To make dreadnoughts even more worthless.

That's a cynical answer TheFrozenOne, and isn't helpful.



As for things like power modules, it could be understood that to properly wire up a ship you need to use up a % of the ships total size.



But overall I agree that anything that needs a % of space on a ship could at least have a % based effect to compensate.



Fighter bays taking more space with no increase in effects is silly.

My complaints are all over this community. It just doesn't feel clean. I'm not use to having things left over. You can build a whole ship and still have some weight not used. I feel like I'm doing something wrong. lol

TheFrozenOne wrote:
To make dreadnoughts even more worthless.

I actually agree with The Frozen One.

Power, Engine, and Armor modules make sense to require % Size. A larger ship requires more tonnage to do use those modules. The problem is that the modules use a a constant % of space without being more effective on larger ships.



Hence Dreadnaughts sucking more and more.



Armor should grant more HP on larger ships.

Bomber/Fighter/Troop bays should have greater power (damage and invasion power) on larger ships.



As it is Larger ships cost 2/4 times the CP of smaller ships for a net LOSS in effective MP using them. On top of that Tonnage modules make the difference even smaller, and need to be refactored for larger ship sizes. For instance by making the a +% base tonnage modifier (multiplicative with tech tonnage passives)

Well fortunately defence and offence modules have no % tonnage, leaving the smaller ships to have more effective support roles and dreadnoughts to be the brawlers.

Autocthon wrote:
Power, Engine, and Armor modules make sense to require % Size. A larger ship requires more tonnage to do use those modules. The problem is that the modules use a a constant % of space without being more effective on larger ships.



Hence Dreadnaughts sucking more and more.



Armor should grant more HP on larger ships.

Bomber/Fighter/Troop bays should have greater power (damage and invasion power) on larger ships.



As it is Larger ships cost 2/4 times the CP of smaller ships for a net LOSS in effective MP using them. On top of that Tonnage modules make the difference even smaller, and need to be refactored for larger ship sizes. For instance by making the a +% base tonnage modifier (multiplicative with tech tonnage passives)

Not really. Size (LxWxH) determines what you can have inside any space. Weight should be the last thing you worry about when designing. I use to be a Civil Engineer until I went into CIT, and we use to design everything by dimensions first. You can always use lighter materials to help limit weight. Most engineers should know this and this is probably why 99% of games do not use a tonnage system to determine what you can fit inside a car, city, ship, boat, etc... It's like trying to reinvent the wheel man. There's a reason why car designers don't use weight to determine how fast their car can go. Ya sure, it's all cool and dandy we can design a limitless number of ships this way, but it's simply not practical.

Igncom1 wrote:
Well fortunately defence and offence modules have no % tonnage, leaving the smaller ships to have more effective support roles and dreadnoughts to be the brawlers.

Another reason why this whole tonnage system needs a reboot. You have one thing the standard and another thing not IMO. That's just half @$$ing it. It sounds like it started out as a great idea, but then after designing the game and actually understanding your own system, went to hell. If you change the % tonnage with weapons, then maybe you have to change the damage, and then you have to change the defense. It's a complete fraking nightmare for a game designer IMO. Which is why the tonnage system should have never been used. If you are going to do it, then do it right and fix everything so it's based on a % tonnage and worry about balancing later IMO. And we can all be honest here and agree, you can't really know what if something is imba until you test it.



Sometimes things take on a life of their own and you have to just let it go. I don't think you would loose more people than you would gain by rebooting the whole Module system.

Bad213Boy wrote:
Not really. Size (LxWxH) determines what you can have inside any space. Weight should be the last thing you worry about when designing. I use to be a Civil Engineer until I went into CIT, and we use to design everything by dimensions first. You can always use lighter materials to help limit weight. Most engineers should know this and this is probably why 99% of games do not use a tonnage system to determine what you can fit inside a car, city, ship, boat, etc... It's like trying to reinvent the wheel man. There's a reason why car designers don't use weight to determine how fast their car can go. Ya sure, it's all cool and dandy we can design a limitless number of ships this way, but it's simply not practical.

99%of games aren't simulating space travel. Weight is hyper expensive on ship. the fuel NASA uses in a year to launch their ships would bankrupt a small nation, and they're using the lightest materials we can.



Ships are not cars. They are not building. they must overcome gravitational forces, they need to be able to fly. That's why jet fuel is an order of magnitude more expensive than gasoline, it's that much harder to make. It's also why (military) planes are ridiculously compact, and why commercial flights are expensive.



There's a reason ships in the water are measured in tonnage. There are just some things you can't get around in terms of material.

Another reason why this whole tonnage system needs a reboot. You have one thing the standard and another thing not IMO. That's just half @$$ing it. It sounds like it started out as a great idea, but then after designing the game and actually understanding your own system, went to hell.



This is what I think happened. If you change tonnage % with the weapons, then maybe you have to change the damage, and then you have to change the defense. It's a complete fraking nightmare for a game designer IMO. Which is why the tonnage system should have never been used. If you are going to do it, then do it right and fix everything so it's based on a % tonnage and worry about balancing later IMO. And we can all be honest here and agree, you can't really know what if something is imba until you test it.

It makes sense for...



Engines to need % weight. Larger ship needs larger engine.

Drone Bays to need % weight. Larger ship would be able to have larger bays. Too bad devs didn't implement the logical thing.

Armor to be % weight. Larger ship has larger surface area, therefore requiring more armoring. However larger ships should get more out of the armor.

Repair Modules to need % weight. Larger ship requires more material to repair with.



Power modules use % weight because they offer % bonuses. They can be rationalized as requiring internal volume and tonnage.



What really needs to happen is that the % weight modules need to be BETTER. And they need to account for ship size.

Autocthon wrote:
What really needs to happen is that the % weight modules need to be BETTER. And they need to account for ship size.

Agree totally.

I am really starting to like the expansion, but there is one thing that I really don't get: The modules that have a percentage weight. I don't really like it, but more importantly, I don't understand the reasoning behind it or the explanation behind it.



For now, I am using Igncom's mod that removes %s, but I would be willing to give percent based weight a 2nd chance if someone can explain the rationale behind it in terms of both lore (why would a fighter bay weigh more for dreads than for destroyers?) and game mechanics (what purpose does this serve in the gameplay?)

Are there some infos from the devs about this % weight nonsense for a future change?

Removal of lower tech use on modules was a deliberate change to prevent abuse cases. If you think that abuse cases don;t matter for single player you probably don;t understand what an abuse case is.



If anything modules just need to be smarter about when you can build them.

Here's my take on % weight:

• Fighters, Bombers, Troops, Bombs: Makes no sense at all. It's not like they are any more effective on larger ships, and historically, size has been good for carriers.
• Armor: I actually don't completely disagree with this one. If both defenses and armor were flat weight, Dreadnoughts would be crazy OP, far more than the advantage small ships have now. But perhaps making defenses % weight and HP flat weight (and flat HP---important!) would have made more sense.
• Power, Engine, Repair: % weight is fine for single-ship effects, though Power modules don't do enough for their weight now. Though perhaps the fleet modules should be partially or fully flat weight since in that case the effect is independent of the ship size.
• Scout: I agree with EatThePath, 50% weight is ridiculous for anything except the least CP possible. Should be 50 + 2% or something thereabouts.
  
  

Autocthon wrote:
99%of games aren't simulating space travel. Weight is hyper expensive on ship. the fuel NASA uses in a year to launch their ships would bankrupt a small nation, and they're using the lightest materials we can.



Ships are not cars. They are not building. they must overcome gravitational forces, they need to be able to fly. That's why jet fuel is an order of magnitude more expensive than gasoline, it's that much harder to make. It's also why (military) planes are ridiculously compact, and why commercial flights are expensive.



There's a reason ships in the water are measured in tonnage. There are just some things you can't get around in terms of material.

The ship and rocket size can be proportional. Increase one you increase the other as you said. Vessels are designed by shape first. Then they begin designing your propulsion system based on the size of the ship and materials at hand. Your boss is going to give you a design, it's your job to make it work with the best available resources you have. That's what engineers do, we solve problems like this. Your boss isn't going to care how much it weighs. If they want more power, you give them more power. Sure it might be cheaper to design an engine with steel, but if you use Titanium, you should be able to cut that size by 25%.



Another thing to think about. The most logical thing to do is to assemble and large space craft for military use from a space station, where everything is weightless.



I think we can probably agree that something just isn't right yet. lol

Autocthon wrote:
Removal of lower tech use on modules was a deliberate change to prevent abuse cases. If you think that abuse cases don;t matter for single player you probably don;t understand what an abuse case is.



If anything modules just need to be smarter about when you can build them.

How could this be abused in the new system? The way defense works is a huge nerf to cheapo glass cannon swarms.

That's the point of the new system, you can't abuse exploitative cases. And since there aren't abusable exploits why would you ever need lower tier tech as an option?



The only thing currently wrong with the system is resource screw. Which could be fixed simply by smart assigning modules based on available resources.

Autocthon wrote:
That's the point of the new system, you can't abuse exploitative cases. And since there aren't abusable exploits why would you ever need lower tier tech as an option?



The only thing currently wrong with the system is resource screw. Which could be fixed simply by smart assigning modules based on available resources.

As I mentioned earlier in my post discussing power modules, it would make the ship/fleet design a lot deeper if you could use lower tier power modules even after you have researched new ones. For example, if you know you will be engaging in battles with heavy losses and your fleet CP cap isn't that high yet, it doesn't make sense to use +% Fleet Damage power modules because those only pay off with large numbers. For effectively trading off your industry against the enemy's, you want glass cannons that can get kills in small numbers and despite heavy losses, making investment in a fleet that's only effective when intact a poor choice. In this case you'd want to use your best +% Ship Damage power modules. Moreover, varying the weight functions and industry costs provides interesting choices regardless.



For another example: imagine you're in a tight game where your resources are stressed handling conflicts on all sides. One of your enemies has powerful ships but they can't produce them quickly. Another has endlessly arriving large fleets of mid-level ships. And in a back corner you have new settlements with low industry being attacked by pirates. All of these situations require different types of ships and fleets, and it'd be nice to be able to realize this variety to maximize the strategy in handling various situations instead of just always making the same "best possible" ships.

Except that the cost increase for Weapon/Defense modules is effectively negligible. For 5 Offense and three of each defense (not that you'd need that in reality) it amounts to roughly 450 industry between tier 1 and tier three. Between Tier one and tier two it's next to nothing. Even armor has very little difference between tiers.



You want to know the one that tier actually matters for industry? Power. Power modules are expensive as hell. In a situation like you've described (attack on three fronts by different types of enemy) bheing able to change your ship loadout to favor lower tier weapons and defenses would have very little effect on their cost unless you've somehow managed to get tier 3 weapons tech with fledgling colonies. And even then you can do just as well making the ships in your primary hub worlds.



In terms of making cheaper ships stripping out modules that aren't required (Repair/Engine/Tonnage/Power) will save much much more on industry than using lower tech weapons/defense modules.



The ONLY thing that needs to change is module availability and smart outfitting to compensate for available resources. Your fledgling colonies locked down and don;t have resources? They'll just use low tech modules until they get the resource back Don;t have the resource on your empire? Opening ship management won't let you update ships with tech you can't make. That neatly fixes current dissatisfaction in shipbuilding.



Oh and add two more tiers of weapons tech. All the other tech has 4 or 5 tiers why do weapons only have 3?