Bombardment Mechanics

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Geoff the Medio
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Bombardment Mechanics

#1 Post by Geoff the Medio »

As requested, a brief discussion of current bombardment mechanics...

There is now a new class of ship part, Bombard, which enables a ship to conduct bombardments. This is accomplished by placing the ship in a system with an enemy planet, selecting the ship in the fleets window, and then clicking the bombard button on the planet.
ship able to bombard
ship able to bombard
bombard.png (93.76 KiB) Viewed 4423 times
Ignore that this is a troop ship... I just changed a troop pod to a bombard part for ease of making a demo. Troop ships (with Troops parts) still function as before.

Once the button is clicked, the ship is marked with a bombard indicator, and the button changes to cancel bombard.

If ordered to bombard, that marks the ship as bombarding the planet. In order for this to do anything, there needs to be an effectsgroup that checks for it. An example is in death spores:

Code: Select all

        EffectsGroup    // players can order death spores used on enemies
            scope = And [
                Planet
                InSystem Source.SystemID
                OrderedBombardedBy condition = Source
                Or [
                    OwnedBy EnemyOf Source.Owner
                    Not OwnedBy AnyEmpire
                ]
                VisibleToEmpire Source.Owner
                HasTag "ORGANIC"
            ]
            effects = [
                SetPopulation Value - 0.5
                GenerateSitRepMessage
                    message = "EFFECT_BIOWEAPON"
                    parameters = [
                        tag = "system" data = Source.System.ID
                    ]
                    empire = Target.Owner
            ]
The OrderedBombardedBy condition matches objects ordered bombarded by the specified object. This can be the ship with the part that has this effectsgroup and is doing the bombarding, or this be put into a tech or building to alter the effects of bombardment by other objects.

On subsequent turns, the bombard button eventually cancels itself... I'm not sure exactly what's going on with that, but it should be functional at least on the first turn after the order.

The Python API also has an issueBombardOrder (or similar) function.

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Dilvish
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Re: Bombardment Mechanics

#2 Post by Dilvish »

ok, so for now, it's a way for a player to control the use of their bioweapons, just like Matt asked for. I didn't see any other bombard related effects in any of the content files, except for this tidbit in troop pods:

Code: Select all

    effectsgroups =
        EffectsGroup
            scope = OrderedBombardedBy condition = Source
            effects = SetMaxTroops Value + 100
Was that meant to still be there? Are there any other effects you're contemplating near term?
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Bombardment Mechanics

#3 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Dilvish wrote:except for this tidbit in troop pods... Was that meant to still be there?
That was just for testing, and can/will be removed.
Are there any other effects you're contemplating near term?
I also modified death spores and bio-terminators to use the OrderedBombardBy condition when controlled by players.

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Dilvish
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Re: Bombardment Mechanics

#4 Post by Dilvish »

Geoff the Medio wrote:I also modified death spores and bio-terminators to use the OrderedBombardBy condition when controlled by players.
Yes, that's what I was referring to about players controlling their bioweapons. That by itself is a very useful thing, but I trying to ask if there was anything currently contemplated beyond that. At one point I thought I saw you hint at a possible role in invasion dynamics. I suppose being able to control bioweapons can make them more widely deployable, and blasting a colony down to an outpost would make an invasion easier, but I thought you were contemplating something more.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Bombardment Mechanics

#5 Post by Geoff the Medio »

There's a bunch of stuff that could be done with bombardment, but I'm not spending much time thinking about it. It seemed like there was a bunch of pent up ideas in other people already.

I suppose there could be an early-game asteroid bombardment part that works only when there's an asteroid belt in-system that reduces lots of planet meters, a similar but somewhat more-expensive early-game nuclear bombs part, a distinctive "glassing" part, and more targetted bombardments to particular types of meters. Perhaps something like a propaganda projector that can be used stealthed. Orbital terraforming would be possible...

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eleazar
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Re: Bombardment Mechanics

#6 Post by eleazar »

Awesome.

Defensive troops should probably be buffed, or offensive troops nerfed, so that bombs don't tilt the balance toward too easy invasions.

The big question is weather all bombers should be consumable like troop pods, or just some of them. We don't want bombardment to require a ton of click management.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Bombardment Mechanics

#7 Post by Geoff the Medio »

In most cases, presumably bombing won't actually grant control of a planet, so there's less need to make such ships consumable as with troop and colony ships.

Bombardment of a planet would also presumably make its species dislike the bombarding empire substantially more than would a troop invasion.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Bombardment Mechanics

#8 Post by Geoff the Medio »

One option would be to change battle mechanics so that ship weapons don't reduce planet shields, and thus make bombardment (with specially designed ships) necessary to eliminate planet shields before troop invasions can be conducted.

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MatGB
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Re: Bombardment Mechanics

#9 Post by MatGB »

It would work for me, but would make the current "everything fights" system with planetary defences need some work, if shield aren't reduced in a fight then do you just target the planetary defences?

I would like to be able to tell ships to not engage planets, completely, especially if you're taking out sentinels or other monsters in inhabited systems that aren't fighting back, or even that have the new high tech natives (which I'm liking, adds another dimension).

But if you stop attacks on planets completely unless bombard is ordered, and you can't bombard until you're there, higher end planets will do a lot of damage if they're still fighting.
Mat Bowles

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Dilvish
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Re: Bombardment Mechanics

#10 Post by Dilvish »

I can understand the interest in making invasions a little trickier, but this would be a fairly significant change to planetary combat. Here's a lesser change to think about -- rather than the invasion determination be a flat 'greater than' comparison, let it be stochastic like combat, so you'd need a bigger surplus than just +1 to have any confidence of success (though less might succeed with luck, or if the defenders are lucky it could take a lot more). Bombardment could work into that in a number of different ways, such as perhaps the defending troops being weaker/disorganized while undergoing a bombardment and therefore having poorer fighting odds against the invaders.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Bombardment Mechanics

#11 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Dilvish wrote:...rather than the invasion determination be a flat 'greater than' comparison, let it be stochastic like combat, so you'd need a bigger surplus than just +1 to have any confidence of success...
Given that one has to commit a specific number of troop ships to conduct a ground invasion, I don't think random results in ground combats would be a good idea. It seems likely to be much more annoying / frustrating, especially since one can't retreat partly-damaged troop ships after an unlucky combat. With ship combat, there's no reason not to send in a few more if you have them, as it will just improve your odds and spread the damage around a bit. With troop ships, doing so will definitely consume them.
...perhaps the defending troops being weaker/disorganized while undergoing a bombardment and therefore [have penalties]
This could be done without randomization. Either dedicated bombardment parts for use against ground troops could be added, or ground troop effects could be included in general-purpose / standard bombardment parts. These effects could work only after shields are disabled, or simultaneously.

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