Carrier Upgrades & Research

Foremost, “Hi, I am Trensicourt! It has been almost a year since I touched Neptune’s Pride 2. It was a great game then and still is now. I guess you could say I was itching to play a grand strategy game.”

Here are my feature requests:

  • Carrier Upgrades & Research: Every carrier has lets say 1 slot. Those
    slots can be equipped with a module or upgrade. I suggest 3 different
    possible modules. For example, Scanning Module, Trading Module,
    Salvage Module. Once a slot has been used, it can be removed and
    replaced by another module.

a. Scanning Module: Costs 25 credits.
Increases the scanning range of Carrier by Scanning Level X(25%). Maintenance $5.

b. Trading Module: Costs 50 credits. Generates 10 credits + 1 credit per level of banking per round.

c. Salvage Module: Costs 50 credits. Gains 5 credits per infrastructure destroyed, 1 ship per industry building destroyed, and 1 + 1(Experimentation Level X) research
point per science lab. Maintenance $5

How does this feature sound for a start?

1 Like

I especially like a. Having carriers have some limited scanning would be interesting.

The maintenance is too high right? In addition, what is your opinion on the other 2 modules? Do you think they are fairly balanced?

Bump!

Sorry @bill08816 I’ve been on holidays!

I love your ideas for slots on carriers, I have also been thinking about these kinds of slots on stars as well.

I think they ideas you have for things in the slot are all very reasonable. We could also have a turbo so it moves faster but is crap at fighting for example.

As the game evolves over the next few years, I see two main paths the core game play can move.

On one path, individual carriers and stars can be more significant. You can build individuals up with special powers. Carriers would earn experience for fighting combats for example. Have special modules attached as you suggest.

The other path is for carriers and stars to become less significant, and for the player to focus on grand strategy rather than on what an individual carrier is doing. In this game, player empires are larger and we have games with more and more stars. We might have tools for automatically creating and routing carriers for example.

I’m a little torn right now because, on one hand I think I prefer a smaller game were every star and carrier has some personality, but on the other hand I think I prefer the diplomacy of the large 64 player games. I like the way the political landscape changes and neighbours come and go and different areas of the map research tech at different rates.

What do you guys think?

I was just about to suggest some limited scanning for carriers, but found it had been raised already here.

Best as an option, I’d think, but I love the idea of throwing carriers into enemy territory to get a feel for the fleet dispositions. I’d go for small scan ranges, even just 2 or 3 light years, to keep the sense of paranoia.

I’m not sure this would even need a module with a cost, since it’s highly likely that an exploratory carrier would be destroyed on arrival, so you’d be spending $25 to launch one. I think it would be just as intuitive for all carriers to have a limited scan range, which would update the map as per stars.

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Personally I like the second path wherein carriers and stars become less significant. One thing I like so much about this game that sets it apart is it’s focus on alliances with others and long term strategy rather than minute details, and I think too much emphasis on individual carrier upgrades would take away from that. Besides, it can already be a hassle to manage large fleets and huge empires, especially in 64 player games. Adding more things to micromanage in games with 50+ carriers per player could make it outright tedious for people with limited time that would rather focus on the bigger picture.

How about testing the waters with something simple with no player input.

Carriers surviving x number of battles get a little boost, what is the boost?

  • Survive death.
    = Carrier returns to origin star (tough if that is also in enemy hands)

  • Scavenge.
    = Carrier survives with x% of lost ships restored
    = Enemy tech stolen +x amount of science pts that day

Could the current AI be used to control some of a players carriers. You might have a limit on “Admirals” that can control fleets the rest are partly automated or you can only set one jump. Can you recruit more admirals?

Perhaps differentiate between carriers that can be given loop orders - do I build an attack carrier or a supply ship. Is there a speed difference and a capacity limit

What can the enemy see if we do differentiate ships?