The Case for Retrofittting ships > (experience)

from GalCiv4 Forums

Greetings and Happy New Year Stardockians!

I was discussing with a friend the fact that it seems the ability to retrofit ships with new tech has been removed.

We talked and realized that if you have a fleet of 1rst gen tech that flies around with a surveyor (which I always do), those fleets can typically amass some experience in times of peace. Now those ships are tooling around in archaic space lasers and bare naked defenses.

Take a ship that has amassed say level 8 experience and the player chose to add a few anti-matter missiles or one or two elerium weapons boosts (both of which are a paltry +1 to damage) and some boosts to hit points. They are vets. They are very good ships. But alas they will never see combat and when it eventually comes they will be the first to be removed from the galaxy because they were unable to add better defenses or weapons which were revealed by researching new tech.

Id like to have the team re-asses the removal of retrofitting. Keep in mind we are limited by mass yet this is nullified for some reason by ship experience upgrades.

Which is going to survive a ship with a space laser and 5 Elerium upgrades and no improved defenses or the ship with Phasors and Kavnium and Forcefields?

Happy New Year and I look forward to many years with Stardock and their games!

galactic civilizations iv
51,706 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I was reading this and a thought occurred to me...

Perhaps ship experience should be removed altogether and instead a single overall "Naval Experience" that applies to the whole empire. So essentially, any ship new or old can gain XP for the entire navy, which in turn gives some very slight advantage to the whole navy.

This removes the issue of XP falling onto one outmoded vessel. I also like it, as it effectively represents institutional knowledge accumulating, and the fact that crews change, people get transferred, etc. etc.

A defeat could even subtract a portion of XP, thus a player who manages to win all his battles might have some extremely nice veterancy bonuses, but if you are only winning (or losing) wars through attrition with numerous defeats, you are not going to have any veterancy bonuses.

This could be taken a whole level/step further, and have the Naval Experience literally have it's own series of mutually exclusive perks that are unlocked at certain levels/etc. So you could therefore use XP to say... choose between "Seasoned Warriors" and a combat bonus, or "Experienced Explorers" which brings a range bonus. Etc.

 

Just some food for thought.

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Reply #2 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Gauntlet,

Great to see you again! Will you be creating your race mod for Gal Civ IV?

I am still hoping to get a way to retrofit old ships into new ones. I play at a slightly faster tech pace than most folks and having a way to update ships would be very handy.

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

50/50?

Kinda depends on whether importing ships will be doable or not and how modding will work in conjunction with Steam/etc.


Reply #4 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

I agree in general. I despise unit obsolescence in 4X games. Just having units gain experience over time would be helpful, but then it would lead to the opposite micromanagement problem of constantly having to pick upgrades for your older ships.

These kinds of questions are why I'm glad I'm not a game developer.

Reply #5 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

maybe a possible way to deal with this problem would be to be able to get more resources and/or "transferable xp" when you decommission a ship that has levels and/or upgrades on it. this way you would be able to use the resources to help rush build another ship, and get some or all of the xp from that decommissioned ship transferred to other ships, basically like transferring the experienced crew to one or multiple other vessels. this would remove the need to micromanage old ships while allowing players to create new, special ships that are designed to possibly have their power increased by an experienced crew right out of the shipyard.

Reply #6 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

As long as you can reassign commanders too. (I haven't tried that yet.)

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Jeff, reply 6

As long as you can reassign commanders too. (I haven't tried that yet.)

Believe all you have to do is move the leader to the pool. Might have to fire but think not.

Big Huge Warning when you remove the leader you will also remove the ship to the Commanders Ship pool.

At least that is how it worked last time I tried. Cannot recall if leader took a loyalty hit but, it happens with every other leader move you make.

Reply #8 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting Gauntlet03, reply 1

I was reading this and a thought occurred to me...

Perhaps ship experience should be removed altogether and instead a single overall "Naval Experience" that applies to the whole empire. So essentially, any ship new or old can gain XP for the entire navy, which in turn gives some very slight advantage to the whole navy.

This removes the issue of XP falling onto one outmoded vessel. I also like it, as it effectively represents institutional knowledge accumulating, and the fact that crews change, people get transferred, etc. etc.

A defeat could even subtract a portion of XP, thus a player who manages to win all his battles might have some extremely nice veterancy bonuses, but if you are only winning (or losing) wars through attrition with numerous defeats, you are not going to have any veterancy bonuses.



This could be taken a whole level/step further, and have the Naval Experience literally have it's own series of mutually exclusive perks that are unlocked at certain levels/etc. So you could therefore use XP to say... choose between "Seasoned Warriors" and a combat bonus, or "Experienced Explorers" which brings a range bonus. Etc.

 

Just some food for thought.


LOVE THIS IDEA

Reply #9 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting gypsy2299, reply 7

Believe all you have to do is move the leader to the pool. Might have to fire but think not.

You must fire the leader. Actually it might be useful to do if you want to teleport your flagship back to your capital.

I'm good with this mechanic.

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Jeff, reply 9


Quoting gypsy2299,
reply 7


Believe all you have to do is move the leader to the pool. Might have to fire but think not.



You must fire the leader. Actually it might be useful to do if you want to teleport your flagship back to your capital.

I'm good with this mechanic.


It was the ministers I was thinking about. Teach me to go and check if I am unsure.O:)

Reply #11 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting gypsy2299, reply 10
It was the ministers I was thinking about. Teach me to go and check if I am unsure.O:)

Ministers, diplomats, and faction members can be moved freely. Governors and commanders cannot.