The Future for SE IV? Does it have one?

[Lemmy]

Except I have tested this and it doesn't work. Although I suppose I could have screwed it up somehow. Have you tested it? What ended up happening in my tests is fleet A hit the target right before Fleet B, even though they had the same movement. The Combat ended up happening seperately.

I agree though it shold work. I am hoping maybe I just did something wrong.

no, that's how it is supposed to work, they can only move together, not attack, they would have to be in the same fleet then.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by klausD:
BB,

Your "impulse system" sounds clever but a little bit too complex for my personal taste. I would love to see the normal SEIV tactical combat in SEV. Just a little bit pepped up.

with:
-better looking ships, ships with different "shapes" and user modded sizes. Why not having a dreadnought model which is 2 squares wide and 3 squares long, while another dreadnought type (of another race) is 4 squares long and just one square wide. Why not having a round "death star" model which occupies 4 or even 9 squares on the playing area.

-shooting and moving initiative depending on technology and race.

-advanced ground combat. But please no big planet surface a la fading suns. (none or just a small)

-4 different shooting angles (left, right, front, behind)

-turning and manoevre rules.

This and some other small tweaks should be enough to have a formidable time with SEV.

sorry for my bad english
klausD

PS: like many fans of SEIV (and its predecessors) I dont care a lot about all these fancy 3D stuff. I like the game as it is. A revolution is not necessary when the basic system is very good.

He makes it sound more complicated than it really is by delving into the details of how he thinks it should be implemented. In essence, the 'impulse' system means each turn is broken down into many smaller sub-turns. And if you have things like weapon recharge crossing turn boundaries then it's not even that -- it's breaking combat down into thousands of tiny turns. That's it. We just need 'smaller resolution' of turns so it's not possible for someone to do too much in a single turn. That's the essence of the 'I go - you go' balance problem.

I agree that firing arcs for weapons, shield facings (essentially inseperable from weapon firing arcs, when you think about it), turning rates, and maneuvering rules are all essential to a good tactical combat system. With initiative advantages for smaller ships we'd finally have a good 'balance' that would make smaller ships worthwhile into the late game.

The fancy graphical options would be nice, but would make it vastly harder for third-party add-on shipsets to be created. I think it would be better to just have more than one image per size class, and keep the graphic formats as simple as possible.

[ August 19, 2002, 20:32: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Will]

Originally posted by Lemmy:
no, that's how it is supposed to work, they can only move together, not attack, they would have to be in the same fleet then.

No, if you shift-click multiple ships and/or fleets, and tell them to move to an enemy location (and thus attack), all will enter the sector at the same time. This will not happen when a turn has passed since the orders were given, the grouping only Lasts for one turn.

[disabled]

if they make a phong stuffed animal....

that has voices......

I would say rodney dangerfield needs to dot he voice on that.

As for the Eee... hmmm... Gilbert Godfrey (sp on that)

[tkobo]

I am a BIG fan of stratgy games.SE4 and EFS are 2 of my favs despite having rather lack luster graphics.
Rebellion and BoF were good also but nowhere near as good as the 2 first mentioned.Gameplay over graphics is where I stand.If I can have them both, fine.But if not, GIVE ME GAMEPLAY.Thank you.

Now the one place that both these games(se4,EFS) fall short IMHO is lack of good ground combat.I would pay good money for another Version of either of these games in which absoulutely nothing was changed BUT the ground combat.

If either game would incorporate ground combat in a form like that of the close combat series I'd be a REAL happy puppy.
I'd even settle for a steel panthers type of ground combat.
As far as I'm concerned this is the only big thing both SE4 and EFS really fell short on.
Also make the ground combat control optional,so if you dont want to control it you can let the AI do it(shudder,shiver,etc..Oh the horror.Just look at the bodies)

The one thing you must NEVER do however is turn the SEies into a clickfest like the wardaft series or the many other no IQ reguired clickfests for 12 year olds games flooding the market.

[klausD]

BB and Baron M.,
Thanks for the reply. Maybe I was wrong in my assumption. But my resentiments comes from my experience with an another impulse system. I can remember of a role playing game in Larry Nivens "Ringworld". It used the BRP System of Chaosium. The only difference to another BRP-Versions (like Runequest or Call of Chtulhu) was the usage of combat-impulses as you described.
As long as there has been just a few combatants the system worked very well. But if the battle was bigger, it was a real horror to keep oversight of who did what and when. So I think an impulse system could be fine, but just if you have a few ships (or fleet formations without the option to split them down to single ships).

BTW: GDW`s "Invasion Earth" was a great game. I liked it too (also 5th frontier war and Imperium/dark nebula - from the series) But again I think to implement a similar system for SE5 would be too complex. Just imagine how long an invasion earth like combat would Last. And then multiply it with the amount of invasions one strategic turn in SE4 could theoretically have.

Simple Manoevring rules could be:
turning 90 Degree: a ship has to travel at least one square before turning 90 degree. If a ship has advanced manoevre it can turn without traveling one square. If a ship has a certain size and is not very manoevrable it has to travel at least X squares before turning. thats it.

"The fancy graphical options would be nice, but would make it vastly harder for third-party add-on shipsets to be created."

Are you sure? why? A ship designer has only the option to make bigger ships (he has not to, because dreadnoughts could also occupy just one square as it is in SE4) and to pre-define the squares they occupy during the design - but with the same graphical quality as now.

bye
klausD

[dumbluck]

RE: Impulses

One small thing: Make sure it's "fire, then move" instead of "move, then fire". Otherwise, static defences, especially at Warppoints, would be at a serious disadvantage...

Also, couldn't this be (kinda) modded in? Change the # of combat turns to, say, 300, and multiply the reload rates by 10. But not the movement; you'd probably want to DECREASE the combat movement generated by normal engines. Of coarse, this would need a lot of balancing, but it's kinda what you want. Sorta. Maybe?

[Pax]

Originally posted by Crazy_Dog:
One thing that i like to see, is a weapons system like the one used in Starships Unlimited, Missiles use ammo and PPB / shields use energy.
For energy you need engines and reactors.
Also the arcs of fire like in the MOO2.
Other thing that i want to see is ships sizes can be race specific, ex. a mechanics race can build bigger ships than a spiritual one.

I plan to include a "perk"-level Racial Technology trait, "Megascalar Construction" that will give the race extra ship hulls, on the large end.

And another, "Microscalar Engineering" that will enhance smaller hulls -- mainly fighters and hte like, but will also add a ~50kT mini-ship type hull.

Not -exactly- what you had in mind, but ... 8).

[dogscoff]

Other thing that i want to see is ships sizes can be race specific, ex. a mechanics race can build bigger ships than a spiritual one.

I plan to include a "perk"-level Racial Technology trait, "Megascalar Construction" that will give the race extra ship hulls, on the large end.

...

Not -exactly- what you had in mind, but ... 8).

Well... that's exactly what he described. See also Pireates & Nomad's mod, with the "Big thinkers" trait. This feature is entirely moddable in SEIV.

[PraetorSpectre]

In response to earlier discussions here, I'm glad there;s a SEIV future and a SEV and spinoffs. I'm not big on combat that's 3D or graphics that take advantage of 3d, but a galactic map thats 3D would add quite a bit of "expansion" (and fun hopefully) to overall strategy and movement and empire layout, I believe, in a strategy game like this w/o too much micromanagement overkill.