WKE235 Posted October 15, 2004 Report Share Posted October 15, 2004 Thanks, Ur Lord Tedric and WKE235. Important information. Glad to help. In addition to continuing improvement of the battle results (and they are getting better), perhaps what we need is some type of document detailing everything we are learning through trial and error. What I mean is, many of my emails to Pete were not trying to glean information out of him. I had concerns over how the battle went as in reading the rules, I believed they would operate in way "X", and was surprised to see "Y". In other words I thought the battle did not work per the rules, and Pete kindly explained where I was wrong. And I shared it here to make sure others can learn this ahead of their own battles, and this will help them better enjoy the game. And to spur discussion on how to keep improving the game over time. If players share this information as they learn it and it gets well documented, then all those mails to Pete Hobknob is worried about will taper off. Note there is one negative to being an open, honest, and trustworthy player, sharing items like this. When I share, players like those in the Phoenix Alliance get it as well. And as they keep stating, they intend to "Win the Game", so sharing information back does not fit their nature. Well, I'll just have to trust in my allies and neighbors to help keep my being a nice guy from backfiring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Locklyn Posted October 15, 2004 Report Share Posted October 15, 2004 Good work Ken, and good spirit in sharing it. I think what is bothering some of the older players is the fact that it would have been good to know all this back in the beginning when we designed our first warships or armed explorers who are way way out in space however outmoded their weaponry now has become it still feels a bit like a waste of equipment as well as time to get to know these things two years into the game and if you weren't sharing, then we wouldn't know at all...which is the point of worry for most people. But kudos to you for doing this, you've always been a good player and person and it's good to see your proximity to bad influences hasn't rubbed off on you /Locklyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ur Lord Tedric Posted October 15, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2004 Note there is one negative to being an open, honest, and trustworthy player, sharing items like this. When I share, players like those in the Phoenix Alliance get it as well. And as they keep stating, they intend to "Win the Game", so sharing information back does not fit their nature. Well, I'll just have to trust in my allies and neighbors to help keep my being a nice guy from backfiring. Yes, indeed, sadly there is.... Certainly the reason I'm happy to do it is to: try and understand it more; get it improved to a state that it gives sufficient information for us to actually use; and also be able to advertise it to the rest of the world and get even more players to join in (further Flagship articles) A great deal of the wealth of the game is in research and economics towards ships. Whilst I don't agree with the PA on the only thing to do with this game is "win it" and thus will always stand against that idea.....the Naval Battle side of this game is something that just HAS to be right. This thread is essential and I'm happy to support it as much as I think I can without giving away the farm..... Mx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HumVie Posted October 15, 2004 Report Share Posted October 15, 2004 WKE235 wrote: Note there is one negative to being an open, honest, and trustworthy player, sharing items like this. When I share, players like those in the Phoenix Alliance get it as well. And as they keep stating, they intend to "Win the Game", so sharing information back does not fit their nature. Well, I'll just have to trust in my allies and neighbors to help keep my being a nice guy from backfiring. First, I want to be clear that some of the original open "sharing" that occurred in this game was due to PA. During the first 6 months, if you wanted tech info you had to join an alliance. Rather than keep non-aligned players in the dark, PA posted the original tech chart and provided it freely to any who wanted it. Nothing was asked in return. That posting was in large part the doing of Norm and myself. So before you make off hand statements please make sure you have the facts. Second, several of the members of PA are old Regional Trade Group (RTG) members from SNII Drac region. If you go back, you will find that the original Flagship articles written for SNII were based on info from the Regional Trade Group. In the past we have shared information and may do so again. I certainly have shared a few game discussions with players who wanted to debate points. Third (and probably most important), I will not bother to get in the "he said, she said" goings on of this board. Suffice it to say that there is a prevailing level of "group think" which I am not personally interested in getting involved in. That you say "sharing information back does not fit their nature" without support is part of the myth perpetuated by this group think. The PA not rushing out to share info these days has as much to do with board group think as it does with wanting to protect our positions. As Locklyn pointed out elsewhere on this board, his tech info is a guarded secret. So is some tech paths that PA has discovered. I suspect the same is true of you WKE. If you don't like PA, ok whatever. It really doesn't bother me. However, as I say to many of my liberal neighbors in Santa Cruz, "hate Bush, I don't like him either, but hate him for the truth not a bunch of propaganda". Good Cheer, Rick McFarland Murean Holdfast Celtic Confederacy PA member Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Locklyn Posted October 16, 2004 Report Share Posted October 16, 2004 As always Rick, eloquently and well put. Kudos to you. /Locklyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HumVie Posted October 16, 2004 Report Share Posted October 16, 2004 Hi Locklyn, Thanks. I should probably write something on some of the many other major "group think" points out there like "winning the game" but right now I need to hit the books for a mid-term. Maybe next week when I have more time. Good Cheer, Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ur Lord Tedric Posted October 17, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2004 Back to the thread........ Fighters and Drones in Warp Assaults We don't yet have a lot of evidence of Fighters and Drones in combat, but Pete hopes to add more detail as it's a bit sparse. We thought of something that may warrant consideration for the sort of information we would probably like to see - and it does have quite an implication for the entire way that the Battle Reports are shown...... Already it seems obvious that Fighters and Drones operate across a fleet and it's only the numbers that really matter. One thing that was mentioned some time ago is that we don't seem to have any way of putting different fighters and drones into different ships where we may have different Fighter/Drone options for those ships - eg putting Bombers for attack and Attack Fighters on Cover..... When the fleet is all together, this may,potentially, not matter too much, but what about a Warp Point Assault? If Fighters & Drones are held at the Fleet level, then what happens in a WP assault when only one ship, perhaps, per round is transiting the WP? Unless that ship contains Fighter Bays, F&Ds should only appear when a ship that does have them transits and then perhaps only in increasing numbers as the battle develops..... The first question is, and hopefully the answer is yes unless F&Ds are once again the over riding superweapons they've been in previous incarnations.....is this the case? That F&Ds in WP assaults only start to appear as the ships that are carrying them do? And again, what happens about mixed F&D fleets? More interestingly - we'd like to see that in the Battle Reports, otherwise we cannot decide what we can do....... This leads back to something that was mentioned before and get's difficult given that we're supposed to be looking at battles strategically rather than tactically.... We are designing ships at the tactical level, so I know we'd really like to see 'round-by-round' battles so we can see what happens...... If that were possible, then we'd see such things happen in WP assaults - know which ship went in first - saw how CIDS degraded F&Ds round by round - saw how ship targetting happened.... Please?..Having too much detail may not be the best thing - But we need enough to design ships and that surely is the overriding criteria? Chief Warmaster to Ur-Lord Tedric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WKE235 Posted October 17, 2004 Report Share Posted October 17, 2004 From my own experiences in past battles and my understanding from some mails with RTG (and I hope I understood correctly): In a Warp Point assault, Fighters and Drones are released from each ship as they come through the warp point. Think along the lines of Weapons. You can only fire the weapons of the ships that are actually through the warp point. Same with drones and fighters. Only the ships that are through the WP can "fire" the drones and fighters. They key difference is drones and fighters are a continuing effect weapon. What I mean is, the ship fires (launches) the drones and fighters once, and only once. After that, the fighters and drones are used every round, and they keep fighting every round, until (1) they are destroyed by CIDS or (2) the battle is over. This can result in interesting endings to some battles. For example, my WP assault with the Vindicator was a mixed fleet. By battles end (the last several rounds) all of my drone/fighter ships were destroyed (from the battle description by Pete). But the remaining drones and fighters kept blasting away as the Vindicator, an allied ship, was there to "control" them. Once the battle was completed, the drones and fighters remaining were lost as there was no place to land them (for refueling, I guess). Actually -- there was a little bug I pointed out to Pete. When there was no place to land the fighters / drones after my battle, the program seemed to not know what to do with them ... and they were listed as Cargo on the Vindicator despite there being no Cargo bays, drone racks, or fighter bays on the Vindicator. I guess the crew was duct taping them to the side of the ship. Anyway, he should have corrected this bug by now (Note -- this is how I knew how many survived the battle). Another thing to point out -- if your ship that carries drones / fighters takes damage, that damage reduces your ability to carry the drones and fighters. For example, in an early battle with the NSI, I had a Dahak Cruiser take on two NSI cruisers. The NSI ships had no CIDS defenses. I won the battle with my Cruiser taking about 70% damage (per the battle description). Now, while I lost no drones and fighters in the battle ... with 70% damage I could only land 30% of the drones and fighters (damage to the bays and racks). I lost most of the drones and fighters as there was no place to land them (and yes, this section of code worked fine). I also lost fuel (leaked into space). In other words the carrying capacity of a ship appears to be proportional to the amount of damage. If you suffer say 20% damage, you lose 20% of your fuel capacity, 20% of drone/fighter capacity, 20% of cargo capacity, etcetera... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhaseDragon Posted October 18, 2004 Report Share Posted October 18, 2004 Now that is some useful information to consider when designing ships. Overkill on ship systems may not be a bad thing afterall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ur Lord Tedric Posted October 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2004 Thanks WKE/Ken, All that made perfect sense and we wouldn't have an issue with any of it. Carriers taking damage not being able to load all the fighters, is fine.... My point being - we really need to see all that..... Indeed, whilst it would lengthen the reports substantially, and that may, or may not, be an issue, the easiest thing I can think of doing is to see the fleet 'state of play' round by round. That way you could see what was targetted and damaged each round, you would see Fighters & Drones launch and be degraded/add to missile and CIDS strengths. In fact, we don't see much wrong with the report in it's current form - there's lots of information there. In many cases (as per the post several above), we just need to know what it means... And, if presented round by round, wouldn't a Warp Point assault Battle Report like yours would have been, make really interesting reading... Chief Warmaster to Ur-Lord Tedric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clan Elder 'Keen Posted October 18, 2004 Report Share Posted October 18, 2004 I would definately like to see a major timeline of any battle, including the order in which ships arrive through a warp point or are destroyed. The current ***Destroyed*** indicator just tells what has happened by the end of the battle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Uriel Posted October 18, 2004 Report Share Posted October 18, 2004 I agree on the round by round issue. Additionally, Ur Lord brings up a major issue (IMO). If I build a fleet to assault a planet, I want some of my fighters to protect the fleet, some to engage hostiles, and ground attack fighters to support the landings. There needs to be a way to indicate that. Not that I've even come close to finding someone to fight. Lord Uriel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WKE235 Posted October 23, 2004 Report Share Posted October 23, 2004 Just an update on the Vindicator You may remember from two turns ago (the battle report this thread) that the Concordium fleet won the big WP battle, and the Vindicator was left with Medium Damage. Well, two turns later, the Vindicator ran into a group of Corvettes (18 3000 ton ships to be exact). Of course the Big V won the battle. But, to my enjoyment .. the ship now displays Light Damage Pete has mentioned how ships will self-repair slowly over time. Well, here is the proof. The Big V has moved from Medium to Light in two turns. Now, if we just knew what ranges were covered by Medium and Light, perhaps we could garner a guess to how fast self-repair works. I wonder if there is any tech to boost self-repair as well? A Concordium Vindicator class Battleship (damaged before this battle - stats shown are base) and escorts sweep aside a squadron of NSI Corvettes in the Alesaunder system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhaseDragon Posted October 24, 2004 Report Share Posted October 24, 2004 That is certainly an argument for building ships to survive the battle....bigger is better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ur Lord Tedric Posted October 24, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2004 Just an update on the Vindicator You may remember from two turns ago (the battle report this thread) that the Concordium fleet won the big WP battle, and the Vindicator was left with Medium Damage. Well, two turns later, the Vindicator ran into a group of Corvettes (18 3000 ton ships to be exact). Of course the Big V won the battle. But, to my enjoyment .. the ship now displays Light Damage Pete has mentioned how ships will self-repair slowly over time. Well, here is the proof. The Big V has moved from Medium to Light in two turns. Now, if we just knew what ranges were covered by Medium and Light, perhaps we could garner a guess to how fast self-repair works. I wonder if there is any tech to boost self-repair as well? A Concordium Vindicator class Battleship (damaged before this battle - stats shown are base) and escorts sweep aside a squadron of NSI Corvettes in the Alesaunder system. Thanks WKE, In between, however, did the Vidicator show up in the fleet report as having damage? If you had 2 Vindicators and one was damaged, could you have split off the damaged ship to take to a shipyard to repair it, whilst leaving the undamaged one behind? Chief Planner to Ur-Lord Tedric PS Please could we BUMP for a plea for a description of what the numerics mean in the Battle Report to be appended to the report, just like the weapon ranges? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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