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October 1st, 2006, 02:19 PM
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Shrapnel Fanatic
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Re: SE:V, I\'ll be honest
Xrati said:
I’m not interested in a game that will be corrected after it’s released. I would rather purchase a functioning game out of the box and patch it later to improve it...
But you purchased SE4? It required several post-release patches to be "corrected" and functioning well. It's demo was extremely buggy too. Aaron has never veered from the industry standard of "release now, patch later." He just puts out more in patches than many developers do.
...which never seems to be an option with real time...
Actually, pausability is a feature in a lot of real time strategy games. It isn't used much in Warcraft clones, but the better RTS games do use it.
BarnacleBill:
Sure, you could have some complex turn-based initiative system. But consider that continuous time is, in fact, the ultimate extension of phased initiative systems; each "phase" lasts milliseconds. The amount of action taken during each phase is miniscule, since we can't follow milliseconds of execution, but it is still there. During each step, every ship gets a chance to act; it is somewhat abstracted away, of course, which is a good thing. The more complex turn-based initiative systems tend to be a chore to play, not too much fun. Something simple like Moo2 (with 1.31 patch) could have worked, but why stop with such a limited system?
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October 1st, 2006, 02:56 PM
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Sergeant
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Re: SE:V, I\'ll be honest
Quote:
Imperator Fyron said:
But consider that continuous time is, in fact, the ultimate extension of phased initiative systems; each "phase" lasts milliseconds.
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Agreed. As the resolution of the grid gets greater and the time increment represented by an impulse gets shorter, you arrive at "real-time".
Quote:
Imperator Fyron said:
The more complex turn-based initiative systems tend to be a chore to play, not too much fun.
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I don't know about that. Too many people have been playing too much SFB for too many years (~30 now) for that charge to stick. The big problem with it is that the level of detail is too great to represent large fleet actions as required for most 4Xers. However, just taking its impulse movement concept doesn't require the taking the rest of it. The root of it is an "impulse" is just a mini-turn, and instead of differentiating by speed how many hexes/squares you move per "turn" it differentiates by speed how many "turns" you have to wait between moves. That eliminates the "missile dance". The other aspect of it was that you pre-plot your moves for the turn (in this case turn referring to a fixed number of impulses, not an individual impulse). Adapted to reducing micromanagement in a computerized version, this could just mean ordering a speed and end point for the formation, which in essense is how the move orders in SEV's tactical combat system work now. That could be combined a la "Steel Panthers" with the possibility to give weapon firing orders by range for individual weapons. Toss in a little more computerized intelligence and you could just order a formation to close to a certain range on a designated enemy formation and engage it with a certain weapon. It can be done in "real-time" or proportional turn-based, 2D or 3D - doesn't matter.
Quote:
Imperator Fyron said:
Something simple like Moo2 (with 1.31 patch) could have worked, but why stop with such a limited system?
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Certainly I would not consider the MOO2 system ideal. However, MOO evolved from a grand-strategic 4X board game in which combat was just a die rolling excercise (no tactical movement). SE evolved from a tactical space combat board game that acquired a 4X grand-strategic outer game only after establishing itself as a successful tactical gaming franchise (the first strategic rules for it were the second expansion product). So, one would expect more in the way of a tactical game from a new SE than from a new MOO (at least I would).
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October 1st, 2006, 03:06 PM
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Shrapnel Fanatic
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Re: SE:V, I\'ll be honest
SFB is not a computer game though. It requires a fair bit of dedication to play. All that pre-plotting stuff sounds fairly tedious, to me. In a "board game" setting, it can't be avoided if you want a decent system. With a computer game, we don't need to have overly complex initiative systems when there are easier (for the players) ways. 
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October 1st, 2006, 05:46 PM
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Sergeant
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Re: SE:V, I\'ll be honest
Quote:
Imperator Fyron said:
SFB is not a computer game though. It requires a fair bit of dedication to play. All that pre-plotting stuff sounds fairly tedious, to me. In a "board game" setting, it can't be avoided if you want a decent system. With a computer game, we don't need to have overly complex initiative systems when there are easier (for the players) ways.
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With the computer doing the record-keeping, a lot of the complexity goes out the window. The "Move to" order in SEV tactical is conceptually identical to how pre-plotting would be done.
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October 1st, 2006, 05:17 PM
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First Lieutenant
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Re: SE:V, I\'ll be honest
Fyron, I actually purchased SEIV after the release of some of the first patches. I am happy to wait for the same in SEV. I'm not in a hurry! I'm still playing SEIV and I am getting ready to play test AT's STMod1942. I finally finished DL'ing all the new files.
You cannot compare SFB to SE series. SFB is a complex board game that attracts 'rules lawyers' as the rules tend to be vague in areas or interpreted incorrectly.
I have no doubt that SEV will be brought to a very playable state. The only question is how long will it take and will the true SEIV player finally accept the NEW game for what it is, "change."
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October 1st, 2006, 05:48 PM
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Sergeant
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Re: SE:V, I\'ll be honest
Quote:
Xrati said:
You cannot compare SFB to SE series. SFB is a complex board game that attracts 'rules lawyers' as the rules tend to be vague in areas or interpreted incorrectly. 
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Another issue that goes away in a computer implimentation, since the "rules" are the program code and can't be lawyered.
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October 2nd, 2006, 03:44 PM
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Captain
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Re: SE:V, I\'ll be honest
Well there is a computerized version of SFB, its called Star Fleet Command. It is bascially an RTS tactical engine, on top of a hex-based strategic engine. Sound familiar? It was programmed with a majority of the SFB rules, except that instead of turns, they used time. Again sound familiar? While I enjoyed it, especially if you slowed down the timer (again familiar), it still in the end wasnt the SFB you play on a table top.
As for RTS 'tactical' games I like, the Combat Mission series, is by far the best. You basically have paused real time turns. You give orders to your troops, and then you press end turn, computer or other player puts in their orders, then they end turn. At that point the turn runs for 1 min. During that minute all you can do is watch what happens in shear terror, hoping all goes your way. Rinse, wash, repeat. Again this sounds vaguely familar. The problem that now lies with SEV for me, is that with the scope of the number of ships, and units available in 'tactical' combat, plus with bascially a poor interface, makes an unenjoyable 'tactical' experience. I for the most part will be playin simo games anyway, because of PBW, or PBC, and in single player, because it tends to be more fair to the computer and vice versa...
So basically the graphical combat engine is just an over glorified 3d movie of combat results.
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October 2nd, 2006, 03:58 PM
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National Security Advisor
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Re: SE:V, I\'ll be honest
I don't see how it is over-glorified. Aside from the fact it does serve a functional purpose, it just uses 3d models of ships rather than 2d renders or 2d sprites - which by the way are just as time consuming to make as 3d models or to set up effects with...
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October 2nd, 2006, 04:08 PM
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Captain
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Re: SE:V, I\'ll be honest
Well I started with SE3, and loved it. Got SE4, hated it initially, but grew to love it. I dont hate SE5 all that much, and the UI complaints are really minor, it didn't take me long to figure out many of the little tricks on my own, without any beta tester help.
Certainly most of my complaints with SE5, have to do with gameplay issues more than anything else, and I'm sure they will be either corrected, or modified in the future. Or I will just come to except them. Like I did for SEIV.
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October 2nd, 2006, 05:03 PM
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Major
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Re: SE:V, I\'ll be honest
I agree with Kana. I too started with SE3, got SE4 and hated the changes initially. I am growing to like SE5.
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