SE IV The End Of An Era.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Captain Kwok:
Aside from 'real-time' combat resolution, another idea I see viable for SE:V that can eliminate most of the quirks with the current SE:IV system is some sort of 'staggered' turn-based movement. Rather than Player 1 moves all his ships and fires, then player 2 moves all his ships and fires - have movement alternate between them like this:

Player 1 - Ships A,B,C
Player 2 - Ships X,Y,Z

Order of Movement/Fire
A-X-B-Y-C-Z

This is more like 'real-time' in its execution and will go a long way in improving combat, and from a programming aspect much easier to do.

Battles between fleets of unequal size can still be handled rather easily, if a player is outnumbered 3:1, then the player moves only 1 of his ships for 3 of his opponents etc.

This is another turn based system that is covered by my previous statements of all purely turn based systems having problems. It still has the problem of ships getting to move and fire before others artificially, with no realistic reason for it at all, only because it has to be turn based.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by PvK:

Combat Mission is an excellent example of that stye of play. I like it, but there are weaknesses even in such a well-done rendition. One is it relies on an extremely good tactical AI, which Combat Mission has but SE and SF don't.

So? SE5 would suffer the same from lack of a good combat AI with any combat model, other than the Starcraft-style RTS model, which noone wants.

[Captain Kwok]

Actually, I'd imagine a real-time system is really executed in a similar manner that I proposed for a "staggered" turn-based model in my post below - it'd be some sort of continuous loop that cycles through each ship on both sides deciding firing targets, movement, etc. Except, in a true real-time system, the cycle is too fast for us to notice and it looks like all ships are moving concurrently.

I suppose the advantage of the "staggered" turn is that it should be less taxing on a computer system. This may not be an issue for real-time combat with small fleets, but I'd imagine it would be much more with the kind of fleet sizes we are used to in SE:IV.

Again, this is not a problem in simultaneous turns, because there are no graphics to generate. But in some sort of Combat Reply Mode or Tactical Combat this can be a major issue unless some sort of restrictions were placed on zoom levels etc.

Overall, it is a very viable option to consider. You eliminate almost 95% of the quirks of strict turn based movement and keep performance at a high level. I cannot honestly provide a real drawback to this type of system, except maybe with fleets of vastly different sizes.

[tesco samoa]

kwok were on the same boat...

That way when things get in the range of a weapon it fires... Steel Panthers had that. Very effective. needed to be tweaked.

I think that for RTS to be effective for a turn based game. Players will have to be able to script what ships do and when they do it. --- And make it moddable and make it so they can save their scipts to files.

And you should be able to script fleet movements as well.

Could be simple as texts or using the simuator to script the ships

All I know is that I want a game where the DF ships are moving to engage.... I tell my ships to hold off on releasing fighters until the enemy comes in range of the missle ships. As a ship comes in range of a missle ship it fires its missles... IF that ship happens to have a weapon that can hit my ship.... Then it should happen at the same time. Not my ship disappears becausae it is that ships movement or something.

[tesco samoa]

or make it like d&d... all actions for 1 second happen at the same time... Then the next actions for the next second.

[bearclaw]

I would think that the simplest method would be to combine aspects of the existing tactical and Stratigic combat methods into a system where each ship is issued ordered and when the End Turn button is clicked, then all the ships execute their orders. End result: combat situations that function exactly like the rest of the game in Simultanious play.

Further, this method, while not practical for PBW, would allow essensially tactial combat for Hotseat and TCP/IP games between players.

I, for one, would be so against SEV becoming realtime combat that I would not play the game. I have never liked real-time combat games. I like to think through my moves like a chess game, not an arcade shoot-out.

[ March 01, 2004, 18:33: Message edited by: bearclaw ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
... Ah, but those wargames _still_ have clunkiness in their turn based models that is eliminated by real time execution.

The "clunkiness" can often be replaced by other problems, though (e.g. Star Fury).

Stop thinking of computer games as being the same as board games; they are not, at all. There is a huge amount of stuff possible with computers that is simply impossible with board games.

It's possible to needlessly overlook strengths in both ways. Yes computers can do things board games can't. But that doesn't mean computer game designers can't take advantage of many solutions and concepts from interesting board games. The point was that it's frustrating to see games with lots of potential that suffer from some needlessly limited game mechanics.

PvK