Suggestion: Museum ships

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Newman
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2023 5:36 pm

Suggestion: Museum ships

Post by Newman »

Hi all,

First of all, I'd like to say that I rarely get into early access games, but I really like Terra Invicta - it's like it was designed with my tastes in mind, and I'm sure all it's current problems will get resolved once it's no longer in EA.

I won't get into major suggestions here, just a small one - museum ships. Say, you have a ship that survived countless battles that it had no business surviving. It has a cool name, cool history, even looks cool, but the thing is getting a bit old, is not valid for modern technology refits anymore, and as such it just takes up mission control space and resources, and it's just a matter of time before it finally gets killed off. Even so, you feel bad about scrapping this old hero ship. So, you turn it into an orbital museum!

The way I see this potentially working is, you build an Orbital Museum Dock on one of your stations in an interface orbit. You bring that ship to dock with the station, making sure it's the only one in it's fleet, and then give it a command to dock with the Orbital Museum Dock. The ship now essentialy becomes a part of the space station, and the module now produces revenue in a similar way that orbital hotels or hospitals do. Kind of like we can visit museum ships in real life, like the Missouri, HMS Belfast, etc.
PAwleus
Posts: 108
Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2021 12:58 pm

Re: Suggestion: Museum ships

Post by PAwleus »

I like your idea of museum ships so much that I would even like it expanded and included in some post-release DLC featuring mothballed ships.


Currently, when we are constructing ships and it turns out they are not needed at the moment (eg. because the situation changed and war against a faction ended) we can only cancel their construction (it's the best option because all resources are refunded except time) or scrap them when they are finished (only part of resources are refunded). However, it anyway wastes all the time needed for their construction up to this point and simply keeping all of them docked at stations in full readiness in case some future need arises might be suboptimal, eg. because of their MC cost (other maintenance is currently negligible).


I would like options added to Refit that would allow Mothballing Refit, Museum Refit and Readiness Refit. It would be ideal if ships under refits, mothballed and museum ships are vulnerable to attack so ships should have states: Readiness State (normal), Refit State (undergoing any refit), Mothballed State and Museum State (perhaps also Derelict State for heavily damaged and temporarily abandoned ships).


The refit options:
1. Mothballing Refit
- small amounts of resources (including small amount of time) needed in comparison with the full cost of the design (10%?),
- cost of propellant refunded but time extended depending on the amount of propellant,
- Mothballed State as target, resulting in a ship in Mothballed State added to an unmovable Mothballed Fleet (with number or station or ship in its name) docked at the station (one per station).
2. Museum Refit
- less resources needed than Mothballing (perhaps even some net gain representing some ship systems removed) but more time (20% of the full construction time of the design?),
- cost of propellant refunded but time extended depending on the amount of propellant,
- Museum State as target, resulting in a ship in Museum State added to an unmovable Museum Fleet (with number or station or ship in its name) docked at the station (one per station).
3. Readiness Refit
- normal Refit with a new refit design as target (as it is currently but Mothballed and Museum State also possible to be refitted to a new refit design with some additional cost)
- Refit from Mothballed State of a docked ship to the current design of the ship with cost the same as Mothballing Refit (or slightly larger), Readiness State as target
- Refit from Museum State of a docked ship to the current design of the ship with cost in resources larger than Mothballing Refit (by the same amount it was smaller when doing Museum Refit) and the same amount of time needed as Museum Refit (or slightly larger), Readiness State as target.


The ship states:
1. Readiness State
- normal state of a ship and target in UI when refitting mothballed and museum ships
2. Refit State
- state of a ship during any refit, when the ship undergoing it should be added to an unmovable Refit Fleet (with number or station or ship in its name),
- in contrast with how it's currently, ships in this state should still be targets for interception by fleets of other factions 
- adding a ship to a refit queue should not change its state before its refit starts (the game should warn before moving a fleet that there are ships in a refit queue belonging to it and when moved anyway they should be automatically removed from the refit queue),
- ships undergoing refit (not just in a refit queue) don't have to cost any maintenance (even in MC as it would no longer be an exploit with recent changes to the game) but other ships in the refit queue should have their normal maintenance
- ending any undergoing refit prematurely (voluntary by choice or involuntary by participation in combat) should take under consideration a percentage of refit done, partially refund costs and set the ship to Readiness State with relevant percentage of ship modules damaged (perhaps modules should also be prioritized during refit, eg. Radiator, Heat Sink, Reactor, Battery and PD should be refitted first) and relevant percentage of propellant in tanks (perhaps halved as you would move propellant at the end or beginning of refit depending what kind of refit it is).
3. Mothballing State
- state of a ship after Mothballing Refit is done
- ships have no maintenance (including MC)
- ships have no propellant and no sufficient power for weapons so in combat they are totally sitting ducks
4. Museum State
- state of a ship after Museum Refit is done
- ships perhaps should still have some very small maintenance but provide substantial amount of Money and small amount of Influence (ideally, depended on its size and experience acquired by the ship in the past during combat, or alternatively, on the number of ship operations done, especially those that are consistent with its designation, eg. hab placement operations for colonizers)
-the number of ships in such a state at a station should be limited especially if the amount of Money and Influence gained is fixed, eg. to 1 ship per shipyard per shipyard tier (1 per Space Dock, 2 per Shipyard, 3 per Spaceworks within the station)
- ships have no propellant and no sufficient power for weapons so in combat they are totally sitting ducks


Unmovable fleets that are potential targets for interception and destruction by other factions:
1. Refit Fleet
- every ship undergoing any refit (in Refit State) is in a relevant Refit Fleet docked at a relevant station
- 1 Refit Fleet per relevant station (with undergoing refits)
- it is stolen together with a relevant station (it cannot be stolen directly)
- ships are moved to their original fleets (if present locally) or a new one is created when refits end
2. Mothballed Fleet
- every ship in Mothballed State is in a relevant Mothballed Fleet at a relevant station
- 1 Mothballed Fleet per relevant station
- it is stolen together with a relevant station (it cannot be stolen directly)
3. Museum Fleet
- every ship in Museum State is in a relevant Museum Fleet at a relevant station
- 1 Museum Fleet per relevant station
- it is stolen together with a relevant station (it cannot be stolen directly)
neilwilkes
Posts: 184
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:44 am

Re: Suggestion: Museum ships

Post by neilwilkes »

This is a really neat idea - top marks indeed.
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