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[SuicideJunkie]

I mean the early fabthree game as seen in the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez-6pXs6jW8&list=UUAt5k0c-FQDYQoJHoR4ZpuA

With the large fabber in the later 2v2v2 game, our first ships were gunships, and we didn't get a fighter phase at all.

[Draxis]

Ah, right.  Got those confused.

Wait, since then weren't all fabs bumped down a level and the Large added where the Medium was?

[SuicideJunkie]

The adjustment was to the maximum storage capacity and the cost to build, and the energy cost to run them.
Income rate was not adjusted.
That was to make it so you can bootstrap up to the next level.

[Draxis]

Ah, OK.

Anyway, people still in?  Seems like everyone's good with a base game, so once I get a final confirmation on player numbers the game can get started.

[Draxis]

Nobody wants to play anymore?

[SuicideJunkie]

What's the game name for joining?
Or better a link

[Draxis]

It's not up; I was waiting for the others to respond before making it.

[Toriad]

I'd be willing to join, if you guys would allow noobs. I've been rather busy lately, and haven't had enough time to even start designing ships.

[Draxis]

Sure.  In this mode we won't have any ships for the first several turns anywaym so no designs shouldn't be a problem.  Anyone else?

[SuicideJunkie]

And one of the nice things with a slow start is that you don't have to worry about inefficiency too much early on.
As long as you can get the ship home (have a non-zero turn rate, and acceleration in multiple directions), you can take the components apart and reuse them for free.

You can also shamelessly steal enemy designs using the 'k' key (think 'K'lepto) which will save to a 'gui.emp' design file.

One thing I do want to do still, is boost the utility of armor so it actually gets used.
Draxis; as an experienced player, what attributes would you need to see in order to make the armor enticing?

[Draxis]

Making it much lighter is pretty much needed unless you somehow make it so good it can be competetive with its current weight - which would mean a big overall decrease in ship speeds. 

Making it fully recyclable in normal fabricators would also be good, or making it repairable when in spacedocks/bays; either of these would lower the requirements for a mothership that can maintain armored ships by a good bit.

Simply removing hex shields is another option; again, because this would force armor rather than just make it more appealing, it would lower both ship speeds and costs a good bit.  It would be a major nerf to gunships like we had in the last game, which had just one or two hexes as protection, and so make small beam fighters more appealing than they are now.

You could give it one SP, allowing it to take small amounts of fire without any damage - the armor radiating back the absorbed heat or something - which would make it stronger on fighters and missiles.

Buffing the HP of the current piece, and adding a new armor hex "Light Armor" with less health, less cost, and a bunch less weight could work - the heavy version could be used for internal barriers like on my old battleships, and the lighter one for protection on fighters.  This would also go well with the SP idea, if you want fighters to be stronger.  These changes would also theoretically make protected missiles cheaper, but a Contour 1 currently is so good for missiles that I don't think we'd see much of a real change to them.

Edit: For a more wideranging set of changes, I like the idea of a protection nerf to shields, equivalent damage nerf to lasers, mass buff to armor, and cost buff to disruptors.  This would ideally make disruptors more popular because the protection nerfs would mean they are no longer useless, laser nerf making them less outclassed, and the cost buff that they're no longer half the price of an entire fighter for a Medium.  Shield/Laser interaction is good now, so the equality in strength reduction should keep that the same.  Armor would become more popular because it would no longer slow ships down awfully, and the damage nerf to lasers and increased prevalence of disruptors would mean that shields are no longer so much better at protection (though they would need to be somewhat better.)

That would be a lot of delicate changes, though, and I haven't really thought out how it would interact with power, propulsion, or ship design.

[BluarianKnight]

I'd be willing to try to play.. trying, anyway.

[Draxis]

I'd be willing to try to play.. trying, anyway.

Great.  I wouldn't worry too much; there'll be plenty of time at the beginning to figure things out over a few fighters and drones before the significant fleets start building up.

How's this for a base design?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At full power expenditure, it still gains power at about 50 turns to full; three small reactors would have been a little better but I couldn't fit them onto a sensible frame.  All shields are deflectors.  Ignore the gyro overlaid on the bridge; I forgot to move my mouse clear before screenshotting.

For the new players, some reference: when not using any energy except for construction, this base produces enough power to fully load a shielded gunship every 30 turns, or maybe four small fighters.  It can turn one out of every 6 turns, and accelerate by one hex/turn every 50-100 turns, depending on direction.  That's incredibly bad, so bad I may just remove what thrusters it has completely; if it's be needed to really manuver, you will need to add your own thruster modules. 

It produces 250$/turn from the fabricator on the bottom; enough to build a small drone in five or so, or a large fighter in maybe 15.  It can fully reproduce itself in 202.  It is protected by energy shields which start off draining 80% of an attack's power, a value which falls off as the shield takes more hits; however, it has no 'hard' protection and so beams will still be able to do at least some damage easily.

There are lots of docking facilities, from a Size 3 Docking Port which can clamo onto any ship equipped with a clamp, a Size 2 Docking Clamp, which can grab pretty much any ship with an appropriatly shaped portion, and four Size 1 Docking Clamp which can grab small ships mounted with proper grips.  However, the main parts are the two huge spacedocks at the top, which make it easy to dock, assemble, and repaiar any size ships - at an energy cost.

[SuicideJunkie]

I'd suggest removing the shields, which will encourage players to get a screening force of basic fighters out early rather than build up for a gunship, and discourage sending all your forces against one target since that would leave the base exposed.

You could leave out the spacedock since by the time you need it for something, you'd be able to afford to buy a spacedock to go with the giant ship
Putting a large drydock instead might be more newbie-friendly as it is free to operate and can rotate ships contained in it.  A docking port 3 at the north end of the base would allow for base expansion modules to be built and attached later on too (including a spacedock if desired).


Note:
The thrust on the base really shouldn't be used directly.  What it will significantly help with, is that having that 1.01 accel saved up means that anything it launches will also have accel saved up.
So fighters won't have to spend energy and time charging up the strafe accel after launch.

[Draxis]

Alright, how's this?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)