Good Idea there Mstrobel.

So what about fleet movements? I see things like border patrols, Interior patrols, escorts for diplomatic meetings, Blockades. And one of my favorites from old botf, Winning over a minor from another major power.

With the last, I actually lost the EDO system to the Ferengi, simply because I was giving them so many credits so often, they they became insulted! It actually did happen.

Many of you might not remember or know about this but in Org Trek, The Federation was in a sence in a battle with the klingons for a planet, altough they did not attack each other directly. They instead matched weapons tech and allowed the pop of that planet to sort it out themselves, plus they used as much diplomatic relations as could be given.

Of course there is always raiding parties, spying on outposts, the occasional loss of engines.

This is all I can come up with quickly without giving it deep thought.

OH not to mention smuggling out refugees, ect. complex yes but highly doable..

I'd have to disagree on the avoid order. For example, a science vessel set to avoid should be able to avoid combat if it encounters one or two other ships without warping anywhere. Also, I sometimes order science vessels into combat with other ships set to engage due to their sensor capabilities, thus allowing me to target inexperienced ships. If the ship automatically warps away, that would mean I would have to first set it to engage, and then back to avoid after combat which is quite annoying.

Avoid should simply mean that the taskforce takes all possible steps to avoid combat in the sector it is in. Program-wise, each ship could have an avoidance rating (according to what Mike posted, each ship already has an intercept ability raiting). The avoidance rating would determine how easy it is for a ship to avoid entering combat.

Borrowing some of the stats that Mike posted, let's say there is an enemy ship that has 25 Intercept rating (noted in the ship stats by <InterceptAbility>) and your science vessel is set to avoid and has an avoidance rating of 25. This is what I see happening:

Your ship (avoiding with 25) and the enemy ship (engaging with 25) finish their movements in the same sector. The computer sees this and will now determine if combat should occur. The computer will now generate a random number of some sort, let's say between 1 and 20, for your ship. It will then add the avoidance rating to the result and that is your ship's chance of avoiding combat this turn. The same thing will occur for the enemy ship, except it's intercept rating will be added to the random number instead.

Essentially, your ship will have a 50% chance to avoid entering combat with the enemy ship. A higher avoidance rating means it's more likely to avoid combat. Also, if you have a ship with 55 avoidance rating and you encounter a ship with only 25 intercept rating, you will never be intercepted by that ship if it is set to engage.

Also, this can get tied into the intercept fleet order. I imagine the intercept fleet order would multiply the intercept rating of the ship by a certain modifier. It can also be included in the ship stats file as <InterceptModifier> or something similiar. Some ships, naturally, are better suited intercepting ships than others. Take the Defiant for example. However, I do not expect these modifiers to vary greatly between ships. I'd imagine most would have a modifier of 2 while some of the speedier ships could have 3, possibly 4 tops. Essentially, when a ship is ordered to intercept, it will then multiply the intercept result by the modifier.

Going back to my example with the 55 avoid and 25 intercept ship, let's say that the engaging enemy ship has a modifier of 2. Thus, the computer would roll a number between 1 and 20, add the 25 rating, and then multiply the result by 2. Thus, the ship could have anywhere from 26*2 to 45*2. Note that it could still be possible for the intercepting ship to wind up with a result of 52 and 54, thus the avoiding ship would still avoid combat situations.

The avoidance rating could be a great addition to ship stats, I think. The intercept modifier would be nice as well, but not as important as the avoidance rating. What the modifier would allow is greater variance in intercepting abilities between ships. Perhaps capital ships are very good in finding ships within the sector they currently inhabit so they would have high intercept ratings, but are poorly designed to persue and intercept ships across sectors. Thus, they'd have modifiers somewhere between 1 and 2. On the flip side, perhaps escorts and destroyers are not as effecient in cornering ships set to avoid in sectors they are idle in, but are extremely effective in search and destroy missions. Thus, they'd have low to midrange intercept ability, but very high intercept modifiers, perhaps in the 3-5 range.

Questions? Comments? Feelings?

Well, the Intercept Ability stat is already planned, though the Avoid Ability stat is an idea worth considering.

I should comment on the capabilities of fleet orders. Any order has ability to require the user to select a target. In those cases, the code for that type of order will include the functionality necessary to generate a list of possible targets. For example, SonOfMogh suggested an Intercept target that would track enemy ships. This is pretty much what I had in mind for a "Pursue" order, except that the user would select the fleet to pursue (given a choice of all enemy fleets within your space). The fleet given the "Pursue" order would then 'chase' the target fleet out of your space, and then revert to the previous order once the target fleet has been engaged or has escaped.

Note that an order target does not have to be an enemy fleet. It can be any in-game object, such as a stranded ship to tow or an anomaly to scan.

SonOfMogh, thanks for your suggestions. I'm a bit busy finishing an assignment for school right now, but I promise to look over them and give you some feedback the first chance I get. If you want to go back and revise them based on the information I just stated about order targets, be my guest.

Cheers,
Mike

Also, in talking to Mike (distracting him from his homework), he reminded me that crew experience should also be factor.

Just to re-hash what I said (and to be more clear):

A ship set to avoid would have the following:
random(20) + AvoidanceAbility + CrewExpModifier

A ship set to engage would have the following:
random(20) + InterceptAbility + CrewExpModifier

A ship set to intercept would have the following:
(random(20) + InterceptAbility) * InterceptModifier + CrewExpModifier

The modifier would likely be representitive of the ship's speed and agility, although it doesn't have to be. You could mod a shuttlecraft to be the galaxy's best interceptor. Also, the CrewExpModifier could be factored in before or after the InterceptModifier multiplies the intercept result. I have it displayed after the multiplication occurs because a ship set to intercept with an experienced crew would probably gain just as much as a ship set to avoid with an equally experienced crew. Since crew experience would be equal the bonus should be equal, so the only other factors to consider would be the abilities of their respective ships (avoid vs intercept ability * intercept modifier).

Also, as a disclaimer, the numbers I'm using are just placeholders and are in no way what I think they should be. But I like these ideas as I think they can give better variety to ships, and it will be very easy to tune each ship's intercepting capabilities.

OK, having finished my homework (no thanks to Azhdeen ) I've had a chance to go over SonOfMogh's fleet order proposals. Below are the suggestions that I liked (or were already planned), and a revised description based on how they will most likely be implemented.

Patrol Border -> The fleet will circumnavigate your borders and intercept any hostile fleets within range.

Patrol -> This order is only available after you set a course. If the route is not closed (e.g. the final waypoint is not in the starting sector), then the shortest path from the last sector back to the starting sector will be appended to the route. The fleet will then follow the closed route repeatedly until ordered otherwise. Any enemy fleets within range will be intercepted.

Intercept -> Same as in BotF

Pursue -> Select a hostile fleet to pursue. That fleet will then be followed until it is engaged or it leaves your territory.

Escort -> Select a fleet to escort. That fleet will be followed and protected until ordered otherwise.

Scan Object -> Select an object to scan and generate research points. The number of points generated each turn depends on the combined Science Ability of the fleet, and the total number of RPs possible depends on the type of object being scanned.

Repair -> If an owned or affiliated starbase/spacedock/shipyard exists in the current sector, and if the selected fleet is damaged, then this order will cause any damaged vessels in the selected fleet to dock for repairs as repair docks become available. If more than one dock is available (i.e. one at a spacedock and one at a shipyard), then the dock with the greatest repair capacity will be chosen.

Raid -> Same as in BotF.

Blockade -> Block delivery of resources to a system from the controlling empire's global stockpiles. This may cause local production projects to stall. The effectiveness of this order depends on the number and type of ships participating in the blockade.

(De-)cloak -> duh...

Enter Wormhole -> Cross your fingers...

Excellent, looks really really good. Can you escort ships of other races? (like the Defiant escorting Cardassian freighters). Also, how does refuelling work in Supremacy?


I located this thread from a couple of years ago. Nothing new and a few things aren't too relevant, but it's here for info purposes. I'd forgotten that I came up with the pursue idea!!

http://www.botfii.armadafleetcommand.co ... 86&start=0


EDIT- I just re read the pursue order. It says that the pursuit would take place until the enemy ship clears your territory. We really need anoder enabling you to follow the enemy ship until caught. This would be ideal if you spotted a scout on your border with max speed 2, and your vessel has speed 3. If enemy space or reinforcements are 20 squares away then the race is on!!!

I suppose the Pursue order could persist until the target fleet is caught...

The issue of fuel is something I've been putting off dealing with for too long. I don't really like any of the proposed systems. I'm open to suggestions.

Okay all of this is excellent. Now what about single and fleet attack movenents? To me the whole concept of your fleet and my fleet just diving in or turning in big circles makes no sence. Even in Canon, ships do various twists and turns but left right up and down. Heck even a zig zag pattern seems a bit more realistic then to just rush in head on where then you (both fleets) have to do turns to "re engage"

I also ponder why not be able to do single ship movements: example set 3 ships out of 12 to pull a quick turn to the right while the main fleet holds it's ground and takes on the opposing fleet or single ships.

This is just to give the battle sequence a bit more of a thrill.

Well, everything discussed above refers to regular fleet orders, not combat maneuvers. At the moment, combat maneuversare a ways off, and certainly worthy of their own thread. Anyway, what you see in combat will depend largely on the 3D math background of whoever I have helping me, as math was never my strongest area.

Would regular fleet orders also say set mining ships (if you have any) to orbit a planet and do it's job?

And what about getting to a spaceport or refit station. Or is this something that once you got into orbit of where these things were that the computer kinda takes over and just does the work for us.

One of the things I didn't like about intercept in BotF1 was the fact that my ships would not persue targets outside of my territory - particularly ships that were still in neutral shapce (and in enemy space when I was busy ordering my Sovereigns to conduct "diplomatic discussions" for the acquiring of new territory).

Perhaps the intercept order should have three modes. The first and lowest would intercept enemies within your borders. The second would intercept enemies in any sector that is allied/neutral (neutral being sectors of space that is not owned by an empire, plus if you can travel through minor race territory if you have a friendly treaty). And the last is an unrestricted intercept order which will hunt and persue enemy ships throughout the galaxy as long as they remain within range. We could name them creatively too... but I lack that ability atm (WHERE'S MY COFFEE!?!?)

Essentially, I'd imagine when you click on the intercept order, a set of three orders would branch out and you'd select which intercept setting you want. That way, if you start a Tech1 game, you could have your aging destroyers intercept within territory, your heavy destroyers out in neutral space, and your defiants zooming around and blasting starbases, outposts, science stations, combat ships, noncombat ships, etc to space dust.

Otherwise, I pretty much like the orders as Mike described them (plus I really like the avoid/intercept discussion further up.) I would be very satisified if those got implimented.

Question: if you can blockade the shipment of resources to a planet, will raid steal them? Or will it only give you credits? Also, I'm assuming blockade would attempt to stop all shipments while raid will attempt to steal some shipments and bank them for your empire, but allow the rest of the shipments to get through to the planet. Yes? No?

I'm not sure why colony ships would have to have a low avoidance rating. If any ship is going to avoid, it'll be colony ships. They serve absolutely 0 combat purpose. A low avoidance rating will ensure that they always get pulled into combat, effectively making the colony ship entirely defenseless from just about everything.

Avoidance is their defense, it's really the only thing they have. I'm not saying it should be sky-high either, but I don't think it should low (and based on statistics, it'll probably wind up being the lowest of all ships). Otherwise, the only other ships worth using the avoid order on will be science ships.

By the way, tweaking an equation for balance is more difficult than tweaking a statistic. Plus, the equation would likely be programmatic and thus difficult for modders to adjust without vast changes to ship statistics. I just find a seperate statistic easier to manage and impliment. And again, the statistic will likely be just a reflection of all the traits that were mentioned (speed, agility, etc), but variable if desired. *shrugs* I find a straight-up equation limiting.