Fleet upkeep

It would be a bit more realistic and probably easier for the player to have fleet upkeep costs being based upon deployed units. If a ship is destroyed, its crew probably won't be getting its pay. Of course, the actual costs of fleet upkeep isn't a big detriment with enough colonies before research.

Your missing the fact that ships need more than just crew to operate.  You need supply and refueling stations.  Increased infrastructure to keep ships battle ready and properly maintained.   Stuff that wouldn't go away because you lost your ships.  It was implemented this way so that you would have to make the difficult desicion whether or not to increase your capabilites.

For the last time: NO

This is 100th thread on this same topic, seriously.

Given the rate at which these threads pop up, I seriously doubt this was the last time you'll be forced to say that.

One can always hope.  I just wish we stickied the last one.

if you're gonna shoot down the idea, at least give an explanation of why.   Specifically answer this question...

How does fleet upkeep remaining at high levels when fleet supply isn't used make the game better than if it were to regress to a lower level?

I'm not the guy who shot you down, and to be honest I don't have strong feelings either way on this, but in an attempt to answer your question....

I think the logic is that "fleeting up" should be a strategic decision, and it shouldn't be a decision taken lightly.  You shouldn't flippantly decide to "fleet up."  Rather, the question you should ask yourself is, "are you SURE you want to do this?"  I find myself quite often waiting to "fleet up" for this very reason.  The longer I wait to do it, the more money I save, and the more eco I generate.  However, it is a risk, because I can be attacked by an opponent who has "fleeted up."  Similarly, he takes a different kind of risk when he fleets up.  It's a trade off.

A compromise between what you want, and the system which currently exists, would be to pay money to "fleet down." 

Personally, I've always preferred the idea of fleet scaling with the number of planets owned (you'd get a certain number of fleet points for each planet).

Having said all of that, I have no particular beef with the system in place.

I never even thought about that, sorry. Guess it does work in that fashion, though it is pretty detrimental to a player losing colonies and could eventually aid in that player losing, without enough resources to properly field a defense.

I think that's the idea.  Late game economies can be absolutely ridiculous, and if you suddenly started earning twice as much cash every time your fleet got a bit smaller you could easily rebound and never lose at all.  I think this feature is actually important.  It's not hard to run away and keep most of your fleet alive, in any case.

Having upkeep based on your current army size worked in Warcraft III because resources were finite; the map would eventually run out of them.  It doesn't work in Sins because the map never runs out of resources.  In fact, quite the opposite, it just becomes easier and easier to make more and more money.

Yes that's true also. Infinate resoruce model was adopted half way through BETA I think, or towards the end.  It is much better this way.  Although with old model you could still get resources using refineries.

No,  I like it this way.  If it was with the amount of units out that would suck.  Anyways,  I am always running out of fleet logistics.  If you aren't than you aren't producing enough units.  I only upgrade when I need more.  If they are killed I quickly replace them unless my planets are being steam rolled through by another player from another side.

Apologies if I came off a jerk.  Astax is right, this should be stickied so that all future posters on this issue can see that this has been dealt with.  We also need one for the 'all starbases should move' threads.  Gah, that horse has disintegrated from the beating it took.

That is a very good point. The upkeep does seem to be tweeked just fine considering the steady income and resource rates.

Of all the research trees I find the Fleet tree woefully under developed. In real life organizations don't simply have plateaus of scale that they can support. There is a better way to impliment the idea that more fleet costs more to support and maintain. I think of the research cost as the cost to support capacity and the fleet upkeep tax as maintanace cost. 

Here's the Idea:

Get rid of the plateaus. Instead employ a continuous exponential function to determine fleet upkeep. So you can build as many ships as you want at any time but as you build more, the fleet up keep costs increase exponentially. This curve should be reflective of the total population you have under your control inproportion to your fleet size, the alliegiance % of your populations, and it should also be informed by the number of manufacturing facilities you have. Now your fleet upkeep cost is tied to your population, how much that population likes you, and your capacity to produce. Fleet research can now become interesting.

Some examples:

1. New production tech allows you to do more with less materials = translates the entire graph down, to everything is cheaper along the curve.
   
2. New recruitment techniques allow you to recuit a higher % of your available population at less cost. this might alter the curvature of the graph - lowering marginal costs in certain situations.
   
3. New incentives to allow you to recruit more from popualtions less allied to you. (Altetering the curvature of the graph again).
   
4. New automation techniques allow you to crew ships with fewer people adjusting fleet capacity requirements. (doen't change the graph at all). 
   

Each race could start out with a graph reflective of their characteristics and their fleet tech trees can reflect that.

For example:

Perhaps the Advent start out with a cost curve that reflects their empahsis on unity by giving them the ability to recruit a larger percent of their population. They might have an upgrade that allows them to recruit from worlds dominated by their culture, effectively alowing them to use a small percentage of the planetarty populations under their cultural influence to lower the marginal costs of recruitment. 

Summary:

There's a ton of other stuff you can do. In general I'd like to see fleet upkeep ultimately tied to how well you manage and maintain you empire, a fleet research that goes beyond the existing linear upgrades and increasing marginal cost penalty, and a continuous cost approach rather than the plateau approach. Any thoughts?

seconded   current system is stupid, ist absolutely illogical to have big upkeep and no fleet at all... upkeep should depend on fleet size...

Here's an idea ryecoal: THEY HAD THIS VERY THING IN BETA AND IT WAS DROPPED BECAUSE CURRENT SYSTEM IS BETTER.

ShotmanMaslo: Current system is not stupid. It is brilliant. Lot of design and dev time went into it. It adds a layer of strategy that makes the game a lot more complex, and fun. And it's far from illogical, the arguments why it makes sense can be found on this board in about a dozen other threads on this subject, as well as this thread.

i think Ryecoal's idea is an interesting one. its pretty complicated though so its hard to tell just by looking at it if it would make for better or worse gameplay than the current system. it would certainly add to the learning curve of the game though, and considering that its already a pretty steep curve that might be something we'd want to avoid. 

the current system, for all its flaws, is actually a very good one though. its extremely elegant. its very easy to understand and is very strategically dynamic because it creates a constant tug-of-war between military and economic expansion. 

You are trying to reinvent the wheel and claim it as a new invention. Frankly, my courtesy went out with thread #11 on this very issue.

This decision puts a whole new strategy into the game. If you made it to where it would only cost what you use, then everybody would immediately go for the fleet ups and just have the availability then it would be a no-brainer. But with the automatic increase you have to decide whether i want to go full-blown military or keep a smaller fleet, but large economy. I say keep it as it is.

Kind of off-subject, but a fleet supply that scales up as you conquer worlds would be amazing too. +20 fleet supply for terran planet, +50 for desert, +10 for asteroid, ice, or volcanic, +0 for dead roid. Probably less because otherwise it would be OP. senseless for a 5 planet empire to have 2000 fleet supply and a 200 planet empire to also have 2000.

About the econ and fleet size... How much % of upkeep you pay depend on how much fleet points you are using, if you scrap or loose ships, your get your econ back. At least, that's what happened in my last game, whenever i was short on resources i scrapped a few high fleet point ships and my econ was back on it's feet.

But that's what actually happen. If you scale down your fleet to a lower upkeep bracket, your econ improve (until you rebuild your fleet).

Are you sure you are seeing a reduction in upkeep, and not simply getting money back for your scrapped ships? I do not belive that the mechenism you describe exists in the current game.

Can't you mod stuff like this?

all these ppl making the whole game star wars or star trek...

Talk to Devs, try to mod, and, if it works, you'll be the most famous sose player of all time...

('sept for the more famous ones )

Incorrect, to keep ships ready and maintained...but if their is no fleet to maintain or keep ready then they wouldnt be operating and theirfor not consuming or consuming minute amount of Resources.

I just got here on the forums so I havent seen alot of post like the above are talking about however, I agree with the orginal poster, if you buy more fleet capacity thats fine to have an upkeep but if you lose your ships then what is being upkept? I still think their should be some draw backs of course so people dont just reseach 3-5 fleet upgrades and never get penelized until their ready to start building a fleet but also if your out their and your fleet gets destoryed it makes it very difficult to rebuild your fleet back to its former glory expecially if they are allready attacking your planets so you lose to self inflicted attrichion.

So in conclusion, while I still feel some drawbacks to purchacing fleet should still be in effect, over all if you dont have a fleet then the upkeep should be decreased since you have no fleet to maintain, refuel, resupply, ect. Which would allow you a second chance if the enemy isnt being quick enough to elimininate you.

-Sanic