Official SE5 release date announced - September 12

[Suicide Junkie]

It is a very complex turn based system if you get down to the nitty gritty details.

It is simply that the turns are one millisecond long, with non-instant weapons and turning.

[Ed Kolis]

Hehe, sort of like "Titans of Steel" on autoturns, if you want to think of it that way
Though I do wonder if the turns are really run every millisecond... that would be an awful lot of turn processing for every measly frame of animation...

[Karibu]

On MOO2 there was a nice (though imperfect) way to simulate realtime combat. Ships had initiative, which then gave you the turn to move. Though, for some reason human players had every time the first move. I think initiative should be calculated by many things like:
- level of engine
- engine capacity divided by ship size class
- experience of the crew
- experience of the fleet
- level of battle computer

Also, there should be different initiative for guns and movement (you may have superior engines but lousy battle computer or vice versa), and also - very difficult to implement - if two ships are have almost identical initiative but one has slightly better, the better ship should not be able to do everything before another ship gets the change.

My logic would say that high engine initiative gives you some movements (perhaps 1 or 2 squares) before another ship gets to move his one square. An example:

Ship A: total movement 7 squares, battle computer level 1
Ship B: total movement 5 squares, battle computer level 2

Battle:
Ship A moves 1 square
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 2 squares
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 1 square
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 2 squares
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 1 square
Ship B moves 1 square

Firing: If guns itself have no initiative and both ships would have same weapons, firing order depends only of battle computer. the ship B would fire first when in range (even if ship A would move inside the gun range and still have movement to go, but at this point Ship B gets his firing turn).

Example continued:

Ship A moves 1 square
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 2 squares
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 1 square
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 1 squares (ship A have 1 more square to move)
Ship B fires at ship A
Ship A moves 1 squares
Ship A fires at ship B
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship B fires at ship A
Ship A moves 1 square
Ship A fires at ship B
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship B fires at ship A

etc.

Of course, this is a crude combat model but similar what I hope to see in SEV. You get the point. Well, can SEV betatesters give any preliminary information about this or does NDA prevent you from comment?

[Ed Kolis]

Um, it's been known for a long time that SE5 combat is not turn-based, so why are you asking this?

[Karibu]

I have been out of things lately. Enlighten me. Can I see specs/preview of the game somewhere?

[Ed Kolis]

Ahh, sorry
Here's the official page with a feature list, system requirements, screenshots, and whatnot:
http://www.malfador.com/Se5.html

Note that one of the screenshots shows ground combat with hexes; that is a very old one - ground combat is now realtime just like space combat

[Karibu]

Thanks for the link. However, it doesn't really tell anything about the game, except what you can see from the screenshots.

[Captain Kwok]

I keep a more detailed feature list along with some exclusive screenshoots of SE:V at my website:

http://www.captainkwok.net/se5info.php
http://www.captainkwok.net/feature-se5screenshots.php

The smallest time segment you can run auto-pause in is 1 second.

[Uncle_Joe]

I asked it before but didnt see an answer.

Real quick for a tester or anyone else who knows:

Will you be able to play out the tactical battles in multiplayer TCP/IP games?

Thanks in advance!

[Raapys]

It is simply that the turns are one millisecond long, with non-instant weapons and turning.

And the fact that all ships carry out their actions/orders at the same time, as opposed to "real" turn-based combat where you do one ship then the other.