Off Topic Thread

[Ed Kolis]

Yes, ships will have more than one speed attribute:

1. Jump speed - used for interstellar travel. Restricted to jump lanes (think warp points that take time to traverse; ships cannot be intercepted or commanded while jumping).

2. Acceleration - used for in-system travel, and (slow) interstellar travel apart from jump lanes. Movement will be newtonian (no fuel cost to coast, no speed limits, takes time and fuel to slow down).

We haven't quite worked out the combat mechanics yet, but combat will either use the newtonian mechanics from in-system travel, OR it will use a combination of that and a "maneuverability" system. Depends on whether we have tactical combat or not (tactical combat in multiplayer is looking rather unfeasible, but in single player it would be doable, just not a top priority at the moment), as well as how the newtonian mechanics work out in practice!

The way this maneuverability system would work is, combat would be turn-based, and fleets would be stuck on little "plates" - regions of space that they're confined to, with the size determined by their acceleration attribute. Each round of combat, the plates would shift in space based on their current strategic speed, acceleration, and orders from the previous game turn ("pursue other fleet" or "maintain course to Rigel" or whatever). Then the ships in turn could maneuver on the fleet-plates in a non-newtonian fashion (e.g. "move 3 km forward" or whatever); each ship would be confined to its fleet-plate, though, to avoid breaking the strategic movement calculations. Then ships would fire weapons if possible, and you go back to the plate-shifting phase, until the fleets are out of weapons range or all but one side is wiped out.

It would be interesting in this system, actually, if capital ships had little or even zero maneuverability, while fighters could zip around like crazy... would put more emphasis on the fleet formations and strategies, since you couldn't tweak those to any significant degree in combat if the maneuverability was so poor!

[Baron Munchausen]

With jump drives and maneuver drives being separate, does this mean we can finally have a distinction between "jump ships" and "system ships"? That's a major point of tactical ship design that we've never had in the SE series. By making the jump drive large and expensive, you can give a decent advantage to the defensive side because system-only ships will be inherently cheaper. And carriers for larger ships than fighters will make a lot of sense.

[Ed Kolis]

Yes, that's the plan As a matter of fact, we were discussing docking at yesterday's meeting... seems like we came to the conclusion that without "sectors" in the game, the easiest way to implement repair in a fair manner is to require the ship being repaired to dock at the repair ship, or vice versa!

[jars_u]

Originally Posted by Baron Munchausen

...does this mean we can finally have a distinction between "jump ships" and "system ships...

They were forced to eat Robin's minstrels... and there was much rejoicing.

[jars_u]

Saw Flotilla on Steam today - never heard of it or http://www.blendogames.com/ before and while it has some obvious limitations it for me is also intriguing enough to put money down on it. Thought it would be of interest to the SL thread on its own merits but also very applicable to the SL ship design/combat discussions.

Review: Flotilla, or Ender’s Game: The Game

FLOTILLA gameplay

[jars_u]

Originally Posted by Ed Kolis

...if capital ships had little or even zero maneuverability, while fighters could zip around like crazy... would put more emphasis on the fleet formations and strategies...

I think that sounds like an excellent implementation. Would also allow firing arcs for capital ships to have meaningful repercussions for both design and combat strategies. Also if capital ships didn't "dog fight" as much as ships generally do in 4X games having a system where ship Captains are able to grant minor benefits (as sometimes seen in RTS, +1 defense, etc.) could help further tailor a players style.