What will happen if the fleet has more logistics points than the "hanger" can affect?

Aside from that, the idea sounds good.

Coding some changes in the existing variables is trivial. However, I bet adding new interfaces and AI support is not. What I like about your idea is that it would allow to build bigger carriers by adding extra "hangers".

Why is this so complicated? Carriers are logistics. They should allow for a greater field of mobility on the map for smaller ships.

Lets make this simple.
Carrier modual can carry ships via logistic points.
you "dock" smaller ships into these carriers


ie, largest single size ship is 1-4. however it can carry 20 points of logistics, that means you have 20 little ships, or 5 more powerful ships docked.

These docked ships will be short ranged but built for combat, they can now gear up on weapons/ defenses rather then life support and larger engines. also they can go X number away from stations. or they are stuck in space.

One thing though, ships dont have to go to a star station to repair/ refuel. I belive they should but whatever. And also, you design ships. there is no dedicated "class" ships. this modual gives you the freedom of making a nice Battle cruiser with a small carrier bay.

Does that make sense?

Also, why isnt there cloaking in this game? or stealth of any kind... Ive always wondered this.

How can i get my xwing/wing commander fix without carriers??? I want carriers yesterday!!!!!!

details details but I do like your eye for details.
It has been a while sense anyone has posted on this. I was just wondering if anyone out there still wants carriers.

This is funny. I was going to mention capitol ships/carriers in another thread and then I saw this one. I was somehow thinking my idea was unique but I guess not. I certainly don't see these things as unnecessary complexity. Massive carrier ships engaged in battles with other fleets ejecting scads of small fighters would make for a great cinematic. I can see it being complex from the development side but after all that's what devs do... they develop, then we buy, they get paid and then we have fun. I like making large fleets of small fighters. I find it amusing and I am convinced I could use them in battle if I didn't have to put such large engines on them to get them across the known universe. Carriers would be fun if nothing else.

Orbital bombardment is also a neat idea. I'm not too sure how fun it would be if it was used against me in a game and I was methodically ground down and destroyed like I do to the AI, but it is a neat idea and the rules posted earlier seem very logical and forgiving to the point where one should be able to at least survive it given they would have so much time to react before the planet was useless.

Since this game does not have tactical combat for human playrs the whole idea of carriers is really unneccessary. I mean how will it really differ from how the game currently is? I know with TA coming out with some addition ship/fleet modules, some fleets may behave as if there were carriers, ie. the mocve faster as a group than alone.

I mean if all you want is carries, cant it be just a huge hull module that shows some drone shipps attacking an ememy? It would be no different than if you had missle of lasers on you hip exceoty when you watch the battle you see ome small ships fltying around.

Woo there actually is a thread for this!

Guess I will try to make my point in here as well!

While I can understand why some might dislike the ideas of orbital bombardment with the reasoning that in the late game it will get out of control, and genocide tactics are posible. After all in most space civ sim´s I have played this is normally the easiest way to win in the late game. Personally I always thought that the main reason why this happens is because in most other games in the genre, defensive posibilities are always lacking behind offensive ones, especially in the late game.

What I would suggest for Galciv 2 is the following:

Upon reaching say tier 2 weapon techs, it will be posible to research into orbital weapons specialised for orbital bombardment. These weapons will be larger and more expensive then their normal equivalent, and cannot be used to shoot at ships. With Larger I mean that even the first one you get wont be able to fit on anything smaller then a medium class ship, unless you got a lot of minitauization. This would solve both the "realism" bit and the gameplay bit since afterall siege engines require an escort or they are easy pickings.

To counteract these offensive weapons it should also be possible to build defensive structures and systems attached to the planet. Just to keep it simple, in the start space cannon networks/grids that would take up one tile on the planet pr. piece. These would then give the planet an attack value. For defensive values, there will of course be Shield Generators that also take up one tile. These would in turn give the planet defensive values to resist orbital bombardment weapons.

The Shield technologies could come as a by product of the already existing shield tech tree. The orbital bombartment tech could also include the space cannon as well since effectively its the same weapon!

Now some will of course say, that eventually in the late game, you dont want to build 10 space guns and shield generators on a planet to defend it! To counteract this I would suggest that the planetary bits get say.. 50% more attack and defence then the same orbital equivalent. And to further improve this Powerplants could help increase defence (since effectively the main limitation to a shield is how much power you put into it). And the existing planetary defence structures and orbital fleet command structures, would increase orbital attack strenght to help defending fleets better! All in all a planet is way larger then a ship, even a fleet of ships, so it makes sense that it should be possible to place more and larger guns that pack a bigger punch down there.

This way some civilizations could also get special stuctures to give extra bonuses, and you could even make a new set of trade goods. All in all, it is not nessesary to alter the game radically since most of the stuff is already there. While there might be some balance issues in a first release of this, then I think it can be implemented and fixed rather quickly.

Thank you for reading all of this, and I look foreward to peoples comments!

I have been hoping for carriers also. I know that there have been several posts about this, the most simple solution would be to have hangar bays that cost additional logistical points that would have a mini shipyard for small, and medium fighters. The small fighters would be roughly equivalent to tiny craft, and the mediums roughly equivalent to small craft. These fighters would be connected to the hangar so that if the carrier were destroyed these fighters would also be destroyed because of lack of support. This would not affect the total logistical points but would allow small and tiny craft to be more effective in the end game. Since the hangar takes logistics points, it can support only a certain amount of fighters, but the cost would still be less to have these tiny and small ships logistics wise than the standard cost which would allow for larger fleets. ie a hangar would cost 4 logistics points but would support six small fighters which would in the official game cost around 6 logistics points so. I am not sure about these numbers, but you get the idea. To build these fighters would be very similar to upgrading the carrier. There could even be a hangar that can only be used on massive ships that could potentially support heavy fighters/corvettes that are roughly equivelant to mediums and cut down on their logistics cost. Again these ships would be connected to the hangar and if the carrier were destroyed, they would also be destroyed. This is just an idea, but to me this would make the most sense in how to incorporate carriers into the game.

Exactly what I said. Brad Wardell only cares about the AI.

It's a moot point, guys. The TA expansion is the last update for GalCiv2 and the major features are locked down. Stardock is already working on their upcoming fantasy TBS game, and they've said that GalCiv3 is probably two or three years away, after the fantasy game and whatever expansions are released for it. Stardock knows that some people want carriers, as well as other things like player-controlled tactical combat and full multiplayer. But not everyone wants those things (I don't). And like all developers they have their own ideas about what makes the perfect game.

FWIW, and to keep beating this dead horse, I don't think carriers make sense within the current space combat engine. The classical idea of a "carrier" is that it's a mobile airbase that depends mainly on its fighters and accompanying fleet ships for defense. Ideally you want your fighter screen to engage the enemy before the enemy can engage the carrier, because it's basically a sitting duck.

That can't happen in the current game engine. All ships enter combat at the same time, with no way to position fighters out ahead of the carriers. There is also no AI for the fighters (or any other ships in the fleet) to know that they should defend the carrier. If the carrier is beefed up with defensive and offensive power to survive Galciv2's instant engagements, then what you have isn't a carrier, it's a battleship. And the current combat engine favors battleships over fighter swarms anyway.

So it isn't a question of the Stardock devs being lazy, it's that the game was never designed around the concept, and it would be very difficult to shove the idea in through the back door.

Note: some people, like me, actually like this current model for space combat, where battleships rule and fighter swarms are only effective in the early game, before everyone can research the larger hulls. I always thought the way "carriers" are represented in sci-fi movies and TV shows was basically WWII nostalgia, and not the way future space wars are likely to be fought. I doubt that even present-day carrier battle groups will survive for more than another 50 years, at best. Military technology is moving in a different direction with increasing emphasis on unmanned vehicles, super-speed weapons, and increasingly stealthy subs. Carriers are already almost an obsolete idea, and they only work so well for the U.S. Navy because there is no serious opposition (at the moment).

Anyway, it's fun to argue the pros and cons, but it's just way too early to know if carriers will make it into GalCiv3.

Using the Fleet Warp Bubble on the Terran Tech Tree wouldn't it make it feasible to have a large carrier/support ship traveling with tiny spacefighters? They wouldn't be docked but it would give you a nice carrier wing to deploy into battle with a little imagination. Also since you only see 3 ships in a fleet it would look like your carrier and 2 fighters flying escort. When the battle begins the whole wing of ships would launch.

This is assuming that your fighters won't have engines added so if you lose your "carrier" you then lose your warp bubble thus those poor fighters are now stranded in deep space with a simple speed of 1.

But for me that solves the Carrier issue.


As for Orbital Bombardment. I WANT I WANT I WANT.

I'm not for genocide but it is useful to bombard my enemies into submission. -- This worked very nicely in MOO2.