Orbital Structures and Upgrades

Discussion for the Next Big Thing, which is purely theoretical.
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Arcalane
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Orbital Structures and Upgrades

Post by Arcalane »

The majority of "building" will take place in space, barring a few small planetary upgrades.

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Headquarters
Each faction starts with an orbital HQ station. Losing the HQ is essentially game over in many respects, though it would not be impossible to recover if the conditions were right. Your HQ is a fairly primitive structure initially, but can be upgraded through several tiers, each increasing the powers at your disposal and enhancing it's defensive capabilities. Whilst these upgrades are not cheap, they are very important to both the survival of the headquarters itself and your empire in the long run.

Fleet Command Center
The FCC is vital to running an empire. You start with a single Fleet Command Center (alongside your Headquarters) which is where the majority of your high-ranking military staff will spend their time. Without an FCC, you can't really run a fleet very well.

Old Empire Fleet Command Centers are scattered throughout the systems, though as a result of the Collapse, not all of them are in top condition. Gaining control of these FCCs may even allow access to mothballed Old Empire ships, which are sure to be more effective than newer ships employed by the factions, or the decades-old and decayed Old Empire ships used by the Remnant.

Thanks to Old Empire design policies, FCCs are highly upgradeable and focused around a modular design scheme. This applies to any pre-standing FCCs besides your starting one, which may also come partially upgraded.

Defense Command Hub
Required to maintain any major kind of orbital defense grids, DCHs have a limited support cap and may only support defenses within their own system. Fortunately, they are fairly easy to maintain and build. Like FCCs, DCHs are upgradable, either to enhance their own defensive capabilities, or the amount of defensive installations they can support. Stationary defenses are best placed around at key locations like lanespace nodes where enemies are forced to run past them or re-enter lanespace.

Modular Construction Yard
A Faction is nothing without a presence in space, just as it is nothing without the support of it's people. The Old Empire maintained dozens of Modular Construction Yards. Each faction is lucky enough to start with one of these relics, though it features no upgrades and has only basic construction capabilities.

Many MCYs are still functional, if in somewhat battered condition, so gathering up the scattered remnants of the Collapse may prove a highly lucrative and strategically wise endeavour. Assembling new ones will be something of a challenge, but not truly difficult. Perhaps an Old Empire Factory Ship might have the necessary schematics for an efficient and accurate reproduction...

Modular Science Complex
As with all structures so far, each faction starts with possession of a Modular Science Complex. These robust stations are designed to house experiments too dangerous to be undertaken on a planet, or those that require zero-gravity or vacuum environments that are far more easily replicated in space than using complicated terrestrial equipment.

The MSCs did not fare so well in the aftermath of the Collapse - very few of these artifacts remain outside of the hands of the Factions. Constructing additional complexes will be a feat few dare attempt, and fewer still will manage to actually accomplish.

Utility Hub
Like the Defense Control Hub, Utility Hubs are easy to build and maintain - they are one of the first structures available to new factions. The Empire, in it's infinite wisdom, decided that having many small, split up installations was a bad idea, so they used their modular theory and design to draw up this structure - the plans were widely distributed. Utility Hubs can support all kinds of modules - they are frequently found around planets used as trading stations or near gas giants as depots for gas and asteroid miners. During wartime, Utility Hubs can be fitted with repair and sensor modules, quickly bringing combat ships back to full readiness and detecting incoming fleets. Utility Hubs are fragile and poorly defended however, so care should be taken - they are a civilian installation first and foremost, so be prepared to protect them.

~~

These are all I have so far. If you can think of any more orbital structures, and especially upgrades for those listed above, go wild. Don't worry too much about pricing/costs right now.
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Post by Lloyd16 »

for the science lab, have a module for different things, such as weapons, shields(yes, i do think we should start with limited shields in this metagame), engines, armor, sensors (you get the idea).
have limited slots so you can only have so many different areas you can research, and be able to work with others if you wanted to.

shipyard i can't say till we decide on max ship sizes, potential for fighters and so on. most like numbers of things being built at once, size limits raised and speed of production being the main ones.
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Post by inteuniso »

Modular Starbase/Tradebase

Once Old Empire warehouses, storing thousands of tons of goods at one time, these gigantic platforms can been converted to giant space stations, hubs of commerce and information, or a staging point for an invasion. While no factions start with one, many are scattered around the galaxy, though not always in the best condition.

Communications Array

A necessary building, schematics for these are on most planets. Little to no comm arrays, however, survive in space, having been the first target during the Collapse.

This structure will give you the ability to communicate with anyone who also owns a comm array, allowing for long-range communication.
Everyone needs to be on the same frequency to talk, so this limits discovering unknown factions by using this.
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Post by derekiv »

Asteroid Mineral Extraction Depot: A space station located near an asteroid field that boosts a nearby planet's revenue. However, AMED's are easily destroyed due to their distance from the planet's defenses.

Jump Gate Early Warning System: A small, cheap, unmanned sensor station posted at exits from lane space into a system. Used to give a planet warning when an enemy fleet is coming. Allows admirals to know the basic composition of an enemy fleet. Upgrading the EWS allows for better knowledge of incoming fleet and a smaller chance of being found when a scout is looking for it.
However, an incoming fleet may send a scout ahead to attempt to find the EWS and destroy it, leaving the leader blind. The scout can also do this to bluff the leader into sending reserve forces here, when the actual attack is elsewhere.
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Post by Droid »

Repair Yard
Less grand than Modular Construction Yards, the purpose of Repair Yards are to do on-the-spot repairs for defensive fleets. Repair Yards can be relatively quickly, easily, and cheaply assembled as opposed to Construction Yards and are crucial to maintaining fleet integrity over extended periods of time. (You don't want to keep using your production facilities to repair, do you?) Many such yards lie scattered through space, but most are in disrepair.

Orbital Infrastructure
Planetary communications satellite grids, orbital elevators, etc. Improves the planet's condition slightly without having to resort to terraforming, and raises morale (so you can increase tax rate and still not suffer as much of a morale drop, etc). Most colonized planets have this in place, but unsettled/newly settled planets will not.
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Post by Verminator »

Miscellaneous Defence Platforms / Battlestations

No description required, really. Unique to each faction, can be customised and upgraded. Construction time / cost is in proportion to the platform's fighting power, number of platforms is capped.
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Arcalane
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Post by Arcalane »

Verminator wrote:Miscellaneous Defence Platforms / Battlestations

No description required, really. Unique to each faction, can be customised and upgraded. Construction time / cost is in proportion to the platform's fighting power, number of platforms is capped.
Perhaps some kind of upgradable defense control hub could be necessary once you hit a certain base cap. So for example I can set up 6 platforms by default, and once I've built the hub, I can build up to 10. If I upgrade it once, I get to put down 14, and upgraded again I can put down 18, etc. etc.

Taking out the hub could/should shut off the platforms (you get the option of keeping six specific ones online as per base cap; the others are non-functional) but the hubs themselves should have some basic defenses to ensure they're not easy prey for skirmisher-type warships.

Ed: Having a handful of Old Empire defense platforms when the game starts could also be useful for defensive/anti-rushing purposes.
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Arcalane
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Post by Arcalane »

Digging this up again for some musings;

I'm thinking of having a similar upgrade system for the three starter facilities as there is now, and before the game starts, factions will have a few points to spend on initial setup of their lab.

Headquarter upgrades include overall ship capacity (covering your entire empire) and other miscellaneous upgrades that grant special abilities or aspects. Some of these might be a branching and excluding system - if you build one module, you may not be able to build another of a similar type. Obviously, one of the main upgrade trees for the HQ is defenses.

Fleet Command Centers can be upgraded to increase the individual fleet capacity and ship sizes that FCC can command. Special upgrades include defenses, and expanding the FCC's fleet capacity. Command/Communication range may also be something to consider, unless you use support ships.

Modular Construction Yard upgrades focus on building rate, building capacity, and all the other stuff - basically Meta1's Corporate Yards. Upgrades will be much more gradual than existing ones, and rates/caps lower. The total number of installable cap/rate upgrades may be limited too, but deployed on a per-bay basis, so you can have a yard with one large, slow cruiser assembly bay and several smaller bays designed to rapidly manufacture corvettes and frigates.

MSCs can be upgraded with labs that increase their research rate when working in certain areas, and special lab types may be required for dangerous projects, or particularly groundbreaking concepts and experiments.

~~

Ship Foundry
A massive, specialized factory for the production of capital and supercapital ships like battlecruisers and battleships. Each faction may only build a single Foundry, so guard it well. If your Foundry is captured, your enemies may opt to finish production and turn the behemoth against you, or cancel it and take the resources spent so far for themselves!
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Arcalane
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Re: Orbital Structures and Upgrades

Post by Arcalane »

Bumped again to note that I kinda amalgamated all the repair/trade/sensor/comm/mining ideas into a new single structure, the Utility Hub, and also posted up the Defense Control Hub.

All structures will be upgradable in some fashion thanks to the modularity system.
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Re: Orbital Structures and Upgrades

Post by Rodgun »

This is just an idea that popped up all of a sudden, but:

IMPERIAL WEAPONS STATION

Used by the empire to store large caches of arms and even plans for secret weapons (sometimes with working prototypes safeguarded within), this stations were responsible for producing the Empire's mighty weapons and developing their newest assets for their arsenal. If it could be turned into a weapon, anything could end up here. And due to this very vital purpose, they were kept hidden from everyone except the highest ranking officers. However, since the collapse, this facilities remain hidden and almost depleted of weapons (since these were all deployed for use during the war that led to the collapse.). Despite being nearly empty, these stations hold a very special prize for whomever may find it. One of the Empire's prototype weapons designs, or even pre-existing weapons that would definitely give a boost to the lucky faction that possessed it. Additionally, the station could be used for improved arms R&D.

Effect:
- Besides gaining a unique weapon, the faction that possessed one could be able to upgrade their existing weapons to more powerful and efficient versions.
- Possessing one could also grant a ship-producing advantage, making production both cheaper and faster since the weapons which ships are armed with would be able to be produced more efficiently.
- If their hidden location is to be exploited, they could also serve as the basis for a secret base from which to launch surprise attacks or prepare a robust defense. All this considering all necessary appropriate facilities are built in that location.
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Re: Orbital Structures and Upgrades

Post by Arcalane »

As it is not a standard or constructable feature, I'm afraid that your submission is a Bad Idea™.

Besides, there's a similar thing for planets already. The thread has been moved elsewhere for the time being however.
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