Albeit the topic was shot down here quite vehemently because the author was not able to properly ascertain for himself where he wanted to go with the idea and was not quite able to assert the points he had, due to him not having full use of the english language. I ask those who are not fans of complexity to read my thoughts upon this matter and not to immediately swat them with a destroyer swarm.



I for one, however, agree with him, in so far that a supply mechanic would add a, in my opinion, needed layer of complexity, no matter how simple it may be.



If someone here has played any of the 'old' games in this genre, they will know that games of this type, which let you design your own ships, had various ways of balancing the ship types. People make new games to be better than the old, but that does not mean that old ideas can not be reused.



I, myself, have some experience with the Space Empire series (my personal favourite), Armada 2526, Distant Worlds and some other games whose titles I forgot. A often reocurring theme for balance was

"Energy Storage", "Consumption" and "Supply".





Taking SEV as an example: Each ship had a store of fuel, energy and munition. A fleet shared the storage of all ships between all ships. Ships could be restocked in friendly planets, generate their own supplies (collectors etc.) or be supplied by merging a 'supply' ship into the fleet. Space empire also allowed for engines that used fuel directly, or engines that used energy (fuel->generators->engine). The recharging of shields and firing of beam weapons was accomplished via consumption of energy, whereas ballistic weapons used up munition. This meant that smaller ships just didn't have the capacity to use stronger weapons because of their munition/energy consumption.



Implementing the whole thing would probably never be done by the devs, as it doesn't really fit the game as it is now. A simplified version, however, could yield good results.





Now, I think that this would be a fine way to combat the current ineffectivity of larger ships vs smallers ships. If ships were given a hull dependent energy/munition rating (simplest) and weapons given different consumptions rates (higher tier and damage => higher consumption) then it would balance the battles, even if the supplies were to be restocked immediately after each fight. The whole thing could be complemented by making the maximum amount of damage per cargoload of supplies higher for larger ships than the equivalent number of destroyers, ie. by scaling better storage modules to be too heavy for smaller ships or unavailable to them. (What causes more damage? The death star or 20 star destroyers?)





If ships had to resupply in friendly systems the mechanic could also be used to give larger ships a realistic advantage in terms of reach and staying power in enemy space.



Granted, this would add a whole new mechanic to the game and depending on the tweaking, could either reduce destroyer swarms to uselessness or simply put everything into a healthy perspective, which is what I would personally prefer (making mixed fleets/fleets with large ships to be as effective as 'swarms').





Other uses:



- Fuel/Energy use for movement could govern your movement range, making resupplying necessary. This would make expansion for both the AI and the player that little bit harder.



- Depending on the complexity of implementation, higher tier techs could allow for a ship to fully resupply itself. But they'd have to be quite large to fit the components, as well as weapons.



- Post any other ideas in BOLD below and I'll add them

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