Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: Al_Ka_Pwn on March 18, 2012, 02:12:28 AM
-
A lot of people seem to want boarding actions to essentially take over the whole ship whenever they happen. I think this is the wrong way to approach it, not only b/c asking your marines to take out the entirety of a ship full of people in the middle of a sound really really hard, it also seem kind of counter intuitive to the thoughtful tactics of the game being able to put a ship down with one thing.
So I propose boarding actions work like this; Instead of taking the whole ship down, what you can do is target a specific system and order your marines to board in order to storm whatever is operating it, and hold it for as long as they can.
So say for instance you want to take some really big mean ship's guns offline so it will stop shooting. You will look at that ship in the tactical display where it will give you an estimate of how many people are on board and how experienced they are, and you will then select what you want to disable. Your marines will then launch and try to hit at a point where the shield is away or hit when the shield is down to burrow into the hull. How far away your assault shuttle burrows from the systems goes into determining how long it takes your marines to get there. The idea being that the gun room is probably near the gun, so if you board near the back of the ship your marines are gonna have to fight to get there
And the longer your marines have to walk the more people they will have to face and the more likely they are to take casualties. Once your marines get to the room they will take that system offline and then fortify themselves there and try to hold it to keep it offline as long as possible. whether they are able to hold it or how long they can hold it is determined by how many marines are on board, the skill of the crew, and if the ship is being put under any kind of pressure like being shot at, stuff that would force the crew to attend to it. The marines are recovered upon disabling the ship or winning the battle.
So you could do things like storm the ships engine room to disable thrusters, or the gunnery room to disable the firing of a specific gun. Or the shield room to take the shields offline. Or perhas storming the communications room so that the ship can't get orders from the AI leader and wonders off and around uselessly. Or perhaps on the enemy commanding ship, being able to storm the captain's quarters to stop him from using any command points until he switches ships.
-
The last point doesn't make much sense to me. How would the captain flee if there's a squad of marines in the bridge. And also, there should be a option to fully board a ship, for the smaller ones.
-
This is not the first time that this, or something like it, has been suggested, and it has the exact same problems that it did then.
1) Plausibility: How the hell are you supposed to get marines into an armored enemy ship in the middle of a raging firefight? Have you seen what machine guns do to missiles? And these are guided warheads moving probably thousands of kilometers a second. You think a squishy human being somehow can get through shields and armor when a freaking missile can't?
2) Implementation Practicality: You're asking the devs to essentially invent an entirely new mechanic (and scrap and old one) and backdate stats and dynamics for taking over a ship piecemeal in the middle of combat. Hell, the game doesn't even recognize efficiency loss when crew are killed in battle, and you want them to add this pointless, complicated, addition? When there's stuff like economy, campaign, character, and captains to be added?
There's a load of other issues inside these two broad categories, but the bottom line is that I think it's distracting and unnecessary. I've said that I'd like there to be more interesting boarding, but I think that should springboard off what we already have. More experienced marines, more boarding opportunities, different kinds of marines-- that sort of thing. I don't think that something like this will be implemented nor do I think it ought to be.
-
Yeah I think I'd prefer boarding to remain after combat for now, unless Alex has some super nifty idea... Seems like it should be hard to board another ship in combat, I mean think about those flak canons...
-
The last point doesn't make much sense to me. How would the captain flee if there's a squad of marines in the bridge. And also, there should be a option to fully board a ship, for the smaller ones.
Well the idea would be that the captain has locked himself up in a smaller emergency room while the marines have taken the main control room. It wouldn't be right that your marines could totally stop the enemy from giving any commands period but it would allow you a moment to make the captain vulnerable as he transfers to ships.
This is not the first time that this, or something like it, has been suggested, and it has the exact same problems that it did then.
1) Plausibility: How the hell are you supposed to get marines into an armored enemy ship in the middle of a raging firefight? Have you seen what machine guns do to missiles? And these are guided warheads moving probably thousands of kilometers a second. You think a squishy human being somehow can get through shields and armor when a freaking missile can't?
2) Implementation Practicality: You're asking the devs to essentially invent an entirely new mechanic (and scrap and old one) and backdate stats and dynamics for taking over a ship piecemeal in the middle of combat. Hell, the game doesn't even recognize efficiency loss when crew are killed in battle, and you want them to add this pointless, complicated, addition? When there's stuff like economy, campaign, character, and captains to be added?
There's a load of other issues inside these two broad categories, but the bottom line is that I think it's distracting and unnecessary. I've said that I'd like there to be more interesting boarding, but I think that should springboard off what we already have. More experienced marines, more boarding opportunities, different kinds of marines-- that sort of thing. I don't think that something like this will be implemented nor do I think it ought to be.
In response to 1: Troop carriers are not missiles, they are small little ships. Bombers are capable of ramming into the back of a ship, and so too would a troop carrier. Even though ships are able to tear up missiles, missiles do hit. Other games have implemented boarding and have it work just fine so it's not like some kind of new and mysterious mechanic that's never been done before and no one knows if it will work. Finally just because something is difficult to pull off does not mean it is unviable or impossible to do. Shutting down a system for what could be the rest of the match is very powerful and should be difficult.
In response to 2: I hate to be one of those people that goes "Oh implementing my idea can't possibly be that hard!" but in this instance I do not think it would be a unnecessary amount of work. The only sprite to be created would be the boarding ship and the rest of it would play out as a series of text messages and numbers, Perhaps a small little bar to let you know which way the battle is leaning. Also this doesn't demand the after battle boarding party be scrapped. Both can co-exist.
In addition to this the dev is building a game, the game is in development, he already is going to be backdating stats and dynamics so this is essentially boiling down to "The dev shouldn't do it, b/c the dev will have to do it" which would make sense were I demanding this be implemented at a certain date, which I'm not. Also saying that "this shouldn't be implemented EVER b/c other stuff is being worked on" is strange as well. What would be the point of having any suggestions for anything if we can't discuss anything until the perfect version of the game already exists? It's like those arguments that say "we shouldn't give to child's play b/c people are dying in Africa" as in we should give to no charity if we can't give to the most needed charity.
Also saying it's pointless and complicated assumes the premise of the discussion to already be true. At no point has anyone but you asserted that it would be either pointless or complex, and you've not given a good explanation for why you feel that way about either. I would in retort say that this system makes the game have more depth, and opens up a plethora of strategic options while giving a good risk to reward contrast. The stuff you describe about having more opportunities to board and having different types of maries implies that you would like to make boarding contextual instead of tactical, which is boring, it's like a quicktime event without the quick part. Also having different types of marines implies marine types would counter other marines. So would we then have a game where the Rock republic marines board the Scissor system marine's ship in order to win? This as well sounds terribly boring as well. If you think that those in contrast to what I have said would be the better option, well I would respectfully disagree.
-
In response to 1: Troop carriers are not missiles, they are small little ships. Bombers are capable of ramming into the back of a ship, and so too would a troop carrier. Even though ships are able to tear up missiles, missiles do hit. Other games have implemented boarding and have it work just fine so it's not like some kind of new and mysterious mechanic that's never been done before and no one knows if it will work. Finally just because something is difficult to pull off does not mean it is unviable or impossible to do. Shutting down a system for what could be the rest of the match is very powerful and should be difficult.
Think about what you're saying for a moment. You're talking about taking a ship, loading it with a bunch of squishy humans, plus their equipment, plus enough explosives need to bust through the armor, asking them to make a landing on a moving, shooting target at hundreds of kilometers of second. There is a wide gap between flying a rough intercept course so that you're withing weapons fire range and ***..... landing. Moreover, if you could breach the armor enough to access the hull in the first place, why bother with a troop transport at all? If you can put that much explosive in contact with the surface of a ship's hull-- not even a proximity detonation-- why not just send a missile? How are those marines supposed to get out? Do they just stay there? If their assault transport burrowed in, then it's still inside the enemy ship, meaning it's still vulnerable to fire as it exits. Who would sign up for that operation? There's not even any guarantee that friendly weapons fire won't come in.
The bottom line is that if you wanted a battery dead, you'd shoot at it. If sending marines to destroy batteries were an effective solution at disabling ships, then what the hell is the point of weapons? The capabilities of human beings in space, compared to beams, slugs, and guided munitions are incomparable. A space navy is not a wet navy. Don't let mediocre, institutionalized sci fi tropes become reality to you.
In response to 2: I hate to be one of those people that goes "Oh implementing my idea can't possibly be that hard!" but in this instance I do not think it would be a unnecessary amount of work. The only sprite to be created would be the boarding ship and the rest of it would play out as a series of text messages and numbers, Perhaps a small little bar to let you know which way the battle is leaning. Also this doesn't demand the after battle boarding party be scrapped. Both can co-exist.
No, it wouldn't just be a series of text messages. It'd be an in-game UI as well, an entirely new series of ships, mechanics for which batteries offer what kind of resistance. It would also require entirely new AI routines determining how ships react to boarding parties, react while under boarding party action, and react after they've been taken.
In addition to this the dev is building a game, the game is in development, he already is going to be backdating stats and dynamics so this is essentially boiling down to "The dev shouldn't do it, b/c the dev will have to do it" which would make sense were I demanding this be implemented at a certain date, which I'm not. Also saying that "this shouldn't be implemented EVER b/c other stuff is being worked on" is strange as well. What would be the point of having any suggestions for anything if we can't discuss anything until the perfect version of the game already exists? It's like those arguments that say "we shouldn't give to child's play b/c people are dying in Africa" as in we should give to no charity if we can't give to the most needed charity.
This entire thing is asinine. You realize that fractalsoftworks is basically Alex right? There's one other guy that does the art, one guy that does the lore, but all the coding, as of his interview, is done by Alex. His time and attention are EXTREMELY finite. That he's as reactive as he is with rebalancing and adding new content is a blessing enough, but he has said-- HIMSELF-- that time spent on adding petty guns and extra features is time not spent on the campaign. And you want him to, what, stop making the game move forward so you can nurse Battlestar Galactica fantasies?
Also saying it's pointless and complicated assumes the premise of the discussion to already be true. At no point has anyone but you asserted that it would be either pointless or complex, and you've not given a good explanation for why you feel that way about either. I would in retort say that this system makes the game have more depth, and opens up a plethora of strategic options while giving a good risk to reward contrast. The stuff you describe about having more opportunities to board and having different types of maries implies that you would like to make boarding contextual instead of tactical, which is boring, it's like a quicktime event without the quick part. Also having different types of marines implies marine types would counter other marines. So would we then have a game where the Rock republic marines board the Scissor system marine's ship in order to win? This as well sounds terribly boring as well. If you think that those in contrast to what I have said would be the better option, well I would respectfully disagree.
'Strategic options' like forcing me to pause my menu and break up the combat even more. 'Strategic options' like selecting a target like I always do, and giving some kind of stupid order to board. I'm not going to lie, my personal, biggest problem with this suggestion is that I think it's utterly implausible, but that doesn't mean I don't have mechanical issues with this beyond the problems of coding boarding, which, of course, you haven't considered at all. Boarding one ship is one thing, but how are you supposed to track the hostile boarding action attempts across an entire fleet? And your own hostile boarding actions? I'm not just talking about how the game could give you that information, but how you, the player, are supposed to even keep it all in mind?
There is good complexity and bad complexity, and this is bad complexity. Some people like to play this game more individually, some more tactically. I'm somewhere in the middle, but that doesn't mean I'm ok with this many interruptions and distractions. The difference between my suggestions and your suggestions are that I'm not asking for much, and the changes aren't much either. You're asking for a LOT and your changes are paradigm shifting. And no, at no point did I suggest an RPS approach to marine types. I merely meant a distinction between marines for boarding action, marines for zero g station action, and marines for planetary action.
-
I think that this is far too involved a way of handling boarding actions. The focus in a battle should always be the ships. Personally, I do not want to have to twiddle between interfaces all the time to manage my marines. I don't want to manage my marines at all. The current fleet interface was designed to enable only broad fleet commands, allowing you to focus your attention on one ship while your fleet largely manages itself, and that is something I like a lot.
IF combat boarding is to be a game mechanic, it should be simple, fast, and operate much like any other weapon. The effects of a boarding action should not be tactical so much as strategic. If I can commit a few tubs of marines to increasing my chance of capturing a ship after a battle, then great, but the play should be simple, the risk should be high, and you should have to weaken a ship first for the action to even be possible (stripping the armor off a section of hull, for example). If you treat boarding pods as slow, guided torpedoes, all you really need to do is work out what they target, and figure out a simple way of calculating their effect on a ship (a one time crew vs. marines calculation). Minimal complexity, minimal fuss.
-
1) Plausibility: How the hell are you supposed to get marines into an armored enemy ship in the middle of a raging firefight? Have you seen what machine guns do to missiles? And these are guided warheads moving probably thousands of kilometers a second. You think a squishy human being somehow can get through shields and armor when a freaking missile can't?
And slow down smoothly enough that the people inside don't turn into hamburger without getting hit by AA.
-
1) Plausibility: How the hell are you supposed to get marines into an armored enemy ship in the middle of a raging firefight? Have you seen what machine guns do to missiles? And these are guided warheads moving probably thousands of kilometers a second. You think a squishy human being somehow can get through shields and armor when a freaking missile can't?
And slow down smoothly enough that the people inside don't turn into hamburger without getting hit by AA.
Very plausible, use a hyperdrive to get yourself inside enemy shields, or just use short range teleporters to beam marines from one ship to another completely bypassing the boarding pods :D
-
Very plausible, use a hyperdrive to get yourself inside enemy shields, or just use short range teleporters to beam marines from one ship to another completely bypassing the boarding pods :D
Assuming a hyperdrive could pass through objects (i don't think so), the marines would get torn apart by the Force needed to accelerate them to that speed...
also, how does a marine break? Shoot?
I don't know about teleporters,
don't think they exist in starfarer or there are anti-teleporter...
because if not... i'd teleport a torpedo inside an enemy ship
-
Very plausible, use a hyperdrive to get yourself inside enemy shields, or just use short range teleporters to beam marines from one ship to another completely bypassing the boarding pods :D
Assuming a hyperdrive could pass through objects (i don't think so), the marines would get torn apart by the Force needed to accelerate them to that speed...
also, how does a marine break? Shoot?
I don't know about teleporters,
don't think they exist in starfarer or there are anti-teleporter...
because if not... i'd teleport a torpedo inside an enemy ship
If teleporters don't exist, just say the tritachs found them in some old domain ship or planet :) , and as for the hyperdrive, if you can't handle the stress, you would not survive system jumping (you can try that with the torpedo, but i think it'll just get yourself into more trouble :D)
-
Very plausible, use a hyperdrive to get yourself inside enemy shields, or just use short range teleporters to beam marines from one ship to another completely bypassing the boarding pods :D
If hyperdrives could pass through shield and are accurate enough to slip them in between the ship and the shields, I frankly think there'd really be no use for shield or heavy armor at all. All anyone would really need to do is stuff a missile with explosives and install a hyperdrive into it and let it slip through every defence into the opposing ship. Or you know, release a toxin and take the ship later.
-
Very plausible, use a hyperdrive to get yourself inside enemy shields, or just use short range teleporters to beam marines from one ship to another completely bypassing the boarding pods :D
If hyperdrives could pass through shield and are accurate enough to slip them in between the ship and the shields, I frankly think there'd really be no use for shield or heavy armor at all. All anyone would really need to do is stuff a missile with explosives and install a hyperdrive into it and let it slip through every defence into the opposing ship. Or you know, release a toxin and take the ship later.
You know. Last time someone tried to mount a hyperdrive on a missile the ship went to hell..... And as for gases, how would go to teleport such if it only teleports organic matter? :)
-
And as for gases, how would go to teleport such if it only teleports organic matter? :)
How about some horribly virulent disease? Ebola!
-
If teleporters don't exist, just say the tritachs found them in some old domain ship or planet :) , and as for the hyperdrive, if you can't handle the stress, you would not survive system jumping (you can try that with the torpedo, but i think it'll just get yourself into more trouble :D)
It's not about the stress... it's about g-force... i mean, you can survive 25G, 30G, maybe 40G if you're lucky... but not 10.000.000G!!
in a ship you probably got systems to negate the g-forces inside...
and you can't stop in time, you would need engines to deaccelerate you...
why would i get myself into trouble when i teleport a torpedo?
-
I think that this is far too involved a way of handling boarding actions. The focus in a battle should always be the ships. Personally, I do not want to have to twiddle between interfaces all the time to manage my marines
This. I think that ships move so fast in battle that boarding anything but a disabled or surrendering ship in general is pretty ridiculous, anyway, so boarding should be saved for after the battle.
-
Very plausible, use a hyperdrive to get yourself inside enemy shields, or just use short range teleporters to beam marines from one ship to another completely bypassing the boarding pods :D
If hyperdrives could pass through shield and are accurate enough to slip them in between the ship and the shields, I frankly think there'd really be no use for shield or heavy armor at all. All anyone would really need to do is stuff a missile with explosives and install a hyperdrive into it and let it slip through every defence into the opposing ship. Or you know, release a toxin and take the ship later.
You know. Last time someone tried to mount a hyperdrive on a missile the ship went to hell..... And as for gases, how would go to teleport such if it only teleports organic matter? :)
That makes no goddamned sense. Matter is matter is matter. If you can make it teleport, then you've already gone beyond arbitrary distinctions like 'organic' and 'inorganic'.
Nevermind the fact that if it only teleports organic matter, then the only thing you'll be teleporting is naked, unarmed, marines.
-
Hi,
Forgive me if I missed a point from the above posts.
But what about a Orion 2 style boarding action? (i'm talking about the invading planets battle)
Instead of there being a "mini game" just a simple animation that the player can skip/ignore if need be?
This way it would give the player some kind of graphic reward for updating your marines etc rather than just stats.
It would also give the player animations in regards to ship systems that are designed for anti boarding (blast doors etc)
I suppose this is just a bit of polish however, its something that worked well in Orion (I think anyway).
This would have to be something that happens whilst the game continues (not to interrupt the action)
Or at the conclusion of the battle.
Maybe some kind of smaller window that pops up near the ship in question, just give a run down of whats happening if you care to notice.
However it wouldnt be controlled by the player or require input by the player during the fight, maybe something could be implimented during the refit to give the player a small amount of control.
Once again nothing that would interrupt the battle. Purely an automated process during the fight, nil player input.
Thoughts?
-
Hi,
Forgive me if I missed a point from the above posts.
But what about a Orion 2 style boarding action? (i'm talking about the invading planets battle)
Instead of there being a "mini game" just a simple animation that the player can skip/ignore if need be?
This way it would give the player some kind of graphic reward for updating your marines etc rather than just stats.
It would also give the player animations in regards to ship systems that are designed for anti boarding (blast doors etc)
I suppose this is just a bit of polish however, its something that worked well in Orion (I think anyway).
This would have to be something that happens whilst the game continues (not to interrupt the action)
Or at the conclusion of the battle.
Maybe some kind of smaller window that pops up near the ship in question, just give a run down of whats happening if you care to notice.
However it wouldnt be controlled by the player or require input by the player during the fight, maybe something could be implimented during the refit to give the player a small amount of control.
Once again nothing that would interrupt the battle. Purely an automated process during the fight, nil player input.
Thoughts?
I'm sorry but this is straight up necro. You have a good idea but you should have made your own thread. But hey welcome to the forums.
-
And necroing again. ^^
By the way, this thread is linked to "often made suggestions" here in the subforum....starting a new thread would make another wiseass appear and say "hey, we have already discussed this..."
Anyway, as far as I have red, the following arguments have been done against it:
1. to complicated, especially for the devs
2. hard to get a marine from ship A to ship B in combat
I don´t think so. For starters, mayn players here play this game tactical, they rarely drive their ship in combat...they just give orders and let the ai fight. So far to "this is too much for a player to control".
-Apply marines via special fighter wings with tons of losses(aka boarding shuttle). Also add new ship modules for frigates and larger, who just open the gates(airlocks) for short range space jumps by marine companies after ramming an enemy vessels and having it´s shield down (mucho losses included too). According to the fact, that I get rammed by enemy ships all the time in combat, this is quite a realistic option. Sometimes, they even get stuck in my structure!
-What kind of math should be done calculating the marine versus crew fight? How about giving each ship a new number, on board defence - combat readiness + defence value by number of own marines divided over number of ships of fleet as defender? New ship modules for on board defence? Additionally, why not making your own ships too targetable for ram and board attacks, as a kind of desperate measure to regain control of it?
-So, what should the marines do as a effect then? First hand I would say, just pure structural damage (hull) and taking out weapons around area of "impact" completly for rest of combat until the marines are removed(as a standart effect). Then with more sucess maybe taking out ths shield? Additional we could give an astronomical low chance of conquering the whole thing, given mass usage of marines by overwhelming the ship by sheer numbers.
Addendum:
At the moment, every faction kind of fights the same way. Adding a "ram and board" attack style would enhance the profile of two factions a lot.....
Ludic path and pirates.
At the moment, they are not really an impressive opponent, both by style and ships.
With this suggestion added, I would fear them.
PS: Maybe this way of fighting should be given only to some factions, while others don´t do it at all.
-
This topic is obsolete and should have stayed dead, with boarding replaced by ship recovery.
-
I am not talking about ship recovery. Most of my text is about additional combat options.
-
Well I'm game to discuss it but don't expect anything from it.
If I were to do it I would give ships an effectively second health bar, that troop that make it to the ship deplete when the bar depletes completely the ship is dead in the water so to say, your marines don't get to pilot it but it is put to the front of the ship recovery list after the battle if it does not get blown up while it just sits there.
-
Yes, why not. That is an easier way to calculate it then my version. ^^
To be honest, the more I think about this kind of "space warfare", the more I am sure, that this way of fighting would make Luddic Path and Pirates extra interesting. The first for example, how would a tech denying faction fight? With space cannons? With lasers? With thrown rocks?
With human bodies I would say. I mean, even now without the addition of a new way of fighting in space next to fighter, rocket, cannon and laser, Luddic Path could be changed to sharpen it´s profile.
Make Luddic Path extremly carrier heavy and let them swamp their enemies with swarms of crude fighters with each a fanatic sitting inside. Like 8-10 fighter per squadron. With suicide attacks. With ramming. With survival denying tactics.
-
True a simple (I doubt it's actually simple to code, maybe a pirate themed expansion pack after the full game comes out?) change could make pirates and Luddites have more flavour, it's even an iconic way for those types to fight and increase the value of ion weapons as well in a round about way.
And your way wan't to shabby either it's more simulationist then mine.
-
Boarding an actively manuevering ship is silly, mostly because all the helmsman has to do is suddenly fire the manuevering thrusters and your shuttle full of marines splats against the hull instead of connecting carefully to the airlock.
-
Not, when the other ship sticks inside the targeted ship....
And again, we are talking about a game, that has two dimensional space battles. Just red in another thread about 300 ship pirate fleet armadas...where do you want to "jump drive" with your ship then in such a growd? Plus the fact, that many ships in this game are bricks in space....