I have been posting about Corporations in 4X for a while (instead of player producing everything on each planet separately). Now next iteration of the concept.

I would limit corporations to producing ships only (ignore food, research, etc, these would be done different way, probably produced by planets traditionally). Also, it seems logical that a corporation not only produces but also designs a ship (each corporations specializing in making some kind of ships better).

How I see it:

- you have 3-5 corporation in the Empire

- each corporation has certain production capacity (like number of factories on all planets in the empire / by the number of corporations), so you can't order all ships in just one corporation; each corporation also has its own production queue (logical)

- as the Emperor, you just pay money to the corporation and order the ship, the corporation will deliever

- research unlocks new hulls and components, each corporation can use the researched stuff (but to produce some stuff the corporation needs to invest in some upgrades)

- when you want a ship done (let's say you researched Destroyer hull) you need to order a design from a corporation. Several corporations can design/produce Destroyers but these are separate ships (like "Destroyer-HI" made by "Heavy Industries" and "Destroyer-AC" made by "Astral Corp.", so each design has the initial of their producer in the name). You need to pay for the design (prototype is expensive). Once designed that corporation can produce that ship upon request.

- from time to time (several turns) a CEO of a corporation will request an audience and then ask what upgrade they should invest on (bigger production capacity, thicker armours, better engine boosters, etc), so these would specialize, for example if you wanted one corporation to specialize in making heavy battleships you would advice them to invest in armours not in engine boosters.

So, that's what I have so far. Comments/counterideas?

Idea: Let companies compete with eachother and go out of business or move to a different empire if you dont purchase from them enough. Having a small pool of large companies would let those companies have more funds for researching better ships but their monopoly would have higher prices. Having a large pool of small companies would allow for better ship prices at slower techological advancement. Also allow for different types of economic models with their own advantages and drawbacks.

Bump.

If you have something to add, post. I'm still looking for feedback on these.

I think the first thing you need to clarify is whether Empire is the sole buyer of these ships or these companies also sell ships to other "factions".