Pre-SysNES2: Beta-testing and Submission

[Disenfrancised]

@dis: Do you have any plans to help some of the less involved players deal with the somewhat significant learning curve that this NES represents? Along the lines of tutorials/templates, maybe.

Yes, but until the systems are finalised I don't want to have to write a tutorial twice!

 

[Thlayli]

With Propulsion 6, and an absolutely miniscule ship with size/mass of 20/16, Maneuvering Jets give a grand total of 0 dodge. 2x Maneuvering Jets FINALLY grants 2 dodge at a cost of 23e and -1 IP Speed. (Incidentally I have no idea why 2x Maneuvering Jets costs 23e, since individually they're listed as costing 15 each. Does coupling things make them cheaper?)

Not highly cost effective, bordering on unusable.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Let's Try Something New: T3 SHIP CHALLENGE

Because putting together a fleet is fairly involved, here's an idea for those who feel intimidated by it: design a single low-tech, general-purpose, stand-alone, IS-capable expeditionary ship. This would be the vacuum-equivalent of Civ's First Green-Water Navy Ship to show the flag, explore, skirmish, perform guard duty, and shoot some pirates. Let's set some maximum conditions (subject to review): 100e, 100s, 75m, 75v, no refinement, uniform T3 (and probably your traits).

Don't worry about trying to stand up in a fleet fight (because you won't), just try and focus on something that's not a death-trap for your first intrepid explorers.

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Conditions: T3, Advancer, Poor Safety

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Enfield class Explorer Sloop

10 Burst Drive
1 Basic Fusion Core
2 Deuterium Drive
1 Recyclers
1 Hibernation Pods
1 Computer Module
1 Scanners
1 Jammer
2 Kinetic Lances
4 Coilguns
3 Carbon Armor
1 Heavy Cladding

Cost: 81e (36e) / 38m / 14v / 0a / 0t / 34s
Size: 50 / Mass: 52 / IS: 1 / IP: 1
Range: 2 / Power: 0 / Heat: -5
Init: 3 / Dodge: -14 / Avoid: 2 / Armor: 11 / Shield: 0
Refine: 117e / 29s

Projectile Gun Total Damage: 4
Missile Total Damage: 12

All-around design, pokey but decently armed: the Lances give it the ability to reach out and touch somebody at range, with the Coilguns give close-in defense and punch. Defenses are merely passable, though the Jammer gives it a little edge. CON3 is a real bastard with Poor Safety.

I endorse this challenge. I do note if you're planning to send the Enfield or similar ships out on its lonesome surveying, then a cargo bay is very useful to carry specialists and a small quantity of e/m/v for trading with the locals to get your ship refueled/making deals/lugging priceless valuables back home.

Here's my take with a manifold drive, and someone whose teching materials:
SS Minibus
3 x Manifold Drive (refined)
2 x Solar Array (refined)
1 x Light Sail (refined)
1 x Habitat Section (manifold drive and light sail means size is less of a consideration, and e savings are nothing to sneeze at)
4 x Cargo Bay
1 x Computer Module
1 x Scanners
2 x Interceptors
2 x Microwave Lasers
1 x Plasma Shield
6 x Titanium Armour (refined)

Can readily explore and survive some things (14 armour and 2 shields is nothing to disparage), in later eras can be re-purposed as a specialists taxi, armoured troop transport, or folded into the merchant navy.

Cost: 86e (39e) / 34m / 13v / 0a / 0t / 33s
Size: 66 / Mass: 48 / IS: 1 / IP: 1
Range: 2 / Power: 3 / Heat: -5
Init: 1 / Dodge: -18 / Avoid: 0 / Armor: 14 / Shield: 2
Refine: 121e / 20s

 

[Disenfrancised]

With Propulsion 6, and an absolutely miniscule ship with size/mass of 20/16, Maneuvering Jets give a grand total of 0 dodge. 2x Maneuvering Jets FINALLY grants 2 dodge at a cost of 23e and -1 IP Speed. (Incidentally I have no idea why 2x Maneuvering Jets costs 23e, since individually they're listed as costing 15 each. Does coupling things make them cheaper?)

Not highly cost effective, bordering on unusable.

Have you not been noticing e cost is non-linear?

Okay lets look at an example:

Laser Fighter
5 x Deuterium Drive
2 x Ice Sinks
3 x Microwave Lasers

Starts off at dodge -8
If we add 6 Man jets at prop tech 3 that dodge goes to -6
If those are refined that dodge goes to -1
At prop tech 4 those unrefined we have a dodge -3, and at refined a dodge of a full 4
At prop tech 5 those unrefined give dodge 2, and refined give an impressive dodge 6.

I freely admit before tech 5 unrefined Man Jets aren't great, and refined ones are only good at tech 4 and above.

Its also important to note that depending what your up against going from -8 dodge to -3 or whatever can still be crucial. At -8 a beamer weapon has 100% chance to hit, at -3 its 80%, and at -3 an int advantage can start to overcome to laser to hit chance, whilst at -8 it never will.

Edit: I am going to give man jets a little extra ability in V10, and make them help ships take off from planetary surfaces.

 

[Frozen In Ice]

Have you not been noticing e cost is non-linear?

This is a surprise for me too. I did not realize this.

 

[Symphony D.]

Nah the techs will be one of the last things I do, after starting worlds have been set up to balance things. You'll all have at least twenty techs, and T3 in 5 of the 9 fields.

@Thlalyi: If I give you techs that feel incongruous with your background and traits, you probably should have written them better .

Based on this, I decided to try and take a stab at this to see what realistic starting designs might look like. I believe it was mentioned if one was supremely invested in a particular direction one might get a T4 tech to start, but I decided to ignore that for now. What I came up with was:

BIO3 / COM3 / CON2 / NRG1 / MTR3 / MAT3 / SOC3 / PRO1 / WEP1

It hurts. It hurts so much. Restricted to Fission/Solar for power and propulsion. Because of Poor Safety, CON2 gets you a maximum size/mass of about 33, with exceptions like Burst Drives and Hangars. Only available weapons are Coilguns. It's managable, but really harsh.

Starting with CON1 / Poor Safety would be the ultimate suck, you trip the limit beyond 20 size/mass.

I preferred to frontload the costs (i.e. big initial costs and less maintenance) to reduce micromanagement, especially each ship having its own costing. There will be a small maintenance though that I'm thinking about - something like 1v per 25 total fleet mass.

So SymD's Compton fleet will take 7v to refuel, which will have to be paid every two years (since they have a range of 1). Minor, but enough so that you actually have to stock your refueling bases/bring cargo ships, and providing refueling for another players fleets has an actual cost involved.

So actual mission duration time is always 2x Range score? (Meaning Range is the furthest you can go and get back again to the same place to restock, assuming no other contingencies.) Will ships require other resources to restock, like f, or is that abstracted out?

Also, tangentially related, but if you want to build something somewhere with an engineering ship that is not your home system, presumably you have to haul the e along with you in a cargo vehicle to do so? As an aside, the difference between scaling for Cargo vs. Hangars (typo'd as Hangers, BTW) is sort of odd. Cargo scales linearly while Hangars definitely don't; is there any reason they don't use the same models?

I considered [that there should be a power-draining ship component that charges smaller ships' capacitors] - would make capacitors too good (especially as every big laser ship would have massive surplus power). Plus you're making the classic trek fallacy that all energy using technologies are fungible. Something designed for peak load output with lasers or to keep a ships lights running is hardly going to help with pushing energy into capacitors, its going to need some sort of transformer infrastructure (which I have decreed is to big to fit in any ship ).

Resurrecting an old idea: this could be interesting to reincorporate provided the support infrastructure was sufficiently large that it required a high CON ship—say around the 7 or 8 size limits. This would make for an interesting late-game power-projection option for a Metal Capacitor-using faction; they can get by in the meantime constructing static bases, but that gives them a rather severe weakness, whereas a mobile power facility alleviates them of that while likely being (1) much more expensive and (2) being just as (if not more) vulnerable, albeit in a different way, but granting greater flexibility and fewer targets to guard. By that time Antimatter should be roughly competitive on a power-basis as well.

 

[Disenfrancised]

So actual mission duration time is always 2x Range score? (Meaning Range is the furthest you can go and get back again to the same place to restock, assuming no other contingencies.) Will ships require other resources to restock, like f, or is that abstracted out?

Range is the number of years you can stay away from a supply base:

Range 1: Year 1: at base, Year 2: in another system, Year 3: return to base.
Range 2: Year 1: at base, Year 2: in another system, Year 3: in another system, Year 4: return to base.

and so on...

The other resources are abstracted out, with the exception of a, which isn't really a concern right now.

Also, tangentially related, but if you want to build something somewhere with an engineering ship that is not your home system, presumably you have to haul the e along with you in a cargo vehicle to do so? As an aside, the difference between scaling for Cargo vs. Hangars (typo'd as Hangers, BTW) is sort of odd. Cargo scales linearly while Hangars definitely don't; is there any reason they don't use the same models?

Yes you have to haul along the e (and the m and v if the construction needs that) to build stuff via engineering bay. The Linear Cargo vs Non-Linear Hangers is a) due to cargo being small and already at 'optimal packing' whilst hangars will experience economies of scale and organisation, and b) a design decision to make carriers not suck balls.

Resurrecting an old idea: this could be interesting to reincorporate provided the support infrastructure was sufficiently large that it required a high CON ship—say around the 7 or 8 size limits. This would make for an interesting late-game power-projection option for a Metal Capacitor-using faction; they can get by in the meantime constructing static bases, but that gives them a rather severe weakness, whereas a mobile power facility alleviates them of that while likely being (1) much more expensive and (2) being just as (if not more) vulnerable, albeit in a different way, but granting greater flexibility and fewer targets to guard. By that time Antimatter should be roughly competitive on a power-basis as well.

That's an idea certainly, I'll think about it. My current think was that a capacitor specializing power would refine their base building ships and the base buildings themselves to improve deployment speed and flexibility. Do note that the currently revealed Antimatter stuff is the high end 'pure antimatter' devices, and use of antimatter will occur sometime before their appearance.

 

[Symphony D.]

What exactly is "refined e" (mentioned in Starting Buildings), and how does one go about refining e? Why does this concept not apply to ships? Has it been removed?

Also, shouldn't Solar Plants be able to be built in space (and deep space), and also be far more efficient than atmosphere-bound equivalents for it? (Also not size-restricted—but getting power to a planet from local space would be tricky without some kind of beamer or a Space Elevator as a hardline.) This goes for Plasma Arrays with regard to deep space as well, especially considering the Apeilic Iris base theirs directly on stellar output, rather than planetary. I guess for balance you could demand a Space Frame be bound to such arrays, though that doesn't seem very expensive, and it gives Space Frames some more functionality than just housing p.

 

[Disenfrancised]

? The Refined e is the e cost once the building has been refined, just as one might refine a ship design.

You are correct that a solar array should be able to be built in a space habitat.

Plasma arrays are already slated to be built in a space habitat orbiting an appropriate gas giants (there may be the odd moon with a flux tube like Io's). It takes a particular star, and extensive engineering to trawl from stellar flux, which the Segmentum has none of.

 

[Symphony D.]

That makes sense, I was apparently just parsing it weird.

What sort of ballpark initial e / m / v / s production will we be looking at, considering our tech/econ/ind bases are likely much more developed than those in SysNES? None of these seemed to be higher than 40 at the start of that game (Soulons with 36e production being the highest value), whereas I'm guessing they will be significantly greater to begin with in this one.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Well what you could buy with 36e in SysNES1 will be different from what you can buy with 36e here.
e and s will probably range from 60-180 p/y, whilst m/v will probably range from 10-500. Substantial stockpiles of stuff at the start are also possible.

 

[Symphony D.]

Assuming it doesn't take away from more critical work, t's probably worth completely overhauling the op at this point, to unify the various bits of information floating around throughout the thread and to rectify the obsolescence of a number of things therein.

 

[Kal'thzar]

Based on this, I decided to try and take a stab at this to see what realistic starting designs might look like. I believe it was mentioned if one was supremely invested in a particular direction one might get a T4 tech to start, but I decided to ignore that for now. What I came up with was:

BIO3 / COM3 / CON2 / NRG1 / MTR3 / MAT3 / SOC3 / PRO1 / WEP1

It hurts. It hurts so much. Restricted to Fission/Solar for power and propulsion. Because of Poor Safety, CON2 gets you a maximum size/mass of about 33, with exceptions like Burst Drives and Hangars. Only available weapons are Coilguns. It's manageable, but really harsh.

Fun: my own guess at a set

BIO1 / COM3 / CON2 / NGR3 / MTR3 / MAT3 / SOC1 / PRO1 / WEP3

Working on; Comp, Math, Material due to my traits
Wep, Eng picked up from Power/Knowledge values (Energy being the most questionable of the lot, but I cannot think of anything else that fits the 'miners' stereotype)

From that you can get a fairly basic scout/constructor class

3 x Manifold Drive
2 x basic fusion core
1 x Fission rocket
1 x Light sail
1 x Habitat Section
1 x Supply Section
1 x Engineering Bay
4 x Internal Hangers
4 x Cargo Bay

But Frankly thats a terrible allocation of resources better to simply assemble a cheap carrier

3 x Manifold Drive
3 x basic fusion core
1 x Fission rocket
1 x Light sail
1 x Habitat Section
1 x Supply Section
8 x Internal Hangers

And leave it hanging in the inky void out of the system and build a System Scout ship:

2 x Fission Rockets
2 x Computer Modules
1 x Scanners
1 x Radiators
2 x Fission Busters
5 x Titanium Armour

Small Ship that can scout planets and put a dent into a few things, Small Size lets a couple of these fit into the carrier.

Then a Constructor for building bases:

2 x Fission Rockets
2 x Engineering Bay
10 x Cargo bay

That's enough cargo to build 2 bases, fitting more of these constructors also allows for a fairly decent repair on the fleet too.

Thats a general scout and Construct/Receive shiny gifts fleet on a fairly uneven tech basis.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Your generalist scout constructor will cost rather less s and design slots to make workable and refine than a host of specialist ships.

 

[Kal'thzar]

That's true.

I've yet to decide which is 'better', I need to figure out the theoretical life-time of both choices (based on e/m/v and s output, oh and # of blueprints slots available!). A Warships lifecycle is much shorter than that of a constructor/transporter ship. But compare with the large start-up costs....

Again not sure.

 

[Thlayli]

I'll throw my hat into the ring. The only T3 required is Materials. Rugged Designers on.

CSS Stagecoach

9x Burst Drive
3x Deuterium Drive
1x Recyclers
1x Engineering Bay
2x Cargo Bay
1x Gas Vents
4x Coilgun
1x Carbon Armor

Cost: 67e (30e) / 26m / 54v / 0a / 0t / 29s
Size: 44 / Mass: 35 / IS: 1 / IP: 2
Range: 1 / Power: 4 / Heat: -5
Init: 0 / Dodge: -11 / Avoid: 2 / Armor: 7 / Shield: 1
Refine: 94e / 24s

The most intractable problem (as per usual) is dodge, but at least there's +2 Avoid. 2 IP gives it a decent chance to disengage from slower foes if it's losing.

Is there any significant difference between having -11 Dodge and having -18? If not, I'd probably throw on a Heavy Cladding for good measure. Also, how debilitating is the lack of scanners? Might be worth it to throw those on there too.

Option 2:

This one needs T3 in Materials and Construction.

CSS Sheriff

11x Burst Drive
3x Deuterium Drive
1x Recyclers
1x Engineering Bay
2x Cargo Bay
1x Gas Vents
6x Coilgun
3x Titanium Armor
3x Carbon Armor
1x Heavy Cladding

Cost: 81e (36e) / 45m / 67v / 0a / 0t / 34s
Size: 55 / Mass: 56 / IS: 1 / IP: 1
Range: 1 / Power: 2 / Heat: -5
Init: 0 / Dodge: -15 / Avoid: 3 / Armor: 26 / Shield: 1
Refine: 117e / 29s

Builders lacking in v can replace Gas Vents with Radiators to go down to 20 armor.

The Sheriff functions well as an early-game garrison ship that can later transition to a support and supply role. Coilguns and good armor means it can skirmish with missile boats and lasers.

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Random question: Are you still doing the 'cargo bays can carry 1e per-space open' thing? Does 1e, 1a, 1 specialist, etc. all occupy the same amount of space?

If this is the case, building a Space Frame out-system requires an Engineering Bay and 5x Cargo Bays filled with e, correct?

 

[Disenfrancised]

Not necessarily, as you could dump the e on a nearby planetary surface and make multiple trips! Also planetary bases on tepid airless rocks will cost less than that.

 

[Disenfrancised]

-11 vs -18 dodge can be relevant vs Catapult weapons when combined with a slight int differential. Otherwise not really.

 

[Symphony D.]

The Praxzen Bureaucracy

Design Aesthetic:

The Praxzen military favors flattened (usually heightwise but sometimes widthwise) and somewhat tapered semi-conical designs, separating drive and engineering sections from forward crew and operating areas while retaining a flowing structure and mimimal frontal-profile. Designs general incorporate bilateral or radial symmetry about the long axis, and surfaces are a mix of smooth curves and flat segments, with hard edges and nodules, particularly for weapons, sensor, and comms mounts. Reptilian and insectoid influences are apparent in layouts. Surface coatings tend to be darkly iridescent in cold hues with a few warm streaks, separated by patches of gunmetal.

General purpose and civilian vehicles are often significantly more utilitarian in design as well as less compact and menacing, and also far more esoterically styled and clad, showing anything from warm, baroque stylings to hypercommercialist advertising, depending on the operators.

Faction Iconography:

 

[Symphony D.]

T3, Advancer, Poor Safety:

Enfield II class

11 Burst Drive
1 Basic Fusion Core
2 Deuterium Drive
1 Recyclers
1 Cargo Bay
1 Computer Module
1 Scanners
1 Kinetic Lances
4 Coilguns (QUAD-COUPLED)
1 Plasma Shield
8 Carbon Armor
1 Heavy Cladding

Cost: 82e (37e) / 38m / 14v / 0a / 0t / 34s
Size: 55 / Mass: 52 / IS: 1 / IP: 1
Range: 1 / Power: 3 / Heat: -5
Init: 3 / Dodge: -14 / Avoid: 2 / Armor: 17 / Shield: 2
Refine: 117e / 29s

Projectile Gun Total Damage: 4
Missile Total Damage: 6
Cargo Space: 4

Based on reading Stats, it's immune to up through a hexa-coupled Coilgun and up through 20 EM damage. Quad-coupling the Coilguns lets you damage up to 10 Armor with 1 Shield. With 4v in the cargo hold, it can refuel itself two times for a maximum Range of 6 jumps.

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Resistance is slightly superior to SS Minibus for far less component refinement costs, and can only be damaged by Interceptors; can only damage with Kinetic Lance. Minibus has a 27% intercept rate per Interceptor, so it'd be a long, long fight. Call it a toss up, though Enfield II's Lance damage will stack up much faster than Interceptor damage, so I put odds on Enfield II without gaming it out.

Resistance is marginally superior to CSS Sheriff (Particle-wise), and cannot be damaged by it; can only damage with Kinetic Lance. At 0 Init, -15 Dodge, and 3 Avoid, there is a 100% chance for Kinetic Lance hits (takes 4 Avoid to decrease to 86%, or 3 Init to 90%), with between 2 and 6 damage per hit. I call this one for Enfield II, again without actually running the combat. Would also take a long time.

Because of crappy missile defense at this stage, I think a Buster Boat could slag all three, but would in turn be killed by things with Dodge. Likewise, a twin-coupled Ion Cannon setup can scythe through all this Armor/Shields, and likewise a heavy Microwave Beamer design, but those both get torched by the Buster Boat again.

In terms of weight vs. penetration, a single Kinetic Lance (or a Buster, if you're feeling destructive) seems the best bet for killing things in the same weight class while leaving you the tools to deal with lighter and nimbler opposition (Coilguns or Microwaves). Missile defense doesn't seem too worth it at this stage on a standalone ship. It's difficult to get to Avoid 4, and you can't really fit enough Interceptors/Computers to put up a good missile screen while retaining offense. I think CON4 affords the mass/space to start seriously mounting and stacking missile defense on a still primarily offensive platform.

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Advancer/Cyberorganized's +2 Init is actually quite a nice bonus.