May 2013 Development Update

[OneMadOgre]

Reverse engineering the units sheet, I've figured out that the single buy special attributes are multiplied by the construction cost.

I also think that the Heavy Cruiser for the minor houses might be .5 points too heavy for TL3.

[nimrodd]

When calculating space available for ships, do you round up when adding in the TL bonus?

For example, a C$11 unit (CC2), has a base space available of 26 spaces. This unit at TL 5 (125%) has a space amount of 32.5. Does this round up to 33 spaces, just like special abilities round up before multiplying for qty?

[Tyrel Lohr]

The special abilities that have costs based on construction costs are rounded up. So a 1/2 x Construction Cost ability on a 7 EP unit would cost 4 points per rating added.

You do round up when applying the tech level modifier to a ship. I messed around with rounding to nearest, but rounding up is the most consistent way of handling it and makes sure that tech increases are in the player's favor. In your example, Jimmy, the the 11 EP / CC 2 unit at TL 5 would have 33 points available to spend on abilities.

As for the minor house Heavy Cruiser, this is the calculation that I have:

# of points = (12 [Cost] + 3 [CC]) x 2 x (100% + 5% x 3 [TL]) = 15 x 2 x 115% = 30 x 115% = 34.5, which rounds to 35 points.

7 [DV] + 6 [AS] + 4 [AF] + 5 [PD] + 7 [CR] + 6 [FTL] = 35 points.

It seems to be coming out even for me, unless I'm missing something (which I might be, there's always that possibility).

[OneMadOgre]

I missed the round up. If I add that, it makes the other stuff come out correctly that I've seen. I'll add in that logic later this evening I hope.

[virtutis.umbra]

...Supply ships are going to carry 10 supplies per point when they're not being used to carry any other cargo. A Supply (3) unit could carry 30 supplies. Each unit then "eats" 1 supply per point of command cost when it is out of supply.

The name of the ability could be changed back to Cargo, or "supplies" could be called "consumables", although "supplies" is more to the point. What does everyone think? Any strong preference?

I'm in favor of changing the ability name to "Cargo" and having a "10 Supplies per Cargo" carrying rule. That seems cleaner in a number of edge cases, e.g. mixed loads:

Under the current terminology a large freighter might have Supply(6), and I might decide to load it up with a wrecked Ancient Relic (Supply(2) worth of cargo), a Marine company (Supply(1) worth of cargo) and the remainder defaults to Supply Points by virtue of being empty; so the ship has room for 30 Supply Points. Or, uh, something.

Instead, renaming the ability to Cargo lets it scan better:
A large freighter (Cargo (6)) loads up the same wrecked Ancient Relic (2 Cargo), Marine Company (1 Cargo) and 30 Supply Points (3 Cargo), which isn't a whole lot more concise but gels better conceptually.

[OneMadOgre]

I'm setting up the turn sequence to handle the economics. Of course I originally set up everything as an integer, but looking at Maint$, I'm thinking I need to re-code that.

EP is measured in tenths and hundredths places? So I could have say, 16.45EP at some point?

[virtutis.umbra]

I believe Maint$ is measured per unit as a fraction, but per empire, for purposes of calculating per-turn maintenance expense is always the sum of M$ for all all units, facilities, etc rounded up to the next whole EP.