After coming back to SiS and playing the Steam version I feel there's not as much choice when I'm designing a ship as there could be. I feel like my ship design is dictated by my research more than anything else. Put on the best guns I've researched, pick a mix of shields and armor based on whether i expect to be facing kinetics or not, add mods to guns until I run out of power. So far the only tech that makes me consider and alter my designs is boarding pods; it's a relatively cheap tech that attacks ships differently with notable strategic benefits.

I've been thinking on why this is exactly, it is a complex issue since it's based on how my ships have performed in combat and my expectations of what I will need, as well as the gritty details of how i'm actually limited in putting things on my ship.

Flat upgrades through research

There's a lot of cases where since an item is just better you always take it. Obviously people should be rewarded for conducting research but the way this plays out is sometimes troubling; the game kind of presents you with false choices. Take the Rapid Fire mod for lasers. Unless the UI is misleading, there is no case in which you will ever not want to take Rapid Fire. 2x Laser has 2-20 damage, costs 24 wrench 6 metal and 12 power. Rapid fire improves it to 4-40 damage, 36 wrench, 9 metal and 18 power. So one laser mount with rapid fire is equivalent to two mounts without it, while also costing less material and power. Turbolasers are another example. They cost only nominally more power than lasers with much better performance, so you always take as many turbolasers as you can fit. If you are restricted by your available power, you are better off putting no-power weapons on mount or blast doors while maximizing the # of up-to-date or modded weapons.

This is a case where my ship design choices are not really choices, they are makework clicking dictated by my research choices. There are no tradeoffs to weigh here.

Suggestion: Improved performance should typically come at a power premium, rather than with increased power efficiency. This means upgrades will always have tradeoffs at the ship design level, naturally ameliorated by the massive power increases through upgrading your power tech.

(Similarly, since ship engines require power, ships should probably have a Built-In slot for their power generation; they can't not have a power generator anyway.)

Ship Size

For the most part you always want to field the largest possible warships. The numbers are just heavily in their favor every time. There are some interesting limits from orbital infrastructure, but they arn't a big deal, especially in the first tier; a space station doesn't cost much compared to a Heavy Hull ship like a Heavy Cruiser. I am not opposed to this design paradigm, except insofar that I think it adds more design depth for the smaller ships to at least have a place. IMO they should have a large metal discount compared to larger vessels, which would cement their role as being easily replaceable and a contender with <RESEARCH>/<TRADE> for unimportant worlds that have finished their infrastructure build.

I.E. a Destroyer in one of my games costs 270 metal, while a similar Light Cruisers costs about 400. The destroyer has slightly better firepower for metal, but the LIght Cruiser doesn't explode if a stiff breeze hits it. If a Destroyer only cost 100-150 metal compared to a similar-tech Light Cruiser of 400 metal or so. It would also cement their role in the early game or for a player who is unhappily short on metal planets. Note: In this paradigm wrench costs remain unchanged.

Tactical balance and its impact on ship design

There's a few cases where ship design choices are irrelevant because there is no need for them or they are obviated tactically. Point defense is a good example; you do not need much point defense to take down any ordnance (missile or small craft) threat that i've encountered fielded by the AI. Even if there are a lot of targets, you can use your primary weapons to knock them down if need be; antiship weapons are quite effective against ordnance. It helps that the AI always uses missiles/fighters immediately, letting you knock them down at your leisure. So I never really feel pressured to ever mount more than basic point defense. It is a little weird that both weapon types are best at point blank; even aside from defensive weapons fire, shield regeneration makes harassment fire nearly worthless unless massed.

This is a more complex issue since AI ship designs and combat AI also play into it. I generally prefer soft balance approaches but it might be appropriate to bar anything without (PD) from firing on ordnance targets for starters, and maybe create design depth by further differentiating ship self-defense PD (decreased-range defense lasers/CIWS) with fleet-defense PD (antimissiles like now). I do think that the (Light) weapon mount class could probably be removed in favor of (Turret), letting players specialize designs rather than having 'mandatory' PD.

There's also an interaction of speed and weapon range. You really do not need speed for the most part. Ships generally close to brawl range very quickly; and most combat time is spent close in. Spreading your ships out invites defeat in detail. There's little reason to maneuver as anything but a blob until a ship wants to rotate to cover shield facings. (unless you are fighting a kinetic enemy, in which case you don't need to anyway).

Whew I'm pretty sure there's significantly more to say but that's enough of a wallotext

Thanks for the detailed feedback.

I agree with the general point that weapons need to be differentiated and that those differences need to be better advertised to the player. We have some new capabilities to add for weapons (area of effect damage, fighter revamp), and then we need to do a serious balance and differentiation pass. There should be noticeable differences between turbolasers and ion beams and railguns that makes the choice an interesting one.

Weapon mods in particular need a revamp; unless you're the Gremak (whose missiles require significant power), the mods are essentially free. Mods should require some trade-offs. We will be revamping the ship designer UI, and weapon mod changes need to be a part of this.

TheDeadlyShoe wrote:(Similarly, since ship engines require power, ships should probably have a Built-In slot for their power generation; they can't not have a power generator anyway.)

Yes, I agree.

Small unit viability past the early game is always a challenge; if you make small units too attractive, then "swarms of death" become optimal and large ship upgrades become pointless. We will try to push softly on the balance levers. Cost is one, but increased survivability is another; I think we need to increase the to-hit penalty of larger ships when targeting smaller ships.

There's a lot to do in terms of weapon balance, and then once it's in a better place, we can worry about teaching the AI how to use them. But you're right that this is critical; if the AI always uses mass drivers then there's no point in developing shields; if the AI never uses missiles, then there's no point in developing point defense.

Like I aid elsewhere, the best way to keep small ships relevant is to have tasks they can do better than the bigger ships.
Make them good for close in defense of bigger, and more valuable, ships
Make them escorts for commerce and coast guard cutters: perhaps necessitate a number of hulls, not tonnage or whatever, per number of freighter trawling the trade lanes, or else risk pirates spawning.
Make them give a small morale bonus to the pops of a planet, showing the flag
Raiding mechanics? would be interesting if properly designed.

Hell, sell it to pirates so that they might cause hardship to your foes!

Excellent post by the OP.

The other thing I have noticed is going bigger is always pretty much better in this game as is. You want to build as big as possible.

One reason for this is the current upkeep scheme. Although the dread star requires a hefty 11 coin upkeep per turn, there isn't anything that can compete with it in terms of the same type of upkeep. 11 destroyers (same upkeep) stand no chance. A big ship force would be 3 DN and 1 BC. I don't think that would get the job done either.

If you want to go smaller, a DN is 3 upkeep. 3 destroyers are not going to beat that. A BC is 2.

While upkeep should strictly not be in line from top to bottom (it should be more expensive to keep more smaller ships vs a few big ships) I do think it is currently out of wack a bit and the bigger ships need to cost more upkeep. (in some cases, a lot more).

Along these lines is how does the use of metal scale? Here is how it goes in one of my games: (number in () indicates how many of those are would be available against the dread star for the same metal price. Number in <> indicates how many of those would be available against the DN for the same metal price).

Dread Star: 11326
DN: 1249 (9)
BC: 774 (14) <1>
CA: 480 (23) <2>
DD: 176 (64) <7>

The bigger ships benefit in that once they get auto repair, it makes them that much harder to put down. Smaller ships don't get that benefit since they are usually easily destroyed in 1 shot. Without testing, I think the 9 DN or 14 BC could give the Dread Star a run, but I don't know. Certainly on paper, the firepower is impressive.

Against the DN, I think it defeats all other equivalent lower ship(s).

I would also observe that this is a common issue with games in general. The tendency is to build the biggest and best as THE strategy and you pretty much can't go wrong with that approach.

I actually find myself using light cruisers for a very long time when playing as the humans. Human heavy cruisers are _very_ slow, and human battleships waste too much firepower on still-pretty-useless missile/torpedo slots. Light cruisers seem to be a very good mix of durability, speed, utility, and firepower, so they make up the backbone of my navy for most of the game.

A human heavy cruiser is crippled by the fact it has a speed 7 like other races battlecruiser/dreadnaught classes. If it had a speed of 12 like all the other heavy cruisers it would be competitive. Where it gets placed in your battle lines makes the situation even worse.