Combat: Non-Ship Objects

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Tortanick
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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#46 Post by Tortanick »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:The Mk. IV has 400% of the armor and has 4 times as many weapons as the Mk. I. It uses the same ammo. When it reaches 25% damage, 25% of it's weapons become disabled. It's effectiveness should be about identical to the performance of 4 mk. Is.
Why does it matter than there are Mk. IV and Mk. I orbitals then? Why not just keep the 4 Mk. I's, and have the meter value just be a rough indication of the number of orbitals, where orbitals are always the same?
Because if you do that then you can't improve orbitals by researching better weapons. You could research some sort of logistics technology that increases you're ability to support a greater number of orbitals and thus improve you're defenses. But that requires a special tech for orbitals separate from the ship improving techs. (I suppose depending on you're point of view that may be a good idea) Not to mention the oddness of orbitals being identical when you're fighting with lasers to when you're fighting with quantum de-existors.

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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#47 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Tortanick wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:Why not just keep the 4 Mk. I's, and have the meter value just be a rough indication of the number of orbitals, where orbitals are always the same?
Because if you do that then you can't improve orbitals by researching better weapons.
My point is that, if 4 Mk. I's is exactly equivalent to 1 Mk. IV, then the time and effort spent researching the Mk. IV orbitals was wasted, since the switch doesn't give any advantage. You can change the specific numbers a bit, but doing so is equally wasted, because with a basic system in which the meter determines the strength of the orbitals as a group, it doesn't matter what types or how many individual orbitals are present; the sum is still the meter value.

Instead, the only way techs will reasoanbly be able to affect orbitals is for the tech to give bonuses to planet orbital meters, or unlock a building that does so, allowing a stronger constellation of orbitals to be built.

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eleazar
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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#48 Post by eleazar »

Geoff the Medio wrote:My point is that, if 4 Mk. I's is exactly equivalent to 1 Mk. IV, then the time and effort spent researching the Mk. IV orbitals was wasted...
Why am i so frequently re-quoting myself?
eleazar wrote:Furthermore there's a cap on the total number of orbitals, otherwise the player could simply build more orbitals of a lower tech level to make the tech levels pointless.
Geoff please read all my posts from the one linked above. I've worked things rather carefully out, but i see evidence that you've not yet understood my proposal.

The cap is primarily an arbitrary limit to make make orbital research useful, while still maintaining the usefulness of the number of the defense meter. The cap also has an interface justification. If we place too many orbitals around a plant, it becomes increasingly difficult for the player to tell at-a-glance how strong the defenses are. It might not be easy to distinguish 55 Mark I orbitals from 70 of the same, which indicate a significant difference in defensive power.

Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:But i don't really see the point to having a defensive only set-up. Unless the shields are utterly impenetrable, the invader just sits there and wears away at the shields at no risk to himself.
You generally wouldn't want to have only a shield if offensive orbitals were obtainable as well, and likely chose to get bonuses to shields to the exclusion of offensive orbitals. But, the shield might be quite strong compared to orbitals or ships, such that a fleet might not be able to wear away the shield, or might take several turns to wear away the shield. This allows blockades to happen, whereas if there were just defensive orbitals, once these are destroyed, there's nothing physically stopping planetary bombardment. It also lets a fleet achieve system space superiority while still needing several turns to take a well-defended planet, giving counterattackers time to arrive. It also gives a purpose to specialized shield-breaking weapons (bombs?) and, as above, ground troops that bypass the shield.

So... to summarize, it's not that you'd want a defensive-only setup, it's that defensive shields and offensive orbitals have somewhat different functions, and are complimentary, and could benefit from being tracked separately.
Again you have not read or understood my proposal. You are assuming that orbitals work just like they do in your ideal (contrary to my explanation) and then debunking my set-up after replacing my "orbitals" with yours.

In my system if an invader defeats all ships, he controls the system. My planetary orbitals are rather short range, cannot reach (for instance) to the orbit of another planet, and do not contribute to the control of the system.

Orbitals (if desired) could be strong enough to last several turns vs. an attack.

Blockades can happen in exactly the same way with my orbitals in place. If an enemy fleet controls the system, any planets no matter their defensive power are blockaded.

There is no special virtue in having shield-breaking weapons in the game. However there is some value in having weapons specialized to destroying a planet's defenses, which is equally possible in my scenario.

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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#49 Post by Tortanick »

What happens if the defending player chooses to have his fleets hide near his orbitals?

And combat is system wide, what happens if a battle starts, the attacker gets the upperhand in space, then the defender retreats with a good portion of his fleet to the planets? Do you continue or end the battle?

My suggestion is that if there is a significant enemy fleet (say 5% of the defending fleet not counting orbitals, and a flat minimum) in the system then its blockaded, weather they are fighting or not. It may not make much sense if you consider the relative positions of each fleet but it dose mean the attacker won't need to attack ships defended by orbitals to cause a blockade.

As for fluff justification: The Union of civilian transports won't enter the same system as any enemy ships.


Now about you're proposal for orbitals. Am I right in saying that essentially you have a maximum of 10 orbitals, but that could be 10 mark1, or 10 mark4? If I'm right that proposal has merit but it means that when you research better guns or armour you can't immediately upgrade you're orbitals. Its only a minor problem since orbitals mk2 will depend on the same armour and weapon techs so I'd be happy to give that up in favour of a cleaner UI. If it results in a cleaner UI.

You're right about not makeing too many orbitals to avoid clutter.

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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#50 Post by eleazar »

Tortanick wrote:What happens if the defending player chooses to have his fleets hide near his orbitals?

And combat is system wide, what happens if a battle starts, the attacker gets the upperhand in space, then the defender retreats with a good portion of his fleet to the planets?
The game currently has no concept of ships being at a planet. Ships don't orbit, dock with, or land on planets. I don't recall seeing a serious proposal that these actions should be added to the game.
So there's no special significance to having ships near a planet.

I think it's rather unlikely that both sides will choose not to fight when in the same system, but that's problem is probably not on-topic here.

Tortanick wrote:Now about you're proposal for orbitals. Am I right in saying that essentially you have a maximum of 10 orbitals, but that could be 10 mark1, or 10 mark4?
Provisionally, i think a max number of 20 or 25 is better than 10, but yes, that's the basic idea.
Tortanick wrote:...but it means that when you research better guns or armour you can't immediately upgrade your orbitals.
I'm not sure i get your point. So far you can't immediately upgrade anything after researching, you gotta build it. No you can't put just anything weapons on my concept of orbitals— this is necessary to keep a strong relationship between the defense meter, the number of orbitals, and the actual effectiveness of the orbitals.

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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#51 Post by Tortanick »

eleazar wrote:The game currently has no concept of ships being at a planet. Ships don't orbit, dock with, or land on planets. I don't recall seeing a serious proposal that these actions should be added to the game.
So there's no special significance to having ships near a planet.


The special significance isn't because of a special "at planet" mode for ships, but rather an emergent effect of the battle system. Ships can freely move around the system during battle, therefore it is possible for a player to keep his ships close to his planets, so if the attacker engages his ships he's also got the orbitals firing on him. Defenders may do this in the hope the attacker will attack despite the greater losses, or because they're waiting for reinforcements.


However if you have a stalemate where both players have a strong fleet in the same system, but neither are attacking. then is that a blockade or not? If not then the defender can hide his ships near the orbitals and prevent a blockade. I don't think that should be possible.
eleazar wrote:I think it's rather unlikely that both sides will choose not to fight when in the same system, but that's problem is probably not on-topic here.

Well if you're talking about blockades, and we are, you have to think about what happens when neither side fights because sooner or later it will happen to someone and we need to decide if it is a blockade or not. (And I think it's going to happen, not too frequently but probably at least once per game)

eleazar wrote:
Tortanick wrote:...but it means that when you research better guns or armour you can't immediately upgrade your orbitals.
I'm not sure i get your point. So far you can't immediately upgrade anything after researching, you gotta build it.
You can't magically upgrade all you're orbitals, but the meter system means that as soon as the next level is out they will immediately _start_ to upgrade ;)
eleazar wrote:No you can't put just anything weapons on my concept of orbitals— this is necessary to keep a strong relationship between the defense meter, the number of orbitals, and the actual effectiveness of the orbitals.
I mourn the inability to put any weapon on orbitals, but it is fair trade to have a strong relationship between the meter an the power of the orbitals

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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#52 Post by Geoff the Medio »

eleazar wrote:The cap is primarily an arbitrary limit to make make orbital research useful, while still maintaining the usefulness of the number of the defense meter.
It seems unnecessarily complicated to have two separate max number of orbitals allowed - the cap and the max meter value. If number / strength of orbitals is determined by the orbitals meter, then wouldn't it be simplest and clearest to have orbitals research just increase or allow increases of the max orbitals meter?
The cap also has an interface justification. If we place too many orbitals around a plant, it becomes increasingly difficult for the player to tell at-a-glance how strong the defenses are. It might not be easy to distinguish 55 Mark I orbitals from 70 of the same, which indicate a significant difference in defensive power.
This seems like premature optimization... We don't know how orbitals will be displayed, but any system in which we could have dozens of objects per planet is worrisome.

In a larger sense though, do orbitals really need to be created as and diplayed as distinct objects in battles? They are really a proprety of the planet itself, tracked by a meter, and not distinct objects like ships. As such, it might be more appropriate to treat them as a property of the planet in the battle. The meter value would just determine how much firepower the planet has, without needing to worry about how this is broken down into indidivual orbitals. Damage to the planet would reduce the meter, reducing firepower, similar to damaging a ship.
Again you have not read or understood my proposal. You are assuming that orbitals work just like they do in your ideal (contrary to my explanation) and then debunking my set-up after replacing my "orbitals" with yours.
The discussion you refer to had nothing to do with your system; it was explaining how my system would work, in reply to a comment about my system.
In my system [...] Orbitals (if desired) could be strong enough to last several turns vs. an attack.
How would orbitals in battles work then? Would it be possible to knock them out in a battle, or would planets (or their orbitals) be essentially undamagable during an actual battle, since it would take several turns to do actual damage to them?

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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#53 Post by MikkoM »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
MikkoM wrote:...could the defence meter value be only related to the building/repairing process of the defensive buildings and the buildings/orbitals themselves would be shown separately to the player with each of them having their own damage level and other facts?
For most implimentations, this would require too many buildings / orbitals to be displayed. It also doesn't really fit with the concept of a defense meter as distinct from the construction meter.
Well my proposal now has 3 different " not so special buildings" to be build on every planet (4 if there is also a missile base). I am also ready to abandon my smaller than ships orbitals, since you would have to build many of these in order to build a strong defence and this would probably only add needless micromanagement (unless of course the small orbitals would form a single build able building, maybe some sort of an orbital system net?)

Now I am not of course sure how many of these larger orbitals the player would have to build per desired planet to form a defensive stronghold as this most likely is a question of balancing. However I don`t think there would be too many of these orbitals per a stronghold planet (perhaps 1 or 2?) and so the overall amount of these buildings/orbitals per planet wouldn`t be extremely high, although it wouldn`t be that low either.

And what comes to the defence meter in my proposal it probably wouldn`t fit with that concept. However I would hope that my kind of solution would allow different kinds of defensive buildings on a planet and at the same time would remove the problem of random damage and destruction. Also as the defensive buildings(/orbitals) are probably going to have a significant and rather visible role in the space combat it might be good to offer them a separate defensive construction meter that my meter might be.

The question here of course still is:
MikkoM wrote: Can this kind of a complicated system offer enough interesting possibilities that it would be worth implementing?
I tried to present some possibilities in my defensive buildings idea post, but can anyone else see interesting possibilities that could be achieved by having different kinds of defensive building on a planet?
Geoff the Medio wrote:
MikkoM wrote: The “special buildings that the player builds in some key locations”
Why are these necessary? If they're just for key locations, can't the player just put ships there?
Of course you can put ships there, but the problem at least with star ships is that you can often move them somewhere else too. You can for example overreact to a problem somewhere else in your empire and by so doing leave a key location woundrebal by sending your ships away. Now this would of course be a delicious opportunity for one of your enemies to take advantage of. This might at first seem like a nice opportunity in a strategy game, but if the player has to worry about things like these throughout the game, while at the same time take care of other tasks of the empire it might not be so enjoyable after all.

Then there could of course be the system ships that stay in a particular system all game long. However orbitals could add some variety from traditional ships to the game, although as already discussed maybe not very much. Massive strong single orbitals could perhaps also give the player a better object to care for than multiple ships.
Tortanick wrote: The special significance isn't because of a special "at planet" mode for ships, but rather an emergent effect of the battle system. Ships can freely move around the system during battle, therefore it is possible for a player to keep his ships close to his planets, so if the attacker engages his ships he's also got the orbitals firing on him. Defenders may do this in the hope the attacker will attack despite the greater losses, or because they're waiting for reinforcements.

However if you have a stalemate where both players have a strong fleet in the same system, but neither are attacking. then is that a blockade or not? If not then the defender can hide his ships near the orbitals and prevent a blockade. I don't think that should be possible.
Well could it be always a blockade when a hostile fleet moves to your system? If the defender has some ships in the system he/she can either hold position or intercept fleet like in MOO3. The attacker/blockader can also hold position or attack the system. If neither side decides to attack there is a blockade as the attacker for example holds the star lane entrances or there is some other reason. If the defender however decides to intercept the enemy fleet he/she will have to move his/her ships closer to the attackers position and so he/she looses the support from planetary weapons/orbitals, which probably can`t fire very far.

Wasn`t it you by the way who earlier already suggested something like this or do I remember wrong?
utilae wrote: Utilae's Defensive Proposal - Codename: DefensePlan01


Since I have also commented other defensive solutions it might be useful to give a couple of comments about this too.

The thing that I like about this plan is that it gives a lot of decision making power to the player and so also responsibility. However my main concern here is that as defensive needs for different planets/systems will probably vary you might have to create many different plans to take care of the defensive readiness of all systems in your empire. Also are the defensive buildings/orbitals updated by the meter when new technology comes available or are modifications to the plan always required for updates to occur?

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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#54 Post by utilae »

MikkoM wrote: Well my proposal now has 3 different " not so special buildings" to be build on every planet (4 if there is also a missile base). I am also ready to abandon my smaller than ships orbitals, since you would have to build many of these in order to build a strong defence and this would probably only add needless micromanagement (unless of course the small orbitals would form a single build able building, maybe some sort of an orbital system net?)
Are they built automatically, the 3 buildings?
MikkoM wrote:
utilae wrote: Utilae's Defensive Proposal - Codename: DefensePlan01

Since I have also commented other defensive solutions it might be useful to give a couple of comments about this too.
The thing that I like about this plan is that it gives a lot of decision making power to the player and so also responsibility.
Thanks.
MikkoM wrote: However my main concern here is that as defensive needs for different planets/systems will probably vary you might have to create many different plans to take care of the defensive readiness of all systems in your empire.
Well, if you have to build 20 different plans, and there are 400 planets, your still not build 400 plans (eg like your would build each building in moo2 if there were that many stars). And you probably wouldn't build that many defense plans in one turn, you may remove some, change some, make new ones. I still think the end result is a lot less micromanagement + more flexibility/power.
MikkoM wrote: Also are the defensive buildings/orbitals updated by the meter when new technology comes available or are modifications to the plan always required for updates to occur?
Ideally, defense items would automatically be updated with latest tech, eg laser batteries -> plasma batteries. The general idea is to automate everything for each planet, where the player only makes decisions in the actualy defense plan design itself. Also, the defense meter, as I refered to it, would be a measure of how complete the defense plan is, eg 50% might mean that 4 of the 8 space stations are built (no other defenses in this example).

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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#55 Post by Geoff the Medio »

MikkoM wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:
MikkoM wrote: The “special buildings that the player builds in some key locations”
Why are these necessary? If they're just for key locations, can't the player just put ships there?
Of course you can put ships there, but the problem at least with star ships is that you can often move them somewhere else too.
This argument is reasoanble to justify having a basic level of defense that's immovable at any planet, but it just doesn't do it for me for the relatively few stronghold planets. There are, by definition, not that many of them, and the player will and should be paying attention to them anyway because they're important.
Now this would of course be a delicious opportunity for one of your enemies to take advantage of. This might at first seem like a nice opportunity in a strategy game, but if the player has to worry about things like these throughout the game, while at the same time take care of other tasks of the empire it might not be so enjoyable after all.
Again, this makes sense if it was every planet, but for the fewer strategically important ones, I think the player can spare a bit of attention, thought and fleet strength to keep them protected.

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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#56 Post by Tortanick »

I've always wanted to do my defences with orbitals, turrets, towers, planet missile bases or whatever is equivalent instead of ships or tanks.

Then again that is a weakness and designing a game to pad against my weaknesses is not the right way to do things.

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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#57 Post by MikkoM »

utilae wrote:Are they built automatically, the 3 buildings?
MikkoM wrote:--The meter builds, repairs and updates the "not so special buildings"


So yes they are built automatically. However that brings us to this problem:
MikkoM wrote:- Can the building order of “the not so special buildings” be made absolutely logical and can we also present this logic to the player?
Now this is a must have for my plan to be even considered, because if the player notices that there are situations where it would be smarter to build these buildings in some other order than in the order, which the meter builds them we would end up even worse off than MOO3. Since at least in MOO3 you could always put your micromanagement hat on and built the buildings yourself.
Geoff the Medio wrote:This argument is reasoanble to justify having a basic level of defense that's immovable at any planet, but it just doesn't do it for me for the relatively few stronghold planets. There are, by definition, not that many of them, and the player will and should be paying attention to them anyway because they're important.
Then there is of course this:
MikkoM wrote:However orbitals could add some variety from traditional ships to the game, although as already discussed maybe not very much. Massive strong single orbitals could perhaps also give the player a better object to care for than multiple ships.
Although you haven`t been so far that impressed by orbitals being very different than ships and you are somewhat right also, since the difference is probably quite small.

Also in my proposal I have tried to keep both defensive stronghold building options available by placing also orbitals under maintenance costs, so the more orbitals you build the less ships you can have. However I don`t know if this could really work in practice.
Geoff the Medio wrote:
In a larger sense though, do orbitals really need to be created as and diplayed as distinct objects in battles? They are really a proprety of the planet itself, tracked by a meter, and not distinct objects like ships. As such, it might be more appropriate to treat them as a property of the planet in the battle. The meter value would just determine how much firepower the planet has, without needing to worry about how this is broken down into indidivual orbitals. Damage to the planet would reduce the meter, reducing firepower, similar to damaging a ship.
These orbitals are beginning to look a lot like the planetary weapons, although with the orbitals a strong planetary shield would be possible. Any ideas by the way how this is explained to the player? Now you might want to burn me for making this kind of a realism based question, but some sort of an explanation might be useful when the player notices that the defences that have been build up during the game and aren`t on the surface of the planet still can`t be seen in space combat. Maybe the orbitals are closer to the planets surface than the orbitals in other games and so can`t be seen from space?
Tortanick wrote: Then again that is a weakness and designing a game to pad against my weaknesses is not the right way to do things.
What are you exactly trying to say here?

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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#58 Post by eleazar »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:The cap is primarily an arbitrary limit to make make orbital research useful, while still maintaining the usefulness of the number of the defense meter.
It seems unnecessarily complicated to have two separate max number of orbitals allowed - the cap and the max meter value.
:| That's similar to the way most of our meters work. There is the ultimate max, and the current max. I don't think it will be at all hard for player to understand that any planet can have up to X (perhaps 20) defensive orbitals, however the defensive value (with the right tech) can be up to 100.
Geoff the Medio wrote:If number / strength of orbitals is determined by the orbitals meter, then wouldn't it be simplest and clearest to have orbitals research just increase or allow increases of the max orbitals meter?
Sure that would be simpler, but researching a such a tech (which we already mastered in the 20th century) strays too far for me into the realm of the absurd and implausible. Also, as you say: "any system in which we could have dozens of objects per planet is worrisome."

Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:The cap also has an interface justification. If we place too many orbitals around a plant, it becomes increasingly difficult for the player to tell at-a-glance how strong the defenses are. It might not be easy to distinguish 55 Mark I orbitals from 70 of the same, which indicate a significant difference in defensive power.
This seems like premature optimization... We don't know how orbitals will be displayed, but any system in which we could have dozens of objects per planet is worrisome.

In a larger sense though, do orbitals really need to be created as and diplayed as distinct objects in battles? They are really a proprety of the planet itself, tracked by a meter, and not distinct objects like ships. As such, it might be more appropriate to treat them as a property of the planet in the battle. The meter value would just determine how much firepower the planet has, without needing to worry about how this is broken down into indidivual orbitals. Damage to the planet would reduce the meter, reducing firepower, similar to damaging a ship.
A major point of my proposal is to have something tangible, which can be evaluated at-a-glance, for the planetary defenses. Blowing up a meter is not nearly so interesting as blowing up a concrete object that's shooting at you. I don't want to have to mouse-over a planet to see how well it's invisible defenses are doing. If the defenses are invisible there's no way to tell if you are breaking down defenses or destroying population and infrastructure.
:arrow: How in the world could the game be improved my making planetary defenses invisible?

Geoff the Medio wrote:How would orbitals in battles work then? Would it be possible to knock them out in a battle, or would planets (or their orbitals) be essentially undamagable during an actual battle, since it would take several turns to do actual damage to them?
The relative strength of the orbitals to ships IMHO is a separate issue, and one on which i currently don't have an opinion. Any of the proposals in this thread with the proper number plugged in could produce very long or short sieges.

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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#59 Post by Geoff the Medio »

eleazar wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:It seems unnecessarily complicated to have two separate max number of orbitals allowed - the cap and the max meter value.
:| That's similar to the way most of our meters work. There is the ultimate max, and the current max.
Assuming "ultimate max" refers to the limit of 100 for meters, that isn't really relevant to gameplay; it's just a limit imposed for various convenience reasons such as UI use. In practice, there's only the meter max value and the current value, where the current value is the only one that actually influences how the object functions. And, the "ultimate max" doesn't matter at all, really, since it's just a limit on the actual max meter, not a separate / parallel / independent maximum. So, the "current max" is still the only max the player needs to think about.

What you're proposing is yet another limit (which would be three by your count, or two by mine in practice), with a more complicated and difficult to understand function...
I don't think it will be at all hard for player to understand that any planet can have up to X (perhaps 20) defensive orbitals, however the defensive value (with the right tech) can be up to 100.
I do... It's not intuitive. There's a "max meter" value that in every other case represents the (only) maximum value the meter can attain... but in this one case, there's another maximum that limits what the "real" current value of the meter can be as well.

If we want to impose a maximum, we can do it through the usual meter maximum.
Geoff the Medio wrote:If number / strength of orbitals is determined by the orbitals meter, then wouldn't it be simplest and clearest to have orbitals research just increase or allow increases of the max orbitals meter?
Sure that would be simpler, but researching a such a tech (which we already mastered in the 20th century) strays too far for me into the realm of the absurd and implausible. Also, as you say: "any system in which we could have dozens of objects per planet is worrisome."
"max orbitals meter" doesn't have to mean "number of orbitals allowed". It's the maximum strength of orbitals, which may correspond to a varying actual number of orbitals depending on a variety of factors, similar to how the same population meter might not correspond to the same number of individual beings for different species.

If we need to display individual orbitals on the battle map, and limit this to ten or twenty individual objects, and do this by having the individual objects vary in power / value, then fine, but it doesn't require a separate, variable cap that the player needs to know / care about.
Geoff the Medio wrote:In a larger sense though, do orbitals really need to be created as and diplayed as distinct objects in battles?
A major point of my proposal is to have something tangible, which can be evaluated at-a-glance, for the planetary defenses. Blowing up a meter is not nearly so interesting as blowing up a concrete object that's shooting at you. I don't want to have to mouse-over a planet to see how well it's invisible defenses are doing. If the defenses are invisible there's no way to tell if you are breaking down defenses or destroying population and infrastructure.
Presumably we'll need some way to show how powerful ships are other than just looking at them. Whatever system used for them can presumably be applied to planets as well. Some sort of beam strength or shield strength indicator could be employed, for example, that doesn't require mousing over to be seen.

Also, it's much easier to show relative strength, compared to start of battle, to gauge how effective attacks are being at knocking out a constellation of orbitals, than it is to display their absolute strength precisely...
How in the world could the game be improved my making planetary defenses invisible?
Planet defenses wouldn't be invisible, but just would not treated as distinctly controllable ship-like objects. If we didn't attempt to give each individual orbital specific properties related to how powerful it was, and just generate a small swarm of some appropriate number / appearance of orbitals at the start of a battle, then we can show them blowing up or shooting to animate the planet's damage or attacks during the battle. In partciular, you wouldn't keep track of how poweful an individual orbital's weapon was, or how damaged it was, but would instead animate an orbital blowing up whenever the planet was sufficiently damaged to reduce the orbitals meter enough to warrant showing one blow up. The frequency or power of planet weapon shots would similarly adjust with damage.

Over the course of a game, the factor relating current meter value to number of orbitals can be adjusted (likely as tech increases), so a meter value of 10 might be displayed as 20 smallish orbitals near the start of the game, but only 1 largish orbital near the end of the game. This wouldn't require actually keeping track of how many of each orbital is at what tech level, or having a seprate orbitals number max for the player to worry about, though.
Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:In my system [...] Orbitals (if desired) could be strong enough to last several turns vs. an attack.
How would orbitals in battles work then? Would it be possible to knock them out in a battle, or would planets (or their orbitals) be essentially undamagable during an actual battle, since it would take several turns to do actual damage to them?
The relative strength of the orbitals to ships seems to be to me a separate issue, and one on which i currently don't have an opinion. Any of the proposals in this thread with the proper number plugged in could produce very long or short sieges.
My point is, I guess, that you'd have to pick one or the other: orbitals are destroyed during a battle, and there are no multi-turn seiges, or planets are invulnerable during the battle, and it takes several turns of seiging a system to knock out a planet's defenses.

If there were shields and orbitals, then each could function at a different timescale.

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eleazar
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Re: Combat: Non-Ship Objects

#60 Post by eleazar »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:I don't think it will be at all hard for player to understand that any planet can have up to X (perhaps 20) defensive orbitals, however the defensive value (with the right tech) can be up to 100.
I do... It's not intuitive. There's a "max meter" value that in every other case represents the (only) maximum value the meter can attain... but in this one case, there's another maximum that limits what the "real" current value of the meter can be as well.

If we want to impose a maximum, we can do it through the usual meter maximum.
It is nearly identical to the usual. The "max number" of orbitals allowed is a display issue, not a meter issue. In my proposal it does not effect the meter in any way.
Assume 5 tech levels of orbitals. At TL 1, the max is 20, TL 2, max: 40, at TL 5 max: 100. The number of individual orbitals that the current value represents is not relevant to how the meter works. The player could be totally ignorant of the max number of orbitals which can be displayed around a planet, and the progress of the defense meter would make just as much sense, and act just like any other meter not tied to population.

Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:If number / strength of orbitals is determined by the orbitals meter, then wouldn't it be simplest and clearest to have orbitals research just increase or allow increases of the max orbitals meter?
Sure that would be simpler, but researching a such a tech (which we already mastered in the 20th century) strays too far for me into the realm of the absurd and implausible. Also, as you say: "any system in which we could have dozens of objects per planet is worrisome."
"max orbitals meter" doesn't have to mean "number of orbitals allowed". It's the maximum strength of orbitals, which may correspond to a varying actual number of orbitals depending on a variety of factors, similar to how the same population meter might not correspond to the same number of individual beings for different species.
Not entirely sure what you mean here. But yes, a defense meter number of 25, might represent different numbers of individual orbitals depending on the tech level.

Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:In a larger sense though, do orbitals really need to be created as and diplayed as distinct objects in battles?
A major point of my proposal is to have something tangible, which can be evaluated at-a-glance, for the planetary defenses. Blowing up a meter is not nearly so interesting as blowing up a concrete object that's shooting at you. I don't want to have to mouse-over a planet to see how well it's invisible defenses are doing. If the defenses are invisible there's no way to tell if you are breaking down defenses or destroying population and infrastructure.
Presumably we'll need some way to show how powerful ships are other than just looking at them. Whatever system used for them can presumably be applied to planets as well.
Perhaps, but just looking at them is supposed to be informative. For instance the size of the ship and the number and type of weapons arrayed on it should tell a lot about it.
Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:How in the world could the game be improved my making planetary defenses invisible?
Planet defenses wouldn't be invisible, but just would not treated as distinctly controllable ship-like objects. If we didn't attempt to give each individual orbital specific properties related to how powerful it was, and just generate a small swarm of some appropriate number / appearance of orbitals at the start of a battle, then we can show them blowing up or shooting to animate the planet's damage or attacks during the battle. In partciular, you wouldn't keep track of how poweful an individual orbital's weapon was, or how damaged it was, but would instead animate an orbital blowing up whenever the planet was sufficiently damaged to reduce the orbitals meter enough to warrant showing one blow up. The frequency or power of planet weapon shots would similarly adjust with damage.
I'm not proposing that each orbital should be individually controllable. If you can do anything with them, IMHO they should be aimed as a group, but i'd prefer that they fire entirely automatically, and not be controllable— just like i want ship PD to be.

I don't have strong feelings about weather orbitals should actually have individual damage meters or be tracked as a group. It's not important to my proposal.
Geoff the Medio wrote:Over the course of a game, the factor relating current meter value to number of orbitals can be adjusted (likely as tech increases), so a meter value of 10 might be displayed as 20 smallish orbitals near the start of the game, but only 1 largish orbital near the end of the game.
Agreed. That's what i've been saying.
Geoff the Medio wrote:....This wouldn't require actually keeping track of how many of each orbital is at what tech level, or having a seprate orbitals number max for the player to worry about, though.
There is no number max that the player needs to worry about. There is a logical convention for the display of orbitals that (among other things) avoids oddities like 20 smallish orbitals suddenly changing to 10 medium sized ones when you get a new tech.
eleazar wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:In my system [...] Orbitals (if desired) could be strong enough to last several turns vs. an attack.
How would orbitals in battles work then? Would it be possible to knock them out in a battle, or would planets (or their orbitals) be essentially undamagable during an actual battle, since it would take several turns to do actual damage to them?
...Any of the proposals in this thread with the proper number plugged in could produce very long or short sieges.
My point is, I guess, that you'd have to pick one or the other: orbitals are destroyed during a battle, and there are no multi-turn seiges, or planets are invulnerable during the battle, and it takes several turns of seiging a system to knock out a planet's defenses.

If there were shields and orbitals, then each could function at a different timescale.[/quote]
I still don't see a way that would be useful. Is spending multiple turns shooting at helpless shields fun? At least in my version the planetary defenses can fire back— if we make defenses that strong. Orbitals don't contribute to the control of a system, so it's not necessary to destroy them to have a blockade.


:arrow: Still my strongest argument is: The space defense of a planet is not so important that it needs 2 meters, especially when i've explained a way to get the majority of strategic value into a single meter.

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