Or even simplier:

When you research you get from time to time "Additional hull upgrade" tech. Then you go to the panel with list of hulls (per formation/fleet) and select upgrades (weapons, armour, scanners, boosters, electronics, etc), you can get up to X upgrades for each hull (where X is the number of "Additional hull upgrade" techs you have). There are no slots of anything, just number of upgrades allowed. Some upgrade types are always available while some need to be unlocked (research).

You might get "Additional hull upgrade" from other sources than research too, like obtaining some ancient alien artifact might grant it or if you invest in imperial manufacturing project (high tech factories able to fit some additional upgrades on hulls).

Changing upgrades is allowed anytime and gives a temporary penalty to all hulls/ships of that type (like in the post above). But adding new upgrades is less disruptive (-5% for 2 turns) than removing existing upgrades (-20% for 3 turns, also possibly -1 credit(money) per 1k weight of existing hulls), so you are discouraged from removing old upgrades.

I do like the idea of dedicated slots, makes balancing the whole system definitely easier.

What I don't like so much is only having a single choice per hull type...

What I mean by this is the following: in real militaries, hulls, no matter what vehicles (ships, tanks, jeeps...) are often used for different vehicles in different roles. Need a new artillery, like right now? Or at least ASAP? You will not have the time to develop a completly new hull, and that would also make little sense. Most probably the old artillery hull is still pretty much up to the task, and its turret might accept the newer, larger gun... or there is that armoured APC you spent lots of money on some years ago, that has plenty of space fo the newer, larger gun, if you sacrifice its troop carrying capacity on it...

In the end, developing a new hull from scratch everytime a need for a different vehicle emerges is not very economical, even though the repurposed hull might not be 100% fitting for the new specification. In the end, resources and money for the army are limited, and the same is true for your players most probably.

So instead of just giving them the option to outfit ALL ships of a certain hull type with a single configuration, would there be an option to give them the possibility to manage multiple different layouts for the same hull type? So that players could repurpose the already built hull for a slightly different task, instead of having to research and build another hull again (which might, if the player DOES spend his resources on that new hull, be more suited to the task because of different hull stats and slot layouts, but at the price of having to research and build that hull first).

How to make it easy for players to manage that without a complicated ship designer is more difficult though. One possibility might be to show the player, when he select a hulltype, the total amount of ships of that type, together with buttons and UI elements to divide and combine this amount into multiple subtypes. As long as the player is not using these UI elements (maybe they could be hidden from sight until a checkbox is selected), all modifications done on the hulltype affect ALL ships of that type.

As soon as the player chooses to "subdivide the type", he can choose the amount of ships assigned to the new subtype with a slider, or other UI elements. Maybe give him the option to assign quotas of these subtypes to the different formations right from the same interface.

The module slot selection interface will now also "subdivide", showing the player two or more tabs with the subclass name or numbers. He can now manage two or more different module layouts for the same hulltype, for example a small ship outfitted with large weapons as kind of attack craft against larger ships, and the same vessel with lighter weapons and very strong electronic gear as scout ships.....

I like the idea of handling upgrades and downgrades with penalties... that will not disrupt the flow of the game, or need any additional "building" or interface, yet there is a strong incentive to take care of these upgrades outside of battles.

Personally, I'd say tinkering with the ships should always have a cost attached... simply outfitting ships with already built modules should be much cheaper than building thos modules, which should be much cheaper than building already researched hull types, which should be much cheaper than researching new modules, which should be much cheaper than researching new hull types.

This would force the player to really think about investing his resources into research, to be able to build a force consisting of individually more advanced and superior ships later in the game, instead of building all the already researched hulls and modules he can, and amassing a technological inferior army with superior numbers earlier in the game.

If you make both strategies viable, and give each one a distinctive advantage and disadvantage as well as a way to counter them, that might make for some interesting variety in gameplay (early rush with superior numbers vs late game dominance thanks to superior tech... maybe the latter player needs to fight the early rush by keeping his forces on the move until he gets advanced enough? Maybe the early game rusher that failed needs to himself switch to guerillia warfare in the later game to avoid direct confrontation with the now superior foe, until he can close the technological gap somewhat?)

Just some random ideas.... hope they help

What I don't like so much is only having a single choice per hull type...

What I mean by this is the following: in real militaries, hulls, no matter what vehicles (ships, tanks, jeeps...) are often used for different vehicles in different roles. Need a new artillery, like right now? Or at least ASAP? You will not have the time to develop a completly new hull, and that would also make little sense. Most probably the old artillery hull is still pretty much up to the task, and its turret might accept the newer, larger gun... or there is that armoured APC you spent lots of money on some years ago, that has plenty of space fo the newer, larger gun, if you sacrifice its troop carrying capacity on it...

When I was reading what you wrote my head started to spin :D Too complex, far too complex :)

"Subdividing the type" is an interface horror.

I would rather give the player more hull types (artillery hull) and do not outdate too soon. Also, it makes hulls more unique (like StarCraft 1 units, marine can't be a modification of a battlecruiser and a vulture is not subtype of tank).

I would also allow some permanent versioning/variants of these hulls (like you have a choice if *all* Falcons (hull type) get +2 to attack or +3 to speed). Once you selected the variant all your hulls of that type are of that variant and you can't change it. OR you have an option to change the variant (of all existing and future hulls) from time to time, for a price (like -10 credits per existing hull)?

Personally, I'd say tinkering with the ships should always have a cost attached... simply outfitting ships with already built modules should be much cheaper than building thos modules, which should be much cheaper than building already researched hull types, which should be much cheaper than researching new modules, which should be much cheaper than researching new hull types.

But how? Cost attached is nice but... would it mean I have to add "producing and storing components/modules"? I would like to avoid it, especialy since I see how complex the simple hull purchase became (with auto reassignement units between squadrons - more than half of the bugs in my prototype originate from this module :D).

Yet, some sort of cost attached would be nice...

be careful how much you sacrifice realism for simplicity.

an un-realistic game mechanic can be just as much of a turnoff as an overly complex game mechanic. perhaps even moreso: with a complex mechanic, it might be kludgey yet realistic. with an oversimplified mechanic it might turn out to just be silly or stupid.

in the real world, ships have space (slots). pretty much anything can go in any hull, assuming there is enough free space (unused slots).

systems are researched and developed, which takes time and money. and usually a lot more time than modeled in games (that's -1 point for games, for lack of realism: bad designer! no twinkie!).

ships are refitted at shipyards.

refits take time and money.

performance is a function of engine size and ship mass - hull type is irrelevant.

all this can be automated.

the computer can decide for the player what to research.

ships can automatically refit when at a shipyard.

the PC can decide what type of ships to build.

at that point you have a fully automated realistic system. but with zero user control.

so add in a bit of user control, but not so much that things get too complicated.

let them decide what general areas to research (offense / defense / surveillance ). or more complex: what systems to research.

let them give general guidance as to what type of ships to build. or more complex: specific ship classes and numbers to build.

let them turn auto-refits on/off, in case they need a ship right away and can't wait six weeks while its in the yard getting a refit, or in case they are running low on money, and need to hold off on refits for a while. or more complex: optional refit on a ship by ship basis when they reach a shipyard.

often the best approach is a high level + low level approach. provide both a high level UI with basic controls, and a low level UI for micro-managing stuff if desired. Total War uses this in may of their titles for settlement management (tax rates, what to build, etc). A similar concept is the Hearth fire add-on for Skyrim. At the high level you can hire a steward and simply tell them to buy stuff and furnish the house (furnish this room, buy a horse, etc). At the low level you can go hunt the animal yourself, forge the nails, and make your own stuffed head mounted on the wall.

hull type is irrelevant.

Are you SURE? A ship might have a 50 year old hull barely capable of sub light speeds. You just try strapping that brand new warp/wormhole drive into it and see how long it takes before you turn the crew inside out... :lol:

Actually that's not a bad mechanic for the game? You could forcibly jerry-rig a new type of equipment into an old frame (e.g. field modification without proper retrofit at the shipyard) but there is an increasing chance of catastrophic failure on use, destroying both the ship and all its components (probability dependent on age gap between the component and it's ship)... Ouch.

hull type is irrelevant.

A ship might have a 50 year old hull barely capable of sub light speeds.

Why wouldn't it be capable? There's no friction in space. All that matters is whether the hull can take the acceleration of the engines firing.

Why wouldn't it be capable?

Because (insert science fiction excuse here)... Excessive subspace stress, space folding friction. Take your pick?

The improvements could be software. If it's the far future, perhaps Moore's Law has been dead for millennia, engines are negligible distance from maximum theoretical efficiency, and even if a new laser design is discovered the starships all have 3d printers to build the new widget themselves. An upgraded laser might be just that spies discovered the enemy's shield frequency modularization function. A better engine is an upgrade to the missile avoidance algorithm. Then the improvements can just be pushed out to the fleet without any further worry. The improvements could also be more options rather than better options. Then if you have a technological advantage it's not that your ships do 20 damage to there 10, it's that you have 6 types of ships and they have 2, so you can send increasingly specialized ships for the right mission. Your old ships aren't obsolete, and with a new weapon you don't just replace the old weapon on a design, you create a new specialized ship for exactly its new, unique role

The player has built a ship, it has basic weapons and everything. Then the player researched a new "Point Defence laser" for example. What happens then?

I want to avoid the overused to death "so the player makes a new ship design and put the new PD into a module slot and starts producing these new ships ", bleh

I look for something like: the old ships are auto requipped (probably not instantly) or that the newly invented module is produced like an equipment and the ship "takes one from the inventory and installs it" when it visit the shipyard for next maintenance. Something like this.

Player researches new tech, any ships created from then on get new tech automaticly, any old ships get retrofitted in-space, but after a delay depending on how far out from the empire's center they are, but auto-update instantly next time they visit a planet with a shipyard.

Any spaceship of any significant star-destroyer-esque size would have to have the supplies and equipment to manufacture their own parts for repairs; basic parts, anyway, probably not huge engines and complicated circuitry, but that can be handwaved. So if your ships can produce their own parts, all that needs to be done is transmit the new details and then time to manufacture them.

Though you'd want to transmit them securely, so you aren't accidentally broadcasting military-industrial secrets to your enemies. Nor would you want your ships to be mobile archives of all your latest tech...

A ship might have a 50 year old hull barely capable of sub light speeds. You just try strapping that brand new warp/wormhole drive into it and see how long it takes before you turn the crew inside out...

the ENGINES are barely capable of sublite.

the hull is just a box or frame to hang systems off of.

assuming the hull has enough space for warp drive, AND the protected crew area that requires, no biggie.

About the only thing you need to worry about with hulls is fatigue wear and mass to space ratio. Armor is best modeled as a separate system from the hull.