2024-05-09 Fleets, Starforce, C4 Doors, Shield Types

[Deantwo]

If it seems confusing with the difference between "company verse fleet" ships, I would say that "company" ships aren't really used anymore. Maybe disabling the "company"/"private ship" features for now, until some day when non-emperor gameplay makes more sense to have it.

I think it would make sense if we had 3 types of ships. Instead of just the 2 we have now.

* Military
* Civilian
* Personal

Military and Civilian are made and owned by your Empire. With Civilian following the Empire name. And the Military following the Military name, with the above suggestion.
Personal would be what is currently called "Company" ships.

Optionally, maybe more restrictions regarding armaments could be imposed on the Civilian ships. And give them a slight buff or advantage to speed, cargo hold, and/or harvesters.
Meanwhile, Military ships are able to be better armed, and be able to take more of a beating.

Either way, I think "Company" ships would be better to be called "Personal" ships. Would overall make more sense for a new player, I think.

Private/personal ships were nice back in the day when you could be a non-emperor player in someone else's empire. But after "open empires" stopped being a thing and we became able to respawn empire owned ships, it just stopped mattering. In singleplayer as we have it now, there is no other emperor that can steal control of your ship. So currently it just seems like it will needlessly confuse new players a bit with no benefits.

As for the whole separation between civilian and military ships. We don't really have many civilian only uses for ships, we can easily use a military ship for cargo hauling or exploration. So it doesn't seem entirely needed at present, unless we really want more restrictions on spacecraft designing or have large areas of the gameplay completely overhauled.

For now, you can just name your ships yourself. I like giving my military ships the identifier "F.F.S." ("Foxtail Federal Starship"), but i could use a different identifier for my non-miliary ship or use none at all.