Reply digested in the Request section of the Wiki for the game
http://111george.com/friki/view?PocketEmpiresRequests
Originally posted by TheDS:
If a unit is 2-1-0, what does that mean?
Sorry, my shorthand for what appears on the screen. The first number is the attack factor, the second the defense factor, and the third the jump range. Capacity isn't described when I use that format. A more inclusive format would be "2,1,3.4,0". This is like what you write in the scenario file (PocketEmpiresScenarioFileFormatSideDefinitionKeys). This is Attack,Defense,Cap-H.Cap-J,Jump. Where Cap-H is the number of att/def factors it can hold in its hanger and Cap-J is the number of extra Jump-1's in fuel stored.
Not all units should have 2 hit points.
In the current Islands scenario I've got fighters as 1-0-0. That way they are really cheap. I modified a 6-6-2 battleship to a 3-6-2 with capacity for 3 1-0-0 fighters. Not bad. It will be more strategic if I change it so starports can produce more ships. 1-0-0 fighters will be really quick to build. They are really only effective is it takes two hits to kill them though. It kind of reflects the idea of small maneuverable fighters.
I like the simplicity for now of two states, two hits to kill. Perhaps in the longer term the system could be switched so that hits eroded att/def factors. That would enable a system where powerful ships took longer to destroy and where when you massively outgunned someone you could blow them away quicker.
do you take a look at published stats
and have a definite scale to determine
what a value should be?
This is a very abstract system. It's hard to compare it with any of the published stats for any of the myriad of ship design systems. I've sort of created my own mental scale where a battle ship is 6.6.x, a cruiser is 4.4.x, a destroyer is 2.2.x and a fighter is 1.0.x. Since every scenario is self contained, different designers can experiment with different values. But I don't think it will be feasible to have a page on how to convert, say, your Mega Traveller ship designs to this format.
Defense consists not just of maneuver
+ agility. You must factor in armor and size.
Well, it was just a sort of mental association for me to equate maneuver + agility. I'm mostly thinking in MT terms. The design system is purely abstract. You assign the defense, you don't assign the maneuver, agility, size, armour, etc, etc. Just pick the defense that matches your concept.
For a more complex system I have another game (
http://111george.com/friki/view?TravellerAdventure). I've encoded (most of) the Mega Traveller ship design sequence. Once I've got code for making those ships combat each other then you could do a wargame that gives you very fine control over your ship design. I'd rather keep this one simple for now.
The likelihood of successfully hiding out
in a system is going to correlate directly
with the smallness of a ship, ...
Well, "hiding" in the Outer System is no so much being covert, but being hard to catch. If you just want to pass-through the system, you can always jump into an outer part of it. Refuel on a distant Gas Giant or in the cometary halo.
I am going to take Peter's suggestion and modify the combat phases. You will only be given a choice to flee-for-free at the very start of combat. Afterwards you may choose to flee from combat, but you will still be able to be attacked for that one phase. This will, hopefully, reflect your concern about evading.
The implementation of jump drives
must be thought out carefully.
The way the system works with a few different units. Attack and Defense are measured in "factors". Size and capacity are measured in arbitrary units, call them tons for discussion sake. Jump is measured in parsecs.
Att/Def factors compute as 100t each. Jump is computed into size using the standard Traveller formula. Jump-N take 1% + 1%*N for the jump drive and 10%*N for the fuel. We have to do a small linear regression when we read in the scenario file to compute the space the jump drive takes up. So you can see the size is not an exact combination of Att + Def + Jump. I think that meets your concerns.
Right now I have a "cost" which is equal to the size of the ship minus the capacity. You don't pay for hanger/extra fuel space. But you do pay for the implicit fuel tank that is part of your jump drive. The cost difference between having a 4,4,0,2 cruiser and a 4,4,2,2 cruiser is the incremental increase in size of the jump drive to carry the extra capacity. Building ships will probably be based on this "cost".
My changes to I3M were that ...
These are interesting ideas. One issue I periodically wrestle with is how to have a system whereby combat does not require human intervention. The current system is fine for a real-time game. But clearly there are a lot of sneaky maneuvers that a computer driven player can never do. This would be really fun to play human-against-human. I've structured the program to allow for the ability, down the road, to be used as a play-by-mail or web-based game. The only problem is the interaction needed in combat.
If it was converted to a line-of-battle system like you propose, that would be easier. Players nominate, when they do their turns, a priority for their ships should they meet battle. So, after the turns are done, if battle is due, the computer can run through the battle and report back with no intervention needed.
On the down side is does kind of 1D what is normally 3D battle. I do fighting in the SCA and the expectation is that of Napoleonic "everyone line up on this side, you on the other side and we fight a nice orderly battle". The reality is much more like Braveheart where there is total chaos and intermixing of fighters. Friendly fire is way common even with different coloured duct tape to separate the sides for the heraldically challanged! I can only imagine 3D battle is worse.
But I'm not as concerned with being realistic as being playable. I'll think about it when I do the next mod to the combat phase and see what comes out of it.
