Quantum Star SE

I’ve gotten a few questions (again) about needing to add more ships to QS Evolved over what is available from Solar Empire and QS2. I’ve blogged about this before so here’s the short version.

QS Evolved uses a hierarchical system. At the top are Fleets. Fleets are a collection of Ships. Here’s the kicker, Ships are a collection of Ship Components which infer attributes and value upon the Ship. I know it’s not instantly intuitive but ships are not a fixed entity. There are fixed Ships you can buy – however these are standard offerings only – even they can be modified over time. The big clue is Ship Production. If you want a ship you have two options. Buy it or make it. If you make it you can within reason design your ship from the Hull up, add components to it, and manufacture it. In the end what the ship is capable of is your choice – you designed it!

The other thing about ships is they’ll carry a few new limitations. Some weapons may require a finite supply of ammunition. Some may depend on your ship having sufficient power to fire them. Similar restrictions impact engines and shields. The idea behind all this is to remove the stupidly obvious scenario in QS2/SE that a game with unlimited resources will tend to identical fleet strengths – i.e. a stalemate, and usually one that emerges within days – not weeks. It also adds more strategic flavour to the game – if the ship components are up to you, then you can make a lot of choices to favour your tactics. You could outfit a ship with nothing but big powerful engines – let a Warship try catching you then .

The attribute model of ships also enables ships to continually improve their performance – again within reason, and bounded by the capabilities of available components. Rather than having a ton of ships with limited abilities, you’ll have a smaller (25-50 range max) more easily managed set of ships which you could spend weeks constantly improving in small and large ways.

Absolutely key to everything is a simple assumption:

“Ships are a valuable asset. Losing a ship imposes a cost in time and cash.”

In Solar Empire and QS2 ships are NOT a valuable asset. You can lose 150 ships, and rebuild your fleet from scratch in a few days if the game settings are liberal (which they nearly always are). This is a big let down – ships are not worth upgrading unless they have a real value, enough that losing even a handful is a painful experience. The more value driven they are – the more incentive to upgrade, improve and increase their inherent value more. The more these occurs the more time and cash it takes to replace lost ships.

Like I said before, I am not cloning Solar Empire. This is a new Ship Model where losing a ship is a big deal – not an inconvenience solved by visiting a shipyard at Earth. A well upgraded ship with top-notch components could have cost you 5 days of mined resources. Even if you dragged all your other ships up to a superminer configuration it could still take 3 days of mining to even come close to replacing it – and that’s without the time needed to build it, and maybe collect any rare resources required for the construction of its rarer components.

So keep this in mind. When QSE is playable you will be able to manage up to 50 ships. Personally I’d prefer less – but lets say 50. To get truly powerful ships you’ll need to build them on planets. Doing this takes time, and a lot of cash. Losing a ship will be a big deal – it could take days to replace if of a high level. Ships are therefore a valuable asset – sacrificing them is still a strategic option, but a costly one if done for something stupid . Ship management will require actual thought – those of a strategic mind would do well to plan carefully.