Overcoming Screens...

[WKE235]

Along this line of thought, I think it is less the short, medium, long sensors but more the various Battle Display tech. For example, the beginning line of Holographic Battle Display says,

"Improves command-and-control during a space battle by displaying a three dimensional holographic view of all detected combatants. As a result, commanders are more fully able to coordinate their ships with other friendly vessels during the heat of battle..."

 

I believe and have long believed that these systems would allow commanders better 'control' of their targets so that the 2million plasma value will hit the 6 million ton BB instead of the 1000 ton piece of garbage. I think Locklyn is correct as to Pete's comment about the Short, Med, Long just allowing you various other techs (in addition to their stated puposes).

 

I think the description, if accurate, that lends the most support to the "Sensors alter combat odds" though is this description of the FPS-1 Fleet Patrol Sensor

 

Fleet patrol Sensors are used strategically to spot alien vessels that are trying not to be detected. They also have some uses in space combat, but are not as efficient as their similar counterpart, Long Range Sensors. (1,000 tons) 1,000 Imp.Transaluminum - 4,000 Imp.Electronics .

 

I like that "They have some uses in space combat but are not as efficient as their counterpart Long Range Sensors". So, if sensors are useful in combat, but have no fire control ratings, then just what IS their use in space combat .. if not to ID target and shift the odds?

 

Then I look to the Mk I Long range sensor description: The Mk I Long Range Sensor is a self-contained, multi-purpose unit is capable of handling all routine navigational duties as well as serving as the primary target acquisition and fire control sensor system during combat. This system is designed primarily for use at longer ranges and is not as effective at shorter distances.

 

The whole serving as the primary target acquisition and fire control sensor part stands out. Once more the description, if it has any accuracy, points to the sensors use in aquiring targets to fire on. Since the sensor has no fire control to allow for multiple targets, what else could this mean (given Pete's thinking it could mean anything .. still.... I have to wonder). My whole thought on Long/medium/short hark back to this description as well. It says the sensors are not as effective at shorter distances. What shorter distances? That's why I think the uses may vary in combat. Perhaps short range sensors act like Point blank weapons and "strength" falls off quickly with a bonus for being close, medium like Beam weapons and a less rapid fall off, and Long Range like missles with less overall strength but constant over the long distances?

 

Note that on the old boards Pete was talking about sensor ability back than, and not fire control and targeting. You know Pete does not offer up information unless we ask the right question. So from an Sensor ability, they are no different. From a targetting ability, well.....

[Lord Deependra]

Along this line of thought, I think it is less the short, medium, long sensors but more the various Battle Display tech. For example, the beginning line of Holographic Battle Display says,

"Improves command-and-control during a space battle by displaying a three dimensional holographic view of all detected combatants. As a result, commanders are more fully able to coordinate their ships with other friendly vessels during the heat of battle..."

 

I believe and have long believed that these systems would allow commanders better 'control' of their targets so that the 2million plasma value will hit the 6 million ton BB instead of the 1000 ton piece of garbage. I think Locklyn is correct as to Pete's comment about the Short, Med, Long just allowing you various other techs (in addition to their stated puposes).

 

I think the description, if accurate, that lends the most support to the "Sensors alter combat odds" though is this description of the FPS-1 Fleet Patrol Sensor

 

Fleet patrol Sensors are used strategically to spot alien vessels that are trying not to be detected. They also have some uses in space combat, but are not as efficient as their similar counterpart, Long Range Sensors. (1,000 tons) 1,000 Imp.Transaluminum - 4,000 Imp.Electronics .

 

I like that "They have some uses in space combat but are not as efficient as their counterpart Long Range Sensors". So, if sensors are useful in combat, but have no fire control ratings, then just what IS their use in space combat .. if not to ID target and shift the odds?

 

Then I look to the Mk I Long range sensor description: The Mk I Long Range Sensor is a self-contained, multi-purpose unit is capable of handling all routine navigational duties as well as serving as the primary target acquisition and fire control sensor system during combat. This system is designed primarily for use at longer ranges and is not as effective at shorter distances.

 

The whole serving as the primary target acquisition and fire control sensor part stands out. Once more the description, if it has any accuracy, points to the sensors use in aquiring targets to fire on. Since the sensor has no fire control to allow for multiple targets, what else could this mean (given Pete's thinking it could mean anything .. still.... I have to wonder). My whole thought on Long/medium/short hark back to this description as well. It says the sensors are not as effective at shorter distances. What shorter distances? That's why I think the uses may vary in combat. Perhaps short range sensors act like Point blank weapons and "strength" falls off quickly with a bonus for being close, medium like Beam weapons and a less rapid fall off, and Long Range like missles with less overall strength but constant over the long distances?

 

Note that on the old boards Pete was talking about sensor ability back than, and not fire control and targeting. You know Pete does not offer up information unless we ask the right question. So from an Sensor ability, they are no different. From a targetting ability, well.....

 

Ok, then how's this for a hypothesis.

 

In battle, each ship is assigned a targetting weighting, based on its deployment location. For example, it could be (13-deployment) squared. The attacking fleet has three sensor strengths - Short, medium and Long. Each is based on the appropoarite sensor strength, divided by the mass of the attacking fleet, much like FC except a minimum of 0. The attackers short range sensor rating modifies the weighting of all defending ships in deplyment locations 1-4, adding part of their mass to the weight eg Square root of mass * attacked short range sensor rating. Medium Range sensors apply to defenders in locations 5-8 and Long to 9-12.

So, for example, a 1000 ton screen in location 1 would have a base weighting of 144 and a million ton battleship in location 2 would be 121. So any attacking glob would have a 144/265 chance of hitting the screen. Add enough short range sensors to the attacking fleet to give it a Short Range Rating of 1 and the weightings changes to 144 + (1000^.5)*1 = 175 for the screen and 121 + (1,000,000^.5)*1 = 1121 for the battleship. That then means the screen is only targetted 175.62/1121 (or 13.54%) of the time, unlike 54.34% of the time before. Add some more sensors to the attacker and the screens soon become completely irrelevant.

 

We'll soon know if this is true of not. Either Pete will read this and laugh so hard he has a heart attack and the game ends or my homeworld will mysteriously be hit for an extinction level asteroid next turn.

[Breoghan]

If Pete has already taken this screen thing into account and provided a remedy, why would he add things just to make it easier for people who haven't managed to find the answer yet? I'm pretty sure it isn't meant to be easy (wouldn't be much of a game otherwise, would it).

[WKE235]

We'll soon know if this is true of not. Either Pete will read this and laugh so hard he has a heart attack and the game ends or my homeworld will mysteriously be hit for an extinction level asteroid next turn.

 

That's not an Asteroid. It's an NWTX-4000 Planetcracker that someone launched towards your home world. Make sure you smile as it hits. Makes for better press.

 

If Pete has already taken this screen thing into account and provided a remedy, why would he add things just to make it easier for people who haven't managed to find the answer yet? I'm pretty sure it isn't meant to be easy (wouldn't be much of a game otherwise, would it).

 

Actually, I think Pete did intend for some things to be easy to find or stumble on to. It's just that we seem to think and play differently, and have been a bit dense finding what he thought would be easy stuff. Take for example Transwarp Drives. It takes Mk I Nuclear Jump Drive (Start tech), Mk I Force Shield (you can research from start), and Advanced Fuel (needs Improved Fuel, which can be researched at start). Research the right three techs and the key to rapid warp movement was right there. And yet ... how many folks researched Improved Fuel and did not do Advanced Fuel as Improved seemed to open nothing up? How long did discussions go on until someone found the answer (and I think they found a Transwarp drive in an Explore to boot). Sensors may be the same thing. He may have hidden the impact they have on the game. And while he may have thought this was a grand idea, the net effect was to push players up the bridge / fire control tree as they can see that and figure the numbers. Quite frankly, the hidden stuff never works out in games, and usually leaves a lot of bad feelings before the "secrets" get out .. after which the whole point of hiding the information seems pretty lame and useless to begin with.

[Lord Uriel]

Lord Deependra,

Thanks for the headache. Now, what exactly did you mean by all that gibberish?

 

 

Also, anything that causes the game to suddenly end will improve my savings account, but leave me terribly depressed.

 

 

Lord Uriel

[Lord Deependra]

Lord Deependra,

Thanks for the headache. Now, what exactly did you mean by all that gibberish?

 

 

Also, anything that causes the game to suddenly end will improve my savings account, but leave me terribly depressed.

 

 

Lord Uriel

 

 

All I was suggesting was a possible way that sensors might affect targeting. With very little to go on, its just a wild guess.

 

I started with the premise that each ship is assigned a targeting weighting. Knowing that Pete likes squaring things, I started with assigning a weighting based on the square of the distance of the ship from the rear of the deply locations ie a ship in location 1 is 'worth' 144, location 2 is worth 121, location 3 is worth 100 and so on down to 1 at location 12. When a glob is fired, the total weighting of all ship is added together and then a random number generated to find where in the spread it falls. So, if you had 10 screens in location 1 and one ship in 2, the total would be 144 *10 + 121 = 1561. The program then generates a number from 1 to 1561 and uses that to decide which ship is hit ie 1-144 hits ship 1, 145-288 hits ship 2 and so on. This would give an 8% chance of the ship in location 2 being targeted.

 

If it works like this, the way to beat screens would be to add tech that changed the weighting of ships. Presumably, this would be on mass (although it could also go on firepower or some other rating). So, based on the discusssion of sensors, what if you add to the weighting of each ship a factor based on its mass multiplied by the sensor strength of the attacking fleet?

 

Once again, I went with squares (square root in this case). Get the square root of the mass of the ship (to keep the numbers manageable) and multiply it by the sensor rating of the attacking fleet. So, if the ship in deploy location 2 in the example above is 1,000,000 tons, its actual targeting weighting would be 121 + 1000 times the attacker's sensor strength. Since most fleets have no sensors, this is 121. Add some sensors and the number jumps dramatically, allowing the attacker to focus firepower on big ships.

 

Of course, all of this is pure speculation. An intellectual exercise, if you will, to fill in time until someone figures out how it REALLY works.

[Locklyn]

That's not an Asteroid. It's an NWTX-4000 Planetcracker that someone launched towards your home world. Make sure you smile as it hits. Makes for better press.

 

Actually mate you don't launch the NWTX-4000, it doesn't work that way unfortunately but there is another weaponsystem in the MDD category that you launch, not at a world though

 

 

/Locklyn

[MadMartinB]

That was back in the days of the GSL! The NTWD was found in an EXPL and debates raged as to wether the information should be provided. The Eyre....piratically in nature and just all around good guys! Yes good guys.. Divulged the information from their EXPL to the general universe thereby earning the hatred of Locklyn who wanted to keep the information secret.

 

Another example of Pirates being the "white hat guys"

 

 

 

We'll soon know if this is true of not. Either Pete will read this and laugh so hard he has a heart attack and the game ends or my homeworld will mysteriously be hit for an extinction level asteroid next turn.

 

That's not an Asteroid. It's an NWTX-4000 Planetcracker that someone launched towards your home world. Make sure you smile as it hits. Makes for better press.

 

If Pete has already taken this screen thing into account and provided a remedy, why would he add things just to make it easier for people who haven't managed to find the answer yet? I'm pretty sure it isn't meant to be easy (wouldn't be much of a game otherwise, would it).

 

Actually, I think Pete did intend for some things to be easy to find or stumble on to. It's just that we seem to think and play differently, and have been a bit dense finding what he thought would be easy stuff. Take for example Transwarp Drives. It takes Mk I Nuclear Jump Drive (Start tech), Mk I Force Shield (you can research from start), and Advanced Fuel (needs Improved Fuel, which can be researched at start). Research the right three techs and the key to rapid warp movement was right there. And yet ... how many folks researched Improved Fuel and did not do Advanced Fuel as Improved seemed to open nothing up? How long did discussions go on until someone found the answer (and I think they found a Transwarp drive in an Explore to boot). Sensors may be the same thing. He may have hidden the impact they have on the game. And while he may have thought this was a grand idea, the net effect was to push players up the bridge / fire control tree as they can see that and figure the numbers. Quite frankly, the hidden stuff never works out in games, and usually leaves a lot of bad feelings before the "secrets" get out .. after which the whole point of hiding the information seems pretty lame and useless to begin with.

[orin]

/quote "Take for example Transwarp Drives. It takes Mk I Nuclear Jump Drive (Start tech), Mk I Force Shield (you can research from start), and Advanced Fuel (needs Improved Fuel, which can be researched at start). "

 

And people were wondering what to do with those Santa pts... if you have combo's like that.. who knows what will open up if you have sat Fertilizer ,Advanced Petroleum or Advanced Plantfoods?

[WKE235]

/quote "Take for example Transwarp Drives. It takes Mk I Nuclear Jump Drive (Start tech), Mk I Force Shield (you can research from start), and Advanced Fuel (needs Improved Fuel, which can be researched at start). "

 

And people were wondering what to do with those Santa pts... if you have combo's like that.. who knows what will open up if you have sat Fertilizer ,Advanced Petroleum or Advanced Plantfoods?

 

I have advanced everything. And so far, I have not found any use for Advanced Consumer Goods, Advanced Food Concentrates, Advanced Plantfoods, and many others. Oh they may be useful for something, eventually. And I'm sure giving advanced consumer goods to a neutral probably buys more points for them to join you peacefully. But all in all, a lot of wasted R&D with little to no benefits.

[Kurassier]

who knows what will open up if you have sat Fertilizer ,Advanced Petroleum or Advanced Plantfoods?

 

 

probably a lot of gaseous elements.......

[Prospective]

I've read the posts since I theorized that sensors are involved in the 'solution' to the screen strategy and there was one post that caught my eye by Locklyn. In it, he said:

 

"Problem is that Pete said on the old boards when the game started that there was no difference between the short, medium and long range sensors apart from them opening up different new techpaths. Now if Pete has changed that I don't know but I don't think so.

 

Cheers

 

/Locklyn"

 

There are many of us here who are not 5 year veterns and who were not present when the old boards were up. As such we never had access to that old information. Also, there have been many changes in the interim including an updated naval combat primer.

 

Therefore, I'm asking Pete to make a clarification statement about the role of sensors in naval combat for us 3 year and younger players. Since Pete has already discussed this long ago, this will not disadvantage anyone and will in fact allow newer players to be privy to knowledge already out there.

[Sakarissa]

Well, on a related note, is there an order to see the stats on a particular fleet without having to do a combat? Partially to verify the information in my ship building spreadsheet and partially to see exactly what my combat fleets are rated at in the various categories.

 

Sakarissa

[Drasn]

Well, on a related note, is there an order to see the stats on a particular fleet without having to do a combat? Partially to verify the information in my ship building spreadsheet and partially to see exactly what my combat fleets are rated at in the various categories.

 

Sakarissa

 

Does the FOB order not do what you need?

 

Details are in the Rules Addenda Notes

[SargonKingOfSlith]

Fleet patrol Sensors are used strategically to spot alien vessels that are trying not to be detected. They also have some uses in space combat, but are not as efficient as their similar counterpart, Long Range Sensors. (1,000 tons) 1,000 Imp.Transaluminum - 4,000 Imp.Electronics .

 

I like that "They have some uses in space combat but are not as efficient as their counterpart Long Range Sensors". So, if sensors are useful in combat, but have no fire control ratings, then just what IS their use in space combat .. if not to ID target and shift the odds?

 

I believe "some uses in space combat" means that they will reduce the damage from mines.