Missiles and deployables fabrication and reloading

[Falcrack]

From what I have deduced/guessed so far from brief developer statements, neither missiles nor deployables (such as satellites) will have dedicated factories, nor will we be able to transport these items around in our cargo holds. Instead, these items will be produced on demand by shipyards/wharfs/equipment docks using generic resources, and are there loaded onto your ship into the designated missile rack or deployables bay.

I can see some of the logic here. In a universe filled with a wide variety of missiles and other deployables, it might get a bit cumbersome to have a single dedicated factory (or factory module) for each different type of missile or deployable. It got a bit annoying searching all over creation for that one satellite factory, or an equipment dock that produces a certain type of missile. If there are a limited number of components common to many different types of missiles or deployables (eg warheads, engines, seekers, microchips, etc), it provides for more flexibility to produce whatever you want. Different missiles could simply be different combinations of numbers of each component, with bigger, beefier missiles simply using more of these, for example. You would need less diversity in factories in order to create a wide diversity of products.

Still, I think it is odd not to be able to allow us to transport assemble missiles at all in the cargo hold. I would much rather be able to assemble missiles at a station ahead of time, and send a freighter loaded with missiles to restock my fleet, than to take my fleet back to a station and wait to have it restocked there.

For ships that are able to host smaller craft, such as carriers and frigates, will these ships also have some sort of ability to assemble missiles and deployables for the ship that dock there, and to reload them?

For small craft such as fighters, I am fine with the concept of needing to dock to reload deployables such as missiles and satellites. But for capital class ships, would it not make sense for them to be able to have the ability to reload their missile racks in space without having to dock? Maybe certain larger capital class missile turrets could have the capacity to reload from the cargo bay?

If I am mistaken in my assumptions, or if there are answers to my questions, it would be so very nice if a developer or someone with sure knowledge could chime in to provide any sort of clarification!

[atavistuk]

Or maybe, if there is a M7M analogue in X4, have it work like the Missile destroyer from Homeworld, where it could build the missiles itself when it runs out. Just keep it stocked with generic resources needed and it'll do the rest all on it's own.

[Falcrack]

Or maybe, if there is a M7M analogue in X4, have it work like the Missile destroyer from Homeworld, where it could build the missiles itself when it runs out. Just keep it stocked with generic resources needed and it'll do the rest all on it's own.

If missiles have a build time, would it not though make more sense to have them built ahead of time rather than wait to build them during a battle?

[WildAce]

If your not prepared, having to wait for production might have its own tactical advantages and disadvantages.

Battles could be won or lost based on your being prepared or not.

[CorruptUser]

The Homeworld missile destroyer couldn't build more because it had finite storage space. 32 IIRC. Same could be done with X4 missile frigates; have missiles in storage in the missile bay, and when the bay runs out the missiles only fire every 5th time or so. But to me, that's still too cheaty, since even one barage is one too many. I say that the Balor from XR is a better missile frigate in terms of not being an absolute nightmare but still being dangerous to other capital ships but easily taken out by fighter squadrons, if only the AI was working so they would stay as far from combat as possible; luckily one of the mods does just that.

[ishmaeltheforsaken]

Or maybe, if there is a M7M analogue in X4, have it work like the Missile destroyer from Homeworld, where it could build the missiles itself when it runs out. Just keep it stocked with generic resources needed and it'll do the rest all on it's own.

If missiles have a build time, would it not though make more sense to have them built ahead of time rather than wait to build them during a battle?

Presumably, since the commenter said "when it runs out," the destroyer starts off the battle with fully stocked batteries.

I agree that missile production is something that capital ships should be able to handle. Restocking ammunition isn't fun in any game, but it is interesting (at least to me) to have your capital ship carry some little mining ships to keep itself stocked with resources to manufacture warheads.

[fcth]

For small craft such as fighters, I am fine with the concept of needing to dock to reload deployables such as missiles and satellites. But for capital class ships, would it not make sense for them to be able to have the ability to reload their missile racks in space without having to dock?

I'd actually think the opposite. It doesn't make sense to lug a production facility around on your ship, and it certainly doesn't make sense to have every ship on your carrier need to dock with an edock individually instead of just having the single capship dock. What makes sense is for the carrier to be able to carry a huge store of missiles for the fighters and replenish them when they dock. Doesn't sound like that is possible under the model Egosoft is taking, unless you work around the problem by having big missile racks on the carrier for weapons it doesn't make sense for it to fire. The real solution is to have weapons be able to be shipped as cargo (with reloading restrictions if necessary), but that's clearly not what they are doing.

[CorruptUser]

You do know that aircraft carriers contain machine shops for replacing relatively simple components, right?

In the webcomic Schlock Mercenary, super-heavy capital ships (and on one occasion a destroyer) often have "fabbers" (fabricators) that can make missiles, equipment, small boats, etc so long as they have raw materials and energy. M2's could come equipped with "3D printers" to build missiles and such from ore and silicon, just much more slowly and only more "primitive" types of missiles than a dedicated factory.

[Falcrack]

You do know that aircraft carriers contain machine shops for replacing relatively simple components, right?

In the webcomic Schlock Mercenary, super-heavy capital ships (and on one occasion a destroyer) often have "fabbers" (fabricators) that can make missiles, equipment, small boats, etc so long as they have raw materials and energy. M2's could come equipped with "3D printers" to build missiles and such from ore and silicon, just much more slowly and only more "primitive" types of missiles than a dedicated factory.

To make missiles from raw ore would seem like a stretch, but to assemble them from preexisting warheads, engines, computer components etc would make more sense.

[gbjbaanb]

You do know that aircraft carriers contain machine shops for replacing relatively simple components, right?

And you know that they all carry pre-made ammunition, none of them builds ammo from components, not even bullets. Those machine shops are for bits and pieces of maintenance, not producing high-tech guided cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.

I agree the concept is a bit daft, carrying missiles as built items in cargo makes sense, even if the cargo hold and the missile magazine are separate. If ES don't want to have factories for each missile type, then combine them into fabs that produce all missiles from resource/components.

[Falcrack]

If carriers cannot store missiles or fabricate them, how are we going to rearm its owned fighters when they come back to dock? Will we have to send each fighter, individually, to a station to get new missiles? That would get old really fast. I do hope there will be some form of automation, as in you set up a missile template for a type of ship, maybe copy that template and apply to your other ships, and when they dock, the carrier will automatically attempt to resupply the docked fighters based on that missile template, whether that be through making missiles on the spot from components, or better yet simply loading them from preassembled missiles in the cargo bay.

On the subject of no missile factories, if there was one generic missile fab station module capable of making all different types of missiles, would that possibly work with X4? Would it be possible for a single module to be able to switch from making one type of missile to another by flipping a switch somewhere? Or maybe provide an order for a module to have a production loop where it makes 10 of missile A, then 5 of missle B, then 2 of missiles C, then back to A again? Maybe that would get too complicated for the AI to handle in terms of knowing what to produce, I dunno.

The whole thing about not being able to manufacture missiles ahead of time or store them in cargo bays seems like a needless limitation in the game, IMO.

[mr.WHO]

In XR I think there was a way to resupply/ream ships mid-flight - they just dock next to eachother and transfer cargo.

I think that especially for Carriers this would be best method, maybe by dedicated ammo-freighters, that can store large amount of missiles.
Without this whe whole system looks suboptimal - why would I need to move entire Carrier from frontlines to resupply, isntead ferry supplies to the frontline?

[Skeeter]

Im worried that due to no trading so to speak and no extras allowed to be carried for when u run out during a fight that i wonder will there be a big shortage of missiles on player and npc ships alike and they will end up being very rare with player and npcs desperate for em especially when fleet gameplay at end game comes up.

What is egosofts thinking when it comes to shortages due to the way missiles are not traded and stored and used.

[TheDeliveryMan]

On the subject of no missile factories, if there was one generic missile fab station module capable of making all different types of missiles, would that possibly work with X4? Would it be possible for a single module to be able to switch from making one type of missile to another by flipping a switch somewhere? Or maybe provide an order for a module to have a production loop where it makes 10 of missile A, then 5 of missle B, then 2 of missiles C, then back to A again? Maybe that would get too complicated for the AI to handle in terms of knowing what to produce, I dunno.

We had this in XR, not only for missiles, but also for turrets and drones. It did not work well. Production stalled, because storage was filled with stuff in low demand. At shipyards ship production often got stuck because a single turret or shield was missing. The XR economy with tradable equipment was too complex for reliable ships production. I think this is the main reason why in X4 equipment is assemled on demand from components. A stable economy that does not collapse is vital for X4.

[mr.WHO]

IMO this is good idea - in X3 fleet logistic was a nightmare, whiel in XR it was more or less rather convinient (excluding issues with blocked factories/shipyards).
I can see this working well in X4 - stock SY with enough build resources and just build what you need when ordering ship (if you can build a destroyer then building a gun or a missiles should be easy).

I always wanted to focus on empire and fleet building in X-games, but due to GUI and logicstic this wasn't the case untill X-Rebirth (which wasn't perfect, just better than X3 in fleet maintenance).

[PowerPC603]

Or maybe, if there is a M7M analogue in X4, have it work like the Missile destroyer from Homeworld, where it could build the missiles itself when it runs out. Just keep it stocked with generic resources needed and it'll do the rest all on it's own.

If missiles have a build time, would it not though make more sense to have them built ahead of time rather than wait to build them during a battle?

It would be really nice to allow the capship to start building them as soon as there is an open spot in the missile bay.
Say your capship can stock 100 missiles in it's missile bay.
Then when you fire one, production is started to replace the fired missile.
Eventually all 100 will have been fired but are already replaced by 50 or so, as production doesn't go as fast as firing them.
In the end, you might end up out of missiles. This makes the capship a bit vulnerable and adds a strategy element: time to withdraw from battle, at least until enough missiles have been replaced.

Or you might end up without the required resources, which also makes you run out of missiles because you can't produce any more.