SCO Mothership

Seems like that'd waste a lot of fuel.

It's just another option available that makes engineering sense.  I don't know all of the lore of SCO and which might fit best into the rest of the lore of SCO.

From what I understand from what has been released via vaults and chat in Discord is as follows.

We're basically children that turned a red rider wagon into an airplane with a borrowed engine, we're centuries away from FTL flight on our own and who knows how long it would be for us to be able to even start reverse engineering the drive we have borrowed for now to get the Tywom home.  So currently the drive we have strapped to the hull of our ship does not match our ship's current specs and likely has a warp field "Temporary term as I don't know what will be used" that is far too large which would encompass all escort ships around our paper airplane.

With that said, you could always make ship component suggestions for components to allow internal and/or external docking, or even an external dock/tether device to use the output power of every escort ship to power the cuddle drive.

Yes, internal docking is an option.  The issue is that, because it is an arcade game things are not to scale.  The planets, for example.  So with the relative size of the ships, internal docking is "wrong" and requires what I call "Tardis Hangar Bays".  Most sci-fi ships have "Tardis Hangar Bays".  Like I mentioned in the other thread, Star Wars and Babylon 5 actually thought this issue through which is why when you look at those ship comparison charts their ships are so much bigger than the others than didn't fully think through the issue of internal volume.  Battlestar Galactica also considered internal volume, which is why their ships are also very big.  Even in SFB, the carriers make sense in this regard but the Andromedan motherships said to carry several ships internally that can be up to the size of light cruiers have "Tardis Hangar Bays".  It's not a huge issue, and only a lore issue that few people will notice anyway, but both internal external docking are "wrong" just based on the relative ship sizes the player is actually seeing.

One of these three options will be the "least noticeably wrong", but only Stardock has all the information to know which works best with the rest of their game/lore.  I had actually come back too this thread to mention something about the submarine tender version of a mothership which, obviously doesn't add the extra "wrong" aspect of the ships obviously not fitting in or on the mothership/flagship just by looking at them and drawing attention too the issue.  "Fuel" isn't really a relevant issue.  You could say they are lifelong powered reactors that don't ever need "fuel", but SCII uses fuel.  But isn't gasoline, or aviation fuel, its some kind of "future fuel".  So you get to determine how big of a fuel reserve the mothership can hold.  Then you work backards by the number of ships it can support, to determine what the fuel economy of this "future fuel" is to make it all make sense.  So fuel isn't an issue, because you get to define what fuel is.

All are valid concerns, however Frogboy had stated he's leaning more towards Arcade than Sim with the game so a lot of it will likely boil down to "Space Magic" unless a harder difficulty would tip the balance towards Sim more.

As for the ship size issues, at this point unless we get a detailed comparison chart the size issues may just be an issue of perspective, however from the sounds of it our ships and technology level are akin to re-creating the movie Radio Flier with space flight.

I am aware of all of that.  As I have said many times, it is an arcade game.  Sometimes you just have to shrug and say "It's an arcade game, the players will get that".  I have my own version of this type of game called Pirate Dawn that is 25 years old now, and this is all based on SFB.  I am aware of all of these issues on a level that would take anyone else 25 years to catch up too.

Like I said, all three ways are "wrong", you are just looking for the way that is "least noticeably wrong" within the rest of what SCO is.

Indeed now the thing is, at its heart it's a mixture of Arcade, Exploration, and RPG, it doesn't lean towards any one location and on the scale of Arcade to Simulation it leans far closer to Arcade than Sim so games like this get a pass on items such as Hard Science or pre-defined lore.

Honestly if someone wanted SFB they could always go to

https://www.sfbonline.com/index.jsp

But that's not what this game is, it is a mesh of game elements that may have taken a number of influences either directly from or indirectly from SFB "Not looking for a fight or discussion on this part, I know you could come up with many examples of both".  For example Doctor Who is classified as Science Fiction, yet we have no clue how to do much of that stuff via established science in today's scientific field, but who's to say we won't understand it tomorrow or debunk some previously verified research and make us look for newer different answers.

Star Control II was the integrated Star Fleet Universe.  Super-Melee is SFB.  There is absolutely no other game design influence in Star Control.  It is entirely the SFU.  100%.  It was plagiarism, just plain theft. Steve Cole deserves ALL of the credit for Star Control, Master of Orion, Rules of Engagement, and a few others I could list as well.  You are not understanding the actual situation here.  Paul & Fred wrote a good story, they STOLE everything else.  EVERYTHING else.  This was a nice try at trying to deflect from this OBVIOUS FACT that THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE can confirm for you.  You, quite simply, don't know what you are talking about.

When it comes to modern games, games made after WWII, there really are only three names that you need to know.  Charles S Roberts, Gary Gygax, and Stephen V Cole.  Almost all modern games can trace their heritage back too one of these three people.  If the people in your industry were not so incompetent, you would know this already.

I'm was done talking about this, but any time you attempt to steal from the reputation of these people I will speak up again.  Your industry has spent enough time stealing from, and building your reputations on the backs of these people without giving them the credit for it.  

Steve Cole created Star Control, not Paul & Fred.  Paul & Fred simply stole his work, and reputation, and claimed it as their own.  Welcome back to reality.

I should also mention that if someone wanted to learn SFB, SFBOnline would not teach it too them.  SFBOnline is a tool that allows people who already know how to play SFB to play against each other online.  You would need at least Basic Set, and you would need to read it first, before attempting to learn SFB through SFBOnline.

If you want to learn SFB, the "Cadet Training Manual" is available through ADB's web site (www.starfleetgames.com) and is a free PDF download.  If you wanted to begin learning the full game, I have always personally recommended getting Basic Set, Advanced Missions, and the Tactics Manual all at once and starting with that.

If you were trying to learn SFB, you would have no problem finding people with 20-30 years of experience who would be thrilled to teach you through SFBOnline.

Be aware that SFB is the most detailed and complex game ever produced by mankind.  Only Advanced Squad Leader is even in its league in this regard.  As a general rule, it takes a minimum of 9 months to truly learn SFB... and a minimum of 3 years to become an "Ace" (assuming you ever will).

Oh my god, all you've done is move your ranting about SFB to another thread. This is an SCO Mothership topic. Lets keep it on topic. PLEASE make a new forum post called "Starcon is just SFB and here's why" so that I can completely ignore it and not have to come across your rants in every single thread.

I was responding to Pyro.

And it was not "ranting", it was pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of the situation... and the impact it has had on me personally.  And correcting history, finally, after over 30 years.  In that regard, it was every bit as much about Master of Orion as it was about Star Control.  And about pretty much all space ship games, really.