thereafter you see the birth of early droids so the rise of droid war machines begins to loom but at first are very simplistic - much better than bots but not comparable to what they will become when their navies are in full swing as shown here.

So the Droid navies would come up after Comprehensive Cybernetics. Animamaterials and Advanced Warmachines would be good fits for the Droid Navy Development techs. Possibly Terra Computer for the Whale as a neural mother ship of the naval fleet connected to the global computerized hivemind. (Note, they're probably still trusted and used by humans at this stage.)

(Shielding is around this point I noticed and that should be moved FAR back as an adaptation of Advanced Electromagnetic Field Manipulation, maybe developed just after Fusion as such a shielding method would be the next reasonable way to apply such a powerful energy source into warfare. This shielding method is why the Fusion Battleship maintains relevancy and what precludes the necessity of the development of the Ion Cannon.)

I think there's probably a lot more techs to be developed moving into the Galactic Era but early on in the era would be the development of the anti-grav engine.

Something like Nuclear Pulse Propulsion leads to Monoatomic Metals (which leads to some further biological manipulation empowerment and perhaps some further developments for nanotechnology) which leads to Anti-Gravity. There we have the Anti-grav engine and for the most part Naval, Air and Land have many unit streams blend into each other - the main rivers of upgrade chains leading to what we have represented here. But then these ships are good for orbital to planetary but not so great for beyond into near and far space so other armadas are developed for that. And it will be interesting to see how the land units blend into this picture as well but for now... this is where I see us being at Anti-Gravity (and perhaps some techs leading off of it to flesh out the rest of these 'naval' units.)

Note: Anti-Gravity as a tech should really be split to take two forms, Magnetic Field Repulsion Hovering - which has a very short range to loft vehicles up from the surface that's the vehicle is being held away from (thus should replace the current Anti-Gravity tech and some of the buildings there should have the term anti-grav replaced by Magnetic Repulsion or Magnetic Field (thus Magnetic Field traps, Magnetic Repulsion Generators.) These are repulsion fields, not true anti-gravity which will probably be more of a result of understanding how mono-atomic metals when superheated can take on a less than zero density (and how to make a generator that is powerful enough to use this understanding with any great efficacy.) These repulsion fields can make for some fantastic engine systems and defensive systems and perhaps Shielding should be off of THIS tech. It should also require Advanced Electromagnetic Field Generation since that's a precursor to such a development.

This cool with you? I know it's a lot to consider! And there's a lot of other rearrangements of the late tech tree that will have to be made to take this whole 'storyline' concept into account but one step at a time right?

Hydromancerx said:

Looking closer at it I am not sure why its even in that spot says ...

Invisibility
Req Tech: Orbital Flight
Leads to: Superstrong Alloys, Unification Physics

And then ...

Superstrong Alloys
Req Tech: Advanced Computers AND (Biomimetics OR Invisibility)

Looks like it could be taken out easily. Since its already an OR.

Unification Physics on the other hand ...

Unification Physics
Req Tech: Antigrav AND Cybernetics AND Superstrong Alloys AND Invisibility

This seems like its redundantly covered by Superstrong Alloys. An the Orbital Flight already requires techs that lead to those. The only think we might want to do its have Orbital Flight lead to a few more techs. Right now its ...

Orbital Flight
Leads To: Invisibility AND Lunar Trade

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Perhaps Unification Physics is the one that's overlapping another here - not seeing it. But maybe Orbital Flight should require Magnetic Field Repulsion Hovering and be thus adjusted a little in its x grid. Having Lunar Trade and Kuiper Belt Exploration be dependent on Orbital Flight seems accurate.

Hydromancerx said:

Fusion
Req Tech: Microgenerators AND Graphene

I know in the hold requirements it had Controlled Plasma which is now a requirement Graphene tech. How those work I am not sure. MrAzure would have to explain. I wonder if its in any of his notes.

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This may be good placement really... Graphene Alloys are dependent on Controlled Plasma which would if the above adjustments are made be dependent on Advanced Electromagnetic Field Generation (or Manipulation) coming from Imaginary Physics... and the Microgenerators might be necessary for the automated system structures for harnessing... yeah... I like this placement fine.

Hydromancerx said:

But Piranhas are freshwater fish. If they are trying to fool people then this fails since they do not have Piranhas in the ocean.

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Of course they aren't trying to keep the sizes anywhere near the originals, just using inspirations of motility and form. BUT you make an interesting point. What about Barricuda? We don't have those yet but maybe somewhere... Otherwise I like the Tuna idea you proposed... just makes 'em not sound as lethal is all.

Hydromancerx said:

If we are serious on Droid Sea Animals then here are the sea animal unit you have to pick from ...

- Beluga
- Cod
- Crab
- Dolphin
- Dugong
- Giant Squid
- Great White Shark
- Hammerhead Shark
- Humpback Whale
- Mackerel
- Manta Ray
- Marlin
- Minkie Whale
- Narwhal (This WAS one I was considering for the Droid Sub - thinking a massive ION ray from a stealth vehicle with this form could be cool.)
- Orca
- Eagle Ray
- Saltwater Crocodile
- Sea Lion
- Sea Otter
- Sea Turtle
- Reef Shark
- Tuna
- Whale Shark

So for yours I sudgest ...

- Ray = Manta Ray
- Dolphin = Dolphin
- Piranhas = Tuna (These swam are bigger and would not look out of place in the ocean) - Sounds acceptable - I was thinking of using the tuna graphic as a base anyhow.
- Squid = Giant Squid
- Whale = Humpback (I prefer Humpback I think) OR Minkie Whale
- Shark = Great White (yep)
- Lampreys = We don't have anything like this so maybe a Repair Crab? Could walk along the hull fixing things. (that would be cool!)
- Cube and Octogon = I don't know if we have anything like this however if you want to keep the animal theme you could have an Orca or Sea Turtle or Hammerhead transports. Then gain there are som cool looking spaceships in the scifi units section we could use.

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Those last two... I have a feeling we might want to keep those for later - Droids shouldn't really stop developing here - this is just the last Naval stage where Naval is still applicable. So I'm happy to keep with the animal theme... I like the Turtle concept for a landing ship and for a troopship how about a Dugong?

Or perhaps an Alligator or Crocodile for a landing ship and a turtle for the troopship?

EDIT: Looking at the rest of your charts they are looking great! I like how you hve filled in existing lines and have added new lines (ex. Corvettes).

I guess the question now is how many new units do we need to make?

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lol... a lot huh? I'm spending the weekend working on other tag evaluations for these naval units. If you can read the above post and I can rely on you to hammer out tech adjustments and assignments on these units as well as collecting and applying the unit art (or if someone else wants to help there) then I can probably balance out the unitcombat and combat details on them here. We could probably knock this out with some efficiency really.

OK, can we not add this stuff until after the next release. It looks like it will be large and it looks like most stuff we want in for the next release is nearing completion.

I was wondering about that. Still a few things I want to sneak in here for the release and I should take a look at my notes to see what those are. So I can try to get those few things accomplished before we go further here. Just take note that this release will have some not so optimal late navy stuff then.

Pepo said:

really interesting piece of information.maybe it helps for C2C that a storyline of the future is written,that way i think it would be easier to desing future units and techs

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There is! Most of the stuff Mr Azure added was based on this page. Warning, it is pretty addictive!

Faustmouse said:

There is! Most of the stuff Mr Azure added was based on this page. Warning, it is pretty addictive!

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Well... damn... you even warned me!

The speculation on fusion to me is a little more optimistic than I think it will be and antimatter probably will indeed be another major energy generation source.

Very optimistic future outlook overall though fairly accurate where its dire predictions are concerned. I see there being too many random upheavals to come for this prediction to be tooooo terribly accurate in general. But we're looking at it more from a tech progress perspective and it makes some interesting points.

I already read it completely twice now...

Don't take it too literally.Saying that Fusion will be invent 2053 (June 13th 11:23 UTC...) is just stupid. But it gives a general idea. Sure there can be breakthroughs and major setbacks,wars, etc... but this is the Page MrAzure Based our TH and Galactic era on so this is accurate for game purposes. You can'tpredict the future, but we have to stick to a plausible idea and since our TH era is already based on it, this website would be a good "future history" of C2C.
when you read through it, you will recognize a lot of our later techtree, so Mr Azure did a pretty good job here I think.