Stacking Limits within the New EFS

a place to discuss it

Moderators: Deathifier, Sukayo

Lothgoradin
Space Legionnaire
Posts: 108
Joined: Mon Sep 02, 2002 1:01 am
Location: Montana

Stacking Limits within the New EFS

Postby Lothgoradin » Sat Oct 12, 2002 6:15 am

OK, first, I have no real opinion on stacking limits wither in space or on the ground,there are times when I want to have 100 units stacks to attack on a planet, but there are also times that I sigh in relief when the symbiots or the AI (Read Hyperion Rebels) can't do the same. Ground combat is fairly sound in EFS, (but artillery bombardment from a few hexes away would be nice, or alternatively, ranks deep to attack may be a unit ability so a tank with a rank of 1 could attack a heavier tank at a rank of 4 or 5, but can't touch artillery at 8 or 9, THAT would be nice). However, space combat could be upgraded considerably. Someone threw out the idea of multiple planets in one system, this is doable if each system was a hex map on its own. Therefore, a planet can be blockaded (ringing it with ships), the League and the Church wouldn't be such easy pickings (all their ships are in space already), and Jumpgates could be blockaded as well, either by putting a ship in front of it or by ringing it like a planet. This would allow much more flexibility within space and if you do not allow too many ships to have a ranged space attack, then ground combat would still be stressed to a degree. This would allow players to have a defense against Carriers and Bukk Haulers Jumping into systems loaded with Space Fighters and Bombers. If I remember correctly, Jumpgates are on the outside of a system, which would require a certain amount of time to reach the planet (represented by the removal of ALL movement points after a Jump) If the map is to stay the same, then ALL units Jumping should lose movement, if not all, then a set amount of movement points for each cargo unit. The Space hexes would also allow cities (such as Starports) to be built in space. And on the note of cities, food harvesting facilities have an upgrade of sorts (farm to arborium) mine and well need the same. And more resources need to be available (to offset more than 13 resources, bulk haulers and the like could have more cargo slots like 8 or 12 or more.)
Another thing, if I have 6 tanks, 2 landers (cargo=2), and 10 militia in a hex, if I load 4 of the tanks into the landers, why would they still be taking up space? Wouldn't they be inside the landers?that would cut it down from 18 units to 14, allowing me to put more units to fight in there. This would also allow more realistic system assaults (Jump in with 10 Bulk Haulers/Carriers, Fully Loaded, and 10 support ships, like cruisers or destroyers or Dreadnaughts, etc.)

The Darkmage

PS: Has the coding on the Clone or Sequel or whatever we are calling it been started? Or are we just in the Discussion phase still?

<small>[ 12-10-2002, 06:32: Message edited by: Jakkan ]</small>

Deathifier
Noble
Posts: 344
Joined: Thu May 24, 2001 1:01 am
Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Contact:

Re: Stacking Limits within the New EFS

Postby Deathifier » Sat Oct 12, 2002 6:37 am

The stacking limit is in EFS for different reasons, partially UI and partially balance.
For example, if you had infinite sized stacks (and you can get them in EFS from the editor or when retreating units end up in a full stack - only 20 still fight in combat though, AFAIK) then attacks would likely be significantly harder.
Sure, you as the attacker can have hundreds of units attacking but you have to *get* them there.

Whilst I agree that the limits can be tweaked (and other things, like units can pass through full stacks when moving) they exist to make the game simpler all 'round.

Regarding combat, yes units could have some sort of 'range' indicator to signal how far they can hit things. However remember that each side advances/retreats during the battle, so that range value is useless in an abstract sense - eventually your foot soldier will reach their arty if it isn't killed. The current phase system reflects that to some extent.

The multi-planets stuff was discussed elsewhere, but remember that adding another layer to strategic management (in this case the system-level) adds more complexity. There's a good chance the extra detail may clutter the main screen too much. I do believe a nice way can be found to represent it though.

As for the fighter issue, well assuming their carrier arrives in the system without blowing up the fighters have months to carry out their attacks, since each turn is ~1 year of time.
The distance to planets and other ships certainly isn't large enough to take multiple months to traverse.
And since their carrier can jump say at the very begining of the year then penalising the fighters for the sake of penalising them (jumps are instantaneous I believe).
An option is to penalise the fighters if their carrier does actions other than jumping first - then you have an argument that it spent time carrying out those actions and so it's fighters have less time to do their stuff.

Coding hasn't been started yet, though I did write up an overview of the structure for it.
The next step is gathering up all these ideas into one document.

- Deathifier

Lothgoradin
Space Legionnaire
Posts: 108
Joined: Mon Sep 02, 2002 1:01 am
Location: Montana

Re: Stacking Limits within the New EFS

Postby Lothgoradin » Sat Oct 12, 2002 6:51 am

Regarding combat, yes units could have some sort of 'range' indicator to signal how far they can hit things. However remember that each side advances/retreats during the battle, so that range value is useless in an abstract sense - eventually your foot soldier will reach their arty if it isn't killed. The current phase system reflects that to some extent.

Yes, but also remember that we can now bombard Kansas from DC and this is a futuristic game with futuristic tech, maybe only one or two hexes away, but the unit would have to advance to this unit to capture it (not destroy it, as why would you destroy a unit only capable of long range combat while you are knocking on its door)

Also, some units should be able to be captured (tanks and powered armor-you would have to fill it with a body, but you could get salvage rights) but others, like symbiots, should not be able to be captured, only destroyed.

The multi-planets stuff was discussed elsewhere, but remember that adding another layer to strategic management (in this case the system-level) adds more complexity. There's a good chance the extra detail may clutter the main screen too much. I do believe a nice way can be found to represent it though

The idea that I came up with for this is to name the systems and display them as they are now, with a r-click bringing up the system map as opposed to the planet map, a second r-click on the planet would work as it does now, this would allow multiple planets in system without making too much clutter in the main screen. It also allows for things like asteroid belts and solar flares and the like. And for some systems having too many habitable planets, look at our system as it is now, Earth is easily habitable, Mars may be to a degree if it had an atmosphere, as would the moon, and Venus is the only other planet in the system even close to habitable,but only if the opposite was done to it, removing the atmosphere to disipate the storm clouds and reduce the overall heat of the planet.

The Darkmage

<small>[ 12-10-2002, 07:00: Message edited by: Jakkan ]</small>

User avatar
Macroz
Space Legionnaire
Posts: 132
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2002 2:01 am
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Stacking Limits within the New EFS

Postby Macroz » Sat Oct 12, 2002 12:28 pm

Yes, but also remember that we can now bombard Kansas from DC and this is a futuristic game with futuristic tech, maybe only one or two hexes away, but the unit would have to advance to this unit to capture it (not destroy it, as why would you destroy a unit only capable of long range combat while you are knocking on its door)
That's a nice idea on paper but far from realistic ;) ... The Emperor Wars were during a dark age with mostly less advanced technology than available today (you can use the starships and other lost tech but not really build new). Not like during Second Republic when humans even rivaled the Vau.

However, a hex is hundreds of kilometers wide anyway and bombing from that distance is not that feasible or useful. It's easier to drop huge rocks from orbit than it is to throw them ;) . Sure there could be some missile troops that do that and maybe it's bad to limit that feature totally out from the engine since it might be nice to have such in the tech tree for the endgame.

Salvaging, since making new tech is limited, is pretty important in FS universe so some nice bonus for the victor? Maybe so that if you beat a higher tech force you can initiate research in those techs even without the prequisite techs but with a cost to research (and you cannot advance to the successive techs because you do not have the prequisites).

Deathifier
Noble
Posts: 344
Joined: Thu May 24, 2001 1:01 am
Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Contact:

Re: Stacking Limits within the New EFS

Postby Deathifier » Sat Oct 12, 2002 4:08 pm

Sure there could be some missile troops that do that and maybe it's bad to limit that feature totally out from the engine since it might be nice to have such in the tech tree for the endgame.
Actually adding that feature shouldn't be too hard compared to everything else - it's just a unit flag and a little extra interface work.

You'd have to take into account return fire if applicable - enemy units that can bombard aren't going to sit there and let themselves get shot :)
However that's basically identical to the orbital bombardment into a PTS guarded area now.

Re: Unit capture
It's a possibility, I'm not sure how it fits into FS but in general it might be useful. Then again, it may not - I'd like to hear what other community members have to say about it.

We already have capture like that now anyway, when units retreat you have a chance to capture them - why add more complexity to that?

Re: Research of captured units
This idea is interesting, but may be easily exploited (for example, your starting units may contain powerful units letting you quickly research them...). If you argue that it should only be applied to 'captured' units then I present this question: What makes a captured unit of a specific type so special compared to a unit you own, or even built but then scrapped the tech from lab databases?

Re: Interface for multiplanet systems
with a r-click bringing up the system map as opposed to the planet map, a second r-click on the planet would work as it does now
That is a good start, what I want to do though is eliminate the middle step :)
The main problem your method has is that you still have to somehow provide enough info at the topmost level for a player to determine if they need the extra detail.
If you have 2 habitable planets, owned by different factions and they both have 10 ships in system then the players are going to want to know have any of the other players ships moved within the system and possibly other stuff.
Suppose we just display a summary of the total number of ships (like EFS) such information isn't available - increasing micromanagement and the chance that small (but important) things may be missed.

And something I missed in the first reply:
if I load 4 of the tanks into the landers, why would they still be taking up space?
This has been a topic already discussed to some extent. It's more an interface issue - we still want to show whats in the transports even if they don't count to stacking limits :)
I believe the general gist of the solution was mulitple 'stacks' - their exact nature to be determined through more disucssion.

- Deathifier
(This post will be moved to the clone forum at some point)

Shocker
Noble
Posts: 215
Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2001 2:01 am
Location: Santa Clara, CA, USA

Re: Stacking Limits within the New EFS

Postby Shocker » Wed Oct 30, 2002 3:28 am

On capturing symbiots,

It does not make sense that a symbiot should be captured, but the host should be. Does the military unit captured represent the liberated host that is now loyal to you for freeing them from symbiot control?

How is the symbiotic relationship defined in the EFS universe? Is a flying symbiot really another creature with a symbiot parasit or its own creature? Does anyone know?

- Shocker.
Long Live EFS!

User avatar
Macroz
Space Legionnaire
Posts: 132
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2002 2:01 am
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Stacking Limits within the New EFS

Postby Macroz » Wed Oct 30, 2002 7:35 pm

Well if I remember correctly they use some sort of spores to get you under control. Then again the host might have been specifically engineered by the symbiots so then it would not be as simple. I guess it would be so hard to capture them that it's not worth it in the game. I can check it even though I do not have the book about symbiots but there are bits everywhere.

Deathifier
Noble
Posts: 344
Joined: Thu May 24, 2001 1:01 am
Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Contact:

Re: Stacking Limits within the New EFS

Postby Deathifier » Thu Oct 31, 2002 8:23 am

Well symbiot-produced units (as opposed to ones they've captured) are engineered to carry out the whims of whatever controls them - and they fight to the death.

Similarly symbiot space ships are living entities, which is why in Noble Armada you can't board them :)

There may be some scope for recoving units that have been taken over by the symbiots, though you may find that the process is irreprable and even if you clear out the parasites the host dies.

- Deathifier


Return to “Fixing it ourself”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 17 guests