Weapons

[Sim-Mania]

I know Zamit has explained how each race has technology unique to them. However I was wondering how diverse and detailed the weapons actually are. For example, in the star trek world, some of the different weapons the different alien races have include weapons that fire through shields (Breem), or weapons that attack the shields themselves (Borg), or a sonic weapon that effects the crew, but leaves the ship undamage and ready to be captured. If this was the case in Horizon, then you would definitely have to put some thought as to how you were going to equip your ships depending on which race you were attacking.

I thought I'd ask this because the weapons used by the ships in the goodies section, although different, seem to all have the same effect. Although, of course you could be saving the real race specfic weapons for later.

[Therlun]

i agree special-weapons would be neat, and i bet they are already in.
(the only good part of moo2. the fights were boring and mirco-heavy, the ships had ugly uncreative pictures, but designing them was fun)
i really hope you get to know the other races by unique and individual traits.

on the other side there should not be too much "special" or it becomes boring, and i dont want to refit my entire fleet every time there could be a conflict with another race....

[Sim-Mania]

I get the impression that refitting ships in horizon is similar to that of Imperium Galactica, where once you have researched the technology, all you have to do is approach the nearest planet and exchange weapons, and if they are on the same tech level, you wouldn't incur any additional cost to swap weapons depending on who you are attacking.

[Therlun]

thats a part i dont like...
i would prefer a system where upgrading is hard.
many armies dont use the most modern technology, because it is simply to expesnive to outfit every soldier and every vehicle with it.

many ships go to drydock for month to refroit, and this upgrades are often wuiet expesnive too...
there should be the choice between a high-standard fleet at high cost, or a low standard fleet that is cheaper to aquire and to maintain.

[Sim-Mania]

I hear what you're trying to say, However, if you were changing the arsenal of your ships with guns that were not more advance but, just different, that were at the same tech level, would you consider that as a possible option

Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that it's not like Moo3 where you couldn't upgrade at all, instead you had to build entire new ships with the new technology. That was a major pain in the arse.

[Sim-Mania]

The ability to change your arsenal from offensive to deffensive, or vice versa, I beleive should also be inexpensive.

[Zaimat]

[Ravana]

So are we likely to have a long list of different weapons per race? By "long" I mean enough variation, that weapon types will have to be thought through for each hull that we wish to build, because we can't go back and change our minds? You may find that scrapping vessels becomes commonplace if you research or capture a new technology which is much better. This will also be true if that tech is less advanced initially, but is capable of more flexibility or more "upgrades" later on in the game. We suddenly find ourselves with a fleet that is no longer up to speed.

Also, how will this affect ship's modules? I mean, an armoured scout is a likely fleet build, and one which will not receive too much change in weapon type due to the hull size itself. However, what if we have built a fleet sensor ship, a frigate class that provides ECM/ECCM to the fleet, how much change will we be able to make to defensive weapon systems, and how much change will we be able to make to modules? We may decide later that the fleet sensor boat is less important than a light strike carrier.

Will I be able to take the frigate hull and modify it at all? If so, how much?

[Zaimat]

You won't need to scrap your ships, certainly not because it's out-dated a la moo, where every new tech made previous ships and techs ineffective. The design concept is based on auto re-fitting ships with the latest and to make it less of a chore and simpler to maintain your fleet up to date.

When you design a ship, you are designing it for a task in mind. The basic modules don't change over time they get improved. You get a better version or a more effective one. Better sensors, better engines, better pods, better bombs, better weapon etc.

Obviously there are some things that you can't do, such as change a bomber to a colonizer. Or replace a unit with a special device or weapon that you didn't have before. In these cases you can design and build new ships, these new ships don't make your older ships obsolete though.

Ok, so why not allow re-designs of existing ships? After all we have a ship design screen, so it would be a relatively simple matter to allow it. Primarily because of gameplay (and to some extent interface because ships are part of taskforces) issues. It seemed to add too little to gameplay yet it affected it in a number of ways, so we decided not to bother with it at this time but you never know I wouldn't rule out at some point having that option too.

In Horizon, techs are both more standard and more unique. What this means is, every race has taken a system (whether it's engines, weapons or other) and spent decades (or centuries) developing, refining and adapting them. As you advance and discover for example: a new weapon (in the same mold), you also improve upon your original weapons. The new weapons offer something different but your original weapons become more powerful. So you don't lose something, you gain a new weapon.
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Horizon - Lead Designer

[Anguille]

If i destroy an enemy ship, will i be able to inspect his ship and maybe steal some technology of the aliens and put it on my own ships?
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I may not post so much...but i am here watching!

[Ravana]

It's in this thread somewhere! Zaimat has said that you will be able to acquire some alien tech. Though Horizon will not be a research arms race.

[Anguille]

[Zaimat]

Ravana put it perfectly. You will be able acquire alien 'techs' a number of ways including from ship wrecks in some cases (generally speaking though when a ship is destroyed or explodes, not much remains of value).

You won't be able to gain whole race-specific technologies though, this is not realistic imo and most of all highly imbalancing in a game such as horizon where races have their own strengths and weaknesses.
_________________
Horizon - Lead Designer

[Therlun]

i hope this is indeed VERY limited, so it does not end in the antaran-tech hunt like moo2...
(moo2 stinks! long live moo1!!)

i would prefer if you aquire anti-technologies this way.
meaning that if you successfully get detailed data(no matter how) on the main weapon of race A, you may now develop a shield-system that is highly effective against that weapon.

or if you manage to seize a intact ship, you can develop a missile that is able to penetrate the armour that was nearly unbreachable for you till now.

[Ravana]

Possibly so Therlun. However, that sort of smacks of the arms race theory again, because you have to ask where does it end? If your shields can be breached at whim by an enemy empire, you'll have to invent something else to counteract their advantage. As an event, this isn't too likely as we've been told that tech will improve along established lines, lines that have a precedent in that empire's history.

Then again, that's not to say there won't be some advantages similar to MoO2: armour piercing, hard shields etc.

Of course, this is conjecture on my part, so unless Zaimat informs us differently, who knows...?

[Therlun]

i dont see a problem here.
since it is a game focused on humans and the other races are not playable a normal way the anti-tech could simply only exist for humans.
there is no need to balance the system for MP ...

shield-breaking weapons and stuff are so.... old.
what i would really like is the feeling when you FINALLY get a tech to handle this damn Race A ships. now we will see if they push humans around again!!

[Sim-Mania]

Whatever the case about weapons and ship designs, the most important factor is that the size of your empire does not necessarily infer the size of your fleet. Meaning that the size of your fleet sould be determined by how well you have developed your economic, polictical, scientific, social, and production, ect. infrastructure. Therefore even despite of the fact you may be smaller than your rivals, if you have developed the facets above better than them - you could infact build and suport a larger fleet, quicker.

[Ravana]

True Sim, and that is how it should be in Horizon - it is one factor that will help make it significantly different from the trend.

Of course for me, the real test will be whether you can just posture with your fleet (-s), and not have them fight it out at all.

As for anti-tech Therlun, I imagine that is what we will see with the advanced races later in the game. Perhaps we will have to develop something that mitigates their advantage over us. Who knows, we'll probably have to wait until we get our first drubbing to find out!

[Ravana]

Perhaps I should have just edited my previous post, but I have a question that is sufficiently separate to it, to warrant it's own.

For one reason or another, I can now view the ships in the archive on the computer I'm using, and I must say they are well worth the wait!

However, one question I do have, Zaimat: the Terran Stellar-Class warship only has four primary and four secondary weapons. Whilst I appreciate that we may have missiles and/or bombs to factor in as well, that number does seem a trifle on the short side. How will anti-fighter duties be handled? I presume they can defend themselves against smaller vessels, even if they don't do it as efficiently as escorts. It just seems that these are big guns, and not something you would use to fry a pesky fighter.

Is this a definitive template for the ships in-game, or perhaps there's additional information we don't know yet?

[Sim-Mania]