Ship class types and hull size discrepancy.

These sizes dont fit!

from GalCiv3 Forums

I'm an autist when it comes to naming ship classes and designing roles for my vessels in my fleets. And by this I mean following somewhat realistic and modern hull classification symbols + roles in relation to the hull sizes ingame. And therein lies the problem. In core hulls the tiny hulls are supposedly fighters and small hulls bombers, but then suddenly in medium hulls we get corvettes, frigates and destroyers within the same hull size range. The same repeats with large hulls. We got destoyers, cruisers and battleshits within the same bracket. Huge hulls are somewhat better with only the biggest things there. 

I know this is a bit silly nitpicking, but this already bothered me back in GalCiv2. My mentality pretty much follows a kind of first half of the 20th century -ideal when thinking about the roles and classes of the vessels I create. I've pretty much gone with tiny being some sort of gunboats or small attack craft (PG), small being corvettes (FS or FE for fleet escort) and mediums frigates (FF/FFG etc.) based on the core design. Then large hulls are different types of destroyers (DD/DDG/DDL etc.) and huge hulls light, heavy nd such cruisers (CA(CL/CG etc.). But then the autism kicks in and facing battleships, dreadnoughts and titans with destroyers and cruisers on equal footing starts eating away at the immersion. On medium hulls I can live with it by repeating the mantra that the classes are named after their role, not their size or power. This is somewhat believable since in modern naval combat the line between frigates and destroyers has blurred a lot. But it doesnt work for me above and below medium, not to mention that I miss the entire old school awesome spectrum of battleships and battlecruisers. And dont even get me started with the carriers in that equation.

So I'm wondering how others deal with this and what kind of logic do you people follow when designing your fleets?

Since people like pictures, here's what my generic shipyards hull list looks like. Aaand discussion!

37,775 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I usually break up the the three ships types along the lines of Max firepower/Max defense/Balance. 

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Well I went back to the planning board and figured that I just have to set some house rules regarding hull points usage if I wanted to make some sense of the ship roles and fit the largest vessel types into my fleets.

So basically tiny ships stay as fast attack & patrol craft and small hulls stay as corvettes or escort craft. But on medium I figured I could restrict the frigate types to use only 75% of the available hull points. That way they stay slightly above small hulls and benefit from the HP pool of the medium hull. Then the destroyers use all the points afforded by the medium hulls. This way I can either make both equally sturdy/brittle but up the firepower of the destroyers or give both the same firepower but make the destroyers slightly sturdier.

The large hulls are also split in two with the light cruisers again using around 75% of available hull points. Like with the corvettes and frigates, this makes the light cruisers only a bit larger than the destroyers but gives them the benefit of larger HP pool, making them more suited to solo operations when the frigates and destroyers are definately dependant on staying in squadrons. After light cruisers there are naturally the heavy cruisers and the light carriers, both using all the available points. 

A similar duality exist in the huge hulls. Again battlecruisers use about 75% of the capacity while carriers and battleships use it all. That difference of 25% works damn well with the huge hulls, usually making the battlecruisers as formidably armed as the battleships but with weaker armour. 

Of course this still doesnt completely make sense of the AI ship classes encountered, but the contrast isnt as great as it was before. Now the explanation that the vessel types are classed after the purpose of their mission instead of their size makes more sense. 

All in all this means that my shipyards have even more variety and ships to choose from.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

You could also split the huges into more than two classes as it's a big jump from larges (100 cap) to huges (250 cap).

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I did at first, but it didnt really work out and create enough of a clear cut difference between the different types in comparison with the large hulls. Battlecruisers became just heavy cruisers with more HP, not distinctive enough.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Well you can blame mods for this. My guess that different ships were made when playing kind of not using the big classes will have you making smaller capitals. I've noticed things like little battlestars to.

Now i kind of have a idea of non cannon starwars and non game startrek. Tiny hulls are like tie fighters xwing tie fighters and bombers. Small hulls are like escorts and corvettes. Medium hulls are like light cruisers or cruisers in general depending on how you look at it. Large hulls are for heavy cruisers or destroyers mon cal cruisers. Now the reason i suggest two sizes is because some ships you don't see much. Now huge hulls would be the capital ships star destroyers mon cal cruisers or the ships you don't see much like the death star ssds astroid ships artificial solar systems. Heres an example of having two perspectives of the same ships.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Honestly I've had the same gripe with vanilla GalCiv2 and 3 since I got GalCiv2 back in the day. For example on large hulls you got destroyers, cruisers and battleships all in the same. What this game needs is a sort of deeper role selection for the ships, so that you could specialise them. I know I know, you can already plan them the way you want but that's just it. Right now we have no fleet formations or higher fleet management. There's no real incencitive outside roleplaying or flavour to design things other than the biggest or most easily mass produced and hardest hitting vessel. I've thought more than once that this game should borrow a page from the book of "Sword of the Stars". The first one, naturally. That game got fleet management and ship roles inside the fleet pretty spot on. What we now have is like grabbing a fistfull of random stuff and throwing it at the enemy. I'm not saying that we should be able to micro battles. Instead we should have more control over the fleet BEFORE the battles with fleet formations and ships with set roles that assist the fleet when they are in their spot in the formation.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Rectunator, reply 6
Instead we should have more control over the fleet BEFORE the battles with fleet formations and ships with set roles that assist the fleet when they are in their spot in the formation.
End of Rectunator's quote

 

Isn't taht currently available in the game at the moment? Interceptors, Guardians, Escorts, support, and capitals, etc.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Oh yes, targeting/protection roles. But I mean turning them into something more concrete. Now you can have a fleet full of escorts and in the end nothing really changes. I'm talking about defining formations for your fleets, either custom for every fleet if you want to or setting up some general quidelines for them all. Then the ships fulfilling their roles in the fleet organisation/formation would possibly give bonuses for the whole. Got frigates, destroyers and light cruisers in a picket line? Slightly more sensor range. Destroyers on capital ship formation flanks? Tiny bit more... something (defence? accuracy? jamming?) for the capital ships. Got a solid wall of capital ships? More attack or staying power as long as the formation holds. Stuff like that. 

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Ooh I see what you mean now Rectunator. Thanks for explaining it to me.

 

That addition might make Galciv3 combat better. Although whether of it will totally break the combat AI or not remains to be seen.

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

This is not something that I care about. Names like, "Frigates," "Cruisers," and "Destroyers" are arbitrary and useless to me. The only thing that I see are capacity points (and aesthetics) and plan and build accordingly. I do not care about the other nonsense because this game is FAR from needing that kind of effort in its ship formations. Only assigned ship roles and weapon/defense specializations matter.