2. *snip* (look to the aged VGA Planet 'VCR' for what I mean

Now that's a great idea from another old time player.
TBS fav link
post #44
For GC3 maybe.

I think that the main reason that carriers aren't even being considered for Galciv is because what people seem to want from a carrier simply would not fit into the existing game mechanics. It might seem nice to have a ship that extends the range of those around it, but it would really mess up the current life support system; who needs to put life support on their ships if they can just build one carrier and let it have as much support as it can hold?

As for the fighter-carrier, both major ideas would not integrate well into the existing game. Adding a sub-tiny size hull later in the game just for use on carriers would be more trouble than it's worth simply because those things would be a pain to build and en even bigger pain to replace as you begin field dozens of assault carriers. Having fighters as a fourth weapon type would only serve to complicate the current attack model; three diferent forms of attack and defense require a lot of planning already, and a fourth would make the system frustrating rather than adding more strategy.

The only way I can see carriers fitting into Galciv's mechanics is not in the traditional role as an offensive unit, but rather as a ship that plays a supporting role. If the carrier module was a "hangar" (comparable in size to a colony, invasion, constructor, or trade module) that was assumed to always have a full compliment of fighters, the entire carrier concept would be added through a single module (much like colony ships, transports, constructors and freighters). These fighters could provide minimal attack values for the carrier (possibly on the order of 1 damage of each type for a massive, expensive module), as well as a non-stacking fighter support attack bonus of (1,1,1) for either each ship in the same tile (or each ship in the same or an adjacent tile; which one would be the most balanced would require testing). These hangars could also boost the repair rate of ships in the same tile, proportional to both the number of hangars and the size of the ship being repaired; for example, a tiny hull would get the maximum rate bonus from just one hanger, a small would take two to get the full bonus, etc. The main purpose of the carrier would be to provide support for your ships when they are far from any allied planets or starbases, while not affecting the usefulness of either in most situations.

Orbital bombardment is much the same way- what people seem to want would not fit into the style of gameplay found in Galciv. Orbital bombardment in Galciv should not be the method of ececuting the "genocide run" seen in games like MOO2, but instead just another invasion option. Realistically, there is no way to cost effective way to destroy a planet with just the ships in orbit. The ships may be big and powerful, but they couldn't do major damage from orbit armed only with ship-to-ship weapons.

I personally think that Orbital bombardment would best be implemented as an invasion strategy unlocked by a tech in the invasion branch like the other invasion strategies (possibly "orbital targetting", or something to that effect). The bombardment would serve as a cheap invasion strategy that has an effectiveness based on the sum of the attack values of the invader's ships adjacent to the planet. Regardless of everything else, Orbital Bombardment should never be able to exceed other, more expensive invasion tactics in effectiveness. At most, it could function as a cheap way to get a very slight increase to your advantage or decrease to your enemy's advantage with less collateral damage than the more effective methods (simply because the ships would be offering what effectively amounts to heavy artillery support rather than the doomsday scenerios triggered by most other options). It's purpose would be less of a way to slaughter everyone on the planet as much as a way for the warlord on a budget to tip the balance in his favor.

Perhaps if the concepts of carriers and orbital bombardment were modified from what they typically are in 4X games to something more fittting in the Galciv universe, they could work in some future game/expansion pack- without hurting the gameplay but still appeasing those who want them so badly.

i agree with you

becouse the normal idea for a carrier on this thread is not a carrier but a tanker

if your idea is just to add range for the tiny hull then yes it is the normal carrier idea

Nope... see earlier posts. No range involved. Carriers carry "fighters" at reduced logistics cost, but not all fighters can move on their own. It's not the standard carrier idea.

If people dont belive in carriers, why not give a race carriers or just the human player, and see how that works out

On the matter of "orbital bombardment", hasn't the expansion provided the player with that option? The idea of the spore module, in my opinion, completely answers this demand of a genocide weapon. It doesn't require any troops, cost in invasion tactics, nor a chance for a planet to defend itself (completely negating all planetary defense and soldiering tech). The result being a very dead planet now in your possession.

I like the idea of not having to risk dragging productive population to invade a planet (not always successful). I'd rather just ship them in to settle post-spore attack...cheaper. So the spore module isn't a gun...but it remains true to the idea of dropping something from orbit. Am I not correct?

How about a ship that lets us move planets? Or maybe move the star, and the planets move accordingly.

That is only kinda-sorta a carrier.

Just a thought, if you love carriers, lets try to come up with a very eloquent and simplified proposal.

To keep them simple:

1. Make fighters a one shot weapon in themselves. They fire once and are then expended. Perhaps they launch and fire in the first round, or perhaps they launch in the first round, are subject to missile defense fire in the second round (if much greater than ECM III, or something more appropriate), and then get to fire their payload in the third round.

2. Make fighters like a missile. Follows from #1. The fighter could even be a branch of the missile research tree, say a fork at Harpoon III.

3. Only allow one fighter type per empire. Or at least only fighter type per planet or carrier module. So if a planet changes the type that it builds, the stockpiled ones get auto-decommissioned. Optionally, let a planet have a fighter bay improvement that lets them deploy a squadron of attached fighters. In short the fighters exist strictly as module-attached, basically as a mega, one-shot, shotgun blast.

4. If fighters arent destroyed in combat, then they are in the carrier hold for the next combat.

5. For fun, make a hull class smaller than tiny, say micro. Let a fighter be appropriately designed with a weapon, engine, and some type of defense, limited to armor and shields to absorb the point defence hits.

6. Optionally, make some ship weapons dual-configuration so they can hit the fighter squadron.

So in short, a fighter would be a module-dependent, one shot, shotgun-blast, and have a limited time frame to get swatted, after which it disappears until the end of the battle. Not ultra realistic, but then doesnt add a ton more graphical or numerical complexity to the battle scenes.

I don't think carriers make sense for galciv2.

Ship combat is the star trek kind (approximating napoleonic sea battles between ships of the line, or the first world war between battle ships)... not the star wars kind (modeled after ww2 carrier battles).


But not having orbital bombardment seems forced. I can't see why it isn't there (how about adding planetary defences if it causes gameplay issues?).

Maybe it should win every encounter.

You couldn't defeat a ship of the line with a flotilla of rowboats carrying muskets.

That is right "in WW2". This is not WW2. WW2 would be ancient times compared to the time inwhich GC2 takes place. Carriers are preferrable on earth in the medium of water where they offer the advantage over battleships of being able to send their firepower over the (beyone the range of battleship guns) horizon via planes travleing in the medium of air. In the medium of space battleship weapons and carrier weapons operate and fight in the same medium (there are not two separate mediums up there ie air and water) Therefore there is no advantage what so ever to using carriers. In fact in the future when we really do have space navies and such, carriers will not even be considered and the only familiarity we will have of them will be in ancient history books.