IMO construction ships are more or less unnecessary. Aside from four anomalys I can think of, they are only used for construction, which could be handled with much less clicking from the galaxy view (add a button, which when clicked changes into claim/starbase build mode, build resource/mining stations the same way or add a policy for autobuild). Right now the limiting factors for starbase construction are influence and alloys, not constructionship availability, as they don't gather resources or such and can be build very cheaply.
Are construction ships unnecessary?
- Thread starter Vielmann
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Not a bad question. If there were engineer leaders, there would be more point, but now that you don't construct fortresses with a construction ship (so losing a ship constructing a fort in enemy territory isn't an issue) there's a lot less reason.
I wouldn't say unnecessary, but I think they could do with an automated function such as auto-surveying. When activated it could auto-construct space mines etc as it recieved the alloys neccesary.
"Are construction ships unnecessary?" - Yes, but I would say, that there's 1 exception: The initial starbase (outpost) in a star-system. Besides that, I could imagine, that such an outpost has a lot of small construction-vessels ("work-bees" (Star-Trek-Term)) to build anything else (mining-/research-stations, habitats, megastructures etc. pp.) within its star-system + Unlike a science-ship, a construction-ship doesn't even have a leader + It's already the case, that you don't need a construction-ship to build defence-stations or to upgrade an outpost into a (better) starbase.
I hadn’t really considered this before, but now that I do I think they are unnecessary. Managing them is really just tedious busywork. Thinking of fun like when you are researching a tech to exploit a new resource and so you scour the map looking for greyed out motes to send constructors towards them, or you want to expand over here because you just found a nice planet but all your constructors are over there. A lot of clicks could be saved by removing them from the game.
Compare them to science ships: how many of those to have active and when is actually a meaningful choice. I like to immediately build a second one and sell off some CGs to pay for the scientist. Constructors do cost some alloys to build I guess, but then they just exist. Maybe if they needed Engineers to operate and that was used to introduce some interesting new gameplay around a new leader type it could be worthwhile. But right now they really add nothing to the game except more clicks. And this is a game that has far too many clicks already. Why the heck isn’t there a hot key for ‘survey’?!
Compare them to science ships: how many of those to have active and when is actually a meaningful choice. I like to immediately build a second one and sell off some CGs to pay for the scientist. Constructors do cost some alloys to build I guess, but then they just exist. Maybe if they needed Engineers to operate and that was used to introduce some interesting new gameplay around a new leader type it could be worthwhile. But right now they really add nothing to the game except more clicks. And this is a game that has far too many clicks already. Why the heck isn’t there a hot key for ‘survey’?!
This had literally never occurred to me but now that I've thought about it I actually agree with OP. Construction ships are a little pointless since they're never realistically threatened (like workers are in Civ games, for example) so really they do just add busywork.
Wiz mentioned a while ago that he was considering having the outpost/starbase in a system build the mining/research stations instead of the construction ship, but that's kinda fallen by the wayside due to the new content/bug fix priorities.
I wouldn't mind seeing something where you select a system to claim, click a button and then the nearest starbase (or maybe outpost) starts sending out a stream of smaller ships that construct the outpost. Once the outpost is made you can either lump sum drop 90 minerals to build a station or you can let it siphon some of your mineral income per month to gradually construct each one in turn. A couple of simple options to focus on a given resource (set at system/sector/empire level). Sectors would do their usual thing here and take control from their level down. Having them either collect a portion of the resources in the sector or being given a budget to work with from the player would be ideal for this.
I wouldn't mind seeing something where you select a system to claim, click a button and then the nearest starbase (or maybe outpost) starts sending out a stream of smaller ships that construct the outpost. Once the outpost is made you can either lump sum drop 90 minerals to build a station or you can let it siphon some of your mineral income per month to gradually construct each one in turn. A couple of simple options to focus on a given resource (set at system/sector/empire level). Sectors would do their usual thing here and take control from their level down. Having them either collect a portion of the resources in the sector or being given a budget to work with from the player would be ideal for this.
It feel a bit surprised about how everyone has the same opinion about this. In my opinion a new "claim" system could work well if the starbase construction would be like founding a colony: build a consumable ship which then proceeds to the system and upon constructing the starbase vanishes.
I don't see the point in construction ships either myself. Just clicking on an empty system and building a station would be better. While we are at it we could make it possible to upgrade stations from the galaxy map rather than having to go into the system map.
It'd be neat if they could assist planets and give construction speed, maybe build cost reduction and/or upkeep reduction buffs. You'd have to limit them like titans though.
Does anybody actually spam enough construction ships so their location is a nonfactor?
Pretty good idea to reduce some of the clicks and headaches especially for larger empires. I think the only thing you'd really lose not having construction ships is that you could be expanding in any direction where with them you need to for the most part keep expanding in the areas that they are at or build more. Which you could argue there is a bit of strategic choice there but given the amount of micro/clicks to manage them, its probably not worth it from a game play perspective. Making building outposts work similar to claiming systems would seem like a good direction.
I suppose that we can have something like auto construct option inside our territory.
We need some UI to build new outpost. And having unit to build it is easy to understand.
We need some UI to build new outpost. And having unit to build it is easy to understand.
I quite like this. Tying construction and expansion to Starbases would be really neat. Perhaps construction could be slower if you don't have a starbase in the sector (given that we get fixed sectors at some point, which I really hope we do), or something granular enough that it's easy to overview.
I really would like the elimination of the construction ship and a new Building Ui from the star/starbase
I'd be reluctant to have any sort of automatic construction, considering how bad the science ships currently are at exploring where you want them to go - or even having them explore the systems near your core without leaving gaps.
The construction ship also provides something that keeps the construction logical and limits spamming of construction everywhere in the empire at once. You're limited in how many systems you can seize at once not only by your alloys and influence, but by how heavily you've invested in construction, and this is good, as it's another choice you have to make.
The construction ship also provides something that keeps the construction logical and limits spamming of construction everywhere in the empire at once. You're limited in how many systems you can seize at once not only by your alloys and influence, but by how heavily you've invested in construction, and this is good, as it's another choice you have to make.
Isn't part of the reason we have construction ships so that you can't just magically construct new outposts? You have to send a ship there to do it; if you can't get a defenseless construction ship there, you can't build.
The big problem here is that while Science Ships have a “real” cost in the form of the Scientist Leader commanding the ship, Construction Ships don’t.
I’ve several times suggested the addition of two more Leader types, Diplomats (who can be usef for both diplomacy and espionage) and Engineers. The later could command *some* Construction Ships, enabling them to do normal tasks much faster, but also supervise certain tasks to make them much faster, various space or ground construction or upgrade tasks, and finally they’d be *mandatory* for big tasks like genemodding, uplift/enlighten, terraforming and megastructures.
I would say keep construction ships, but make them like colony ships, as in, they are used when you build your new outpost. This will keep a similar system to what we have now but mean that the ships don't become clutter to just be decommissioned further down the line.
Fine, I've the same opinion, but I've the suspicion, that this wasn't the favoured solution anyway since I'm pretty sure, that it's rather something along the line to get rid of them, but to keep the control of the construction-processes ...
This "something" would be still there, even without construction-ships. Examples: The outpost-influence-costs, which are based on distances or the outpost itself as the condition to be allowed to build something else within its star-system. Furthermore, it's actually not the amount of construction-ships, which determines the limits of the "spam" of the constructions since it's actually the resource-/ and influence-production. The actual amount of construction-ships is just a consequence of the actual volume of the resource-/ and influence-production since basically, you have as many construction-ships as your resource-/ and influence-production is able to keep "busy" ...
You're "heavily" overestimating the importance of the construction-ships.