IMPORTANT fixes, take 2

[Commander G2]

#4 A quick temporary fix to the movement and combat order problem would be to randomly determine the order of movement so that the players with low ordinal positions do not consistently have an advantage in movement and combat.

I am Last ordinal in a PBW game and it really hurts that I always fire Last when people come through warp points and I always fire Last when I come through warppoints. In races to defend planets they get wipped out before my ships get there.

Even an incremental system will be unfair if the lower ordinal players can fire first everytime in the first impulse. Warppoint defenses are key positions and who fires first is critical in those battles. It might be nice to have some sort of random inititive that can be modified by a racial trait (Initiative = Random 1-100 + Racial Attack Bonus + Highest Fleet Experience present). Maybe add +20 if defending a warp point.

If simultaneous movement is harder to resolve than simultaneous firing, another option would be to have 3 overall phases: 1) Combat before Movement, 2) Movement of ships in random order, 3) Combat after Movememnt for ships that did not fire in step 1.

Besides mattering when coming through warp points, first movement is also critical when pursing fleets. If you attack a fleet and come from the same sector you start on the same side of the map or the same corner. In that case first fire is also critical. Again, giving a lower ordinal player an advantage really ruins the competitive nature of the game.

I have not identified any advantages in simultaneous play in being higher in ordinal position, just disadvantages.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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If simultaneous movement is harder to resolve than simultaneous firing, another option would be to have 3 overall phases: 1) Combat before Movement, 2) Movement of ships in random order, 3) Combat after Movememnt for ships that did not fire in step 1.

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Make #3, "Combat after Movemement for ships with weapons that did not fire in step 1."

[Seik]

Satellites:

I wish MM would fix the positions of Sats in TacCom.
All Sats are in one field - it s easy to outmanouver them and attack the planet without the Sats can shoot at you.

I would be fine if the number of Sats are evenly splitted and put around the planet.

Then there is also no need to increase the range of Sats to strengthen the defense ones and if they can shoot at your ships not all of them can fire at one time.

[Seik]

Satellites:

I wish MM would fix the positions of Sats in TacCom.
All Sats are in one field - it s easy to outmanouver them and attack the planet without the Sats can shoot at you.

I would be fine if the number of Sats are evenly splitted and put around the planet.

Then there is also no need to increase the range of Sats to strengthen the defense ones and if they can shoot at your ships not all of them can fire at one time.

[Taqwus]

I could live with random ship-based initiative. It still feels pretty odd for an entire armada to act before the other one, since I always played MOO2 with ship initiative on...

On satellites... maybe if they got a combat movement of 1. That's not fast enough for them to chase ships around, usually... so it might not be that much of a problem. A better hack would be a free movement point between two squares adjacent to a planet or moon, which would require a weird bit of hardcoding.

One fix that would be nice, at least for those of us who aren't always genocidal conquerors, would be AIs that are more amenable to accepting gifts and clearly beneficial treaty upgrades (for instance, I'm not quite sure why an AI that's currently subjugated would refuse a trade treaty...).

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[HEMAN]

I agree Taqwus all the way,It still feels pretty odd for an entire armada to act before the other one.Maybe a idea like, maybe a componet say like overtruster or somthing, would give intiative to a single ships, and increase teck in this for more. This would make it more realistic?. A commit On satellites... maybe if they got a combat movement of 1. Reply; Sounds good, how about sats that move 1, but only around a object like planets moons etc.

[This message has been edited by HEMAN (edited 22 September 2001).]

[tesco samoa]

OR just place the sat's on top of the planet.

That way they can act from what ever direction the enemy is coming.

For movement.

I have no suggestions.

From a pbem perspective combat is flawed anyways.
I like the initive idea.
based on more than shipmovement.

Should be experience, surprise, location etc...
Kind of like the AD&D system or something
1 determine if any one is surprised first then figure out what bonus each gets based on this calculation then do the rest of the calculations.

Then do 2 every turn until the end of battle.

Or something like that.

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