How does logistics work?

From what I understand, each ship is worth a certain amount of logistics points. Most frigates are around 4-5, and the kodiak cruiser is about 10 ( I never use any of the other cruisers so I dont know their points), and all capital ships are worth 40. Now, each planet will expand the amount of logistics points available to you. You can also upgrade your planets to provide more, however, different planets support different amounts of ships. Also I'm pretty sure Logistics is hard-capped at 2000 ,which is usually enough for large capital ship fleets, as well as enough to garrison against insurgents and marauders. Well, hope this helps some.

you are talking about the fleet cap, that is something different, logistics cap deals with refineries, light factories, cap ship factories, broadcast towers, and so one, the problem is that not all areas give you a good enough cap, and dead asteroids don't give you one at all,

That would probably make more sense, considering they're all listed under logistics. Oh well, I've been playing too much Gal Civ 2.

Thanks for the explanation.
Is there any reason behind the caps beside "The devs don't want you to build more"?
Why is it so unthinkable to produce ships worth of 2001 points? Why would a light shipyard around a dead asteroid make the universe collaps?

The likely answer is propably: "Because without this rule the players would construct silly amounts of ships." That would be admitting to bad game-design.
Perhaps the developers should rather think about effectiveness and upkeep instead of caps. A capital shipyard around a dead asteroid that can't produce metal itself will surely be ineffective, but it's not impossible. 51 capital ships will be be expensive, but they're not impossible.

while I did not beta test beta 1, I have seen pics of very large fleet sizes in beta 1, and that the game engine couldn't handle that amount,

I recall a few large battles from beta 1, the limiting factor was more so the computer the game was on...

I don't think the game-engine runs out of juice when two factions are in a game and one of them attempts to build the 101st capital ship (two factions with 2000 points each, 101 capital ships at 40 points each = 4040 points). 101 units isn't really a high number, is it?
Still someone at Ironclad thought that a magical barrier that makes it absolutely impossible to construct this 101st capital ship was a good idea...
Also this doesn't solve the mytery of the dead asteroid that propably shoots death-rays at every shipyard in it's vicinity but spares gauss-cannons for some meta-physical reason.

Please note that I'm not talking about the actual number of capital ships. I just can't believe that anyone in their right mind thinks that a magical cap is good game-design. 20 years ago caps fulfilled the purpose of preventing array-out-of-bounds errors. We're beyond that age. Now we can make proper game-mechanisms that actually make sense if we just think hard enough.

A civilization can only field so many units before things cease to be functional (hell, just look at the U.S. government).  It's hardly unrealistic that players are tasked with deciding how and where to allocate finite resources whether that be metal, crystal, credits or the logistics required to run a government. Capital ships require more logistics because they're huge compared to frigates or cruisers. If you want to field nothing but capital ships, knock yourself out.

You can't build logistics structures on dead asteroids because you actually need civilians to work at these things. People don't like to torn away from their home and family to be stuck on some space station working at a frigate factory somewhere in dead space. Tactical structures are different, because then you only have military personnel manning them, and they do accept to be torn away from home/family, etc.

The explanations here were all excellent but I'd like to add a few thoughts. The decision to place limits on building things didn't come lightly and it wasn't due to technical reasons. Sins can handle thousands of units and we've tested up to 1000 of those units on screen at once. The primary reason (among many) was that the beta 1 feedback strongly suggested that we needed to force players to make a higher number of "hard" decisions and one of the most effective ways to do this is to place limits on where and what they can build. Generally, the feedback on this decision has been quite favourable even despite the fact that almost everyone agrees that the logistics cap is too low (we will be addressing this shortly).

Finally, it is VERY easy to changing Sins back into the system that had no restrictions on structure or ship building by modifying a couple values in a text file. As always, we'll be analzying all the feedback and evolving Sins as neccessary - nothing is set in stone until this puppy ships

I like the restrictions system, but right now it just seems to tight.

In febuary 2008 ill be getting a PUPPY?? haha

I do understand what vain is saying, but i also see the preformance problem and the need for more strategic battles.

Im not in the favor of unit caps, but it has actualy been, quit fun to have logistic put in. You now think more about your capital ships. You sure dont wanna loss a lvl 5 or above cap ship anymore, as they are quit powerful now.

About the preformace issue, i can tell you in beta 1, we had the chance to build as many ships, as we wanted to, but at the cost, that the game would become VERY slow and laggy.
I used a P4 3.5ghz, 7800gs+ AGP, 3GB ram. Most players will be using a PC around those specs, even the rich guys at Stardock (cough, yarlen, kryo, Zoomba) use systems like this.

Heres screenshots of a battle in beta 1, where the frames per second was below 20.

haha I remember those days.... seems so long ago...

remember? Yarlen use to be nice to us, and drink much less...

Yeah, those were the good old days..

What I'm on about is not "I want to build infinite units". I really don't want that.
However, when I look at any army in recorded history there has never been a unit cap. The Soviet Union didn't run out of fleet points. They didn't invade Iraq because of the amount of logistics points it has.

If you agree to this you see that these caps are not how it works in real life. If you acknowledge that fact you should start thinking: "So why didn't they build infinite units in the cold war?" That's because armies are expensive to keep up. Upkeep versus income is the mechanism that controls the amount of military units that can be built by any faction. Actually the amount of money needed to maintain a certain number of military units is growing exponentially with that number. That is a very simple mechanism that is just as easy as the fleet points-concept, but it actually makes sense(tm) and is even more powerful than the fleet-points-cap.
Similarly, there isn't a logistics cap in Alaska. There isn't a restriction on the number of buildings. So why didn't they build silicon valley in Alaska? Because it'd be "ineffective". The amount of necessary money per unit of benefit would be higher if it was like that. This thought introduces the concept of effectivity of any given structure as a function of it's location.
And now you can see why a capital shipyard around a dead asteroid is possible, but not effective. The contruction cost of a capital ship would be ten times higher than if it was located around a more suitable planet, but it is generally possible. Effectivity is also a very simple concept that is even easier to understand than a magic logistics-cap. Every player, regardless of his experience, already understands what a bad effectivity means. And while being easy to understand it is immensily powerful and introduces new possibilities to structures.

Do you now see what I mean? I don't like games that use magic caps to restrict me until I am forced to behave the way the developers wanted me to. I like games that are designed so that the way it's meant to be played is the most sensful way to play.

Vain, it takes time and effort to implement detailed mechanics. I mean, consider the fact that you might want to build ships out of other metals or other crystals. You shouldn't be limited to those two resources, right? If the devs accounted for every possibility, the game would never be done.

Limits here are the most elegant and simple way to keep ship numbers from getting out of control. Unless this game ends up having a detailed interplay between military, the pursestrings of government, and the military suppliers, there has to be some kind of mechanical solution. A generalized upkeep is just as gamey as a strict limit.

If I'm drinking more now, it's only because you two drive me to it!   

And Multianna's old PC is better than mine, so pfft!

They should add a single button option that would would alter a game to remove all limitations for people to try out an open ended system when released. Maybe it can be called the "ludicrous option".

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