0021860: Make all fleets custom via blueprints bank - DEV Arcen

ID	Project	Category		Date Submitted	Last Update

0021860	AI War 2	Suggestion		Oct 20, 2019 11:29 pm	Oct 20, 2019 11:29 pm

Reporter	Apthorpe	Assigned To
Status	new	Resolution	open
Product Version	0.954 Hacking Log!

Summary	0021860: Make all fleets custom via blueprints bank
Description	Some players were discussing the desire to have swappable empty slots on fleets (i), and it got me to thinking. With the current system, fleets are customizeable with limitations, and custom fleets are something of an exception to the rule. But it feels a bit awkward right now, and it's somewhat difficult to understand without practice. -(i) https://steamcommunity.com/app/573410/discussions/0/1606022547907665882/ So here is a potential solution: Make all fleets custom. When you capture a fleet, instead of gaining the fleet as is, you gain an assortment of ships plus the centerpiece. The centerpiece starts out as spawned, but the assortment of ships does not. So you have a blueprints 'bank' containing all the ship types you can assign, and when you capture a fleet, all the ships in it minus the centerpiece go in the bank. Each ship in that bank can then be assigned to any centerpiece. A ship type won't start spawning its units until it actually gets assigned to a fleet, at which point it starts spawning from the centerpiece as normal, so units are still constrained to fleets. And your number of fleets is still limited to your number of centerpieces, since each fleet still requires a centerpiece. Fleets would presumably have a maximum number of ship types they could field, and they also couldn't feature duplicates (like the status quo). Just as ships could be added from the bank to a fleet, they could be deposited from the fleet to the bank. All of the fleet's existing ships of that type would be scrapped. The fleet would retain its original capacity of ship types--it would just have more empty slots. To prevent possible cheesy tactics, there could be a cooldown on when the ship type could be 'withdrawn' from the bank after being deposited. And/or perhaps there could be a cost attached. Another possibility, not necessarily mutually exclusive, could be to have logistical structures you could build to allow a fleet to access the 'bank' in order to deposit/withdraw ship types. Here are some reasons why I think this approach should be adopted: It is simple and easy to understand. There is no need for exceptions to the rule. There is no need for separately defined custom fleets in addition to regular fleets. This would retain fleets as a meaningful entity. Ships are still spawned from and tied to their centerpiece. They are still the "primary organizational entity," but you have more flexibility in their composition. Players will feel more in control. It encourages players, particularly newer players, to compose their fleets more coherently. They will be thinking about the purpose of the fleet, rather than working with the mishmash by default.
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Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
Oct 20, 2019 11:29 pm	Apthorpe	New Issue