SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[Growltigger]

I have said this before but just in case Aaron is reading this, I will say it again.

I want COMMUNICATION LAG a la the Starfire model. What this means is that Messages from your planets/ships need to get to homeworld before you can issue orders, rather than being omnicogniscent at all times.

The Starfire model works as follows. Say that one of your scoutships meets an alien race. It needs to get a message back to your homeworld. How does it do this?

At very low tech, it pretty much has to fly back to your home system. At a slightly higher tech, you get courier drones (fast long range missiles)which can be fired off to pass Messages along. Planetary populations have communication devices and these can be used to pass along Messages at light speed. Warp points are a problem, as no light speed Messages can go through so you have to build bases at them to fire drones through. It makes you communication network pretty damn important I can tell you.

Turning back to our example, if the alien race is hostile, the scoutship has to get the message back to homeworld (or your nearest command and control sector) so that orders can be evalueated and sent out to units. This means that you cannot react to that alien race until your ships have received orders from homeworld.

Apologies for the above, a bit rambling I know but I just love the realism of this. For example, 3 systems out, one of my scoutships bumps into an alien armada, one of my fleets is 2 systems away and could intercept if they got orders in time, it takes say 3 days for the message for get back home, 2 days to get a message to the fleet and 3 days for them to get to intercept range - in that 8 day period, the alien fleet would be a damn sight closer or even nuking my homeworld...

Now, in SEIV terms, any time under a turn is not important, BUT I wonder if it could be modded so that you need to develop communications technology to have the "instant" communications network, and until you do, you cannot find out anything until your scoutship returns to a planet...

Does this make sense to anyone?

[DavidG]

Originally posted by Captain Jean Luc Le Grand Chat:

Apologies for the above, a bit rambling I know but I just love the realism of this. For example, 3 systems out, one of my scoutships bumps into an alien armada, one of my fleets is 2 systems away and could intercept if they got orders in time, it takes say 3 days for the message for get back home, 2 days to get a message to the fleet and 3 days for them to get to intercept range - in that 8 day period, the alien fleet would be a damn sight closer or even nuking my homeworld...

Now, in SEIV terms, any time under a turn is not important, BUT I wonder if it could be modded so that you need to develop communications technology to have the "instant" communications network, and until you do, you cannot find out anything until your scoutship returns to a planet...

Does this make sense to anyone?

Well not really. It sounds needlessly complicated to me. I mean if the fleet in your example is 2 systems away should it really need to wait untill a message from the scout got all the way back to the homeworld and back before reacting? I think I like the SE4 universe with instantaneous communication.

[minipol]

I read chapter 2 in the Trillian Empire thread and it gave me an idea. If this was already posted, shoot me

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Reading chapter 2, it made me realise what i sometimes miss in SEIV what some other games do have: leaders! Adds to the roleplaying character of the game. Some games give you great leaders at random times with abilities that influence troops. In SEIV, that could mean that some leaders influence ground combat of the troops they lead, others fighters or fleets!
Maybe boost intelligence or research.

Dang, reminds me of, eh, what's it called * stands up, walks to box with old goodies * Hah, Starwars Rebellion.

Image that for a race (say Federation), you could suddenly end up with Jean-Luc Piccard
Would be fun. Then for modding you could make a number of leaders that would appear at a certain time or randomly.
================== snip =================

[ June 19, 2003, 20:45: Message edited by: minipol ]

[Growltigger]

Originally posted by DavidG:

quote:

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Well not really. It sounds needlessly complicated to me. I mean if the fleet in your example is 2 systems away should it really need to wait untill a message from the scout got all the way back to the homeworld and back before reacting? I think I like the SE4 universe with instantaneous communication.[/QB]

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Aha, but that is one of the points this methodlogy deals with in Starfire. How does your fleet now that it should move to intercept the alien scourge. It doesn't, unless it gets orders from your nearest command and control centre telling it to go and whup alien butt.

You specify standing orders for your scoutships, and if those orders say that they have authority to hijack fleets, then your scoutship could send a message to the fleet to interdict, provided it new they were there. If, when the scout left homeworld, that fleet was happily in orbit on R&R, how would it know to send a message to the other system (where that fleet was) to get them to assist?

Of course, a proper Starfire game needs a referee (a Space Umpire) who ensures that this rule is enforced

I suppose an analogy would be Pacific WWII carrier battles with no radio. You have a load of dauntlesses and devastators prepped and ready to whup those Japanese, but until your catalina tells you where they are, you cant do anything, and if that catalina has to fly back to you to tell you where they are, or send a carrier pigeon!! nuff said?

Personally, given that SEIV is on the galactic level, I think instantaneous communication is a bit much, maybe only at a high tech level or something

[jimbob]

Ragnok: Brilliant! I have so wanted to have StarGates too. The possibility of sending troops and fighters (really anything small and reassemble-able) would absolutely increase their value.

Ragnarok, that would be like an invisible maze of nodes linked to planets that only reveal themselves after you searched the ruin or facility. I like the idea. Would add to the importance of troops.

It would be nice if each planet had a "phone number" a la the TV show. The number would be equivalent to the planet's location in space (i.e. you couldn't change it) and would become known to whomever builds the star gate or holds the planet... You should be able to send the phone number to allies and enemies should be able to obtain it via espionage. Finally, it should function as a Space Port as long as the empire in question has a StarGate in contact with one of their planets that is in a Space Ported system.

The only way to protect from enemy troops would be to disassemble the device - in SEiv that would be equivalent to destroying the facility I guess.

[minipol]

I think it's a complicated idea too but it would make things far more realistic. I'm not sure if it would make things more fun.

But what with fleets at the other end of the map? That would be unworkable unless they arrived there through a warppoint from your own system (that you opened with a warp opener for instance)

In such a case, you should be able to set a command for the fleet like: go there, attack this, stay there for x number of time or until mission x is accomplished and then come back.
But this would be very complex si i don't think it's doable in such a manner that it increases the gaming experience but that's just my opinion.

[Loser]

I wish the AI could tell the difference between sectors. I wish it could mine sectors other than Warp Points, choose to stand and wait for a fight in sectors with bonuses or penalties, not send small ships through Warp Points they will not survive, and not blow up systems without first removing its highly mobile and easy-to-remove investments.

[deccan]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Supposedly next summer, but I don't know if it will really be ready by then.

Gosh, I guess I must try to finish my SP Propoertions game before then.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ack! definitly optional on the stargates. having to keep track of two major tactical maps...

[Loser]

I was trying to code my own Civ-style game a while back (pretty simple, really), and my approach to the 'Leader' issue was to have the game periodically generate Exceptional Individuals.

They were to carry bonuses and penalties and occasionally special abilities. They could be assigned to any unit, could add their bonuses to a whole stack if that unit had a HQ component (units were to have components like SMAC), and several of them could be assigned to a city.

The idea was that at certain populations, new slots for Exceptional Individuals would open up. Any city could have a Governor, but only one with 10 people could have a Lieutenant Governor. Two Lieutenant Governors at 20, three at thirty, and so on.

Also, as they performed jobs (Urban Garrison, Frontier Garrison, Land Development, City Management, Assault, Defense, whatever) an Exceptional Individual had a chance at improving his abilities in that job and a smaller chance at randomly picking up other bonuses.

Exceptional Individuals would also have varying level of potential. Some would never go too far, some would be Destined for Greatness.

In this way an exceptional Individual with strong Policing ability (keeps the populace from acting up) could be assigned to a City Garrison unit in a major Metropolis. He might then spontaneously develop a bonus to Research, and at that point the player would do well to move him from the unit to which he is assigned to a Lieutenant Governor position, where that Research Bonus will actually have some effect.

In this example of a Research bonus, it would be in the players best interest to move Exceptional Individuals with similar bonuses to cities already strong in that area. This would add to the specialization of cities (University town), and give a new incentive to adding population to a city.

One great risk with Exceptional Individuals would be that if you left them alone too long on patrol, or left them in charge of a city too far from your capitol, with overly cooperative Lieutenants, they might leave you. When an Exceptional Individual leave a player's employ it can either immediately join another faction (more SMAC influence here), or it can start its own. When an Exceptional Individual starts its own faction, its faction bonuses and penalties would be determined by that individual, and that individual would be the new head of that faction. Whole faction had the ability to join other factions, their leaders returning to the sate of an Exceptional Individual in employment.

Anyway, change cities to worlds, units to ships and bases, and maybe units, and you have something that would fit into SE V. But I hear that Generals in Medieval Total War work about that way, and you can marry your daughters to them, to boot.

Of course, I'd bet that the feature set for SE V is pretty much finalized, but this was a fun post to write.

On the other hand, can you imagine having a high-potential Exceptional Individual whose bonuses lie in Fighter Combat.... doom, doom, doom...

[edit: by "pretty simple really" I mean that I didn't get very far at all, not on the coding anyway]

[ June 20, 2003, 13:53: Message edited by: Loser ]