Hey all,
Ive been noticing that 4.0 seems to be all about fixing various features that seem to bog down the game as we reach mid and late game. I think everything that has been noted so far sounds pretty great and I know that the Devs mentioned that fleets will be looked at in a future update, so I had an idea. From my experience Fleets seem to be one of the major causes of game lagging due to the number of entities existing, moving, and changing. Nanotech path is still a banned option in more Multiplayer games that I play in due to this issue. I had an idea on a possible improvement.
Squadrons.
Squadrons would be a new feature for fleets. When a fleet contains 10 of the same type of ship, they automatically combine into a single entity that has the sum of all the ships' stats [Hull Points, Shields, Armour, Weapon Modules, etc]. A fleet with 11 of the same corvettes would become a fleet of 1 corvette and 1 corvette squadron. The Squadron entity itself would appear as 10 closely placed ships that maintain the same distance/positioning from one another at all times, essentially using a single image. The Squadron would have a milestone Hull Point structure in that every 10% of Hull Points lost would cause a scaling penalty to the Squadron to mimic the loss of 1 ship. Furthermore, when healing/repairing the Squadron, the milestones would act as barriers that stop healing until resources equal to 1 ship is paid, thus mimicking the cost of rebuilding a ship. To further mimic existing systems, repairing/healing beyond the milestones could require a shipyard to perform the repairs and make the payment akin to upgrading a fleet.
In theory, this could result in the number of entities being reduced by up to 90% as a fleet of 100 ships becomes a fleet of 10 squadrons. As an minor added benefit, Fleet Designs could now use Squadron Templates to reduce the number of clicks needed for making a fleet and the Nanite path would spawn Squadrons of Nanite Corvettes instead of individual corvettes.
Ive been noticing that 4.0 seems to be all about fixing various features that seem to bog down the game as we reach mid and late game. I think everything that has been noted so far sounds pretty great and I know that the Devs mentioned that fleets will be looked at in a future update, so I had an idea. From my experience Fleets seem to be one of the major causes of game lagging due to the number of entities existing, moving, and changing. Nanotech path is still a banned option in more Multiplayer games that I play in due to this issue. I had an idea on a possible improvement.
Squadrons.
Squadrons would be a new feature for fleets. When a fleet contains 10 of the same type of ship, they automatically combine into a single entity that has the sum of all the ships' stats [Hull Points, Shields, Armour, Weapon Modules, etc]. A fleet with 11 of the same corvettes would become a fleet of 1 corvette and 1 corvette squadron. The Squadron entity itself would appear as 10 closely placed ships that maintain the same distance/positioning from one another at all times, essentially using a single image. The Squadron would have a milestone Hull Point structure in that every 10% of Hull Points lost would cause a scaling penalty to the Squadron to mimic the loss of 1 ship. Furthermore, when healing/repairing the Squadron, the milestones would act as barriers that stop healing until resources equal to 1 ship is paid, thus mimicking the cost of rebuilding a ship. To further mimic existing systems, repairing/healing beyond the milestones could require a shipyard to perform the repairs and make the payment akin to upgrading a fleet.
In theory, this could result in the number of entities being reduced by up to 90% as a fleet of 100 ships becomes a fleet of 10 squadrons. As an minor added benefit, Fleet Designs could now use Squadron Templates to reduce the number of clicks needed for making a fleet and the Nanite path would spawn Squadrons of Nanite Corvettes instead of individual corvettes.