- Joined
- Jun 29, 2013
- Messages
- 1,929
- Reaction score
- 636
To go with the upcoming NPC factions, crews, etc. (and, hopefully, supply lines and passive resource generation), I propose a system by which to encourage players and factions to think VERY carefully about their planned resource usage, and discourage them from making drastic changes to their fleet lineups in serious warfare.
At the moment, Starmade combat and warfare is basically a case of putting all of your faction members in the biggest ships you can and sending them all out. RTS style warfare and supply lines with individual patrols and fleets would encourage players to use their resources and spread them out to prevent, say, NPC pirates from encroaching upon their territory and stealing their resources.
To go with this RTS-style warfare and territory management, I suggest that Shipyards that passively produce ships and fleets should have an Efficiency Rating. With every ship of a single design type produced, the Shipyard's efficiency increases - eventually, after a thousand or so ship spawns, the resource consumption to produce that specific kind of ship is at, say, 20% or some other low number (ie: you can make five ships or more with the same amount of resources). This would encourage players to utilize smaller blueprints at smaller shipyards, as larger ships take longer to build and take more resources, thus reducing how easily the design can be trained.
I also suggest that, when changing blueprints at a shipyard, the shipyard loses efficiency based on the percentage of difference between the old and new blueprint. A totally new ship design would completely reset the shipyard's efficiency to 0%, but a lightly retrofitted ship design would drop efficiency by a much smaller amount.
tl;dr: the more a shipyard makes of a single ship design, the less materials it takes to do it, thus encouraging specific fleet lineups and resource management planning.
At the moment, Starmade combat and warfare is basically a case of putting all of your faction members in the biggest ships you can and sending them all out. RTS style warfare and supply lines with individual patrols and fleets would encourage players to use their resources and spread them out to prevent, say, NPC pirates from encroaching upon their territory and stealing their resources.
To go with this RTS-style warfare and territory management, I suggest that Shipyards that passively produce ships and fleets should have an Efficiency Rating. With every ship of a single design type produced, the Shipyard's efficiency increases - eventually, after a thousand or so ship spawns, the resource consumption to produce that specific kind of ship is at, say, 20% or some other low number (ie: you can make five ships or more with the same amount of resources). This would encourage players to utilize smaller blueprints at smaller shipyards, as larger ships take longer to build and take more resources, thus reducing how easily the design can be trained.
I also suggest that, when changing blueprints at a shipyard, the shipyard loses efficiency based on the percentage of difference between the old and new blueprint. A totally new ship design would completely reset the shipyard's efficiency to 0%, but a lightly retrofitted ship design would drop efficiency by a much smaller amount.
tl;dr: the more a shipyard makes of a single ship design, the less materials it takes to do it, thus encouraging specific fleet lineups and resource management planning.