Upgrade Ships

Supremacy; support/discussion/questions

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Iceman
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Iceman »

This kind of upgrade would require the game to create and keep a new template for *each* ship in the game that is upgraded. Not sure if that's actually a good solution (larger savegames, more data to be transfered in MP games, etc).

As for XP degrading, that would require keeping track of all the ships in the game entering battle or not, every turn. That might just be too much work (and processing time) for any evetual gain - since ships get destroyed all the time, the effect might actually be negligible for the most part.

Just thinking out loud, with the cost/benefit ratio in mind.
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erazortt
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by erazortt »

Ok I'm not sure this belong in here, but the titel sounded like a fit.
Since already build ships aren't upgraded automatically, which I like A LOT (always found that extrememly unrealistic), shoudn't one be able to still build the old ship style even after the upgrade was researched?
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Iceman »

That's something that can be modded rather easily (remove Obsoleted designs).
There are a few reasons for it being how it is.
One of those reasons is lore in a way. Doesn't make much sense to be able to *build* (not to be confused with to operate) say TOS designs in the TNG era, or ENT designs in the TOS era, etc. It's kind of silly - again, lore-wise.
Another reason is that there are several levels of shipyards, with increasing output levels. You could then theoretically spam build say era II ships in shipyards III, etc. Or keep some SYs II building era II ships. Now, era II ships should be no match for era III ships, right, but the database still needs to be balanced. Higher tier ships need to get their hull and shields stats beefed up.
Yet another reason is that this would bloat the shipyard build list. While this might not sound like much of an issue, after a few games I bet you would see no point in it.

But, as usual, we can discuss this.
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erazortt
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by erazortt »

Yeah, these are valid and convincing arguments.
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Iceman »

But like I said above, it's easy enough to test. Try it for a couple of games, and see how it feels.
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Lathon
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Lathon »

Hi Iceman. I tried a game yesterday, and even though I do like that the ships do not auto upgrade, I didn't see a way to actually manually upgrade them to the next level. Is this something that will not be added to the game, or a future feature that needs to be developed?
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Iceman »

Hey Lathon.
Auto-upgrade is definitely not an option, and never was. Manual upgrade, that's what we discussed here.
The major factor against it is that in Supremacy, contrary to BotF, the upgrades are not the same class of ship, which makes it kind of weird.
This thread is for people to post their opinions on the matter, so that we can reach a conclusion. What's your take on this?
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Lathon
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Lathon »

So, for example, the Cruiser ships for the Federation. it doesn't make sense to have the NX class be able to upgrade to the Constitution class. But it would make sense for Cruiser II to be able to upgrade to Cruiser III (since they are the same class). But that would probably only include a few ships that could upgrade.
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Iceman »

Yep, that's the only "exception", really.
But it would be kind of odd to have some mechanic just for an isolated case.
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Lathon
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Lathon »

Yes that's true. It could potentially confuse people playing the game, that some ships can upgrade, while others cannot
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Malioc
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Malioc »

Personally, I'd scratch "updating ships and stations" off the list personally. In other words: Remove the promises of possible upgrades inside the game. All ships stay as they are, until they are scrapped for resources and new ships are build. That's how it mostly worked in Star Trek world. Non of the Enterprises, or other ships for that matter, have ever reformed to a new ship class.

The only events that happened in Star Trek universe, what could be interpreted as an update, were occasional improvments of the ships with new technology. Enterprise A got new weapons before the Xindi mission. Enterprise D was occasionaly refit, making it a bit faster, more efficient, etc.
This could be translated to a "mini" auto-upgrade. When a certain tech level is reached, Cruiser I is automatically a bit stronger/faster/has better scan equipment*. Not by much, but it would make the old ships less useless compared to the new generation.
However it should never morphe to a new-generation ship, nor should an Enterprise D be able to implement all the technology fitting in Enterprise E.


*I think, it would be nice to have larger ships which are also fit for science missions, since Federation and other factions often had big ships for science missions. ;-)
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AlexMcpherson79
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by AlexMcpherson79 »

Malioc wrote: Sat May 30, 2020 6:30 am Enterprise A got new weapons before the Xindi mission.
This hurt.
A LOT.
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Malioc
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by Malioc »

AlexMcpherson79 wrote: Mon Jun 08, 2020 3:04 pm
Malioc wrote: Sat May 30, 2020 6:30 am Enterprise A got new weapons before the Xindi mission.
This hurt.
A LOT.
Ah, right. The first Enterprise didn't have the a letter.
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AlexMcpherson79
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by AlexMcpherson79 »

Technically it wasn't even a 'USS' Enterprise... just Enterprise. only once did it get referred to as 'USS' and that was a singular graphic from when the Columbia did the Warp matching move to transfer Trip.
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Re: Upgrade Ships

Post by SonOfMogh »

Hi all, been many years since I checked out the progress of Supremacy... absolutely over the moon it’s still being worked on!

As for ship upgrades, I personally feel that the best way to handle this, is to have new ship classes replace old ones in the shipyard build options, but to have absolutely no changes made to ships which are already built. And then separately to this, upgrades should be available for older ship classes as technology improves, but the ship needs to be at a shipyard for x amount of turns and credits need to be spent in order to receive these upgrades.

In canon trek, a new class of ship being launched simply means one incredibly advanced ships amongst a fleet of ageing designs. Fast forward 10 years or so, and you have a handful of these newer classes, amongst the older ships which are still in service. It would be great to have ships which were once the latest and greatest front line vessels, now relegated to patrols and escort duty due to their age and inferiority. Similar to what we see on TV.

The old BotF had a similar situation to the recent Picard finale, with just a copy/paste of the same 3 designs all the time, which would be a real shame.
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