This thread is an expansion on the idea in https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11606-streamlined-engine-system



The movement system at its base is very simple and straightforward, until you start adding on engines. Engines are limited to 1 per ship, which means you can have larger ships that get the same ship movement bonus at a much smaller cost or fleets of smaller ships that can move much faster. However, because engines increase vastly in tonnage with each level, small ships can't feasibly carry the most advanced engines and so are at a disadvantage. This is really the simplest way I found to make it so that large and small ships deal with engines in the same way.



(1) Remove the 1 engine per ship limit.



(2) Make the ship movement bonus engines provide inversely proportional to the size of the ship so that Cruisers and Battleships get 2x the ship movement. Corvettes, Destroyers, and Transports get 4x more. Fleet movement bonuses would remain the same for all sizes so that fleets of small ships do not move faster.



(3) Increase the distance between systems 10 fold, or add in 10ths of a movement.



(4) Shrink all of the engines in terms of tonnage and cost by a factor of 10 so that you can get the speed you want on your ships and so that small ships can fit the advanced engines.



Power modules also provide more of a bonus to larger ships at the same cost, putting smaller ships at a disadvantage. I see a very simple solution to this problem:



(5) Make it so that power systems cost no tonnage, but add a percent of the ships industrial cost onto the ship. For example, High Energy Couplings could cost no tonnage but add +10-20% onto a ship’s cost, making it good for offensive ships but a waste of resources for balanced or defensive ships. Cruisers would have the advantage of ignoring or reducing these extra costs, allowing them to reap the benefits of a power system at less additional cost.



And finally, there is armor and repair:



(6) I think that the armor modules should obsolete their predecessors like weapons and defenses, because things like a 2% boost to ship hp imbalances it toward larger ships.



(7) I would allow multiple repair systems on ships, but make them heal less hp in a battle than that level’s armor provides. Their benefit would add up over consecutive battles, however.



(8) Intelligent Tools is currently highly imbalanced for high armor ships and needs to be balanced anyway, so I would make the repair systems repair system better than its predecessor to keep up with armor.

I would agree with the movement considerations but not with the armor. A smaller ship should get less armor precisely because it is smaller. A larger vessel can take more abuse because it is larger it should also be able to carry more armor with the idea of protecting the costly investment. If the small ships were just fractions of the big ships in every way, then 5x of a ship 1/5th the size is just as good, is that really how we want it?



I may start sounding like a broken record here but considering how Eve handles armor (all modules, really) is a step in the right direction. Thus, all ships can have armor that obsolete their predecessors but there would be inherent advantages to choosing the larger modules for the larger ships, though costlier.

Larger ships can take more of a beating because Battleships should have more defenses and Cruisers should have more armor.



I get what you are saying about the classes lacking uniqueness. However, I think that (in terms of gameplay) having 4 small ships approximately equal a Dreadnought but with different focuses is the best system.



PS: I think Dreadnoughts should have -20% to -25% ship level up experience to make them your ultimate flagships and less expendable.

I think it's honestly too early to say that there exists some combination of ships that is distinctly superior to others; we will need to test in PvP (in beta) in order to come to significant meaningful conclusions.



The power modules and repair modules are currently a completely illogical tech progression (they get worse as you go up the tech tree), which I believe has already been brought to the attention of the developers.

Zougkla wrote:


(6) I think that the armor modules should obsolete their predecessors like weapons and defenses, because things like a 2% boost to ship hp imbalances it toward larger ships.

I tend to agree more with the notion that has been put forth in other threads that there should be an effort made to make "outdated" weapons or defenses still have uses (e.g. unique abilities that aren't on higher level versions) in order to promote variety in ship construction.

I don't really like the idea of lots of smaller engines, or lots of smaller parts in general. I'm for a fan of picking different types of parts with different advantages and disadvantages than trying to decide if I should go with 4 guns and 5 shields, or 5 guns and 4 shields.

I can't agree.

it's illogical, in space physical laws are a lot differents.

having two engines and go faster than a ship with one only works on the warhammer 40K orcs battleships (and they go even faster if they are painted in red...).



but well that aside, you forget something important about the engines.

When you put an engine on a model, it boost the ship speed... and the fleet speed.



let's say your ship has 11 of movement. if you had a second ship of the same model (or a model with the same base movement and the same engine), your movement will up to 12.

so, yes, you can equip bigger engines on bigger ships, but they take more command points.

your 10 little ships will go faster than 2 big ships.



I like the way it is.

PyroVortex wrote:
I think it's honestly too early to say that there exists some combination of ships that is distinctly superior to others; we will need to test in PvP (in beta) in order to come to significant meaningful conclusions.



The power modules and repair modules are currently a completely illogical tech progression (they get worse as you go up the tech tree), which I believe has already been brought to the attention of the developers.



I tend to agree more with the notion that has been put forth in other threads that there should be an effort made to make "outdated" weapons or defenses still have uses (e.g. unique abilities that aren't on higher level versions) in order to promote variety in ship construction.

I agree that there is still a lot of time for balancing. However, alpha is the easiest time to make such large changes.



I would be interested in making some older systems still have uses. However, I think that some systems like weapons, defenses, armor, and possibly repair should become obsolete because I do not see any good ways to give them uniqueness and there should be a drive to advance.

lmaoboat wrote:
I don't really like the idea of lots of smaller engines, or lots of smaller parts in general. I'm for a fan of picking different types of parts with different advantages and disadvantages than trying to decide if I should go with 4 guns and 5 shields, or 5 guns and 4 shields.

The choice is still very simple because fleets move as slowly as the slowest ship. Therefor, you should build most of your ships with the same number of engines but with 2 times more for medium ships and 4 times more for Dreadnoughts.



I think that this would give players more choice in how fast they want their ships to go as well as better balance between ship sizes.

snikch wrote:
I can't agree.

it's illogical, in space physical laws are a lot differents.

having two engines and go faster than a ship with one only works on the warhammer 40K orcs battleships (and they go even faster if they are painted in red...).



but well that aside, you forget something important about the engines.

When you put an engine on a model, it boost the ship speed... and the fleet speed.



let's say your ship has 11 of movement. if you had a second ship of the same model (or a model with the same base movement and the same engine), your movement will up to 12.

so, yes, you can equip bigger engines on bigger ships, but they take more command points.

your 10 little ships will go faster than 2 big ships.



I like the way it is.

We must remember that these are FTL drives that opperate beyond the known laws of physics, so it could be said that additional engines would make it go faster.



I have accounted for the fleet movement bonuses by making them not scale with size. The idea is that a small ship with 1 engine will have x movement that provides y fleet movement. A Dreadnought with 4 of the same engine would have the same ship movement, but provide 4 times the fleet movement. So then fleet movement scales with ship size.