I give all colonies a basic scan strength of 1, but it doesn't extend beyond that sector.

As I mentioned, this is the division I want. The Pursue would require being able to see the ship/fleet and maintaining sensor contact.




The scenario I'm worried about didn't involved sensors and getting past undetected. It involved Azhdeen's proposal of Engage not always catching an Avoid ship.



What the original game had. What is the sensor/scan system? Is there a level where cloaks are pierced?

Engage in BotF1 didn't always catch an avoiding ship. I set ALL of my science vessels to avoid while exploring, and they only entered combat when up against a large fleet. It worked spectacularly. In fact, my science vessels rarely engaged other avoiding fleets, even when set to engage, and I've been in the same sector as one or two engaged ships while set to avoid and not entered combat.

If the avoid order only worked when other ships were set to avoid... that would be a pretty lame order. What's the point of ordering fleets to avoid when it only works against other ships that are also going to avoid you? What are you avoiding from then? Just remove the avoid order at that point because if that were true, a couple of enemy colony ships in the same sector set to engage would still result in both ships either hailing, fleeing, or attempting to play bumper cars.

There's another thing that we haven't touched on, and that is having multiple avoid ships entering a sector with one or more ships set to engage. I was figuring the avoid/engage calculations would occur for each and every ship combination. If any one engaged ship successfully engages any other avoiding ship, every ship in the sector is brought into combat.

I'm going to backup a bit and outline what I'm thinking....

First of all, if any combat in a sector occurs, I believe every ship in that sector should be put into the 3d combat screen. If you wanted to make some ships not appear, I'm not sure how you'd do it. Where do you draw the line (or boarder)? I mean, there's already sector boarders, so I fail to see any point in dividing sectors up even more when determining who is put into combat. Thus, all ships in a given sector would go into the combat screen when battle occurs. This is irrelevant to avoid, engage, intercept, and persue. I see this as a fundamental game mechanic.

Now, I proposed that each and every ship will have the ability to avoid, and each and every ship could possibly have a different chance of avoiding combat dependant on ship class, ship stats, crew experience, and other factors that are being discussed.

The same goes for the ability to engage. Every ship in the game should have the ability to engage (even non-combats). If the chips are down and you MUST stop another empire now, you better believe that I'll order an Enterprise-to-Scimitar manevuer for ALL of my non-combat ships. They might not exactly be awesome at engaging enemies so their chances might be lower than most ships, but if I need them to do it, they're gonna do it. And I want that option available, no matter how unlikely it is.

Now let's say you have 2 destroyers set to engage in a sector. Each destroyer will want to attempt to engage things that come into that sector. Thus, if a single enemy troop transport ends it's turn in the same sector as your 2 destroyers, the game will roll the transport's avoid rating. It will then roll an engage chance for your first destroyer. If the game decides combat will occur, all ships will be brought to the 3d combat screen.

Let's say that the first destoyer failed to engage the troop transport. The game will then roll an engage chance for the second destroyer. It will then compare the engagement rating with the avoid rating of the troop transport and determine an outcome. Is there battle? If yes, then all ships are brought to the 3-d combat. If no, then nothing happens.

In another thread (I think, maybe it was over MSN), I suggested to Mike that warning boxes occur when enemy fleets reach certain proximities of friendly systems. I would like to see anouncements of detected enemy incursions into the player's territory, and I'd like to see some boxes for when enemy fleets are directly over a system, particularly troop transports. Thus, if this gets implimented and a troop transport is now over your system with your destroyer(s), you will get a box stating specifically what is happening. Thus, you could go to that system and order the destroyer to intercept. Or... you could do something else outline below....

There is going to be an escort order which will order your taskforces to defend ships. I would like to extend a defend order that will defend that particular sector of space. Either that, or modify the intercept order to allow an area of space to be selected. It'd be similiar to patrol, except the taskforce would not move until a ship is detected, then it will attempt to intercept it for as long as the ship remains in the defined area. Thus, you could define a single sector, or include multiple sectors. If a new order is deemed warranted for this, I would intend for this order to be under the same restrictions as intercept, although modifying the intercept order much like how the waypoints work should be doable. Setting the waypoints would determine the area in which the ship would restrict it's interception order. Determining a way to order the ship to intercept within just one sector would need to be devised.

Thus, to combat the rogue troop transports, you could order your single destroyer to defend your new colony by setting it to intercept just that one sector. Thus, it'd never move, but would attempt to intercept anything that flies through the sector. If a troop transport shows up, the troop transport would roll it's avoidance rating. Your destroyer would roll it's engagement rating, and then multiply that result by it's interception ability (modifier) to determine if it catches the troop transport or not.

Don't forget, the troop transport ends it's movement turn in your sector and you get an engagement chance. Then the transport needs to be ordered to attack the system, thus it's still in the same sector on the following turn so you receive another engagement chance. One for the end of movement, and one just before the attack system order is carried out. If the troop transport evades you both times against your intercepting destoyers, than you probably need better ships or you were very, very, very, very, very, very unlucky. But, that is the kind of stuff I want to see. I want to see luck as ship combat has a crazy amount of luck involved. How lucky was it that Picard could "hear" the Borg in First Contact? If he couldn't, what would have happened? The Borg win, Earth is enslaved, Star Trek as we know it is changed forever, the end. He was pretty lucky, eh? And that's just one example out of dozens and dozens in canon Trek, not to mention what else would be occuring in the Star Trek universe that is outside the scope of the main protaginists in the movies and TV shows.

I don't see how luck cannot be included in combat situations. The purpose of the player is to minimize his or her reliance on luck. Do that, and you win the game as statistics is on your side. If you rely on luck, you should surely lose, but there's still chance. Make the entire game absolute, then all one needs to do is build the most and best ships and buildings they can and they will guarenteed to win. Once that point is reached, the game is no longer fun, but easily predictable. There's no twists to the game. No "Oh man! I never saw that coming!!! Wow!!! That little ship took out FOUR warbirds?! No way!!!" If it's all a sure thing, then all you'll be able to talk about is how you built an uber fleet instead of the NX class you built on turn 10 was barely able to take out a tech 8 enemy escort considering how unlikely that outcome really was. Which one sounds more interesting? This, of course, is just an example I pulled out of thin air so it may or may not occur, but the general idea is what I'm aiming for.

I want to see a fair and balanced game. But, I also want to see upsets. Should they occur every game? No, otherwise they wouldn't be "upsets", but I still want to see them. It's like a football game. You could have a team that is statistically superior playing on their homefield against a subpar team in comparison and still lose. Does it happen a lot? No. But it does happen. Combat, in all of its forms, is the same exact way.

My apologies if this sounds a bit... "preachy" I guess. I thrive on statistics as I have a pretty large mathmatical background, so I kinda get a bit passionate about it. Quite easily the best gaming experiences I have is doing things that should not likely occur. Theorycrafting is like second nature to me.

Very good post mate, a few thoughts.....

I still think the ability to avoid combat with a Warship after your blood is crazy. I mean how would that work?....
"Captain! Warbird on an intercept course, at their current speed they'll intercept us in 3 minutes!!!"
"Tactical analysis?!"
"Sir, we are no match for them, our entire arsenal would hardly dent their shielding!"
"Send out a distress signal to the nearest Feder..."
"CAPTAIN, Warbird moving into weapons range!!!!"
"Errr, ok... We're not going to win this one... just avoid them!"
"Aye Sir, now set to avoid. Shields lowered, shall I give them the finger as they pass?"
"Make it so, number one"

Seriously though, what is taking place when a ship avoids?

On the subject of avoiding. The avoid command is there to express your desire not to fight an enemy or neutral vessel. If the enemy vessel you encounter is also looking to avoid a fight, you avoid each other. If he decides to engage, you fight. The purpose it serves is to highlight your desire to avoid engagements, if your mission isn't one of war. All your ships would be set to avoid during peacetime or in neutral space.


I do like the defend order, if avoid works as previously stated.


The upset thing is interesting, although I'm not personally sold on it. I'd like to see the odd shot do way more damage than it should (on the assumption it miraculously hit a generator etc). However, no tech 1 ship would be able to create even the slightest inconvenience to a tech 8 vessel.


EDIT- Ps, I'm now an Ahhhdmeeeehral!!!

Well said, Rear Admiral. Ripping good laugh.

Avoid, I envisioned, would be like an evasive order in an attempt to stay out of combat. Obviously, most ships that are purposefully set to intercept will likely intercept their targets depending on the various statistics. Evading an intercepting warbird isn't that likely. But it could be likely to evade one that isn't actively intercepting, but simply set to engage. Just because ships are in the same sector does not mean they are on top of each other. In fact, quite the contrary. An avoid order is designed to help maintain the concept of distance between the avoiding ship and likely persuers. If the ship can successfully maintain that distance, then it has avoided combat. If not... hello space dust.

Engage is like an all-purpose order. Do this, this, and that and if you happen to come acorss any ships on your way, blow them to bits. If you're set to intercept, you are far more likely to enter combat with other ships at the expense of the freedom of doing other things, like ordered movement, rescue efforts, science missions, and whatever else you could order your fleets to be doing if they were set only to engage.

The avoid order would be like the opposite of engage. You can still order those ships to do whatever you want like movement, research, whatever. But instead of attempting to actively engage ships while they are busy doing these tasks, they would direct an equal amount of effort in avoiding combat instead. Again, it's not fool-proof and a ship with an equivilent amount of engagement ability could force the ship to combat, and the intercept/persue order would multiply the ship's ability at forcing combat, possibly to the point where it is 100% gaurenteed depending on how the statistics get balanced.

Otherwise, the avoid order doesn't make much sense. I'm not sure how avoid is a good idea during war periods. If you as a player want to avoid combat with an enemy player, then you send a non-aggression treaty to that race. If they tell you to screw yourself, well then... *shrugs* they'll engage you anyways. Setting your ships to avoid is redundant as there are other game mechanics that will do what you are describing.

As for "the upset thing", don't look into it too much. It will be rare. Take this example that I just totally made up (much like I did with the NX example. I totally made that up to outline the general concept, however I expect the NX to be 100% of the time turned into spacedust with no recourse. Anyways, onward to the totally made-up example):

You have a ship. This ship has a +10 chance to avoid and a +10 chance to engage enemies when set to the "engage" order. Let's assume that for a random chance, the game rolls a number between 1 and 20.

So, this ship has an avoidance rating at any given time between 11 and 30. It also has the ability to engage avoiding enemies with a rating between 11 and 30. Thus, if one of these ships was set to avoid and the exact same ship, set to engage, entered the system, there would be a statistical 50% chance that combat occurs.

Now, let's say a second type of ship has a +20 to engage other ships. It's engagement rating will be between 21 and 40. Thus, the avoiding ship would have to atleast roll an 11 in order to have a chance of avoiding this vessel. If it rolls between a 1 and 10 (for a total rating of 11 to 20), it WILL enter combat regardless of what the aggressive ship rolls since the worst result the engaging ship can get is 21. Follow?

Now, if the engaging ship rolls atleast 11 on it's engagement rating (giving the ship a total rating of 30), it is 100% gaurenteed to engage the ship in combat, regardless of what the avoiding ship has for an avoidance result since anything higher than a 10 gives the engaing ship over 30, which is the maximum ability the defending ship has to avoid combat.

So... in order for the defending ship to avoid combat, it MUST roll higher than 11 AND the aggressive ship must roll lower than 11. Thus, the ship only has a 25% chance of avoiding combat. If an interception order is given, I expect for there to be an interception modifier variable attached to each ship or ship class structure that would multiply the engagement rating.

Thus, with the example of ship A with +10 avoid and ship B with +20 engagement, let's say that ship B has an interception modifier of 2. What this will do is the program will roll between 1 and 20 like usual, and then add the engagement rating. In the example, it was +20 allowing for a result between 21 and 40. It will then multiply this result by 2 because of the interception order. Again, this is a distinct difference than the previous example. The previos example was simply talking about a ship that is set to the general "engage" order. Now, it is set to "Intercept" so the result will get multiplied.

So now the total result will be between 41 and 80. Since ship A, which is set to avoid, can only achieve a maximum avoidance rating of 10 + 20 = 30, there is a 100% chance of interception and combat occuring, which means whatever sector you're in will have a brand new mini asteroid field of shiney titanium hull plating.

These are ALL theoretical values that I'm pulling out of my behind to outline the concepts in my brain. I found your dialog pretty hilarious and I too see it as rather silly if that was how the game was going to behave. But I hope that my example shows that given the concepts, that would be very unlikely to occur, if at all.

Again, this bares repeating:

Avoid = Ship stats + randomness (20 is a decent example).
Engagement (via the "Engage" order) = Ship stats + randomness (again, 20 is a decent example).
Interception (via the "Intercept", "Persue", and "Defend" orders) = (Ship stats + randomness (20)) x Interception modifier.

With a set of equations to determine these outcomes, it will rest on the shoulders of the game balancers to tweaks the statistics of each ship to determine the statistical outcome of all these possibilities. I see this as fair and balanced. You won't be flipping off any Warbirds anytime soon, regardless of how hilarious it'd be. And it gives the orders uniqueness with differing trade-offs. Want to maximize your chances of combat? Set your ships to intercept, persue, or defend. Want to go do some research on that nebluea? Then you have to be set to engage and forgo some of your ability to cause combat with avoiding vessels.

Honestly, I fail to see the purpose of "avoid" if it is implimented any other way. And I really don't like absolutes unless there's a really good reason for it. Like... technological superiority for example.

Another very good post. Obviously, I have some thoughts!



This does make perfect sense. So I guess the modifiers take into account that the ship you encounter could be right at the far end of the sector, and might not be worth the hassle of what would effectively constitute a course change, to fight him, when he is trying his best to avoid you. I see this working so long as at least one ship is moving at warp- however I guess the chances of combat not occuring 2 turns in a row is minimal. This also calls for the pursue command to be fool proof. As there's no way you wouldn't catch up with them within that turn so long as you were actively chasing them- given that most ships will be travelling at least 2 secors each turn at warp speed. The one exception could be if the avoiding ship is travelling at warp, and has a faster warp speed that the pursuer. In that case if they cross paths the avoiding vessel should be able to avoid, but not if standing still in a sector.



It does make sense either way. Firstly, not all ships are combatants, so many would not be looking for a fight- this can include some scouts and surveyors. Secondly, lets say a crisis develops on a distant border and you need your most powerful ship defending. If that ship has a top speed of 4, then setting it to engage any ship it crosses paths with will radically slow it's progress. Thirdly, you only want to seek fights you can win. If you're at war and your New Orleans class ship spots a Negh'Var in the vicinity, you'll avoid the fight if possible as you cannot win. If the Negh'Var is busy with other things and is not simply out looking to pick fights with passing vessels, then he may also be avoiding distractions- meaning the two of you avoid a time consuming and strategically unimportant battle.



This does make sense, although there must be some additional variables for the sake of realism, as stated above;

*No stationary ship (or more accurately, any ship ordered to remain in one sector) could possibly avoid a warp capable ship set to pursue.

*A ship ordered to pursue isn't guaranteed to catch an avoiding ship which has a higher warp speed, if both are moving- this takes into account both ship momentarily occupying the same sector if the avoiding vessel is heading home etc. It will always catch a slower or same speed ship.



Hopefull my thoughts on this are relatively clearly stated above.

Let me know what you think.

ok I'll give my one and a half cents to it, 2 would be too much cause I have read only this sentence:

I don't know how you would make as a captain on ship, but I would definitely run circles (with even just slightly better warp engines no pb) or fly evasive manoeuvres in warp like you know get on the brakes, jump out, rejump the other direction and so on and so on. Those chasing me would soon have enough of that or fly directly into that subspace trap I know is right next around the corner. Don't underestimate good old pathfinder(scout) knowledge about the sector you are in. There are plenty of choices to make where to hide (and such a sector is 20 light years wide in diameter, damn that's a lot of space to hide in, at least some smaller nebulas must be in every such sector! besides, a ship at warp 9.6 need 4 whole days to cross such a sector. Don't you think long range scanner warns every of our ships early enough of such a threat so that they can take countermeasures and have an uncatchable headstart?).

I'd say, an avoiding ship (if not having a stupid crew) can never be intercepted unless surprised (by cloak or good stealth).

Keep in mind the distances and space volume we are talking about!
(that's btw. why avoiding was so powerful inside botf, they knew about this at least I hope so )
So, enough helping the competitors *jokin*
Nice posts btw. they can quite compete with my largest ones

I didn't explain myself properly. What i meant is that the engage/intercpet chance increases the closer you are to a planet/system and the stronger the scannig is.

To simplify it, make it like so:
Engage inside a colonized system gives your ships a 100% engage probability. It is impossible to avoid combat unless cloacked.





Kepp the ship in the sector and set it to Engage...DUH!

Aren't the INTERCEPT and AVOID stats totally redundant?

Ships speed and sensor power determine that more than anything and those stats are allredy there.

A slower ship has slim chances of intercepting OR avoiding a faster one.
Sensors play a critical role too, as you cna hide inside a particle cloud or asteroid filed or spot the enemys from a greater distance.

Ship size/class may have some impact, but I'd guess it's minimal.

Agility/manuverability plays no role here, but only in 3D combat.

Realistically, yes, they are redundant. And agility would normally not play into intercepting or avoiding ships. So that simply means a Fed player just has to load up on Soveriegns and screw the Defiants, Destroyers, and the like since they are simply inferior in terms of defense, offense, speed, and sensor capability. And that's the problem.

This is where reality and gameplay have to go their seperate ways. We need a reason for the player to want to build Defiants and the like. And interception is the only logical role they can play. Plus precendence is set by BotF1 which favored the light and maneuveurable ships for interception while the big capitals were ideal for pummeling starbases and planets. I kinda see it as part of the general BotF gameplay. I feel the same about avoid, engage, and intercept as well although I would like to see some minor changes in their behavior.

In fact, for the most part the whole avoid/intercept concept isn't 100% realistic. It has some uses that could be applied to "real world" situations if there was such a thing in Star Trek terms. But there's plenty of holes in the "realistic theory" behind them. Honestly, this game is NOT going to be 100% accurate.

I happen to like the avoid, engage, and intercept orders. I think they add flavor, and more importantly, they add options for the player to utilize. However, I don't want orders that are 100% gaurenteed to be carried out with success each and every time either. I want possibilities and chances as they encourage players to play the game in an attempt to better their chances when they interact with other players.

I appreciate all the arguements. But it seems to be complicating something that doesn't need to be that complicated. It simply has to be fun and believeable, not 100% accurate. And attempting to account for each and every different situation complicates the code behind it, and the gameplay usage. And if something is complicated to utilize, it won't be used or could even discourage new players attempting to learn the game. At that point, it's just not worth programming at all.

I'm attempting to walk that fine line between gameplay fun and being believeable. So at this point, we could simply do away with the avoid order. Unfortunately, this removes one of the three combat-strategic options players have on the galactic map (the other two being ship movement and fleet numbers) and would cause enemy ships to have a 100% chance of engaging in combat. By the way, just because you go to the combat screen, that does not mean you have to fight. There are other options... such as "hail" and "retreat" which is why I don't really understand your reasoning, Mogh. Those two options will do exactly what you are describing. Or we could impliment it as originally suggested where it grants 100% gaurenteed results when utilized in certain parts of space. Again, I find this less than ideal as I like to give all players a recourse whenever possible. If a player does not even have a chance of preventing/changing something because of the code in the program, I see that is unneccesarily restrictive.

*shrugs*
I don't know what else to say. I've attempted to provide a simple system that is easy to understand that allows different ships some options on the galaxy map, particularly those that don't have many to begin with. In return, this grants some of the weaker but more maneuverable ships a real role that they can fullfill in the game so that the player would want to devote time to build them. And best of all, the outcome is not always 100% gaurenteed. It's short and simple and I think it could benefit gameplay as a whole.

If you are hoping for avoid to do something different, perhaps you should look at the other available options in the game to see if what you envison could be covered there.

Sorry guys, but I'm putting an end to the discussion on the 'Avoid' order. I'll consider everything that was said and decide on a simple, tractable implementation. This debate has become rather ridiculous.

All other fleet orders are still fair game for discussion.

You could always add another option, "Retreat"

If two fleets move into a sector then an action occurs, you are given the option to retreat and you can press it, if depending on various ratings and variables you succeed, you pop off to another adjacent sector if not you begin combat?

Simple, effective.

mstrobel's absolutely right.

One could talk endlessly about this subject without recognizing, that there are just a few variations possible to what botf already had implemented.

I also think it's time for closing this case file once and for all and for what's worth, I'd scrap the intercept command in your place, whoever wants to engage, engages, and whoever wants to stay away stays away unless surprised.

That's as easy as it is

And if an enemy enters your territory and you see him coming / standing at your front door, use your wit and savvy to determine where he might fly to, intercepting before he reaches his target is hard enough since both fleets can evade each other's intercept course. You might only delay his journey a bit or if you are faster than him, "intercept" him, but only the botf way, when your end point matches his end point of movement. Come on it isn't that difficult

Aftermath: In order to make sure, your fleet doesn't manually move the opposite direction of the enemy, one can tinker about adding a "hook up" command to stay on an enemy fleet's tail but this is no intercept. That simply doesn't work if the enemy is aware of you and doesn't wanna fight. The ultimate solution would be in case of a slower attacker fleet and a fast "intercept" defender's fleet to pin the attacker's move down to the sector in which one is crossing his path first, but never let it come to a lined-up tactical combat.

But that one is really for the realism freaks amongst us (which I am ) .

Just how fast are smaller ship (canonically?)
I don't think that the Sabre is slower than a Sovereign..

You can allways make bigger ships slower insted of giving them another value to calculate. It doesn't make sense that a faster ship with better sensor is WORSE at intercepting...so just make bigger ships slightly slower.

Also, the reason why one would build smaller ships is cost effectivnes and numbers. 3-4 destroyers can cover a bigger area of space than a Sovereign can. And when they intercept in groups the chances of sucess are greater.


That said, I must correct myself. Agiltiy may play a role in interception. In order to intercept you mus cross paths wiht the ship you're chasing (some infront of it).
Small, nimble ships can zig-zag in warp or simply dart between asteroids (there are asteroid belts in every star system) where more sluggish ships can't follow as effectivly.



What's so difficult about giving a intercept bonus to a colony with sensors? It doesn't even have to be 100% (it can be a arbitary number). the point is that IF the system is guarded you won't be able to slip trough witha troop transport and capture it.
If hte player is careless enough not to have a ship in orbit...well, that's another matter



I agree with you.. but don't do it by adding MORE stats to ships that are basicly redundant. Use the ones you have - change them if necessary.

Smaller ships have agility, size (more difficult to hit), cost effectivnes going in their favor. Add top speed to that..
It may not be 100% canon, but since it's not going to be canon anyway, why trying to add new stats in the process?

Considering Mike's request, I'm not really going to continue the discussion.

But, I think you missed some of my points (mainly because I wasn't actually responding to you, heh). I actually agree with some of them, such as a bonus to system scanner strength, particularly during interception. But considering that interception will likely occur within your own boarders only... that too seems redundant.

As for the other stuff, it's actually not that redundant.

I trust Mike's judgement on this one, I'm sure the end result will be simple and logical.

Maybe we should debate the Patrol order? Should the patrolling ship immediately break from it's course to intercept an approaching vessel, or simply highlight the enemy vessel on sensors, so that defensive vessels within your borders can take care of it?

Let's consider that the patrolling vessel may not be the strongest, it might be a waste of resources to use anything other than a Scout for this. Consider the Cardassians often designated Hideki's as "patrol ships". A good strategy would be to use say a Sabre to patrol the border, with several Akira's operating within your borders- The Sabre marks the target, the Akira then engages the 'Pursue' order from within Fed space.

I guess sometimes, especially if you're using a cruiser to patrol, you'll be confident that your patrol ship is strong enough to take out the threat- but I'd like that to be my decision. The last thing I want is my New Orleans class ship to charge at 3 Battle Cruisers.

That's an interesting problem. But it sounds like you've already hit upon the ideal solution. Thus, utilizing a ship with excellent sensors and movement would be ideal for patrols. Stationing some idle heavy-hitters at various points within your border would allow you to deal with them.

That reads like play positioning... and I'm not going to give that away.. lol

A new thought...

Depending on what ships you have patroling, you may want them to auto-intercept or simply relay enemy ship positions.

So when you click on the patrol order, 2 sub-orders appear: intercept and relay and you must click on one to complete the order.

Intercept, of course, will make the ship intercept enemy ships while it is on patrol. Relay is the opposite - patrolling ships will continue going on their marry way, perhaps even "holding steady" to keep the ship in it's sensors. If the enemy ship moves away, your ship resumes it's patrol.

Disclaimer: When I say "intercept" in this particular post, it is absolutely irrelevant to the intercept/avoid discussions in the first 5 pages. It could utilize the same functioning, but until the details for the real interception order is finalized, the details of the patrol->intercept order are also debatable, which I'll refrain from doing.

A bit of confusing on my part but with the intercept order. I know in these games it will work.. In old BOTF, I used it twice. It never worked! I wonder if it is even needed. Now before everyone goes Nuts, Allow me to explain a bit. In Botf as it was tossed together without any real thought put into it, I think they just "threw it in" as an added feature. With the way these new designs are unfolding and the speed in which everything works.

I know when I play, and I see someone entering my area border I focus on what they are doing as far as movements ect. But I move with caution as my thought is "if I can see them, they can see me" and it gives them a chance to DiDi on out of the area before I get there.

but then thats just me.

In BotF1, I used intercept all the time. It was great. The more ships you had, the more chance you had at interception. I would regularly bang out 9 heavy destroyers (defiants are even better), group them all together, and plant them in a central location set to intercept.

If anything appeared within their movement range (or would end it's turn within their movement range), the would engage it. And since I had 9 of them, they pretty much cleaned house.

Defaints were crazy. Absolutely crazy. Only a few would intercept anything that shows up, and likely beat the crap out of it too boot. Nine of them, though... heh. The computer would enter my space with 20-30 ships and my nine defiants, set to intercept, would engage them in combat from 3-4 squares away. And get this, the computer would retreat and for damn good reason. While they're busy retreating, I'm busy blowing up half of their fleet before they get away. It's great.

When you set a ship to intercept in BotF1, you got a percentage of interception. It ranged from like... 20% up to like... 800%. Different ships had different interception ratings. At the end of the game with all tech 10's, Soverigns weren't even able to intercept. Ambassadors could, but they were very poor at it. I think Galaxies could not intercept, but Galaxy-X could (I'm not 100% sure if they could, but I know one of them could not).

Essentially, the faster the ship was, the better interception you got with Defiants being the top of the list. Defiants were unrealistically strong in defending your territory. Essentially setting 9 of them to intercept would gaurentee that you never lost a system ever again while they were around.

Considering how it's nearly impossible to move your ships into a square that will engage moving enemy fleets, interception removed the guesswork and simply allowed the AI to move your ships to where the enemy ships were moving (as long as they were within your territory). It was VERY useful.

Ahhh thanks Azh.. I must have used it wrong. lol But with your description I can see how usefull it would be..

Great thanks..!

Funnily enough I was thinking about this earlier today. There are several different ways the patrol order could be handled, for the sake of considering all the options (even the bad ones), this is what I got;

1/ Patrol changes to Pursue/Intercept when a ship is spotted
2/ Patrolling ship continues on course unless ordered to intercept (as the player may not see the enemy ship, could there maybe be a note in turn summary saying that a ship on patrol has spotted an enemy vessel)
3/ Ahz's suggestion- Decide on type of patrol before ship departs
4/ Ship patrols normally, but the aforementioned option pops up when the vessel is detected

Personally, I'd prefer opt 2. It's got to be the least hassle to program and gives you the greatest flexibility.


Intercept was mighty useful in BoTF! However I doubt the Defiant will be quite so adept this time, if it's warp speed is anything like the ship in DS9.

I fully expect a reduction in it's abilities :p

Prometheus, hoooooooooooo!!!!!!

Muhwahahahahahaha!!

And what of the others? As the Defiant was too fast, will the crusiers be faster then in botf? I felt they were lagging a bit.

and What about Strike Crusiers. I always felt they were about a waste of time and credits. Will they be in and perhaps actually useful? other then just for attacking planets?

It looks like there will be no "strike cruisers" at all (good call).

In my opinion the cruisers and explorers should be the fastest but most expensive ships. Scouts should be reasonably quick, as should destroyer types.
Specialised ships like transports, hospital ships, colony ships, surveyors (oberth, nova etc) should be the slowest.

So you'd build a lot of destroyers and medium cruisers as the backbone of your fleet as they're affordable. Heavy cruisers and explorers should be lesser in number as they're more expensive due to excelling in multiple areas, speed being one.

At least, this is how my version will play.

Not just your version SOM, that's how I see it as well.

It not only makes sense to have it this way, it makes the game more Trek-like. I know canon can be restrictive at times, but it can also make things more fun.

Well this is a good thing then! Don't get me wrong but I liked the design of the Strike crusiers , but the cost was not worth having them so bye bye to them and Hello to a better / faster Crusier. Now as long as the shields and fire power of the Crusiers is "slightly increased" from the old, I'd be a happy camper and would actually build them!

Hope that happens! *Fingers Crossed*

Well, I believe that's the plan. I've been using the ship stats in the BotF2 Database, so check those .