Supporting continuing development for Empyrean Challenge / Cluster Wars
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I want to propose a concept of shipyards, which will serve multiple purposes in terms of playability. One gripe I have with EC is that there is really only one path to victory - building the largest and baddest ships to destroy or chase you enemy around the galaxy. There is really little opportunity to pursue a HAB victory with more medium sized ships colonizing and holding HAB throughout the cluster.
Shipyards can be built on any colony and fit in well with my idea of SHP design templates. These design templates will include all the ASM items defining a SHP class. Shipyards will work a bit like FCT groups, but not exactly.
First, you would create a ship template and then setup a SHIPYARD to build that template. The cost to set up that template would be the ASM items that would make up that SHP. Kind of like prototyping and testing. This would discourage producing excessive designs as the resources for the first ship are essentially thrown away. So if you ultimately build only one SHP in the class it will cost twice the amount of ASM components, 2 would cost 3, 3 would cost 4, and so on - representing economy of scale based on using the same design after paying for development. So, a SHIPYARD is created with a certain class it can build.
Once created, a SHIPYARD will take orders to produce its SHP class. SHPYARDs will be staffed with CNW. If you gave an order for one it would need the normal amount of CNW. If you gave an order for more, you would have an economy of scale in that the number of CNW needed would decrease, based on a square root function. In other words, if you ordered 4 SHPs it would need CNW normally needed for 2 SHPs, an order for 9 would require only 3 times the number of CNW. The game visual aids would calculate how many CNW you would need to assign to complete the order in one turn. Once you complete an order the SHIPYARD can stay idle until you give it new orders to build more ship in that class. So, you could set one up and build 9 SHPs - for 10x resources and 1/3 CNW - and later build one for 1x Resources and 1x CNW
In terms of gameplay, as in my comments to eliminate the MRG command, I would like to get away from completely generic ships. Having an upfront cost will make building the biggest and baddest still possible, but more expensive, particularly if you build only one. SHP classes will also produce ships that enemies can recognize and independently name. When the Klingons spot a Constitution-class cruiser they pretty much know what they're dealing with if they encountered one before.
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I love this idea. It helps in terms of gameplay, in that players will be encouraged to build "ship classes" (and figure out what their opponents' ship classes are like), and will face a trade-off between constantly deploying the same ships vs. upgrading and going through the expense of a new design. Trade-offs = good gameplay!
It also means that particular planets/colonies will become important specifically because of their shipyards. If you invest in a big one, you'll only be building it once, at one of your major planets. You'll defend it more vigorously, now.
It also boosts the space opera theme and naval-based fleet design.
I'd combine this with the idea of getting rid of ship-merging. If we throw in the "hull configuration" idea, then allow ship-merging for dispersed-structure hulls only.
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