Firing order - which empire goes first?

[capnq]

Askan Nightbringer? Never heard of him

Ultimate winner of the first SE IV "Survivor" tournament on Play-by-Web.

I can't recall the Last time I saw him post here.

[Fyron]

The firing in combat will not be changed in se4. It is way too late for that to happen. Maybe for se5 though.

[Gryphin]

In terms of "fair" or ballenced:
Borrowing a game mechanic from most of the tactical miniature games where the "time scale" was very small,
Side *A* fires, hits, and knocks out side *B*.
If side *A* was hidden then only surviving side *B* elements get to return fire.
If both sides could see each other at the begining of the fire phase then any damage done was put "on hold" untill the endi of the combat round.
So,
Phase 1: Gryphin's BattleCruiser destroys a Pooh Star Light Cruiser
Phase 2: The Pooh Star Light Cruiser can still unleash its weapons on a happless Gryphin Escort, (or anyother ship including the offending BC).
Then the Pooh Star Light Cruiser blows up and Pooh screams out some unprintable threat.
This would require a huge amount of hard code change.

[ January 14, 2003, 12:48: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

[dogscoff]

people with the xiati shipset (maybe cuz its reverse order alphabetical?, no idea really)
or people who are 'lucky' go first

Uhhh... no. Firing order is determined by who attacked who (ie who was in the sector already and who moved into it.)

The trouble with your suggestion of determining fire order based on ships speed is that in many, or even most confrontations, the two sides will all have ships of the same speed.

Finally, Aaron's latest project is reportedly some kind of advanced space combat engine, which may well make it into SE5. Hopefully that will solve all your problems.

[tbontob]

Gryphin

I like your ideas.

Undiscovered cloaked ships should of course fire first.

Then both sides can fire with the damage being held till all the ships have fired. A good solution to the problem at hand.

Or wee could combine our two ideas:

1) Undiscovered cloaked ships fire first.
2) Designated defenders fire next
3) Then faster ships
4) Then the more experienced ship
5) Any remaining ships all fire at once with the damage being held till all have fired.

OR

1) Undiscovered cloaked ships fire first.
2) The following are weighted (maybe allowed to be modded) to determine the firing order.
-a) Designated defender.
-b) Ship Speed
-c) Experience of ship
3) If the two opponents ships are equal, then both types of ships fire at once with the damage being held till all their weapons have fired.
4) Back to 2) until all ships have fired.

[Cirvol]

whats the combat engine that aaron is working on?

anyway we can get him to fill us in?
something really needs to be done about who fires first in combat, currently, it makes the game more like flipping a coin and praying, as opposed to using tactics and designs to win

info please?

[dogscoff]

New combat engine: http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...648;p=5#000065

something really needs to be done about who fires first in combat, currently, it makes the game more like flipping a coin and praying,

What Version of se4 are you using? Combat order in the latest Gold patch is defined according to attacker/ defender. It's not an ideal system but it is by no means random.

[ January 15, 2003, 11:13: Message edited by: dogscoff ]