Information disclosure

[Mechanica]

The area I would like to see some added description for decision making is in tech research. I've spent turns researching Argus Laser Cannon and Mk I Thermal Regulators only to discover when I researched them that they weren't even close to what I thought they might be. Maybe use a research proposal order to provide a very brief description of what your researchers think would be the results, ie ground combat support, ship system, installation.

[Ozboym]

The area I would like to see some added description for decision making is in tech research. I've spent turns researching Argus Laser Cannon and Mk I Thermal Regulators only to discover when I researched them that they weren't even close to what I thought they might be. Maybe use a research proposal order to provide a very brief description of what your researchers think would be the results, ie ground combat support, ship system, installation.

If you can research it, you can ANZ it as well, so its always wise to ANZ something before you start wasting RC's on it.

[Lord Uriel]

Well, this may be the official place to find information, but I personnaly know players who don't have access to the board from either work or home.  For those folks there needs to be a solution too. 

 

If they're submitting their turns by email, they should have access to these boards....? Those who cannot use email for turn submissions (and there are very, very few of those) are the rare exceptions.

So ... let me get this straight.

This is the only method of finding out what is going on in the game as far as changes?

Or, we can take a chance and see if you'll respond to an email.

Or, we can take a chance and see if you're home and call.

Or, we can just take a wild chance on whatever it is we want to do and see what happens because there is nothing aside from an incomplete rulebook and player conjecture to help us.

 

 

Pete, I don't think the vast majority of players really want a game that boils down to who knows the highest level of math or who has the best pc skills. I think most players simply want to know what it is they're doing when they play.

I remember very distinctly a call I made to you in the first two months of the game when I was unable to build anything in my smallest pop group after three turns of trial and error. I thought about quiting the game due to it's complexity. You took the time to walk me through everything I was doing wrong and helped fix the mistakes I was making. I've made very few of the same mistakes since and I'm grateful.

But the issue now is that there are certain things that we as players need to know, and some of us have too much time and energy invested in this game to simply give up because we don't understand that putting more than one computer on a ship is actually a benefit when the ANZ says it's a waste. (I know it's long sentence, sorry).

 

Pete, you need to update the rulebook.

 

 

And for those of you who will ask if I can do better, I know I can't. I just want to know what I can do.

Please enjoy your day.

[RTGPete]

I agree, the rules need updating. Actual updates in the game are important, too, and there is only so much time to do it all. Move along, nothing to see here. I'll do the best I can on every front.

[PhaseDragon]

Again with that Jedi Mind Trick.

[Marvin]

1.5M ton Star Cruisers are not small throw away ships used for testing.  They eat up about an entire turns production or more all to be kissed away a  couple of tuns later. 

Ouch, how did that happen? That's quite a test battle. Did you learn anything useful from it?

[WKE235]

Sargon-

 

That pretty much sums it up I would say.  I have found myself building large, at least for me, ships just to have them get completely wiped in the first battle.  Then a couple of turns later there is some more information published somewhere that completely invalidates the gueses I was forced to make.  This isn't information learned through my own combat mind you.  If it were, I would feel the cost well spent.

 

wash...rinse..repeat...            

 

1.5M ton Star Cruisers are not small throw away ships used for testing.  They eat up about an entire turns production or more all to be kissed away a  couple of tuns later. 

 

And as long as I am on the soap box...  It is frustrating to run a complex empire just to have stupid fleet admirals that can't make even the simplest decisions. ie we have so little control over what these fleets do it is just a guessing game.  Also the idea of no retreat or trying to run away is bugging me too.

 

stepping down now...

 

Back to your regualrly scheduled conversations...

I have to agree to some degree. There are many areas of movements and battles where we should have control .. but instead the game is random.

 

Warp Points -- A player should be able to dictate the order in which ships go through a WP. While you can influence it with your Order of Battle selection, it is still random. Not very nice.

 

Ship Mission class -- A player should be able to readjust the mission class of an entire ship class if desired. Why should an "A" always be an "A". Actually, I would love to see the ability to designate the mission class at a SHIP level.

 

Target Selection -- A player should be able to set some type of controls on how their ships will target others. In my big Warp battle, the Vindicator and all of the Dahak Cruisers would concentrate all of their fire power on one tiny 1000 ton corvette each round, just because they happened to be stacked in Deploy location 1. So the admiralty of my space force is so incompetent so as to ignore a 1 Million ton war ship and 4-500K cruisers along side it, merely as they are farther away? This makes no sense. At the very least, targetting should be by ship size with highest priority and a multiplier for distance. (Note -- I admit that as tech increases, this becomes moot. Bashkar has 2 Million ton ships displaying a Fire Control rating of 3,040,000 --- I suspect computer processing bogs down when a Bashkar ship fires as the damage is broken down into 3 Million distinct firings ... perhaps there needs to be an upper limit?) -- (Editted -- See later messages to clarify this value is not the rating merely the total fire control value).

 

Force Battle Plan -- not very usable in it's current form. Not only do you have to spend a lot of $$ on orders to build a plan adjusted just the way you want. You also have to assign positions based on Mission Class/formation. We need to be able to assign positions based on Ships or ship designations. Either that or the ability to set Ship Mission class as we choose

 

Fighter Drone options on the FBP -- It would be nice to be able to set percentages .. say 10% Defense, 50% Standard Attack, and 40% Deep. The choices are very limiting right now.

 

 

As a side note, the entire idea behind Saved SRP from racial design needs to be rethought and reworked. Given the levels of weapons and techs you can quickly buy using SRP, to develop fleets of great power and ability, actually purchasing traits for your race is a waste of time. If you're going to run into some race with Superior weapons after 20 turns as they got them with SRP, what good is buying racial traits going to do you?

 

 

Anyway .. I bet Pete has items like this in his pile of ideas on ways to further improve and enhance the game. You know, that 6 foot pile of paper of suggestions from the mob making up the players of this game, on what they want in the game (dang customers, they are never satisfied :lol: ).

[Clan Elder 'Keen]

(Note -- I admit that as tech increases, this becomes moot. Bashkar has 2 Million ton ships displaying a Fire Control rating of 3,040,000 --- I suspect computer processing bogs down when a Bashkar ship fires as the damage is broken down into 3 Million distinct firings ... perhaps there needs to be an upper limit?).

 

I think you misunderstand the way it calculated. Its Fire Control Rating divided by tonnage. So 3,040,000/2,000,000 is 1.something which rounds down to 1 target per round. All that tonnage on those ships devoted to fire control is........ WASTED. Of course, that in itself is an argument for clearer rules regarding mechanics. Fortunately Pete is ontop of that aspect although we are all going to have to ANZ and rebuild ships. =(

[WKE235]

I'm not sure if the calculation is correct, or is wrong. All I can do is look at the numbers the programs toss out. In my big warp battle, it showed Fire Control: 1 for both fleets. When I ran into the Bashkar Monitors, it showed Fire Control: 3,040,000.

 

So, what's a player to do. My ships and NSI's ships had a lot of computers and the like. We each fired on one ship per round. So the Fire Control: 1 seems correct. So then, a few turns later, I see Fire Control: 3,040,000. Does this mean Pete changed the battle code to display Fire Control Rating, but still call it Fire Control on the turn just to add to the mystery of the game? Or does a ship with these components add up to really big numbers?

 

20 Advanced Battle Display, 20 Battle Imaging System, 20 FCS-1 Archer Fire Control, 25 FFS-1 Fleet Formation Scanner, 20 Laser Communications Gear, 17 Mk I Long Range Sensor, 30 Mk I Mass Detector Sensor, 10 Mk II Computer System

 

Your explaination makes more sense. But how is one supposed to know what is going on when what is displayed seems to change from turn to turn?

[SargonKingOfSlith]

I agree, the rules need updating. Actual updates in the game are important, too, and there is only so much time to do it all. Move along, nothing to see here. I'll do the best I can on every front.

Thanks for the responses to our concerns. This is exactly what I want to hear.

 

I was beginning to get the impression that you are planning to make us guess, or discover through trial-and-error, about significant aspects of the combat system. I don’t want to be forced to discover everything about the combat system the same way we originally had to discover the mining installation extraction formula.

 

There is a big difference between “I’m working as hard as I can, so shut up and quit your whining” and “I’m not planning to tell you because I want you to guess”.

 

If the former is true, then I will shut up and quit whining.

[RTGPete]

Does this mean Pete changed the battle code to display Fire Control Rating, but still call it Fire Control on the turn just to add to the mystery of the game?

Actually, to take mystery out. Nothing fundamental changed - I just made it so that the raw numbers are displayed, which are infinitely more useful.

[Krelnett_of_Kraan]

Yet, you didn't warn us (here or on turn results) that that was going to happen, so again we had no way to know.

[Turok]

Does anybody know definately what happens in a battle? I understand a ship in Deploy 1 has most chance of being targetted and that its weapons also do most damage - true?

 

If I have a junk ship in Deploy 1 that is destroyed by the very first shot it receives do the opposing forces pick new targets or do they continue to shoot debris until the first round of battle is over?

[Clan Elder 'Keen]

Turok, from the explainations given to date, it appears that each round's offensive power is divided into "globs" depending on your firecontrol rating. Each "glob" is then assigned a target based on formations. So overkill firepower is lost if a huge "glob" vaporizes a 1,000 ton escort. It's not clear if multiple globs can target the same ship, although they should be able to considering the enemy fleet might have only a single ship. So I would wager that each "glob" is assigned randomly, and if multiples assignments end up being the same ship, so be it.

[cestvel]

I'm not sure if the calculation is correct, or is wrong. All I can do is look at the numbers the programs toss out. In my big warp battle, it showed Fire Control: 1 for both fleets. When I ran into the Bashkar Monitors, it showed Fire Control: 3,040,000.

 

So, what's a player to do. My ships and NSI's ships had a lot of computers and the like. We each fired on one ship per round. So the Fire Control: 1 seems correct. So then, a few turns later, I see Fire Control: 3,040,000. Does this mean Pete changed the battle code to display Fire Control Rating, but still call it Fire Control on the turn just to add to the mystery of the game? Or does a ship with these components add up to really big numbers?

 

20 Advanced Battle Display, 20 Battle Imaging System, 20 FCS-1 Archer Fire Control, 25 FFS-1 Fleet Formation Scanner, 20 Laser Communications Gear, 17 Mk I Long Range Sensor, 30 Mk I Mass Detector Sensor, 10 Mk II Computer System

 

Your explaination makes more sense. But how is one supposed to know what is going on when what is displayed seems to change from turn to turn?

 

Actually (if we count in Sensor) this ship has only 2% devoted to Fire Control.

If we leave out Sensors it is just 1%.

 

Pete said something of at least 5% Bridge Component with the Mk II Computers were needed, it

shows how much more the new components are adding to Fire Control, as a mere 1% of

these System push them way ahead of 5% Mk II Computers only.

 

But I think it is the comlete Tonnage Rating here, so as already stated, divide be Tonnage of ship

and it yields only 1 Shot per round.

 

Cestvel