thinking of MoO2 and being bored I was reading various reviews on BotF and ran across this tid-bit and it struck a chord with me.



Thinking about this, this would make an excellent addition to the game, especially on a strategic level, and adds a bit of randomness to empires. could have a pool of generics(available to any race) and race specific(like kirk). Bonuses would have to be very well balanced to avoid it being a bit too unfair, but it could easily add a bit more strategy.

I would propose a similar function as in MoO2, have system leaders, and ship leaders, just as in MoO2, only without the 'titles'. you'd have your Characters screen which shows certain people you've hired and you can give them various orders, like say you had riker and he was good at ship training, you could set him down at the mars defense perimeter and have him training the defense force, or some such nonsense :-p

Mike, even if you dont want to implement this, please give me some feed back, as i would love to hear what you think of this. I am no where near even considering this kind of addition, but maybe once I've got some functionality down i'll give it a try.

I can just smell the word "copyright" when I hear a suggestion like this. Not that I realy know much about it, but I have the feeling all those known actors of the series have to give permissions and what else before we start to get all of their pictures in.

But, other than that. I do like the idea! There are lots and lots of characters (for every faction, that is) that could be implemented. Add some minor race characters to spice up the field a bit and you could have a briliant system.

I like it! But, as I said, I'm sceptical about the legal problems..

I've already considered this feature, and while it's a good idea, I scrapped it because it fell into the "I'd like to do this if I had all of eternity to develop the game" category. Also because of the legal issues VarDin brought up. We're in thin ice as it is.

This is really good idea! Mike is it your decision definite? Leaders/Characters simple and nothing more then in MoO2... is to demanding?

I'd make for an interesting MOD, but no doubt would be hard due to complexity and rewrite.

the simplest and easiest way around said copyrights is to MAKE THEM UP. I used riker as an example, but theres billions of people in each race, they haven't ALL been mentioned :-p

it actually can add a LOT of complexity, even to something as simple as the same style as MoO2, it adds another screen to be designed and implemented. lots of various calculations and functions to be added for the various abilities, and the numerous number of abilities this leaders could influence. adds to the turn calculations as everything that might be influenced by a leader will need a check to see if x is modified, etc etc. I can see where mike is coming from in that this feature being added to an already existing code base can be very extensive and leaves a lot of room for problems where certain things wont get modified properly because a check was implemented here but not there.

As for modding it in ... that could be highly difficult without the requisite functions already being an internal part of the program. Kinda like modding a gas engine to an electric hybrid. it sounds easy, but theres a lot that has to be re-done to make it work properly.

No decisions on the game are definite until it becomes impractical to change them. So it's too late to change from a square grid map to a hex map, but it's not too late to reverse the decision on leaders/characters. Even so, don't count seeing this implemented.

if we're gonna implement this feature, we sure need medals too. Here's a collection of Starfleet ones made by a guy named Dallas like 4 years ago, I guess we could email him for permission, there are some really nice ones there: http://www.dynamicsims.com/sulu/medals/medals.html http://www.dynamicsims.com/sulu/medals/size.html

For the other races, it'd be a job for the 2d artists, new and old, among us . Btw. that feature is probably gonna make it one way or the other in bote too, we already discussed that. Won't be on a ship crew/fleet level though, more generally in an overall admiral-type management, but still those medals would serve well and admirals sure also get medals when the fleets under their command were led to victory by him!

I've had an idea which is kinda related to this idea of commanders, but would be (hopefully, since I have no idea on the actual coding needed for it) easier to implement into the game. It gives a similar result, with certain ships having particular bonuses over other ships seperate from the basic statistics.

Basically, it would be implementing a feature like that of the vices and virtues generals could gain in the total war series, with each "skill" having multiple levels ... some examples would be the following:

Expert Engineer
The ship gains a hull repair rate bonus after having taken hull damage on X different occassions.

Legendary Engineer
The ship gains a further hull repair rate bonus after having taken hull damage on 3X different occassions.

Experienced Weapons Officer
Ship weapons fire accuracy increased X% (assuming this would be based off a function of a random number) after having inflicted XXX damage in X battles (or something along those lines).

Cowardly commander
If you order the ship to retreat from combat too many times, then you incurr a negative effect on ship crew experience.

Commander skilled at defensive operations
Crew experience rating is raised 1 level (ie regular -> veteran) in combat situations where the ship has not moved to enter combat, but combat has been brought to it. Could gain this after winning X battles in which the ship was in command of the defensive forces.

Commander skilled at offensive operations
Crew experience rating is raised 1 level (ie regular -> veteran) in combat situation where the ship had to move to engage the enemy (thus intercepting enemies would fall under this).


Additionally, if this kind of thing were implemented (especially the last two) then it would also be an idea if the ship present in a sector (both in and out of combat) with the most crew experience or whatever was officially the fleet 'command' ship, and it's bonuses from these virtues/vices would also provide some minor bonuses to ship serving "under" it.

For example, if the fleet command ship had the legendary engineer bonus, then other ships in the sector under its command would gain a small bonus to hull repair rate as well.

Or if the commander was good at defensive combat, then when in those combat conditions, ships under his command get a temporary boost to crew XP (not a large one, but significant enough that it could have an effect ... some ships on the higher end of 'regular' experience might just get knocked over to the veteran bracket for example).

Basically, this would give something along the lines of having specific commanders like was mentioned at the start of this thread - but is much more closely tied to the ships so you don't have to consider moving them about.

It could also make you consider your own ship movements a bit more carefully ... if your 'command' ship was travelling to a different fleet, you might want to send some other ships with him for safety's sake, since even with his bonuses, he wouldn't last long against a superior force.

If you like the idea, I could spend some time working on a fuller list of possible vices and virtues, and flesh out the descriptions a bit to detail effects of a command ship as well.

Some nice ideas, worth giving a look i think.

Regards Wolfe

I would LOVE for something like this to be in the game simply coz I like micromanagement and stats.

...But I also know that something like this would result in the game having to track experience in a much more detailed way - so basically the game would have to do more for the same amount of computer resources, which means a slower running game. We all know that Supremacy has a few problems on the speed side, although it is running many times faster than it was only four months ago.

It raises an interesting point that has NEVER been discussed to my knowledge though - HOW will the experience system work and what decides how much experience is gained from a battle? There are a lot of things that we could discuss in this respect:

• Will each ship get different amounts of experience or will all ships in your fleet gain the same amount of experience?
• Will ships that retreat gain experience? What if a ship retreats after a long battle?
• Will the length of the battle affect the amount of experience gained?
• Will the number of weapons fired by your ships affect the amount of experience gained?
• Will the accuracy of the weapons fired by your ships affect the amount of experience gained?
• Will the number of weapons hits avoided by your ships affect the amount of experience gained?
• Will the amount of damage taken during the battle affect the amount of experience gained?
• Will the amount of damage repaired during the battle affect the amount of experience gained? Will this just be hull damage or will it include shield damage as well?
• Will the use of different tactics affect the amount of experience gained?
• Will the size of your fleet affect the amount of experience gained?
• Will the size of the enemy fleet affect the amount of experience gained?
• Will the types of ship in your fleet affect the amount of experience gained?
• Will the types of ship in the enemy fleet affect the amount of experience gained?

Lots to think about. Personally I think the answer should be yes to all of them, but what do other people think? Can anyone add to that list?

Will the length of the battle affect the amount of experience gained?
Will the number of weapons fired by your ships affect the amount of experience gained?
Will the amount of damage repaired during the battle affect the amount of experience gained?
Will this just be hull damage or will it include shield damage as well?
Will the use of different tactics affect the amount of experience gained?
- I don’t think it should.

Will each ship get different amounts of experience or will all ships in your fleet gain the same amount of experience?
Will the size of your fleet affect the amount of experience gained?
Will the size of the enemy fleet affect the amount of experience gained?
Will the types of ship in your fleet affect the amount of experience gained?
Will the types of ship in the enemy fleet affect the amount of experience gained?
- Branch One – See Below

Will ships that retreat gain experience? What if a ship retreats after a long battle?
Will the accuracy of the weapons fired by your ships affect the amount of experience gained?
Will the number of weapons hits avoided by your ships affect the amount of experience gained?
Will the amount of damage taken during the battle affect the amount of experience gained?
- Branch Two – See Below


Ideally I would have the experience system split into two ‘branches’.

The first ‘branch’ is a more basic system, dealing with ship experience (Green-Regular-Veteran-Elite-Legendary) directly and should definitely be included in the game. It would be based upon a system where each ship in the game is attributed an ‘experience value’ ... basically, that number of experience points is split equally amongst the specific ships responsible for that ship’s destruction.
For example, five federation ships attack a bird of prey (experience value of 50) ... the bird of prey is destroyed with no losses to the federation task force. All five ships fired at least once at the BoP and thus the 50 points is divided equally amongst them, so 10 experience points each.
However, if only two of the five federation ships fired on the BoP, and the other three just sat there and absorbed any weapons fire thrown at them, the 50 points would be split equally between just the two ships which destroyed the BoP – so 25 points each.

The second ‘branch’ I’d implement is the vices/virtues idea I’ve mentioned before. This would govern more specific things such as consequences of retreating, accuracy, evasion and incurred damage.
However, due to this being significantly more detailed, this should probably be placed into the pile of things which can be compromised on ... even though I really want it

Branch One is more of a macro-scale system I suppose, dealing with a ship or fleet’s total experience, whereas branch two is focussed upon the micro-scale details ... specific abilities of each ship and its crew.

> Edit due to my fingers pressing the wrong buttons >.<

You and me both!

I've been on these forums for about four years now, and Mike knows just how much I like micromanagement. Several of my ideas have actually made it into the game, but Mike also knows that I sometimes go a little overboard on big ideas.

We're going to have to wait and see what Mike thinks about the experience system, but I think it's pointless to go into too much detail until the actual combat system is in place. I actually had a few more ideas to add to that list, but I went out for a meal with my family today so didn't have enough time. I just wanted to get the ball rolling on this topic since it hasn't really been discussed before. I always assumed that the experience "rankings" would still be in the game as you said - Green-Regular-Veteran-Elite-Legendary - I was simply referring to the physical number of experience points a ship would gain towards advancing through those rankings. And we haven't even mentioned what the values of each of those rankings should be yet...

Simplest way to decide on what the numbers should actually be is to take them straight out of BotF - it had a pretty good exponential scale for progression in there.

Well the game needs to be balanced and if we change things by having our new uber detailed system, things may need tweaking.

Looks like I missed the = sign in my bbcode quote above. But you didn't see that. Matress doesn't make mistakes. You saw nothing.

One important thing which i feel may blow some of your things away MOE is combat between human and AI and Human v Human would be able to take into account some of the things you mentioned above. However when the combat involves AI vs AI there won't be any chance for say 'Will the length of the battle affect the amount of experience gained?' or 'Will the accuracy of the weapons fired by your ships affect the amount of experience gained?' to be calculated into ship experience.

Simply because any AI v AI combat won't involve a 3D combat engine, it will be no doubt a much simpler level of combat to ensure performance doesn't go down the pan and therefore would lead to a perhaps unfair advantage one system may have over another and a possible nightmare to balance.

A lot of what you would like logged in regards to ship combat may be possible, but feasible given performance issues i'am not so sure.

Just some food for thought, but yes MOE i would like a level of detail you've prescribed to, i always thought the old BOTF system though effecient good but also lacking.

Regards Wolfe

in fact, our current auto-battle is calculated in 3D coordinates and run like some kind of 100000 FPS combat just without the visualization wolfe. So there is no difference other than visualization in our AI and human combats..

Just have a look at our combat simulator and run it once with repeat=0 then you can see how it is exactly run (just a lot faster) inside bote.

Do you log each beam and warhead fire and impact, whether they hit or miss? etc.

I'am not saying it can't be done, but would it be at a cost?

Regards Wolfe

exactly. each beam is calculated already whether it hits or misses, same with torps.
http://www.botf2.com/bote/wiki features all beam strength, fire arc and torpedo reload values per second which are directly used. It is actually calculated in fast-forwarded realtime . As I said, just run the simulator, there the fast-forward is turned off with the repeat flag. Otherwise you just get statistical data with fast-forward=on. It is pretty complex (sir p. programmed nearly a year on it alone) so if you need the code for your own 3D battle (it might actually be of great help, why haven't I thought about that earlier? ) just pm sir p.

OK, I've worked out a basic structure to the systems I had in mind ... plus a bit more in depth information. I've attached it to this post so the formatting is maintained.

nice doc. do you by chance have a nice formula for calculating experience gain after battle taking hits and missed shots into account as well as pre-calculated odds and actual outcome as multiplying factor. Would be great!

Easiest way to do that will be:

Base experience value of destroyed ship is split between the vessels responsible for it's destruction by the %age of damage caused by each ship...

Hypothetical numbers:
Total HP = 500
Experience value is 200
Five ships were involved in ship destruction.
Ship 1 did 150 damage = (150 / 500) x 200 = 60xp gained
Ship 2 did 70 damage = (70 / 500) x 200 = 28xp gained
Ship 3 did 50 damage = (50 / 500) x 200 = 20xp gained
Ship 4 did 30 damage = (30 / 500) x 200 = 12xp gained
Ship 5 did 200 damage = (200 / 500) x 200 = 80xp gained

You can then apply other factors as a modifier to these xp gained values ... something along the lines of the following:
Accuracy xp modifier = Accuracy (Total hits / Total shots) divided by a baseline accuracy %age such as 60% (could have this baseline change with crew experience ranking).
eg. Accuracy xp modifier = ((16hits / 20shots) / 0.6 baseline = 0.75 / 0.6 = 1.25 (25% bonus)
eg. Accuracy xp modifier = (8hit / 20shots) / 0.6 baseline = 0.4 / 0.6 = 0.66 modifier (33% penalty)

I'm not too sure about doing a modifier based on pre-calculated odds ... with the myriad of stats to take into account like crew experience / task force commanders / fleet commanders / types of ships etc etc etc it would actually be kinda difficult to work out a formula for.

not really, fortunately , and that's because of the law of large numbers. Inside the program, the battle could be auto-calculated (which should be possible anyway) like 500 times (works fine with today's cpus) and then deviation, i.e. the difference between the large number outcome averaged values (we have a set of average values that each ship gets evaluated after, hit efficiency, damage, etc., i.e. one set tested against every other values or one just takes a rough multiplier by the 2 win ratios, i.e. how much were killed on both sides on average and in that particular case) and actual one-time outcome gets measured and used here. How would you take it into calculation here? Simple multiplying?

I was thinking more along the lines of how difficult it will be trying to figure out the best way to numerically figure out and represent the relative strengths of the two sides in the battle...

Though I suppose you could just total the ship stats (see below) and multiply by the number of ships present for each side of the battle (this to account for maximum number of commands you can give per turn of combat).

You can then manipulate the two generated numerical strengths to make a modifier and apply that.

So for example:
(accuracy not included as it has a seperate modifier applied after combat)

For each ship (after experience bonuses have been applied):
number of beams x beam damage + number of torps x torp damage + shield hp total + hull hp total

Total this for all present ships in the fleet then:

total stats x number of ships = final fleet points total.

With these final two numbers, create a modifier for xp by dividing the defeated fleets initial total value by the victor's initial total. This then gives you the modifier you desire.

I'm not really clued up on how the combat system is going to be working though, so do whatever you feel is appropriate.

All that experience talk got a little confusing, so i went and actually figured out the equations relating everything together for those ideas.

WINNING FLEET SHIP EXPERIENCE GAIN

G = ship experience gain
V = enemy ship experience value
D = damage dealt to enemy ship
E = total hitpoints of enemy ship
S = total shots fire at enemy ship
H = total shots which hit enemy ship
A = accuracy baseline (to be set by ship's experience rank)
SL = simulated losing fleet's suriviving point strength
AL = actual losing fleet's suriviving point strength
SW = simulated winning fleet's surviving point strength
AW = actual winning fleet's surviving point strength

G = (V*D*H*SL*AW) / (E*S*A*SW*AL)

LOSING FLEET SHIP EXPERIENCE GAIN

G = (V*D*H*SW*AL) / (E*S*A*AW*SL)


FLEET POINT STRENGTH

F = fleet point strength (either winning of losing)
∑ = sum of
Sn = ship number n's point strength
N = total number of ships in the fleet

F = N * ∑ (S1, S2, S3, ... Sn)


SHIP POINT STRENGTH

S = ship point strength
B = number of beam weapons
b = beam damage
P = number of pulse weapons
p = pulse damage
T = number of torpedo weapons
t = torpedo damage
H = hull hitpoints
h = shield hitpoints
All of the above are the values of the statistics AFTER any modifiers from a ships experience rank / task force commander / fleet commander / traits have been taken into account.

S = (B * b) + (P * p) + (T *t) + H + h


Those four equations define the experience gain system

Looking over what you said here, I think I got the wrong gist of your meaning in my previous posts...

You could do what you suggest - taking the actual battle outcome and comparing it to a pre-calculated average for the result - without too much effort actually.

Using something similar to the fleet point strength formula i described in the last post you could calculate the points value of surviving vessels on both sides, run a large number of simulations and calculate an average for both sides. Then, once the outcome of the actual battle is done, find the fleet point values again and compare it with the averaged results in the following way to gain a modifier...

Simulated losing fleet survivors * actual winning fleet survivors
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- = modifier
actual losing fleet survivors * simulated winning fleet survivors

see? it helps to be a mathematician .
btw. I miss some exponentiation and Fredholm-operators in all those equations. Just don't make life too easy for mike here!

Bad Malvoisin - it's that kind of maths which made me fail University-level Physics

Edit -> Changed the post with all the formulae to put the new modifier in, in place of the old point comparison one.

My brain has officially melted.

Glad I've got a proper discussion going on this, but don't ask me to check your sums.

I checked it with fake numbers to make sure it worked out properly