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Author Topic: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2  (Read 56130 times)

PCCL

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #15 on: April 08, 2013, 04:48:40 PM »

What about infernium drive? Assuming the battle drive is something else (conventional drive?)

also I agree with gothars that boarding should be a bit more complex, while I understand why you would want the game to be simple, this is a decision that is both optional (don't board if u don't want to, it's as or more expensive than buying/building anyway) and has no time pressure (one can sit and ponder on what to/not to board all one wants)

I like the idea of having a few ships surviving and the player can choose which one to board, maybe even board multiple ships

I think this system would work well, after boarding one ship successfully or otherwise, you return to the battle aftermath screen with the boarded target updated to either sabotaged, boarded, disabled or escaped (depending on outcome) and the rest of the boardable ships get a random chance to update to escaped, sabotaged, or surrendered depending on CR, damage sustained after disable, and speed, among other things. Then you choose another ship and board again if you want (repeating the process of boarding the first one), this will continue until either there are no more boardable ships left in the field or the player chooses to disengage


Quote
Not sure what you mean, could you explain in a little more detail?

I think he's trying to say when a ship is near the edge of the map and wants to retreat, does it have to take most systems offline to do some sort of a charge-up process before travel driving out, or is the process immediate?
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Flare

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #16 on: April 08, 2013, 05:04:11 PM »

I suggest the travel drive be called the torch drive, based on similarities to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchship.
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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?"

Gothars

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #17 on: April 08, 2013, 05:06:28 PM »

It may or may not be a good thing to allow choice here (i.e. pick one, the rest get away!). Perhaps the "engage" option would even engage all of them, while board meant all but the one being boarded got away... hmm.

Ha, that would have been my follow-up suggestion :)
I feel that choice would actually be more important that the marines/crew slider (whose amount you pre-select via the ships crew-capacity anyway).

Balancing for remote boarding seems to work from your description (not that I really expected it not to)... my 200 marines would cost 60000 credits!


(And yes, pursuees is a proper word, too rarely used.)

Another element to test against boarding cost:reward would be to have derelict ships classified as "refurbished xxxx," being a version of the same ship but has ever so slightly lowered stats.  That way the player is motivated to actually by a ship once in a while!
Hmm, neat idea. I like it! Will keep it in mind as a potential solution for any boarding related problems that may develop down the line.

I would not like it, it would be hard to get attached to such a inferior ship. If boarding is such a expansive and difficult undertaking I want unspoiled rewards at the end. Otherwise you could just scratch the mechanic altogether, at least that's how I feel.


What about infernium drive? Assuming the battle drive is something else (conventional drive?)

I like the sound very much, but it implies the use of infernium, which is false.

Torch drive doesn't sound bad either, but has some false implications, too (if you know Heinlein).

Hm...how about blaze drive?



« Last Edit: April 08, 2013, 05:18:04 PM by Gothars »
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PCCL

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #18 on: April 08, 2013, 05:10:07 PM »

wait, you don't?

then what does infernium do?
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Gothars

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #19 on: April 08, 2013, 05:19:58 PM »

wait, you don't?

then what does infernium do?


It's for interstellar travel. We are talking about the drive for interplanetary travel.

If those two will be differentiated in the end I don't know for sure.
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Wyvern

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #20 on: April 08, 2013, 05:21:11 PM »

Another element to test against boarding cost:reward would be to have derelict ships classified as "refurbished xxxx," being a version of the same ship but has ever so slightly lowered stats.  That way the player is motivated to actually by a ship once in a while!

Hmm, neat idea. I like it! Will keep it in mind as a potential solution for any boarding related problems that may develop down the line.
I don't like this idea - it makes boarding feel useless as an option to get any sort of warship.  (Note: Not actually useless - even a permanently low CR Paragon would still be a capital ship - but feel useless, as in, why should I spend resources trying to board when it's not going to be as good as the real thing anyway?)
That said, I would be in favor of a successfully boarded ship starting at extremely low CR, and possibly having (temporary) penalties that make it take longer / more supplies to raise its CR.  Perhaps you need an actual shipyard (or an appropriate skill) to fully refurbish such a ship, and until then its CR caps out at half the normal maximum?
Temporary penalties are fine & appropriate; having it permanently inferior to a purchased ship... I don't like that.

Plus, given the lore... wouldn't just about any ship in the sector count as "refurbished" anyway?  Especially once it's survived a battle or two?
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PCCL

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #21 on: April 08, 2013, 05:26:10 PM »

I agree, if a ship that got repaired (from disable or low health) doesn't get permanent stat decrease, I don't think a boarded one should

maybe they should start out at %0 CR with a few weeks of CR grow rate debuff as the crew gets used to the ship and iron out the kinks though

EDIT:
Quote
It's for interstellar travel.

I see, so the fuel in game that's currently useless would be infernium then, I assume

well, my headcanon thinks there's 3 kinds of drives:
conventional drive (battle drive), infernium drive (interplanetary drive), and hyper drive (FTL drive)

I don't think it was ever said specifically that infernium is only used for FTL anyway, was it?
« Last Edit: April 08, 2013, 05:30:44 PM by gunnyfreak »
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FlashFrozen

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #22 on: April 08, 2013, 05:28:33 PM »

As a question, do the drives have a significant chargeup or effect like deactivation of weapons/shields to be used?

Not sure what you mean, could you explain in a little more detail?

It might just of been my own misinterpretation that ships enter AND exit the battlefield with the travel drive, so iwas under the assumption
that when say the retreating ships reach the border and use the drive to escape, it would have to shut off other ship systems in a period of brief defenceless to activate it for the getaway,

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Gothars

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #23 on: April 08, 2013, 05:32:51 PM »

@ Wyvern: Fully agree.


Another thought about the marines/crew slider (those are sliders, right?): Is there any scenario where you'd want to send in crew before exhausting your marine reserves? Can't think of one right now. If not: You could just make it one slider that selects all marines first and only if you keep dragging it to the right selects crew, too. Bit simpler.
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Karlito

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #24 on: April 08, 2013, 05:35:14 PM »

Will ships whose combat engines are damaged be able to engage their travel drives?
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naufrago

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #25 on: April 08, 2013, 06:29:19 PM »

Had a read through the latest blog. So far, it seems pretty fun and it gave me a few ideas.

Maybe instead of a random chance to board one ship, boarding could be one of the options after winning a battle (being mutually exclusive with salvage and that other stuff). You'd then get to choose which ship you want to board, and you may pick one that can't actually be repaired pick one or more of the disabled ships you want to board (could display estimated odds of repairing the ship). EDIT: I should clarify, it would pretty much work the way you described what with random chances and all that, it would just be worked into the existing framework a little differently. It would also add a little more risk/reward (do I choose guaranteed extra loot, or a chance at a "shiny" new ship?).

Lore reason could be that the surviving crew on all the disabled ships do their best to bring their systems back online. If they're successful, they can break away while you're boarding the other craft. If they fail, they may sabotage whatever's still usable out of spite for you. In both cases, it means less salvaged loot than if you choose to scrap them before they have the opportunity to do either.


I also couldn't help but notice that you mentioned something about looking into fighter mechanics... so I'm going to shamelessly *** out this thread here: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5910.0. I quite like the idea I came up with about fighters costing CR to be repaired and, most importantly, rebuilt. To summarize my idea, a destroyed fighter wing isn't necessarily gone. As long as it has enough CR, it can be replaced. However if the fighter wing is destroyed and its CR is too low, it's permanently gone.

I dunno, I just feel like it's too easy to completely destroy fighters. And frankly, it doesn't make sense that I can have 1 Wasp remaining and have it be restored to full strength, but the moment that last Wasp is destroyed it's gone for good. With CR, though, you could make each individual fighter have a specific CR cost to rebuild/repair it. For example, reconstructing Wasps could cost 4 or 5% of its CR per fighter. Reconstructing Xyphos(es?) could cost 15% of its CR per fighter. Lots of fun stuff you can do with it.

EDIT: Lore reason could be that as long as you have one full fighter, you can use that to make copies up to whatever the DRM allows you to keep in storage. Once the last one's gone, no more copies since there's nothing to copy. How many you're allowed to have deployed at one time is also constrained by the DRM. It's a bit contrived, but it makes a bit more sense than what we have now =p
« Last Edit: April 08, 2013, 07:08:23 PM by naufrago »
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Blackoth

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #26 on: April 08, 2013, 06:53:18 PM »

As always Alex, you have awesome ideas when it comes to game mechanics, i am looking forward to these changes! 

Would it be possible in the future to think about incorporating the idea of leveling up marines like we do with crew? successful boarding missions will promote some marines to be better in boarding actions?  Veterans? Sargents? Captains? Combat Engineers?

I am a huge fan of Warhammer 40k books, and always have one in the process of being read (from time to time they have really great ship to ship battles and boarding assaults), space sims always seem to be lacking in depth boarding mechanics.

Ill stop dreaming now, but seriously, keep up the awesome work!
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icepick37

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #27 on: April 08, 2013, 06:54:37 PM »

Another element to test against boarding cost:reward would be to have derelict ships classified as "refurbished xxxx," being a version of the same ship but has ever so slightly lowered stats.  That way the player is motivated to actually by a ship once in a while!

Hmm, neat idea. I like it! Will keep it in mind as a potential solution for any boarding related problems that may develop down the line.
So how far does this rabbit hole go? If someone captures a ship, then you capture it, is it doubly hit with the refurb cost?

I agree, if a ship that got repaired (from disable or low health) doesn't get permanent stat decrease, I don't think a boarded one should

maybe they should start out at %0 CR with a few weeks of CR grow rate debuff as the crew gets used to the ship and iron out the kinks though
Maybe reduced (greatly reduced?) CR until you get to a specific type of station? You could make the station not cheap. Thus making sure the captured ships still cost a lot, and they'd be risky lugged out in space. Not sure if another layered mechanic is really called for, though.
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Alex

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #28 on: April 08, 2013, 08:03:43 PM »

As a question, do the drives have a significant chargeup or effect like deactivation of weapons/shields to be used?

Not sure what you mean, could you explain in a little more detail?

It might just of been my own misinterpretation that ships enter AND exit the battlefield with the travel drive, so iwas under the assumption
that when say the retreating ships reach the border and use the drive to escape, it would have to shut off other ship systems in a period of brief defenceless to activate it for the getaway,

Ah, I see. Not *really*. The ship using it can't do anything else, but it doesn't take long to kick in - a second or two of acceleration. At that point, the ship's been pursued for a while, so it'd be just too cruel to have a windup time for it. Not like it can be used in the middle of combat to get away, you know?


@ Wyvern: Fully agree.

Right; I was thinking this could be useful IF boarding proves to be too powerful for whatever reason. Then you could have a "limited success" outcome where the ship is still captured, but has that debuff.


Another thought about the marines/crew slider (those are sliders, right?): Is there any scenario where you'd want to send in crew before exhausting your marine reserves? Can't think of one right now. If not: You could just make it one slider that selects all marines first and only if you keep dragging it to the right selects crew, too. Bit simpler.

Probably not now, but it depends on what else marines might be good for later on.


Will ships whose combat engines are damaged be able to engage their travel drives?

Not if they're totally flamed out. Partially flamed out is ok.


Had a read through the latest blog. So far, it seems pretty fun and it gave me a few ideas.

Maybe instead of a random chance to board one ship, boarding could be one of the options after winning a battle (being mutually exclusive with salvage and that other stuff). You'd then get to choose which ship you want to board, and you may pick one that can't actually be repaired pick one or more of the disabled ships you want to board (could display estimated odds of repairing the ship). EDIT: I should clarify, it would pretty much work the way you described what with random chances and all that, it would just be worked into the existing framework a little differently. It would also add a little more risk/reward (do I choose guaranteed extra loot, or a chance at a "shiny" new ship?).

Lore reason could be that the surviving crew on all the disabled ships do their best to bring their systems back online. If they're successful, they can break away while you're boarding the other craft. If they fail, they may sabotage whatever's still usable out of spite for you. In both cases, it means less salvaged loot than if you choose to scrap them before they have the opportunity to do either.

I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure that's actually *better*. Not sure it's worse, either, but it definitely doesn't fit in as nicely code-wise, because now you've got different cases fo the "after engagement" choice, depending on whether it's the last engagement in the encounter and whether boarding is going to occur...

I also couldn't help but notice that you mentioned something about looking into fighter mechanics... so I'm going to shamelessly *** out this thread here: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5910.0. I quite like the idea I came up with about fighters costing CR to be repaired and, most importantly, rebuilt. To summarize my idea, a destroyed fighter wing isn't necessarily gone. As long as it has enough CR, it can be replaced. However if the fighter wing is destroyed and its CR is too low, it's permanently gone.

I dunno, I just feel like it's too easy to completely destroy fighters. And frankly, it doesn't make sense that I can have 1 Wasp remaining and have it be restored to full strength, but the moment that last Wasp is destroyed it's gone for good. With CR, though, you could make each individual fighter have a specific CR cost to rebuild/repair it. For example, reconstructing Wasps could cost 4 or 5% of its CR per fighter. Reconstructing Xyphos(es?) could cost 15% of its CR per fighter. Lots of fun stuff you can do with it.

EDIT: Lore reason could be that as long as you have one full fighter, you can use that to make copies up to whatever the DRM allows you to keep in storage. Once the last one's gone, no more copies since there's nothing to copy. How many you're allowed to have deployed at one time is also constrained by the DRM. It's a bit contrived, but it makes a bit more sense than what we have now =p

Believe it or not, that's extremely close to what I'm thinking about. Just haven't 100% settled on that as the way to go :)


As always Alex, you have awesome ideas when it comes to game mechanics, i am looking forward to these changes! 

Would it be possible in the future to think about incorporating the idea of leveling up marines like we do with crew? successful boarding missions will promote some marines to be better in boarding actions?  Veterans? Sargents? Captains? Combat Engineers?

I am a huge fan of Warhammer 40k books, and always have one in the process of being read (from time to time they have really great ship to ship battles and boarding assaults), space sims always seem to be lacking in depth boarding mechanics.

Ill stop dreaming now, but seriously, keep up the awesome work!

Thanks!

As far as marine levels, maybe - once marines have a larger role in the game, I'll take another look. I think the reason space sims generally lack in-depth boarding mechanics is because they're, well, space sims :)


Another element to test against boarding cost:reward would be to have derelict ships classified as "refurbished xxxx," being a version of the same ship but has ever so slightly lowered stats.  That way the player is motivated to actually by a ship once in a while!

Hmm, neat idea. I like it! Will keep it in mind as a potential solution for any boarding related problems that may develop down the line.
So how far does this rabbit hole go? If someone captures a ship, then you capture it, is it doubly hit with the refurb cost?

Probably too far :)


(Boarded ships do start out at 0 CR, btw, as do disabled + repaired ones. No rate debuff, though.)
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naufrago

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Re: Fleet Encounter Mechanics, Part 2
« Reply #29 on: April 08, 2013, 08:45:53 PM »

Had a read through the latest blog. So far, it seems pretty fun and it gave me a few ideas.

Maybe instead of a random chance to board one ship, boarding could be one of the options after winning a battle (being mutually exclusive with salvage and that other stuff). You'd then get to choose which ship you want to board, and you may pick one that can't actually be repaired pick one or more of the disabled ships you want to board (could display estimated odds of repairing the ship). EDIT: I should clarify, it would pretty much work the way you described what with random chances and all that, it would just be worked into the existing framework a little differently. It would also add a little more risk/reward (do I choose guaranteed extra loot, or a chance at a "shiny" new ship?).

Lore reason could be that the surviving crew on all the disabled ships do their best to bring their systems back online. If they're successful, they can break away while you're boarding the other craft. If they fail, they may sabotage whatever's still usable out of spite for you. In both cases, it means less salvaged loot than if you choose to scrap them before they have the opportunity to do either.

I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure that's actually *better*. Not sure it's worse, either, but it definitely doesn't fit in as nicely code-wise, because now you've got different cases fo the "after engagement" choice, depending on whether it's the last engagement in the encounter and whether boarding is going to occur...

I think I might have the order in which things occur confused. When does looting happen? Is it after every engagement or at the end of the encounter?

Also, looking forward to the fighter changes. They could really use the love.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2013, 08:54:15 PM by naufrago »
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