BDE's request for a Death Star got me thinking, and it has been something I have brought up before, I was wondering what everybody thought about these R&D and buildtimes.

For the most part they seem fine, and the system generally works well, but in other areas , it can be a little limiting.

for example; To build a Death Star, which I know should have a long buildtime for a valid reason, (since y'know it can destroy planets an' all), but 10 months does seem ...excessive. I mean thats the best part of a year!

The same I think goes for R&D times, perhaps some could be shrunk a little.

Also;

No ship design size may exceed 8000 meters.

...and this rule for Construction yards;

Non-hostile space stations and sensor arrays under 600 meters may be built at a rate of 500 meters per day.

Why?...


I have in the past wanted to buld things like space stations, (primarily for civilian use, rather than say a DS).

I have found these rules restricts things somewhat.
Are they really necessary?, because, surely if something is too OTT the staff will just disallow it no?...

Just curious about how others felt...


Note: This is meant as a serious topic for discussion, not to personally criticize the staff or the rulemakers.
Since on the whole the rules seem to work well for the most part, its just perhaps we could tweak some areas, if others feel the same, if not then, well, I guess there'll be no tweaking, heh.

They are currently revising R&D fools. You should write your local Moderator.

I was not aware of that, but fair enough, I guess this a moot topic then.

1. I remember requesting to up the requirements to build a death star, due to the increasing amount of groups reaching those requirements. As for lowering the build time of it, Id be biased if I said lets go for it.

2. the 8000m rule is a build cap, I dont see it being changed for a single simple reason. Most ships in the real star wars universe NEVER made it past this length with the noteable exception of all the ships you could probobaly name. SSD's, Death Stars, ESD.... these ship types were rare and hardly built by a power that spaned the entire galaxy, millions of worlds. A group with 10 worlds shouldnt have the option to build something of similar size of their own without restriction. As far as making new things of this size, the most thats been done has been equivalents to replace the listed ships, and even then only on a case by case basis.

3. Either that non-hostile crap should be scraped, or a series of Civilian tech rules drafted, I leave this up to the community.

A group with 10 worlds shouldnt have the option to build something of similar size of their own without restriction. As far as making new things of this size, the most thats been done has been equivalents to replace the listed ships, and even then only on a case by case basis.

I agree with that completely, its not the amounts I am wanting to change, after all there should be restrictions on these, but, just not to the point where you cannot build anything, at all.

For the sake of argument, in the past I have been tempted to build a ESD, but quite frankly, if I wanted to build one now, I would want to redesign it.

Obviously if I were to do this it would go through the same process of R&D application the same as everything and everybody else, and I am sure if the staff felt it to be too OTT then they wouldn't approve it.

For the record, I Would like to R&D and build a ship over 8000m , perhaps not as big as an ESD, but probably not far off it.

The way I see it, is that obviously , the rule stating 'only one per faction' would most definately apply still.

Also, in the past I have had plans to build a space station, (actually you might remember Gue, seeing as we discussed building it together at one point).

I just wondered how people felt about being able to build things like space stations , (in a civilian context), without having to spend a year R&D / building it.

As R&D and build times are intended to limit combat cabilities for each faction, I don't see why any R&D or construction should be needed at all for a non-combat-capable civilian space station.

Indeed, I remember, and I also remember submitting to having to ask the staff to build it jointly as a death star equivalent back then too. Again, these things are typically a case by case thing, not with the R&D staff though, we arn't given ultimate authority on these things, Kas/Ahnk/Om are the ones to contact about these issuies.

Personally, Id have no problem with a heavily regulated and restricted civilian station of approximate size, but it would still take your slot for a Death Star....

Seth, I take full responsibility for the Death Star build time. I was speaking to Theren on AIM shortly after the fleet restart, and I pointed out that with the new shipyards rules building at 100 meters per day, an Eclipse SSD took six months, which is what the Death Star build time was.

So it was bumped up to 10 months, which is certainly a long time (especcially considering you can't destroy canon planets!), but to be fair, it can destroy entire fleets single-handidly.

The same I think goes for R&D times, perhaps some could be shrunk a little.

Agreed! Personally, I think the R&D time should be directly related to the size of the ship - the length of time it takes to build it plus a fixed number of days. That would allow for a "prototype" to be "built", and a few days (five to ten, imo) for "design", keeping in mind people have already spent OOC time designing ships.

No ship design size may exceed 8000 meters.

I agree that this rule could be changed. I, personally, would love to be able to build a 12 800 meter Executor as my flagship. And with TNO's current size (80 or 90 worlds) it's not unreasonable (imo).

I could be wrong, but I believe it was a rule put in place after people built heaps of Eclipse Star Destroyers, and they changed the rules to limit power. At the time, it was probably a sensible rule - but with the way things are now, it makes little sense (imo).

I was considering suggesting changing it to "One ship of X meters+ per X number of planets", similar to the current Sovereign/Eclipse rules. People would still only be allowed to have one of those, period, but they could build Executors in addition, as long as they could support them. It would also open us up to larger R&Ds - Eclipse-sized vessels but lacking a superlaser, if someone had the ambition.

Non-hostile space stations and sensor arrays under 600 meters may be built at a rate of 500 meters per day.

I think Construction Yards on a whole need to be revamped. I've never understood why CYs have different build limits than SYs (one at a time vs. three, used to take longer to build). Defences are fine, but the rules about construction of other objects, space stations especcially, should be figured out (imo).

Though, Seth, it could be simply poorly worded: I think they might mean that CYs are ground-based, and anything larger than 600 meters is to big to launch and must be built in shipyards...?

At any rate, I think firm space-station building rules should be laid out.

Agreed! Personally, I think the R&D time should be directly related to the size of the ship - the length of time it takes to build it plus a fixed number of days. That would allow for a "prototype" to be "built", and a few days (five to ten, imo) for "design", keeping in mind people have already spent OOC time designing ships.

Ill try and work that into the new system where and if possible... Sounds like a good idea actually... Prototype/Testing/Revamping design failures

Just a note, I think a set rule system for civilian desgns should be emplaced.