Naval Combat Primer (old)

[ShadowKitsune]

Pete,

 

Could we get something like Victory! with regard to Experience Level (Green, Line, etc.) on our Reports?

 

Thanks

[EternusIV]

Had to think about that one.

 

Yeah that is a major loophole.

 

Per ship? Alrighty.

[ShadowKitsune]

Per ship makes more sense, IMO.

 

Plus, depending on how Experience is tracked, easier to deal with. If 100 Experience points = Line and 0 XP = Green, figuring out what a "repaired" ships average XP would be following the repairs would be a trivial calculation.

[Locklyn]

Since it is per ship experience is stored, you DON'T want to scrap those experienced front line ships! So...could we get a repair thingy working in the game?

And a way to gauge experience?

 

Cheers

/Locklyn

[Locklyn]

If I remember correctly from the old board there was also talk of being able to salvage some materials from the other fleet, capturing characters and ships if you were on the winning side. Do I remember correctly and is that in function or have I been inhaling too much jump drive exhaust fumes?

 

/Locklyn

[MadMartinB]

The only issue per ship is that Pete/Russ mentioned at one time that the game was more fleet level. I think it was back when the first pathfinder/pathfinder fight occured and it was considered a trivial battle. That has been corrected but maybe an experience for fleet level would be nice...with impact from characters..

[octagon999]

What I don't understand is why there can't be a REPair order, which then enters the shipyard constructed as is, and comes out that turn 100% repaired. or - x% damage, or something along those lines.

 

Or even, NOT tie up shipyards, but execute the order, and the ship is fixed provided that there are enough shipyards/slips of sufficient size to acommodate your ship.

[PhaseDragon]

I too am in favor of ship repair. I would prefer a special ship class called the repair ship on which you load raw materials. They are converted to the necessary materials during a repair (and only during a repair so as to not exploit this). That way there would be some sense as to how costly repairs can be. Each turn would repair your ship damage based on the size class of the repair ship versus size class of the ship repaired. Pete and Russ would have to figure the appropriate formulas to make this fair for everyone.

[RTGRuss]

Bumped and pinned

[RTGPete]

Ok - let's dig in to what you'd like to see if I were to rewrite the naval combat results pretty much from scratch, making sure to include whatever I could to provide the detail you want. I don't mean the engine itself, which is horribly complex, biting and hissing whenever anybody comes near it but the display part, where the battle results are posted to your turn files. I'm very happy with the engine - it handles everything from small battles to massive fleet engagements including multiple empires. Somebody actually suggested that it's hand moderated, and that I pick the winner. Um, no. I might be a five-eyed octopus when I'm trying to get the turns out but I wouldn't dream of trying to figure out who's going to win a battle--there are way too many things to consider...I leave that up to the computer.

 

The naval combat primer already talks all about how battles work--it's a must read, and is posted in this thread.

 

The following are some ideas that have been suggested:

• Weapon effect descriptions
  
• Efficiency of defensive systems (CIDS, for example) vs. various weapon types
  
• Brief racial comparison
  
• Experience levels and morale
  
• Damage sustained
  

Listing of weapons and key systems used by every ship and leaders are already shown now, but I'd add fire control for both sides to show how many ships your fleet is capable of targeting at any instant in the battle.

 

It should be noted that the space combat system in SN:ROTE is not decided by having individual ships pick out a selected ship on the other side and firing at it. Your fleet operates as a unit, with ships firing their weapons in groups to eliminate the enemy. There are no combat rounds per se, but rather a flowing damage allocation system to dish out firepower, so results by round don't make much sense. Maybe someday we'll come out with a tactical space combat game where ships move around on a 3-dimensional grid and have shield facings and individual crewmen who crew particular systems. SN:ROTE is a great game, but it ain't that.

 

Fortunately, the naval combat program is hideously complex, providing an opportunity to display a lot of information. An exact, specific readout of every last detail of a battle would be a terrible mistake, however. Number crunchers would suck all of the fun out of the technology descriptions, spending every waking moment trying to find any way possible to take advantage of anything they could glean from the results. I want to give out more details, but not at the expense of imagination. I'm a number cruncher myself, as are a lot of players, but it's still fun to sit back and think about how my fleet is performing and not become too embroiled in figuring out the next Drone Strike tactic (Supernova II wins-all-battles tactic, crushing any semblance of strategy).

 

Those of you who have become involved in ground combats know that you can gain the ability to ANZ technology used by your opponent but that you don't already possess. I could easily incorporate this same idea into the space combat results, so if your opponent uses Plasma Torpedos against you, you could ANZ that weapon. There is a degree of realism lost, since you'd also get the prerequisite techs and construction requirements - would you prefer that I not add this in (just giving you the descriptions in the battle results themsleves, perhaps) to avoid revealing too much about your weapons to the enemy?

 

Ship repairs. Right now you can take a damaged ship, scrap it, and rebuild the thing as is (or make changes) and presto! your damage is gone. Sure, it's a way around damage. However, you do lose experience and morale for that ship. Displaying these values in the combat results is a good way to discourage this kind of thing, but it can get lengthy since each individual ship tracks its own exp and morale. I'll use FOB results to show these values as well.

 

If you want, I could change the battle results to list every ship in the battle - each individual experience and morale figure, weapons, shields, you name it. Battle results will get long fast, especially with a lot of ships involved, but I could do it. You'd certainly have a lot to look over, and in a small battle with just a few dozen ships that kind of thing would be great. It's battles with 500 ships on each side that can get out of hand. I wouldn't mind grouping the ships by class as is done now, and then print out damaged ships at the end, but that would not give you individual experience and morale figures.

 

Ok, have at it. Keep it clean, no punching below the belt, no whining, and don't take any wooden flugarbs. The whole idea is to come up with a display system that you want. Oh, and don't run with scissors--somebody might lose an eyestalk.

[octagon999]

This is probably not totally on the subject, but I will try and address my display/battle report issues in one posting.

 

1. I'd like to see damage/repair status and experience level on the fleet and battle report.

 

2. I would like some form of ship repair short of destroying and rebuilding the entire ship. I would suggest four possible avenues.

a. A ship's intrinsic repair capability. Each turn, a certain amount of tonnage is repaired, regardless of where the ship is. (The Scotty option)

b. A ship's intrinsic repair capability can be enhanced by certain onboard systems (modified Scotty option), or by being in a fleet which contains ships that have certain systems installed. (The Fleet Tender option)

c. A ship can be put into shipyards using a new order that does not build anything, but repairs x amount of tonnage each turn. Perhaps repairs take place and use 2x the normal number of shipyards that it would otherwise take to build the ship from scratch. At the end of the turn, the ship is ejected to the original fleet with whatever repaired tonnage the shipyards were able to fix.

d. A ship can be repaired more quickly orbiting a planet with certain planetside or orbital facilities. There could even be a "Ship Dock" allowed.

 

Any repair options should be open to space-going vessels of any tech level, with more efficient options being available at higher levels if desired.

 

3. I would like some indication of what factors have assisted/detracted in the battle. For example, did the Naval Academy on Ceti Alpha Six really help?

 

I think the two most glaring ommissions in ship systems I've noticed are Sick Bay and Damage Control. Both could be of use during and after combat to prevent and repair damage to both organic and inorganic ship systems.

[4aeog16]

Thanks, Pete --

 

-- the things I'd like to see in battle reports:

 

1. The degree of damage sustained by a surviving ship -- did it only just survive (eg 90% damaged), or was it no contest (eg 10% damaged)?

 

2. The degree that defensive systems (armor coatings, shields, hull plate, etc) helped in reducing the effect of weapons.

 

3. Rather than the ability to ANZ the opponent's technology (with full info on pre-requisites, etc), why not just give a bonus to its research, rather like a scientist's technology breakthrough (even if it can't be researched yet)?

 

4. Give the Player the option of switching between Detailed or Summary battle reports. While my fleets are small, and I'm still trying to learn from my battle reports, the details contained within my battle reports will be important to me and won't be too lengthy; later in the game, when I'm less interested in reading battle report details, and when I expect my fleets to contain many ships, I will want the reports to be summarised.

 

5. SNROTE seems to be defender-friendly. To continue this trend, remove the "repaired as if by magic" rule for damaged ships, and allow them to be degraded in abilities according to their damage, as done for naval vessels in "Victory!". The damaged ships can continue to move and fight in their damaged & degraded state, or they can return to space dock for repairs, where the size of the repair facilities denotes how many tons can be repaired each turn (as done for naval vessels in "Victory!"). Otherwise, an attacking super-dreadnought of 1 billion tons will continue to fight at 100% after each and every battle, all the way to the defender's Home World.

 

6. An indication of what helped or hindered my fleet in battle: legendary characters, Imperial Naval Installations, training & experience (or lack of it), racial modifiers, etc, etc, etc.

 

7. An indication of weapons' effective ranges. I reckon that a Long Lance Torpedo has a longer range than a Short Range Torpedo, but what about a Frost Cannon or Medium Beam Laser? Or does it not matter in SNROTE? Again the comparison with "Victory!": I could set each individual fleet's "Open Fire" range, and also give different battle options to different ship-types, eg try to stay at particular ranges (for battleships with big long range guns) or try to close with the enemy (for destroyers with short range torpedoes). This may clash with SNROTE's "deployment location" concept, though.

 

Please let me know what you think of each of the above.

 

Thanks,

 

Limey O'Riley

[Ozboym]

I would like to see some clear indication of the effectiveness of different weapon and defense systems.

 

Something like:

 

10 Pathfinders

- own Autocannons inflicted 5000 damage, 4000 stopped

by Force Shields, 500 stopped by Armor

- enemy Medium Stunners inflicted 10000 damage, 900

stopped by Type A Defense Screens

- 5 Pathfinders destroyed, 3 captured by enemy

- 1 Pathfinder 80% damaged

- 1 Pathfinder 75% damaged

 

I would also like to see a listing of all modifiers that are affecting the battle, and where they come from.

[Krelnett_of_Kraan]

Some kind of order to tell your ships not to be suicidal - retreating after a certain amount of damage, perhaps - would be nice.

Oh, and we should definitely be able to tell experience and morale of a ship without sending it into battle first. Perhaps in the FOB order?

[Paradigm]

I like pretty much all of these suggestions so far (shocking, isn't it?).

 

This is important enough to amplify IMO: We need to see the damage status of our ships. Suggest just listing all damage details after a battle rather than cluttering up every turn with that information, plus provide an order (DAM?) to list the damage status of a particular fleet in case someone looses the older turn results. This assumes ships do not self repair every turn. If they do, then this information should be listed every turn for all damaged ships. The turn results do not need to list healthy ships, only damaged ships, which should keep the clutter down.

 

We need a more rational way of repairing our ships than scrapping them and rebuilding them from the keel up. We need mobile repair units to repair ships in the field. Ships should not loose morale / experience for having light damage repaired.

 

I don't care how long the battle reports are. Disk space is cheap / Battle results are interesting. Put the results of huge battles in a separate PDF if it bothers people to have big turn results files. How often are most players going to have a huge climactic battle anyway?

 

I don't like being in the dark about basic combat systems performance that in-game my engineers and admirals should be able to easily give me. I don't mean detailed numbers, I mean basic system performance. The lack of information on sensors is particularly frustrating. I have no idea how sensor ranges affect combat and I shouldn't have to fight a war to find out (perhaps too late). Mk II short and Mk I medium sensors have the same sensor rating of "Fair". Are they equivalent or does the range name have some actual significance? Heck, I don't even know if the combat system really takes weapons ranges in to account of if it's all just color. Do sensors affect ship detection (the apparently broken SENS order) and weapons targeting, or are they only a defensive system vs mines? Do I need long range sensors to effectively use long range weapons such as the Long Lance Torpedoes? There is no way to tell. I have no idea how many computers I need on my ships. The computer descriptions imply I only need 1 or 2 but other things hint that I may need hundreds in some circumstances. The Battle Imaging System and Mk III Computer System both have a rating of "Bridge: Adequate". Are they interchangeable and alternative research paths, or do they stack and therefore there is an advantage to putting both on a ship if you have both techs? If I have both techs is building both a good idea or a waste of order blocks? I don't know if the "plasma splash" that the Flux Capacitor defends against is the "bursts of plasma" from the various P-Cannon descriptions, and/or the "globs of plasma" from the Plasma Hellbore descriptions. Do flux capacitors provide any defense against other plasma weapons farther up the plasma tree such as the plasma torpedoes? Do Black Sphere Generators defend against plasma weapons earlier in the plasma tree below the plasma torpedoes? I don't know for sure if the "energy discharge weapons" that the ECM Package systems defend against means all direct fire energy weapons (lasers, disruptors, etc.) or just the electricity weapons tree (Lightning Arc Generator, etc.). ECM implies a general defense against enemy sensors and targeting systems, but in this game is it just a flowery name for the defense against the electricity weapons tree? Do I need to put a troop berthing and a marine division on my capital ships to defend them against boarding / capture? Or are troop berthings strictly for transporting divisions between planets? No idea. How does CIDS defense work? Is it based on each CIDS taking a shot at each incoming munition / fighter so I need to plan based on total CIDS systems, or is their effectiveness based on what percentage of a unit's mass is CIDS systems? There are more instances where it's unclear whether a system's effectiveness is based on numerical quantity or a percentage of a unit's mass. How effective are CIDS at protecting other ships in the fleet if at all? Can I build flak cruisers (carrier escorts) to defend my carriers against potential enemy fighter strikes or is that a total waste? For much of this I shouldn't have to wait for a major battle to find out whether I've made terrible design decisions or not. My scientists and engineers should be able to tell me at least how the systems I know how to build will interact. My admirals should be able to war game and tell me whether my ships have glaring design flaws. Since the game can't replicate these interactions, the combat systems descriptions and the rules and game play aids should make these things clearer. I don't need/want to know the ideal ship design, hopefully such a thing doesn't exist, but I do want to know what my design options and tradeoffs really are. I know the item descriptions include an entertainment element but sometimes it's difficult to tell whether a particular wording is important or just decoration, especially with some of the defensive systems and what precisely they defend against and do not defend against.

 

I could ramble on but I think this is enough to get my point across. I'm not asking for detailed numbers on every system. I am asking for enough information to make intelligent decisions about what to research and how to design my ships to accomplish the missions I have for them.