*In the case that I unintentionally duplicated any similar topic, my honest apologies*



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This suggestion is not a technical suggestion or a weapon module suggestion or anything similar.

This is more of a fundamental suggestion, that affects the entire ship design and combat system.



This suggestion is intended to diversify ship designs to the fundamental levels.



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As we notice, except for tonnage and bonuses, except for hitpoints and production costs, there is little much different between a transport and a dreadnought when it comes to firepower potential. Since a transport can load the same full tech weapons a dreadnought can carry, it does make sense that a player will just spam low end ships with low command points to maximize firepower; the old zergling nonstop spam tactic from Starcraft 1 has been resurrected here. It doesn't matter how many you kill, they just keep coming and coming and their potential to destroy outmatches even full tech terran BC's; psionic storms and lurkers can't stop it completely either. And you can't match the production rates; they're cheap, fast, spawn fast, spawn by two, while you struggle to keep up unit production.



That's the problem we currently have; even the smallest ship can offer the same firepower as the largest ship in the game. Though limited in tonnage, it still justifies its presence by numbers, low command points cost, and the number of weapons they carry. With their numbers and weapons, they outgun the most advanced or even full tech fleets.



Let's put it up a level; from transports to destroyers. Now with the weapon tonnage reduction, it becomes even more ridiculous.



Though a destroyer having weapons tonnage reduction is justifiable, having more firepower than larger ships isn't; a base 400 tonnage ship loses to a 100 tonnage ship? A larger ship should still have more firepower than smaller vessels, while remaining well defended.



Many of you may be thinking that I'm saying we add weapons that only larger ships can have; but that would kill out the creativity won't it?



This is my answer to that,



Power Plants



Add increasing power requirements for higher tech weapons, defenses and support modules. This will further broaden the choices in designing ships; a destroyer with guns that can match the heavies? Sure, but it needs to match the power requirement of having that much weaponry of that kind.



It can be through power modules that take up tonnage, but I have a better suggestion than that,



Baseline power for all ships; ship power increases as ship tonnage increases



This now solves the issue of larger ships being impractical in a battle. A smaller vessel cannot field the same weapons as a larger vessel.



But this will kill creativity. To maintain the creative atmosphere of the game, there must be a way to increase power levels for smaller ships. Therefore,



Power Plant Modules



These Modules increase the baseline power of a ship, but this module will take tonnage space of course. Thereby allowing smaller ships to take up the same weapons of larger vessels, although not by the same quantity.



This will bring larger ships on par with smaller ships in the terms of firepower, while maintaining the advantage of numbers and rate of fire for fleets of smaller ships.



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This post will be related to my new upcoming posts.



These new posts will be about hybrid modules, ship design interface, larger weapons for larger ships,



and my brand new redesigned frigate(my specific frigate).



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I may be confused, but I admit that I'm not quite sure how this would help. Just because, would not the 'power' limit basically imply very similar limitations that tonnage would? Instead of 'what you can equip' being limited just by tonnage, it is limited by power. Larger ships can carry more guns. But larger ships can already carry more guns, because of increased tonnage. So I'm not sure I see how this would actually rectify the issue?



And I admit, I may simply be missing something.

"I may be confused, but I admit that I'm not quite sure how this would help. Just because, would not the 'power' limit basically imply very similar limitations that tonnage would?"



No they won't; tonnage determines how many, power determines what kind. For example,



Destroyer base power is 50 : Battleship base power is 120



Positron Torpedoes require no power : Wimpy Torpedoes require 10 power : Nonbaryonic Torpedoes require 30 power



Therefore,



Base destroyer can equip 5 Wimpy Torpedoes and Positron Torpedoes, or 1 Nonbaryonic Torpedo 2 Wimpy Torpedoes and Positron Torpedoes, or full stack Positron Torpedoes. This would be balanced by tonnage however; tonnage would trump power, in a way that even if there is power, tonnage space would still be a priority. No space would mean no module, even if there is power.



Base battleship can equip 12 Wimpy Torpedoes and Positron Torpedoes, or 4 Nonbaryonic Torpedoes and Positron Torpedoes, or 3 Nonbaryonic Torpedoes 3 Wimpy Torpedoes and Positron Torpedoes; still, tonnage space would determine how many modules there are on a ship.



"Instead of 'what you can equip' being limited just by tonnage, it is limited by power. Larger ships can carry more guns. But larger ships can already carry more guns, because of increased tonnage."



This is true, however with the current exploitation of weapon modules on smaller ships that are cheaper, cost effective, mass produced and numerous(1 command point per ship), ship tonnage became irrelevant; who cares if your dreadnought has base 400 tonnage, I have 4 destroyers that have 100 each so 400 as well, not to mention 1 dreadnought vs 4 destroyers is a very lopsided fight; with the combat system we have, 4 destroyers is essentially a dreadnought you have to kill four times, not to mention this "dreadnought" outguns your dreadnought. 5 dreads is chicken feed for even just 14-16 destroyers, and even if you lost, chances are there's just one dread left and its life is hanging on a thread.

i like it, more of these smaller regulations will make the ships more well balanced.

Hmm, in that case I think this could have potential. I think it would give them more range of control for manipulating what tools each ship class can utilize as opposed to having to simply set some items up as being able to function only on specific ship classes. And then it could also allow versatility, allowing smaller ships to have power improvements that allow them to field those other modules.

We can add strategic resources for higher tier power supply mods, that way allocation of resources will be important.