where %system% is the name of a system.A combat has taken place in %system%. We were victorious!
A combat has taken place in %system%. We were defeated!
A combat has taken place in %system%. The encounter was inconclusive.
This doesn't give a lot of useful information to players about what happened in a combat they didn't observe. And similarly, when there are interactive combats that a particular player did or didn't take part in, but about which the player has some knowledge of the outcome, it would be good to report and record the outcome in the sitrep. The question remains though, about what sorts of information should be reported, and in what format.
Thinking about it briefly, it would be nice to know things like whether a ship was destroyed or damaged, how much damage was done, if a planet was captured, which empires were involved in the battle, and perhaps more details like a particular (type of?) ship doing a lot of damage, or a lot of damage against an enemy's forces (or type of ship in enemy forces).
There could be a variety of such information in a battle report sitrep message. How to arrange that information also isn't clear, however.
* There should (still) be an initial text line about a combat occuring in %system%.
* There should be mention of which empires were involved. Something like "... between the forces of..." and then a list of empires, possibly on separate lines, so that the grammar / formatting is more language independent.
* Details of the outcome.
** At the least, a number of destroyed or damaged ships for each combatant empire should be given, although this could also be an itemized list of ships by name if the number is small enough.
** All changes in ownership of planets should definitely be mentioned, likely as separate bullet points in the message.
Is it adequate to pack this information into a sitrep entry, or should there be a separate interface to display details of battles, with only a very simple sitrep entry shown?
Should there be multiple sitrep entries, for there being a battle, for ship damage or destruction, for planet ownership transfers or similar, as opposed to packing the information into a single sitrep entry?
Are there any suggestions or comments about how this sort of information should be displayed and what should be displayed?