Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: 1 ... 13 14 [15] 16 17 ... 50

Author Topic: Blog Posts  (Read 337573 times)

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23988
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #210 on: January 01, 2012, 06:52:03 PM »

That, among with some related things, is likely to be the subject of a future blog post. The solution I've got in mind is a little unorthodox, so I'd like to make sure it actually works before blabbing about it :)
Logged

tinsoldier

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 144
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #211 on: January 02, 2012, 10:57:22 AM »

That, among with some related things, is likely to be the subject of a future blog post. The solution I've got in mind is a little unorthodox, so I'd like to make sure it actually works before blabbing about it :)

Ok, another question then.  How do you restock fighters?  Even in the best battle (say a 97% one I just now won) you tend to lose a handful of fighters.  Are they the type of thing that you can readily manufacture whilst out and about?  Would a series of 97% victories be a boon in terms of rewards and resources of a war of attrition as I lose irreplaceable assets a little at a time?
Logged

ollobrains

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 53
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #212 on: January 02, 2012, 02:00:48 PM »

eventually loot them off the enemy, maybe find abandoned high tech ones, repair what u have and manufacture or buy the rest
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23988
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #213 on: January 02, 2012, 03:41:10 PM »

Ok, another question then.  How do you restock fighters?  Even in the best battle (say a 97% one I just now won) you tend to lose a handful of fighters.  Are they the type of thing that you can readily manufacture whilst out and about?  Would a series of 97% victories be a boon in terms of rewards and resources of a war of attrition as I lose irreplaceable assets a little at a time?

If you actually lose an entire wing, they're gone. If any make it, then the wing is restored to full strength. That's how it works right now, anyway. I'm not entirely happy with a lack of a good in-fiction explanation here, but may just have to bite the bullet.
Logged

tinsoldier

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 144
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #214 on: January 02, 2012, 03:50:52 PM »

Ok, another question then.  How do you restock fighters?  Even in the best battle (say a 97% one I just now won) you tend to lose a handful of fighters.  Are they the type of thing that you can readily manufacture whilst out and about?  Would a series of 97% victories be a boon in terms of rewards and resources of a war of attrition as I lose irreplaceable assets a little at a time?

If you actually lose an entire wing, they're gone. If any make it, then the wing is restored to full strength. That's how it works right now, anyway. I'm not entirely happy with a lack of a good in-fiction explanation here, but may just have to bite the bullet.

Right, that's part of it.  But how do you replace the wing if it is lost completely?  Perhaps this ties into certain game play aspects that haven't been planned out but for the life of me I always tend to lose that one wing and there's seemingly nothing I can do about it.  I'd hate to think that despite a 97% victory there was actually a measurable lose overall, e.g. I cannot replace the wing without visiting some far off shipyard.  Considering that apparently you can lose 5 out of 6 fighters in a wing and re-build them mid-fight, you'd think the fighters should be easily to obtain but I'm worried it won't be  :'(
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23988
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #215 on: January 02, 2012, 04:10:47 PM »

I'm going to go ahead and play the "fighter AI needs love" card. That seems to be the main reason they're relatively easily lost.

Considering that apparently you can lose 5 out of 6 fighters in a wing and re-build them mid-fight, you'd think the fighters should be easily to obtain

Yeah, that's the part I'm not happy with. After all, if you can do that, what's to stop you from cranking out many, many wings? The only explanation I can come up with is it has something to do with the fighter blueprint - there's a "field blueprint" embedded in each fighter, which allows a carrier's mini-fac to crank out replacements, but the blueprint automatically deactivates when a wing is brought to full strength. The "master blueprint" for fighters allows the manufacture of new fighter wings, but requires a full-blown auto-factory. I can kind of see this being done by the Domain as an arms-control measure.

As far as replacing losses, fighters shouldn't be any harder to replace then ships, and they ought to be a lot cheaper - at least the light ones.
Logged

Dohon

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 47
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #216 on: January 02, 2012, 04:59:47 PM »

If you actually lose an entire wing, they're gone. If any make it, then the wing is restored to full strength. That's how it works right now, anyway. I'm not entirely happy with a lack of a good in-fiction explanation here, but may just have to bite the bullet.


Yeah, that's the part I'm not happy with. After all, if you can do that, what's to stop you from cranking out many, many wings? The only explanation I can come up with is it has something to do with the fighter blueprint - there's a "field blueprint" embedded in each fighter, which allows a carrier's mini-fac to crank out replacements, but the blueprint automatically deactivates when a wing is brought to full strength. The "master blueprint" for fighters allows the manufacture of new fighter wings, but requires a full-blown auto-factory. I can kind of see this being done by the Domain as an arms-control measure.

As far as replacing losses, fighters shouldn't be any harder to replace then ships, and they ought to be a lot cheaper - at least the light ones.

You could also look at it from a 'repair' point of view. While a carrier might have quite a lot of fighters in its hangarbays, it doesn't launch them all. Quite a lot of ships are non-active because of repairs or maintenance. When a fight breaks out, you can be sure that several fighters are grounded from active duty while engineers are working on them. As the battle progresses, those engineers race to refit and repair the grounded birds, making them battle-worthy. A damaged wing comes in for repairs and re-armaments, a few more ships might have been sufficiently repaired in order to launch. So, they rejoin a wing and launch alongside the next sortie. You now have a 'magically' refilled wing of fighters. :) Fighters from the main wave that managed to touch down, but are damaged are simply rotated out and the pilots jump into a new plane.

Kinda hard to explain why those 'reserve' fighters don't simply form a new wing of the old one is destroyed though. Perhaps that could be explained by stating that every active squad is led by a squadron leader and that forming a new squad on-the-fly from many different elements just wouldn't work under battlefield conditions. Or at least, not effective enough. But there are quite some holes in this theory of mine. :)
Logged
Into the fires of battle, unto the anvil of war! - Battlecry of the Salamanders, Space Marine Chapter, Warhammer 40.000. [...] for in the grim dark future there is only war.

ollobrains

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 53
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #217 on: January 02, 2012, 09:53:18 PM »

for more fighters u need more supplies, repair crews and storage that could be a drawback or a strategic decision
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23988
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #218 on: January 03, 2012, 10:20:02 AM »

...

Kinda hard to explain why those 'reserve' fighters don't simply form a new wing of the old one is destroyed though. Perhaps that could be explained by stating that every active squad is led by a squadron leader and that forming a new squad on-the-fly from many different elements just wouldn't work under battlefield conditions. Or at least, not effective enough. But there are quite some holes in this theory of mine. :)

Yeah, the whole thing is a little hard to explain in a way that makes sense on all counts :)
Logged

Flare

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 906
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #219 on: January 03, 2012, 03:31:12 PM »

Maybe the technology is in such poor shape that carriers need some part of the collective AI of the fighter wing to survive in order to build more of them? That being said, it still doesn't quite explain out of the way why the sides just can't produce crappy fighters en masse.
Logged
Quote from: Thana
Quote from: Alex

The battle station is not completely operational, shall we say.

"Now witness the firepower of this thoroughly buggy and unoperational batt... Oh, hell, you know what? Just ignore the battle station, okay?"

tinsoldier

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 144
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #220 on: January 03, 2012, 03:33:10 PM »

Maybe the technology is in such poor shape that carriers need some part of the collective AI of the fighter wing to survive in order to build more of them? That being said, it still doesn't quite explain out of the way why the sides just can't produce crappy fighters en masse.

The tactical and maneuvering computers get overwhelmed with too many more.  This could actually be a reasonable justification for tying the number of fighters to the number of carriers/flight-decks on the field.  Commander perks could improve this number.
Logged

ollobrains

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 53
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #221 on: January 04, 2012, 12:38:21 AM »

Tactical and maneurvering computers with to many things to target reasonably and justifyibly get overloaded and loose tracking or a less efficency based on more fighters out compared to the amount of control units ie carriers with fighter link computers or some such thing.
Logged

Flare

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 906
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #222 on: January 04, 2012, 02:36:27 AM »

The current mechanics needs explanation for several things that it currently does:

1. Is how in the carriers can replace fighter and bomber wings without any sort of material cost.

2. If they can replace wings with no material cost, what prominence does a surviving fighter wing have in that a carrier can't replace a wing if they don't have one surviving member of a wing return.

Though of course, we could always just go with the flow and say fighter are basically like missiles. What limits them is the processing power needed to control them effectively in battle just as what limits missiles are the amount of tubes you can shove them through off a ship. As such, all wings cost supplies to keep up. How this translates into flying back to the carrier to rearm and regroup I have no idea as it might seem a bit silly for the carrier to hold off five other fighters because one of them hasn't been downed yet.

This would make carriers far more dangerous to the point of breaking the game balance though. Then again, if you balance the supplies needed to produce a fighter well, frigates, capital ships, and patrol boats might come off as much more resource efficient than simply sending in a mass of fighters that could be more easily shot down. This sort of makes sense given that the larger the ship it is, it tends to sport bigger and more guns at a far cheaper price than the equivalent of many small ships with the same number of guns. Especially when it comes to repair costs (though importantly not repair time).
« Last Edit: January 04, 2012, 02:39:31 AM by Flare »
Logged
Quote from: Thana
Quote from: Alex

The battle station is not completely operational, shall we say.

"Now witness the firepower of this thoroughly buggy and unoperational batt... Oh, hell, you know what? Just ignore the battle station, okay?"

mendonca

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1159
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #223 on: January 04, 2012, 02:58:41 AM »

Given the lore and the limitations the current inhabitants have with respect to manufacturing, I feel relatively satisfied if you play the 'Arms Control' card with respect to fighters. It makes sense to have all losses and repairs cost 'supplies' though, perhaps balancing slightly against that pesky single wasp that always seems to get away ...

My take on the 'Arms Control' explanation:

A fighter wing is manufactured using a blueprint at an Auto-Factory somewhere, and the technology that goes in to all this assigns each wing with a unique reference number.

The technology that is present on a carrier flight deck can recreate a wing in accordance with the specification of that reference number, maintained in a database conceived many years ago intended to control and regulate the production and proliferation of arms. This database could be shared between all fighter producing technologies, either transparent to the factory operator or perhaps long forgotten about after the machinery specification was first set up.

The more limited 'repair-bays' aboard carrier flight decks can only reproduce fighters and bombers if they have this 'regulation' data (from the original manufacture process) to work with (i.e. the signature from at least one ship). If this wasn't the case, these carrier bays could, in theory, endlessly pump out fighters and bombers, which would be a serious threat in the wrong hands, and a concern for a weapons regulator.

Maintaining a set number of full wings (for defence purposes only), on the other hand, would be fine, and would be the kind of thing that an arms regulator might have originally be happy with when the equipment was designed.

And of course nowadays, no-one really knows how these things work anymore, so they are at a loss to change them from the original specification. They work how they work, despite it being a bit strange in a warfare situation.
Logged


"I'm doing it, I'm making them purple! No one can stop me!"

Thana

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 289
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #224 on: January 04, 2012, 03:19:09 AM »

A slightly more elaborate explanation (that, like any of the others offered, doesn't fully make sense but is a bit better than "please don't look behind the curtains) is that fighters are equipped with light-powered tractor beams that enable any fighters in a wing to pull their disabled companions back with them to be repaired above the carriers. Thus, so long as a single fighter remains, it can drag every damaged fighter in the wing with it and thus, when it returns to the carrier, the whole wing can be brought back to full strength. (Possibly requiring new crew members as pilots, though.) The limitations of this technology sharply limit the practical strength of these fighter-equipped tractor beams however, which is why smaller fightercraft can fly in larger formations than heavy fighters. And if he final fighter is destroyed, there's no one left to bring them back and they're lost amidst the battle.
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 13 14 [15] 16 17 ... 50