Military System Blog I: Construction System: How to build Forces and Ships!
Hello everyone! Wanted to take a few minutes and talk about the military production system, with a focus on how you build new Forces (since everyone wants cool shiny warships!)
So first: You have to research the shipyard technology – once you have it, you will be able to build shipyards of 4 sizes: light, medium, heavy, and capital. Each ship type of the same class can be built at the appropriate size shipyard and smaller – so you could use a heavy shipyard to build light or medium class ships as well.
Shipyards will generate shipyard points (SPs) which are similar to build points (BPs). The larger the shipyard, the more SPs it will generate, meaning that larger shipyards could be used to build more smaller ships, but they would not be used for larger ships. They are built as an orbital on a Holding, and they can be targeted and destroyed, or captured if the Holding they are orbiting is captured as well. Each ship type costs a base amount of SPs to build, and are then 'kitted out' for specific roles depending on the Force they are assigned to - more on that shortly!
Shipyards use ship components as their resource, which are generated by ship component factories. Each House has a global ship component pool (it is assumed that within a given 3 month turn, ship components can be transported as needed to shipyards) which is filled by ship component factories. These are staffed by space engineers (a new Pop Class) which are on par with engineers as far as the effect on Planet Value and GPP. Ship components are generated with heavy and rare materials, so having a solid supply of heavy and rare materials will now become important if you want to focus on a strong military.
As Emperor, you can set the build of any shipyard you control – but it will cost 1 AP to change and 1 turn plus 1 turn per size class change. In other words, if you had a Capital shipyard building light ships, and wanted to change to dreadnaughts (Capital size ships), it would take 4 turns (1 year) to do so. If you wanted to simply build a different light ship, that could be done in 1 turn.
You can only build ships that you have the research completed for. This is found under what is currently called practicals but will be soon be renamed to military research vs. social research (formerly reforms).
Houses can also build ships, and they can build shipyards, but they can only build ships that the Empire has researched, and then only if at least on cold war terms. Houses that are at limited or total war can not gain any research benefits, but they can do their own research (they will never contribute to the Empire at that point) and will focus exclusively on military research.
As ships are built, they are kept in the system that they are built in a reserve area. From there, they can be added into Forces that are generated by your admirals either at your request (e.g. build a Capital sized assault Force; build a light sized scouting Force, etc) or automatically to carry out certain functions like defense, garrisoning, exploration, etc.)
You will have what is essentially a preset TOE (table of organization and equipment) template for various types of Forces, depending on their size and role, and how well they are filled out depends on whether the ships are available. You will be able to set a priority from very low to critical as far as how important a Force is when a ship is built and it needs to be used to fill out a TOE slot for a specific template. This system will allow fielding ‘incomplete’ Forces that will not be as effective as a Force that is fully equipped, but sometimes having a partial Force is better than no Force at all!
As an example: A Heavy Combat Force would consist of 4 Light ships, 4 Medium ships, and 8 Heavy ships, with optimal roles within each size class. Within that Force template, the type of ship that actually fills the slot will make a difference in how effective the overall Force is. All Forces need scouting and recon abilities, and if none of your Light ships that are allocated to the Force have good scouting ratings, then the Force will suffer. This could happen because you didn’t build any light ships that are good at Scouting; e.g. cutters or frigates. Destroyers are heavier, and they will provide a Force more offensive firepower, but at the cost of scouting ability.
The types of ships you build will ultimately determine what your Forces are capable of, and while a Force will always be able to do standard missions (scouting, space combat, interdiction, piracy suppression, planetary bombardment, planetary oppression) they may not be very good at it. You don’t want a heavy cruiser trying to scout, nor do you want a cutter as a ship of the line in a combat Force. If you don’t have a ship that can fill a specific role in a Force template, the next-best match will be selected, and sizes can be substituted within one size class (e.g. if no suitable Heavy ships are left, the Force will try to pull a Capital ship first, then a Medium ship, and if neither type of Ship are available the slot will be left blank)
With this change to Force missions will also come a change to how scouting/exploration is done. Before, you would set up a Military Project to scout a system, and then it would be done once the Project was complete. This was always a temporary system. Now, you will send Scout Forces out to do that. Scout Forces will have a total Scouting rating, which will determine how much Intel Progress is made every turn in a system/planet target. This is both more realistic and more '4X'y, while still keeping the process somewhat abstract (simply select the Force, set the mission (Scout System), and click the destination system!) And if you don't have any Scout Forces... you can't explore new systems very effectively, since they are the only Forces that can move beyond your empire's Logistical Range (they are assumed to have no weaponry and carry vastly extended fuel supplies, allowing them to move a certain range past the Logistical Range)
Forces also need Command ships to be most effective. Command ships generate Command Points (CPs), and each type and role of ship requires a certain amount of CPs to be effective. Again, you can field a force with less CPs than required, but it will have severe attack and defend penalties depending on how far the gap is. A good admiral can make up for this, but only somewhat.
As the player, you will be able to see every template, and you will even be able to design unique templates yourself (at a significant AP cost). This represents you as the Emperor getting personally involved in the military more than normal, and costs to create unique templates will increase the more you create.
Let’s show an example, using the aforementioned Heavy Combat Force. Here is the TOE template for that Force:
Here are the ships that you have in reserve:
So, based on the ships that are available in reserve, this is how the Force is filled out by your military:
Please note that you don’t designate the role of a ship when built – you simply build ‘destroyers’ or ‘heavy cruisers’. Once a role is required for a given Force TOE, as long as you have a ship size that can fill that role, it will be ‘kitted out’ for that role during Force creation.
Your role as Emperor is to ensure that your navy can build enough of the right types of ships to optimally equip the type of Forces that are required to execute your grand strategy, be it defense, planetary control, suppression, combat, etc. You request the Force type that you want, and it will be created to the best of your available resources. If the Force is not critical, you will also be able to set it as a ‘force in creation’ meaning that it is essentially static while your War Prime automates shipyards that are controlled by your Empire to generate the right ships to fill the Force properly.
You will be able to see your ship inventory and your Force status from the Military Nexus screen. From here, you will request new Forces, designate their role, and set their priority (and name)! You will also designate a new Admiral for the Force, which is a new Character Rank. Their Combat Rating, Intelligence, and certain skills will determine how effective they will be in leading their Force.
So, tying all of the above together, you decide that you want to create a new Heavy Combat Force. You will go to the Military Nexus to Request New Force. You set the size (Heavy), primary role (Combat), and priority (High), as well as selecting an Admiral. At this point, you will be able to see the most effective Force and its stats based on the ships you have in reserve at this time, and approve the creation or cancel it.
You can also designate it as a ‘Force in Creation’ meaning that the Force will not be created until all of the ships that are required are built – think of it as a Force on a layaway plan or a specialized build order – you are basically saying, ‘I know we don’t have the right ships to build this Force now, so start working on those as long as we have the right shipyards and research, and when we have them all built, THEN create this Force.’
So you determine that you have (most) of the ships you would need to fill out this Force’s TOE, so you approve the new Force. You spend 2 AP to do so, and it takes 1 turn per 20 required Command Points of the Force to muster the ships together and train (you will need to build a Force Command Station in any system you want to create Forces in). Once the Force is fully mustered and trained, it is ready to be given orders!
Basically, as long as you do the right research and make sure that enough of and the right size shipyards are available, and have a steady supply of starship components throughout your Empire, your War Prime will take care of most of the rest.
From the Military Nexus you will be able to see what ships you need to fully outfit your existing Forces, as well as Forces in Creation. You can automate your shipyards to be automatically set to the needs (as long as you can actually build the ships you need) or you can manually set the shipyards yourself (cost 1 AP). You will also be able to create new Forces, monitor the status of existing Forces, and check out the status of current conflicts (i.e. planetary campaigns, system campaigns)
One other thing: Ships will be fairly expensive to build, and more so to maintain. You will not usually have more than 2 or 3 Forces at a time unless you’re either awash in cash or pushing your Military Budget so high to the detriment of all other budget categories. This is not a game where you will be spamming ships – building a single Dreadnaught or Superdreadnought should take at least 2-3 years (8-12 turns), and a Titan should take around 5-7 years on average (20-28 turns). Obviously, cutters and frigates will take much less time; usually just 6 months or so (2 turns) and they will be far less expensive to maintain and equip.
The point is you will not be tracking thousands of ships - maybe 30-40 ships total in a game. Each ship should feel unique and their loss should be felt, especially Heavy and Capital ships (these may actually get unique names; we're still kicking that around), and a Capital Combat Force built around a Titan (or maybe even 2!) should be the baddest thing in the Galaxy, and should be your goal if you want a military/Xyl defeat victory in the release version!
This is the design we will be implementing for the EA version of the game, but some things may change, the most fluid of which is giving the Emperor the ability to fill out Forces manually. On the one hand, this ensures that Forces are set up to the Emperor’s preference; on the other hand, this is a level of micromanagement that this game is trying to stay away from. We shall see.
Anyway, look for another blog early next week on… Military Logistics! Fun!
-Steve
So first: You have to research the shipyard technology – once you have it, you will be able to build shipyards of 4 sizes: light, medium, heavy, and capital. Each ship type of the same class can be built at the appropriate size shipyard and smaller – so you could use a heavy shipyard to build light or medium class ships as well.
Shipyards will generate shipyard points (SPs) which are similar to build points (BPs). The larger the shipyard, the more SPs it will generate, meaning that larger shipyards could be used to build more smaller ships, but they would not be used for larger ships. They are built as an orbital on a Holding, and they can be targeted and destroyed, or captured if the Holding they are orbiting is captured as well. Each ship type costs a base amount of SPs to build, and are then 'kitted out' for specific roles depending on the Force they are assigned to - more on that shortly!
Shipyards use ship components as their resource, which are generated by ship component factories. Each House has a global ship component pool (it is assumed that within a given 3 month turn, ship components can be transported as needed to shipyards) which is filled by ship component factories. These are staffed by space engineers (a new Pop Class) which are on par with engineers as far as the effect on Planet Value and GPP. Ship components are generated with heavy and rare materials, so having a solid supply of heavy and rare materials will now become important if you want to focus on a strong military.
As Emperor, you can set the build of any shipyard you control – but it will cost 1 AP to change and 1 turn plus 1 turn per size class change. In other words, if you had a Capital shipyard building light ships, and wanted to change to dreadnaughts (Capital size ships), it would take 4 turns (1 year) to do so. If you wanted to simply build a different light ship, that could be done in 1 turn.
You can only build ships that you have the research completed for. This is found under what is currently called practicals but will be soon be renamed to military research vs. social research (formerly reforms).
Houses can also build ships, and they can build shipyards, but they can only build ships that the Empire has researched, and then only if at least on cold war terms. Houses that are at limited or total war can not gain any research benefits, but they can do their own research (they will never contribute to the Empire at that point) and will focus exclusively on military research.
As ships are built, they are kept in the system that they are built in a reserve area. From there, they can be added into Forces that are generated by your admirals either at your request (e.g. build a Capital sized assault Force; build a light sized scouting Force, etc) or automatically to carry out certain functions like defense, garrisoning, exploration, etc.)
You will have what is essentially a preset TOE (table of organization and equipment) template for various types of Forces, depending on their size and role, and how well they are filled out depends on whether the ships are available. You will be able to set a priority from very low to critical as far as how important a Force is when a ship is built and it needs to be used to fill out a TOE slot for a specific template. This system will allow fielding ‘incomplete’ Forces that will not be as effective as a Force that is fully equipped, but sometimes having a partial Force is better than no Force at all!
As an example: A Heavy Combat Force would consist of 4 Light ships, 4 Medium ships, and 8 Heavy ships, with optimal roles within each size class. Within that Force template, the type of ship that actually fills the slot will make a difference in how effective the overall Force is. All Forces need scouting and recon abilities, and if none of your Light ships that are allocated to the Force have good scouting ratings, then the Force will suffer. This could happen because you didn’t build any light ships that are good at Scouting; e.g. cutters or frigates. Destroyers are heavier, and they will provide a Force more offensive firepower, but at the cost of scouting ability.
The types of ships you build will ultimately determine what your Forces are capable of, and while a Force will always be able to do standard missions (scouting, space combat, interdiction, piracy suppression, planetary bombardment, planetary oppression) they may not be very good at it. You don’t want a heavy cruiser trying to scout, nor do you want a cutter as a ship of the line in a combat Force. If you don’t have a ship that can fill a specific role in a Force template, the next-best match will be selected, and sizes can be substituted within one size class (e.g. if no suitable Heavy ships are left, the Force will try to pull a Capital ship first, then a Medium ship, and if neither type of Ship are available the slot will be left blank)
With this change to Force missions will also come a change to how scouting/exploration is done. Before, you would set up a Military Project to scout a system, and then it would be done once the Project was complete. This was always a temporary system. Now, you will send Scout Forces out to do that. Scout Forces will have a total Scouting rating, which will determine how much Intel Progress is made every turn in a system/planet target. This is both more realistic and more '4X'y, while still keeping the process somewhat abstract (simply select the Force, set the mission (Scout System), and click the destination system!) And if you don't have any Scout Forces... you can't explore new systems very effectively, since they are the only Forces that can move beyond your empire's Logistical Range (they are assumed to have no weaponry and carry vastly extended fuel supplies, allowing them to move a certain range past the Logistical Range)
Forces also need Command ships to be most effective. Command ships generate Command Points (CPs), and each type and role of ship requires a certain amount of CPs to be effective. Again, you can field a force with less CPs than required, but it will have severe attack and defend penalties depending on how far the gap is. A good admiral can make up for this, but only somewhat.
As the player, you will be able to see every template, and you will even be able to design unique templates yourself (at a significant AP cost). This represents you as the Emperor getting personally involved in the military more than normal, and costs to create unique templates will increase the more you create.
Let’s show an example, using the aforementioned Heavy Combat Force. Here is the TOE template for that Force:
- 2 Light Scouts
- 2 Light Space Combat
- 4 Medium Space Combat
- 2 Heavy Interdiction Ships
- 4 Heavy Combat Ships
- 2 Heavy Command Ships
Here are the ships that you have in reserve:
- 1 Frigate (light)
- 3 Destroyers (light)
- 2 Light Cruisers (medium)
- 2 Heavy Cruisers (medium)
- 5 Battleships (heavy)
- 1 Dreadnought (capital)
So, based on the ships that are available in reserve, this is how the Force is filled out by your military:
- 2 Light Scouts: 1 Scout Frigate, 1 Scout Destroyer
- 2 Light Space Combat: 2 Combat Destroyers
- 4 Medium Space Combat: 2 Combat Light Cruisers, 1 Combat Heavy Cruiser (one slot empty)
- 2 Heavy Interdiction Ships: 1 Interdiction Battleship, 1 Interdiction Heavy Cruiser
- 4 Heavy Combat Ships: 3 Combat Battleships, 1 Combat Dreadnought (best match outside optimal class for role)
- 2 Heavy Command Ships: 1 Command Battleship (one slot empty)
Please note that you don’t designate the role of a ship when built – you simply build ‘destroyers’ or ‘heavy cruisers’. Once a role is required for a given Force TOE, as long as you have a ship size that can fill that role, it will be ‘kitted out’ for that role during Force creation.
Your role as Emperor is to ensure that your navy can build enough of the right types of ships to optimally equip the type of Forces that are required to execute your grand strategy, be it defense, planetary control, suppression, combat, etc. You request the Force type that you want, and it will be created to the best of your available resources. If the Force is not critical, you will also be able to set it as a ‘force in creation’ meaning that it is essentially static while your War Prime automates shipyards that are controlled by your Empire to generate the right ships to fill the Force properly.
You will be able to see your ship inventory and your Force status from the Military Nexus screen. From here, you will request new Forces, designate their role, and set their priority (and name)! You will also designate a new Admiral for the Force, which is a new Character Rank. Their Combat Rating, Intelligence, and certain skills will determine how effective they will be in leading their Force.
So, tying all of the above together, you decide that you want to create a new Heavy Combat Force. You will go to the Military Nexus to Request New Force. You set the size (Heavy), primary role (Combat), and priority (High), as well as selecting an Admiral. At this point, you will be able to see the most effective Force and its stats based on the ships you have in reserve at this time, and approve the creation or cancel it.
You can also designate it as a ‘Force in Creation’ meaning that the Force will not be created until all of the ships that are required are built – think of it as a Force on a layaway plan or a specialized build order – you are basically saying, ‘I know we don’t have the right ships to build this Force now, so start working on those as long as we have the right shipyards and research, and when we have them all built, THEN create this Force.’
So you determine that you have (most) of the ships you would need to fill out this Force’s TOE, so you approve the new Force. You spend 2 AP to do so, and it takes 1 turn per 20 required Command Points of the Force to muster the ships together and train (you will need to build a Force Command Station in any system you want to create Forces in). Once the Force is fully mustered and trained, it is ready to be given orders!
Basically, as long as you do the right research and make sure that enough of and the right size shipyards are available, and have a steady supply of starship components throughout your Empire, your War Prime will take care of most of the rest.
From the Military Nexus you will be able to see what ships you need to fully outfit your existing Forces, as well as Forces in Creation. You can automate your shipyards to be automatically set to the needs (as long as you can actually build the ships you need) or you can manually set the shipyards yourself (cost 1 AP). You will also be able to create new Forces, monitor the status of existing Forces, and check out the status of current conflicts (i.e. planetary campaigns, system campaigns)
One other thing: Ships will be fairly expensive to build, and more so to maintain. You will not usually have more than 2 or 3 Forces at a time unless you’re either awash in cash or pushing your Military Budget so high to the detriment of all other budget categories. This is not a game where you will be spamming ships – building a single Dreadnaught or Superdreadnought should take at least 2-3 years (8-12 turns), and a Titan should take around 5-7 years on average (20-28 turns). Obviously, cutters and frigates will take much less time; usually just 6 months or so (2 turns) and they will be far less expensive to maintain and equip.
The point is you will not be tracking thousands of ships - maybe 30-40 ships total in a game. Each ship should feel unique and their loss should be felt, especially Heavy and Capital ships (these may actually get unique names; we're still kicking that around), and a Capital Combat Force built around a Titan (or maybe even 2!) should be the baddest thing in the Galaxy, and should be your goal if you want a military/Xyl defeat victory in the release version!
This is the design we will be implementing for the EA version of the game, but some things may change, the most fluid of which is giving the Emperor the ability to fill out Forces manually. On the one hand, this ensures that Forces are set up to the Emperor’s preference; on the other hand, this is a level of micromanagement that this game is trying to stay away from. We shall see.
Anyway, look for another blog early next week on… Military Logistics! Fun!
-Steve