Further to my post in 'characters/heroes' (Since my idea was settling into off-topic)...

My ideas for fleets/task forces/wings also extends into Ship Behaviors. Now I'm not talking simple stuff like will they attack, I'm talking, how.

For instance... These are the different 'wing' types I've got in mind:

Tactical, Offensive, Defensive, Support, Infiltration.

Each would apply priority to certain types of actions in combat... infiltration would mean they don't automatically drop cloak and fire like in BotF. They would interact, too.
So when the Support Group gets the order to retreat out of the combat zone, the Defensive Wings would move to intercept enemy vessels that are targetting the support group. Tactical wings would be a mix between offensive and defensive, running, interdiction, drawing fire from the offensive wings whom would be by default, firing to destroy (if the race your fighting is 'at war' against you)

So yes, those 5 groups are involved in some way unique to their wing type.

Also involved, are the classes of ships, tech level 'intended use' and all that stuff... Defiant classes, with the higher-damage pulse weapons would by nature be more accurate at shorter ranges... so both tactical and offensive roles intended. Akira's too with their torpedoes, *including side-firing tubes, but being larger, hences the suggestion of leadships for those two wing types.

For tactical, Centaur and Miranda classes too for the older-tech levels. I'm sure others could come up with other era ships' 'ideal usage' in such a system.

Thanks
That makes a lot of sense.
Naval tactics in 3D sounds like the ticket.

Yes, and I'm working on the assumptions (via logic) that beam weapons can have the greater range since the delay between firing and hitting their target is so small, (hence the beam-like look) versus the pulse weapons (known to do greater damage) which don't travel fast enough for reliably hitting ships past a certain range because of their evasive maneuvers. you know, leading the target stops working when they can completely change course and so where they would be when the pulses go where the ship would have been without said change in course...


I've seen it in Star Trek Invasion on the PS1, when ships I'm targetting in the distance, the [] is just on the edge, then they turn and they haven't even touched said edge at all, and the [] thing is on the other side of the ship.

Further to Fleet/Task forces affecting ship behaviors...

Part of auto-generating who wins/looses in a battle of equals, comes from the initial orders given. BotF ships could be given an order that works best when an enemy ship is given a certain other order (visible in single player when said player has a scoutship in the fleet)

Likewise, in these battles of 2 fleets, both of equally powerful ships in equal numbers, would depend on what sort of task forces those ships were set to. For instance...

If the enemy fleet is mostly defensive, using long-range phaser fire to slowly pick off the enemy rather than get up close with pulse weapons, hoping torpedoes would hit, your fleet would respond by attacking those with the weakest shields on up, so that later in the fight, you can get closer and use mass fire to overcome the stronger ones... This would involve your offensive ships using hit-and-run, zig-zagging close in to far, with the ships that have the strongest shields 'taking the brunt' of the enemy phasers, before closing in.

On the other hand, If the enemy fleet is mostly offensive, your fleet would use the defensive ships as distraction, while your offensive, and strike ships, takes out the stronger ships, as being in closer to your ships, their powerful weapons are more likely to hit, and the weaker ships aren't going to be on the offensive, at least, compared to the stronger ship.

You attack a defense in it's weak point, while you try to blunt a strong attack.

If you want to follow up on this it would be good to talk to user Cdrwolfe. He is working on the combat engine.

The question I have is how does the combat engine work to resolve a fight in the old XP game combat engine and is that any different from what we can do in the new one? I take it there will be some allocation of damage from different weapons leading to ship destruction. It would be that basic system that we would have to manipulated by fleet actions. How would formations, organized movement and group effort alter the mathematics in the code or use new code? What does the flow chart look like?

Um, I don't know what you just asked means... *scratches head* code wise, no clue, I'm not a programmer. I'm just offering ideas.

Damage and stuff... well, for each shot just calculate 'how much damage does this 300dmg weapo do at this range with so-so-percentage of total damage lost blablabla'.

(taking the idea that the energy weapons used loose damage potential over distance. Phasers have longer range due to being a continuous cohesive beam, with smaller drop in damage over distance, against the pulse weapons, which have lower cohesion over distance, hence the 'splash' effect when they hit objects regardless of whether said object then explodes or not.)

To make it playable and interesting there has to be more than just a system that puts ships in 3D space that fly around shooting. In games where you pilot your one ship it is easier to code. At this level you add in the nature of all the weapons, shields and such. I would like to add ship formation and fleet maneuvers impacting on the outcome.

Yes, it is coded into the combat engine. Before you code it you need to plan out the relations in a flow chart fashion. Without knowing the code you can still decide what the options might be for a fleet admiral.

Are you given a list of formation and maneuver to select before battle? Can you opt to change tactics during a fight? Is it all real time or turn based? Do what about cloaking and de-cloaking as part of a maneuver? What about better sensors to find the cloaked ship so you change formation?

I'm thinking 'pattern of behavior' select mainly, rather than individual orders. Much like Homeworld 2. and no 'weapons no clip' through objects on their way to target. Course, likelyhood of accidentally firing on a friendly ship should be zero, so some calculation "is path free of friendlies yes/no if yes:fire if no: pause x milliseconds then check again"...

For fleet actions: shields in hull-hugging thing.

(which is what I didn't get about when the Ent-E entered the fight in FC.)

if you want an example of a combat system in 3d that could work Real-time for this (with the extra fleet stuff included) then look no further than homeworld 2.

You build a squad of fighters, not the fighters individually. you order then as one ship, they move as a squad. you move several, and the task force acts as several squads/wings of those ships as they *are*.

Very interesting stuff here. I see some potential tie-ins to the new personnel system that I have in the works. Alex, I'll likely want to open up a dialogue with you in the upcoming weeks to discuss some ideas related to combat and the as-of-yet-unfinalized personnel/heroes system.

When you do, you can grab me on my email.

We haven't technically announced that before Mike, we've merely hinted at it. Guess the cat's out of the bag now. Matress will start posting.

Um, no, I didn't give any details. Hold back the flood, please.

I didn't actually mean I was going to. That was just the Romulan in me.

lol.

But woot...

lol pre Woot!

Regards Wolfe

Well, anyway, we know from Fleet scenes that there are ships that tow others, right?

In addition to Support ships that recover damaged ships, a 'Can Tow/Can Be Towed' behavior could be set in such a way that slower ships dont always slow down the fleet.

It wouldn't work as:
Akira Class: Can be Towed
Galaxy Class: Cannot be Towed.

more like...

Defiant Class: Tow Weight 800; Maximum Towable Weight 900; Maximum Ships Towable 1
Akira Class: Tow Weight 3200; Maximum Towable Weight 2300; Maximum Ships Towable 2
Galaxy Class: Tow Weight 6800; Towable Weight 4700; Maximum Ships Towable 3
Fleet Tug: Tow Weight 1600; Towable Weight 18000; Maximum Ships Towable 5

This provides: Akira class can tow two of the far smaller Defiant-class ships, a Galaxy Class can tow two akiras, or 3 other smaller ships, and the fleet tug can tow both a galaxy class, and 4 akira's. No Space-Trains though

Presumes ship Systems can be individually damaged (which also goes into the rest of my idea about combat behavior, slow down the enemy fleet to duke it out there or knock out weapons before they get into range of their target, etcetera)

This also provides strategy in taking out Support Ships, beyond "oh well he cant take over x system or built y number of outposts, or colonise these planets"

AND this would provide for Capture capacity beyond that one time in hundreds of turns when intel sabo netted an enemy ship. In that, Knock out their shields, then have boarding parties sent over from the high-crew Galaxy, Nebula or Excelsiors in the fleet.


appended: Basically some of these ideas are from Star Trek Armada...

Towing is already going to be in. It's going to be a part of the fuel system to allow recovery of lost ships. Further details are yet to be finalisedand released so feel free to discuss the possibilities.

Well, atleast we have a new and promising member.

*quietly swears* damn didn't work.

*snicker*

Gaining crew on damaged ships... um, how about a support network thing, basically, a ship stranded either limps home, or small/fast transport ships with 'passengers' beams over replacement crew, and/or tows to spacedock, and it's not outposts, but spacedocks that "have" auto-recrew/repair facilities

The outposts only boost repair a little bit, as well as provide 'fuel'. It would be an automated process, in that a ship with heavy damage will have the option 'Send Distress signal'. Ofcourse, be close to an enemy, bad thing.

Close to any power, and they will get something like:

"A Distress Signal from the Federation Vessel USS <insert name> has been recieved by Our Forces nearby,
<insert some details>
Do you wish to:
A) Ignore it, <insert diplomacy-sensitive message>"Etc

The 'b' option (assist) would have 3 treaty-sensitive options.

For War or Neutral , the B option will be to "Send a Support Ship and it's Escort" I.e. Escort for only the support ship. If attacked by an enemy they will not protect the stricken vessel.
For Non-aggression and Friendly, the B option will be to just "Send a Support Ship" with *optional* escort that may provide cover if the ship is defenseless, but not if the ship still has weapons.
For Affilliated/Alliance, the B option will be to "Send a Support and Escort Group"... so yes, those 2 escort ships WILL defend the allied vessel.

An option C and D would be available for the War/Neutral option too...

"Send a Troop Transport and Escorts to Capture" and "Send nearest Interceptor Wing to Destroy"


I also have an idea for interaction between the galactic mode and combat modes...

Basically, Request reinforcements, but they have to be within 3/4 sectors *and* no more than 2 turns' away. so a ship that'll take 3 turns to move across 3 sectors, is out unless it's group has a ship with a tow slot able to bring it along at faster 'intercept' speeds.

These would be the 'Warp In' units available to reinforce in the combat modes of Star Wars: Empire At War.


(so I'm taking ideas left-right-and-centre, I'm not claiming them as *my*my*my* ideas, just *my*but*from*this*game* idea. il.e. I got the idea to bring an idea over from elsewhere *scratches head* okay now that'll give me a headache if I go deeper )


Stranded ships, it's 3 turns/5-7 sectors away that the 'distress signal' reaches for other races. lets go with 5..



Radius of 5 sectors (not counting sector with the ship) so 11-sector diameter, diagonal diameter, 7.

The diagonal stuff always made me somewhat appreciate SFC's Hexagonal sectoring system.

Thanks.

I'm only just getting into hex editting BotF, and years ago I was "just getting into" php too (but that didn't work out when the getting ; } in the wrong order/missing/shouldn't have added and so on, and two servers had to have different code to do the exact same thing, literally, the same php file, added or removed code before going onto the second. Database-driven stuff for a website 'members info' stuff.)

as it is I know a little css, a little html, a little wikicode
and [s]sometimes[/s] often I miss having some bbcode things, although - not spoiler. just demonstrating.

Enough about me, read my above post :p

Ship Roles
Look at the Defiant, know it's size and you will know they won't have many people onboard. 4 decks? okay...
So it's a warship. it'll be only ever to destroy/disable ships. Light on it's shields, but it's so agile in combat that it dodges most weapons fire, and it's hull is strong enough to withstand a fair few direct hits anyway.

However, look at behemoths like the Nebula class. Which has more internal space than the Galaxy class, if you count the pod and the neck between said pod and the hull.

However, the Nebula doesn't have much in the way of weapons. (presuming said pod isn't one big torpedo launcher platform. we haven't seen it used as such!

So the two big long Arrays dorsal/ventral on the saucer... and one ventral on the Secondary hull. Two smaller ones on the nacelle struts, and thats' it.

No rear coverage, and blindspot upclose, directly in front 'bearing 0 by 0 by 0 distance upto something'.

The most dangerous place for a ship facing up against a Defiant class, it should be noted

So, what purpose in combat does a Nebula class vessel have?

Well, as previously mentioned, it has a large internal volume.

Specs, courtesy of the Daystrom Institute Technical Library (ditl.org)
Decks: 32
Crew: 780

wait, 780 crew? Yup.
I imagine these as the ones with the higher accuracy at longer range ships... the "snipers" if you will.

but the huge crew?... Well, in a war, they could be the ones who go in and capture disabled enemy ships, or carry large numbers of ground troops.

Like the Galaxy class, the Nebula does have numerous shuttlebays, especially the "deck 4 Shuttle Cavern" or whatever you wanna call it.
So the 'Troop Transports' would be "carried" by the Large ships in larger numbers,... Say each "unit" is a group of bit-larger-than-danube ships.

I know one thing while I'm playing strategy game with lots of units and complex moves is that I don't care about stranded and damaged units cause i'm too tired to pay the attention to damaged/stranded ships, it's really pain in the ass imo, for istance, who would like to tug 50 ships after battle which was consisted of 600 ships, at turn 20 each ship is valuable for player but at turn 750 stranded ship is nothinh but pain for player, this should be kicked out of game.

Greeting Alex

Wow. My goodness. Alex has basically covered everything I've been thinking over the last few weeks in terms of combat engine effectiveness and so on (in more or less under 1000 lines of text ). As for most of the ideas being taken from Armada, that's what I was thinking too .

My ideas as they relate to Alex's:

On the topic of weapons:

I was thinking virtually the same thing as Alex. However, I am wondering about a few things. I'm currently attempting to read all that Alex has posted, and so far have come across some interesting points. I was thinking, on the topic of damage versus accuracy, that Alex was basically on the right track. I'm thinking maybe there could be around three values for the accuracy: 1 for up close and personal, 1 for mid-distance, and 1 for longer ranges (as they relate to the maximum firing range of the weapon in question).

For Example:

Beam Weapon Accuracy:

Up close and Personal: 90%
Mid-distance: 75%
Longer Ranges: 50%

I was also thinking about the whole damage scheme. I agree with Alex on the damage lost over a distance. I believe that perhaps there could be a set amount of damage lost over x distance (distance being in pixels?).

For Example:

Damage lost over distance for Beam weapon with maximum firing range of 600 pixels:

1. Determine range of "up close and personal", maybe 20% of maximum firing distance: 600*0.2=120 pixels
2. Give an equal amount of distance to all ranges ("up close and personal", "mid-distance", "longer ranges") say: 20%-60%-20%
In other words, "up close and personal" would be anything from 1-120 pixels, "mid-distance" anything from 121-480 pixels, and "longer ranges" anything from 481-600 pixels. Does that make sense?
3. Now, to determine an amount lost over each distance. This part should be a little easier, since you don't have to do any more math. it's simply pairing values with accuracy ranges ("up close and personal", "mid-distance", "longer ranges").

On the topic of Towing:

I agree with everything here except maybe one thing: no space trains. Why not? If the ship in tow has enough power to tow another ship, why can't it (saves a lot of time in towing and salvage, and provides something funny to stare at ).

I think there was something else I was going to discuss, but I can't find it now. Oh well.

EDIT: I remember what I was going to discuss!

On the topic of using Homeworld 2 as a perfect example:

Well, there were things in that combat that were good, and others... I really didn't care for. I guess it was the sheer numbers of forces that bothered me. I'm hoping fleets in BoTF2 don't exceed 100-150 ships....



At LEAST we have a new a promising member? Are you implying that the rest of us aren't promising? (insert piercing Matress-style stare here). There, the piercing stare should get the point across: Re-word phrases. Oh, and try to make sure the words are spaced in the future . That's all for now. back to work......

for distance, it's not pixels (if there's zoom involved).

Not only that but 600px diagonally is a line longer than 600 horizontal or vertical

Weapon Damage:

Torpedoes: Distance does not reduce damage for obvious reasons

Pulse weapons: 60% damage beyond "effective" ranges. 80-60% in effective range, 100-80% in close range. Effective range is where the ship can reliably hit 3 in 4 shots or more on a medium-agility vessel. Close Range is where all shots WILL strike even on a high-agility ship like the defiant.

Beams: 40-60% at longest "sniper" range, 60-70% in the long range, 70-85% in medium range, and 85-100% in the close range.

Not all ships will be capable of effecting decent hit/miss ratios in the long, and fewer still for "sniper" range.

Basically think of it this way:

A Ship's Agility is worked out from four base units: Acceleration/Decelaration, Course Correction, Mass of the ship, and Hull Structural Integrity Field Strength.

Remember the introduction to the Defiant "It's so good it shakes itself apart"?

The strain on a Galaxy class ship to produce those same maneurvres (sorrry, one word I keep getting wrong) would be much more due to it's larger mass. It's SIF would be unable to resist the "sheer" force. I.e. it'll sheer itself apart applying the same force to make that ship do the thingy,...

So the propulsion AND weight scaled up? you need to scale up SIF too.

SO...

A ship can be very fast in a straight line, but be really bad for course correction, (Excelsior anyone? )
or have both those ticked, but is forced to not pull the crazy stunts due to it's SIF not being strong *or* having a high mass (which would thereby render the SIF not that strong anyway)


Two Maneuvres I know are the same but different... one involves changes in thrust power, rendering the maneuvre getting a different name and looking differently. The other doesn't, just constantly applied anyway. Involves planes.

Think of the red bull air races: Stick a jet in those planes, and the speed increase places additional strain they wont take.

So...

That's how "Agility" is worked out (the particulars go to the coders )

Targetting accuracy for beams at least would work out in a... percentage loss over distance... but not that...

base 'accuracy' rating of say, 500 for the Defiants' Phaser Arrays. And 1% loss per 500m past 2km (2km being 'ultra close range')
So 2500m: 495 accuracy rating.
Against a dominion bugship with an Agility rating of 600.
a "Roll dice" type of random thing would then choose for each shot, like a 600-sided dice: 495 says hit, 105 says miss.
Chances are for almost 5/6 shots hit.

However, lets go with the Galaxy class:

'Accuracy' rating of say, 1500, but with a 5% loss per 500m past 2km....

Same dom ship as target.... but range: 4km. Thats...

( up to and below .5, round down, above, round up)
5% of (5% of (5% of (5% of 1500)))....
2.5km: 5% of 1500: 1425 (75)
3km: 5% of 1425: 1354 (71)
3.5km: 5% of 1354: 1,286.0625 (68)
4km: 5% of 1,286: 1,222 (64)


So damage looses a set percentage each bit of distance, but accuracy (as you get closer) increases and an increasing curve. (forgot the mathematical name)

because while damage potential goes at a set rate, accuracy is involved in 3 dimensions, and the further out you go, the number of decimals to each degree is added to... exponentially I think is the word. So the reverse for *accuracy* should be true.

of course! I hadn't factored in the maneuvering capabilities or the agility of the vessels when calculating the base accuracy of weapons. You know, I'm looking at all of this and thinking "This is all gonna cause at least 40 nights of no sleep for coders" . Oh, and I had the spell-check spell maneuver for me . Well, that's all I have to say for now....

Well you won't like what I'm gonna add aswell...

Types of *hit*.

Direct Hit, Glancing Hit, Shield Hit.

The last one is when even with the "miss", the shields still get hit (like remember when the Duras Sisters' BoP fired and penetrated the Ent-D's shields, but the bolts *didnt* strike hull?)

welll...

Direct Hit: Most of the energy is imparted to the shields, if there, with about, 10% to the hull.

Glancing Hit: 1% to the hull.

Shield Hit: If the shields are *down*, the beam/weapon wont strike hull, just pass harmlessly by *very closely* But if shields *are* up, then the weapon strikes shields, but only about half total damage or something, as it wasn't a head-on strike to the shields...


|
\-- like that. That's why tank "armor" is sloped: the slope gives *deflection* rather than absorbtion.

not sure if the same would work out with shields, but I imagine some "damage" wont be imparted to the shields

The decider on the Direct/Glancing/shield would be tied into the above calculation on the accuracy...

say.... ship A: Accuracy rating 400.

Ship b: agility rating 600.
Ship b's shield dimension coverage: 10% beyond hull dimensions.

1-300 "Direct Hit"
301-400 "Glancing Hit"
401-440 (40: 10% of 400) "Shield hit"

OMG! Well, these ideas are certainly detailed. I'm just wondering, how detailed must the combat engine be? If we use ALL of these suggestions, then the combat engine may be the most sophisticated engine I can think of for space combats. There was one other thing though. About damaging individual ship systems... I think that one is a really good idea. I was wondering how it would work though...

Nah, just a space form of the sort of combat "physics" used in most computer-version-of-dice-gameplay-combat... Ever played Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic? That, but in space.

This ideas are all good, but you must remember that we are a fan project with limited man power and no budget. Everyone working on the game has other responsibilities like work or school, and perhaps a family. They work only when they find free time between these responsibilities so the amount of time invested in the game is limited. Even a professional programming team working on it 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, would take perhaps months to include these ideas in the engine. I believe we have only one programmer making the 3D Engine, and if we want to finish this game in about two years, I believe that some of the ideas must be scrapped or additional programmers need to start working on the engine. Not to mention that these ideas would need advanced programming skills to be implemented.

I'm not a programmer, but I do have certain knowledge of how these things work, but I might be wrong, so we should ask Wolfe, I think he is working on the engine.

The basics (Targetting: hit or miss; agility etc) should be in there, my fleet-type stuff would be the "if we can/have time to try" stuff.