ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB
ORIGINAL: Hanekem
I understand and while it is disappointing, as problematic the ship design screen in DW1, it was far more free and by researching max size it did felt like our space empire's shipbuilding got better in a more progressive manner rather than you now unlocked "battleships"
I liked the idea of being able to build battleships from the get go, even if those battleships would latter on be rather destroyer in their size, admittedly I choose not to most of the time, but it made a sorta sense, given that pre-dread battleships were in the same ballpark as current day destroyers (or that current day destroyers outmass WWI and WWII era cruisers)
But my question wasn't about having a Frigate size 500 but if the frigate improvement tech was a one off tech item (with several down the line as new tech items) or some repeating tech (even if for a repeat you'd need some preconditions or something).
There was also the question about why have a base frigate hull and being able to create the frigate subclasses as oposed of having the as "stock" variants
I mean why have three variants when you can have only one and being able to fine tune it as much as you like (with in some maximum and minimum limitation for each class)
I can see the attractive of having the stock options as a go to, or for the AI, but in time I am sure I'd like to optimize the base hulls in some way (like for instance removing the hangars from the frigates in the image and using that space for something else, maybe a bigger sensor array for a "Heavy scout"/intruder or for more armor for some picket type ship)
To be honest it actually feels more realistic this way, if not just for game balance reasons. In real life you generally can't just add whatever you want to a ship based on weight alone, volume also is a thing. It also is very important where on the hull that weight/volume are going to be put and that also limit what types of systems can be utilised and where. Sensors and weapons in real ships are a pretty good example for this.
In real life there is always a measure of something added will take away particular space from adding something else but not necessarily a third system that don't compete for that physical location in the hull.
The general freedom we had in DW1 was far more unrealistic and did not present us with the general engineering challenges that we face in reality and the physical limitations of different shapes that things would in reality have to deal with.
I sorta understand what you mean, given how upgrade functioned, and I do agree up to a point
I personally would have preferred being able to design the hulls myself and use those as my upgrade constrains, basically I design a hull size 300, with say 5 engines, 5 weapon hardpoints, 4 defense, and so on and so forth and use that as my limitation for upgrade, so I actually have the option of upgrading old hulls, scrapping them, mothballing them or even selling them off to lesser powers/independents (or hell, maybe civilianizing them, turning them into scouts or armed freighters or something)
My big issue is having predesigned hulls with predesigned layouts (with the max size per hull class as a condiment) and maybe them being a research project. Honestly a part of me would like that after designing that pattern hull a yard would have to build the prototype (so rather than being a pure research project it is an actual construction order taking space and time in a slip somewhere AND built at a slower rate) and only then I could be able to start building ships to that pattern.
That for me would have been a step forward.
That said, I'd like if we had the option of having prefixes to the names of our military ships (as in HMS, USS, HMAS, MN, or none at all)
