It would be ideal if there were a text file someplace that defined the allowable hull/module sizes so we could add more.
I like the idea of a size in between fighters and frigates, and I think many would like battleships/dreadnoughts as well. The principal issue is one of turret sizes. I can make a corvette using the frigate size, but the turrets will be huge if it is smaller.
Between Frigates and fighters should be Corvettes or fast attack ships. I’d love to see destroyers between Frigs and Cruisers. One thing EVERY GAME EVER! gets wrong is that dreadnaughts should be smaller than Battleships. (Long line of navy peeps in my family.)
That’s because ship classification is arbitrary. For Wet Navies the HMS Dreadnought set the standard for Battleships. Much silliness went on around the world war 1 era creating the need to find euphemism for battleships, since battleships were limited by treaty. Today, the need to have different classification for ships is largely wasted. Something about nuclear weapons making large ships effectively useless.
In Space however, Bigger is better, which leads to ship clasificaitons beyond battleships. I have No Idea how it started by at this point a Dreadnought is bigger then a battleship. (Probably something to do with how the original HMS Dreadnought just out classed everything when it showed up. Someone built a Really Big Battleship and It was the dreadnought all over again…)
Ship classes as I know them. Largely from David Weber’s universes:
Fighter
LAC
Corvette
Frigate
Destroyer
Light Cruiser
Heavy Cruiser
Battle Cruiser
Battleship
Dreadnought
Super Dreadnought
Monitor
Super Monitor
Planetoid. Because sometimes It just needs to be the size of a moon… (And Dahak would eat the Death Star)
The Frigate < Destroyer distinction is modern. Frigates used to be the ships just below those that could stand in the line of battle (fifth and sixth rates). Oddly, frigates were sometimes called “cruisers” because they were often sent out on cruises alone, whereas SOLs were almost always in the company of other ships. Heck, “destroyer” is short for “torpedo boat destroyer.” The original role was to attack torpedo boats—which were NOT PT boats, but larger. By ww2, the torpedo boats looked like small DDs (500 tons, maybe, vs 1000+ for a ww1 DD, and 1500 to almost 3000 for ww2 DDs.
Actually would like to agree, personally I’d like to do Heavy Fighter/Carrier/Battleship/Dreadnaught.
Would also like the ability to make custom hardpoint types but that’s a whole thread on its own.
then we would have a super-stack of orders like attack fighter, corvette…
Reiterate please, I don’t get what you’re saying, are you complaining because there’d be too many order possibilities for each unit?
Yeah, there would be more attack orders, one for every ship type created.
I’m looking for something we can mod like:
Where all the allowed types are in that text list, and we can add whatever we like.
Unfortunately that will not be possible in GSB, because those restrictions are just hard coded too many places, mainly as optimisations.
If there is ever a GSB 2, then this is something I would definitely have to address. But there is a ton of other stuff that I will be changing and adding to GSB 1 before I need to worry about that.
Talking of which, I should be coding…
Ouch that kinda kills this game for me… was really hoping it would allow this somehow.
Gotcha.
Is it equally hard to simply add a few classes yourself (cliffski)? Even if unused? Say “corvette/gunboat” Between fighter and frigate and “battleship” at the very least?
Bah I was really hoping for tons of possible classes and custom hardpoints.
Wouldn’t it be possible to not do massive backcode changes and just add a few new LUA lines that restrict modules to certain ship types? Like let us list them by “,”'s.
Personally I wanted to do a Carrier Bay Hardpoint, allowing only certain ships to carry carrier bays, which would be heavier than cruisers with tons of normal slots but with only a few weapon hardpoints, then I was going to make a Heavy Weapon hardpoint that has certain weapons that can be put in there, for like Dreadnaught Class/Battleship/etc.
There are certainly some work-arounds. Make a dedicated CV hull, then make it have a lot of power, and the types of slots you want. Make the CV module so heavy and power intensive that only the CV hulls you added can use it.
Is there any other way? That seems to just clutter your module screens with tons of unuseable junk if you are making one ship type or another.
IMO, modules should be FAR more race-limited. What we see now leads to homogenized designs. If each race had a subset of current modules, there would be a little less clutter.
For example one race might only have lasers and missiles, another might get EMP beams, ion beams, and missiles, etc. Certain shileds should only be for one race, ad nauseum.
Actually I planned on removing most of the bonus stats on hulls in my mod and giving custom racial equipment and stuff instead.
I was sort of thinking along those lines. One idea was to give an armor/integrity bonus based on tech level, then try and place different races within that scheme. All hulls for a given race/TL would then get identical bonuses.
Like the way it would be was:
Federation Hull Reinforcement (Amazing Hull Integrity)
Federation Enhanced Armor (Better Armor)
Federation Industrial Engines (Better Engines)
Federation Dual Power Generators (Better Power Generator)
Rebel Dual-Engine (Amazing Engine)
Rebel Hull Patch (Better Hull Integrity)
Rebel Enhanced Armor (Better Armor)
Rebel Shield Generator (Better Shield)
Alliance Diamond-Weave Armor (Amazing Armor)
Alliance Organic Engines (Better Engines)
Alliance Hull Reinforcement (Better Hull Integrity)
Alliance Biogenerator (Better Power Generator)
Imperial Ion Shielding (WTF Shields)
Imperial Engine (Better Engine)
Imperial Hexagon Plate (Better Armor)
Imperial Power Generator (Better Power Generator)
Tribal Hull Integrity (Big Bonus to Hull Integrity at the cost of shields/armor)
Tribal Repair Device (Faster Repair)
Tribal Advanced Repair Device (Faster Repair)
Tribal Holo-Crew Deck (More Crew in smaller space)
Yes, because the differences between the races are very, very small. (Apart from the Tribe.) 9-11% speed doesn’t really mater dodging missiles, neither does 9-11% armour/shields/hull when taking missiles. esp when u get space hulks (ships not dead, but with no functioning modules). Space hulks are another reason why there should be repair beams or a sewerside (yes I can’t spell) options.
I don’t like “silly” fleets with nonsensical “absorber” ships, etc.
I’d not make them, and I’d delete a challenge with that sort of thing as I have no interest in gaming the way the code works, I’d rather lose the fight or not play.