GUI for ship/fleet damage

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Ophiuchus
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GUI for ship/fleet damage

#1 Post by Ophiuchus »

Ill start here a thread for improving the GUI for fleet/ship damage, please provide input. Best input are dummy screenshots of intended GUI. :mrgreen:

AFAIU Vezzra basically stated that combat system got so complex that it does not make sense to give detailed information and a combat value estimation is sufficient (on overview level at least). I agree with that mostly, just think that structural damage and number of shots against fighters are important enough to show on top level.

We show combat level damage and structure so those can easily be compared (and bout-level damage does not mean much as depending on fighters/targetConditions there are bouts where no damage is done). A middle-ground would be to show damage per shot and combat-number of shots (which factors in number of shots and fighters/targeting).

Planet defense and shields should probably also show the combat-value and not the bout-value.

Ship shields are trickier but probably should also not show bout-value. Downside is similar as with weapons - you do not easily see the effect per shot. And the number of shots against a shield determines its effect. For cases which do not involve ship shields, besides alpha effects (some weapons are taken out because the ship/fighter got shot down) number of shots and detailed bouts do not matter at all.

from wobbly, emphasize mine:
Ophiuchus wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:45 am
wobbly wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:48 am There does need to be an easier way to find the damage/shot however. If I go into pedia for a ship it only displays the total for 4 rounds. If I click on the weapon part the shot damage is for base tech, rather then current tech. I'm not finding a simple way to bring up a single shot damage to compare to the shield value without doing some extra calculations.
well there are also other effects (e.g. pilot skill) which influence the outcome.

side-note: For a ship you can get the pedia entry which has an estimate vs a certain shield level.

the probably simplest solution is to add some info on the ship part page showing effective shot damage (taking current tech level into account, maybe also with current species like it is done for ship design/ship). shot damage is statically true on some level, compared to damage per bout (which is zero in the first bout for some weapons and all fighters and also zero if your vessel got killed in a bout before). If you like that, please open a feature request.

A more complex/generic solution would be having (check boxes for activation and) sliders for values of effects in the pedia (also maybe drop-down lists for e.g. species). This could give shot damage (i.e. ignoring the target condition) as well as the combat estimate. And add a pedia entry for fleet information so you can use it there as well.
For your use case you could adjust the slider for enemy shield value.
Ophiuchus wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 2:31 pm next_turn_structure == current_structure + (combat_shield_strength * enemy_combat_shots) - enemy_combat_damage
by oberlus:
Oberlus wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 10:14 am Ultimately, for each weapon (accessible by hovering at a ship's weapon icon, c and d in the attached screenshot) I'd like to know per-bout values for:
- Anti-ship weapon: structural damage per shot, firerate (shots per bout), and bouts at which it hits the enemy (currently "all", "all but first", there will be more) or at least number of bouts in which it shots.
- Point-defense weapon: fighters/missiles killed per bout.
So in the screenshot I'd like to have c: "30 x 1 x 4" and d: "0".

For each ship or fleet (seen as sets of weapons), I'd like to know maximum per-combat totals for:
- Anti-ship damage (a in the screenshot), anti-ship shots (useful to estimate effect of enemy shields) and point-defense shots (b in the screenshot).
So I'd like to change a in the screenshot from "120" to "120/4".

AND, when hovering over a fleet's damage icon, which currently shows no tooltip, I'd like to see a breakdown for each bout similar to what is seen when hovering over the fighters icon of a ship:
For each bout: structural damage, in how many shots, point-defense shots.
So hovering over the 240 damage icon of Battle Fleet 7016 in the screenshot, I'd like to see something like:
Bout 1: 60/2, 0
Bout 2: 60/2, 0
Bout 3: 60/2, 0
Bout 4: 60/2, 0
(60 from two MD shots in the fleet, 0 flak/interceptor).
Image
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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#2 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 10:14 am For each ship or fleet (seen as sets of weapons), I'd like to know maximum per-combat totals for:
- Anti-ship damage (a in the screenshot), anti-ship shots (useful to estimate effect of enemy shields) and point-defense shots (b in the screenshot).
So I'd like to change a in the screenshot from "120" to "120/4".
If we keep ship shields like they currently are i.e. per bout-value and aggregate for a fleet in a similar form, e.g. not showing average shields but average_shields_of_shielded_ships "*" (number_of_shielded_ships * combat_bouts) e.g. 18*16 (four ships with shields-18) - that would give a good base to figure out the damage. Maybe a sort-ships-into-fleets-with-same-shield-strength option. For a single ship it would show 18*4

I think this is to confusing for novice players though, maybe a GUI option for advanced players?

For novice players shields could be shown as 96/4 instead, indicating that there is something bout/shot dependent and a way to calculate that value. Probably still too confusing. So I think damage 120 and shields 96.
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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#3 Post by wobbly »

I'm still trying to think of a better way to handle this, but I'd just like to illustrate a problem with bout damage.
example.png
example.png (16.98 KiB) Viewed 3645 times
That number is a big lie. Its actually doing 216 (or 648 if I have no anti-aircraft, but that is easier to work out via 216, then via 864) because its going to get shot down in the 1st round before it could launch all its bombers. I think around 9 times out of 10 what you want to know is how many rounds a ship is going to survive. Particularly with planet defenses. How many rounds planet defenses will survive tells you whether you need extra troop ships to account for losses.

Luckily in this case I can get the correct number by hovering the fighters:
example2.png
example2.png (60.16 KiB) Viewed 3645 times
Perhaps a similar system would work for guns?

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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#4 Post by Ophiuchus »

wobbly wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 12:22 pm That number is a big lie. Its actually doing 216 (or 648 if I have no anti-aircraft, but that is easier to work out via 216, then via 864) because its going to get shot down in the 1st round before it could launch all its bombers.
That illustrates the basic problem: it depends on the enemy. If the other one has no weapons which can hurt structure or fighters, the number is correct. In a mixed fleet also the ship might be lucky and survive, and the enemy anti-aircraft could already be at its limit, so each extra fighter counts fully.

There are different levels of abstractions which give more or less useful answers.
wobbly wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 12:22 pm I think around 9 times out of 10 what you want to know is how many rounds a ship is going to survive.
If you really want to know that you need to figure in your fleet and your enemy fleet/defenses. In the perfect world we would have a tool on the map to handle that - e.g. you select a system & paint a lasso to select fleets, get an sample or average combat report for that and are able to modify the participating ships.

For a preview a bit less is probably better - for a advanced player an sum/average with standard deviations would be probably useful (?)
So I one thing I am trying to figure out is what to show at the overview (top level of fleet window).
Luckily in this case I can get the correct number by hovering the fighters:...

Perhaps a similar system would work for guns?
Yes, something like that would be helpful on a middle level of abstraction. Looking up detailed numbers for a ship / fleet is I guess something we can all agree. Just the details should be worked out. E.g. should damages be shown aggregated or not (or both). E.g. do you want to see how much damage a weapon does per bout or do you want to see how much damage the weapon does if the ship survives up to that point? Do you want to see it per ship or per weapon type or per weapon or per shot? What kind of effects should already apply - all (e.g. pilot trait, hull/monster effects, tech level, field effects, policies) or only the "permanent" ones (tech, pilot, hull/monster). Should mixed targets (e.g. Arc Disruptors/Striker crafts) look differently?
So with 2 MD-3 and 1 MD-2 (not yet upgraded), a Flak and Arc Disruptor (which could also target fighters); no other effects. (Note some numbers are wrong, but will fix later) ...
TypeStr.DamF.Kills
Bout 1: 3 x Mass Driver (24-30)
84/3
0
Bout 1: 1 x Arc Disruptor (12)
36/3
0
Bout 1: ACCUMULATED SUM
120/6
0
Bout 2: 3 x Mass Driver (24-30)
84/3
0
Bout 2: 1 x Arc Disruptor (0-12)
0 - 36/3
0-3
Bout 2: 1 x Flak3
Bout 2: ACCUMULATED SUM
204/9 - 240/12
3-6
Bout 3: 3 x Mass Driver (24-30)
84/3
0
Bout 3: 1 x Arc Disruptor (0-12)
0 - 36/3
0-3
Bout 3: 1 x Flak3
Bout 2: ACCUMULATED SUM
288/12 - 360/18
6-12

This is of course still partly incorrect, e.g. overshooting still happens if there is more than one target.
And you might want to have the accumulated values per weapon type if comparing against ship shields.
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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#5 Post by Oberlus »

Oh, for the list of bouts per weapon, we have the issue that a ship can have a single type of fighter but can have different gun weapons.

Maybe it is overkilling to ask for that info for guns: Fighters do need to show the info per bout because they can have different hangar and launch capacities (it's not the same 6 strikers with 2 or 3 launch bays, hits are 0,4,6,6, or 0,6,6,6). But weapons won't do that. Even if they don't fire all the bouts...

Another thing, for ship shields it makes most sense to show actual value (the damage you avoid from each shot). And thus, it becomes ackward to compare total-damage-per-combat of a weapon against damage-avoided-by-shield. What we need there is damage per shot.

So...


For a FLEET we have icons+numbers for [ships] [gun dmg] [PD dmg] [fighters] [structure] [shields]

Hovering over [gun dmg] could show a total for all fleet's weapons anti-ship damage (considering species, tech and policy modifiers for damage per shot):

<# of this weapon in the fleet> x <weapon name, level and pilot skill>: <#> x <dmg> x <firerate> (<total dmg per bout> / <total shots per bout>)
Example:

Code: Select all

2 x Mass Driver L2: 2 x 24 x 1 (48 / 2)
6 x Mass Driver L2, good pilot: 6 x 30 x 1 (180 / 6) 
1 x Arc Disruptor L1: 1 x 12 x 3 (36 / 3)
...
1 x Laser L1, good pilot: 1 x 42 x 1 (42 / 1)

Total damage per bout: 306 in 12 shots (average damage per shot 25.5) 
Total damage for 4 bouts: 1224 in 48 shots.   <-- This line I wouldn't care to have it, it's just the above x4.
So it would show info for one bout and then totals, because each successive bout shows the same values for each weapon and I don't think it is worth it (something different would be to show a simulation against another fleet, then each bout would be different).


Hovering over [PD dmg], which I don't know if it includes arcs and interceptors, something simpler, not including damage, just fire rate:

Code: Select all

2 x Flak, good pilot: 2 x 4 (up to 8 fighters down per bout)
2 x Arc Disruptor: 2 x 3 (up to 6 fighters down per bout)
Maximum fighters down per bout: 14 
Maximum fighters down per combat: 42

By comparing the average damage per shot of the attacking fleet with the average shield per ship of the defending fleet you can estimate in a single calculation how much of the total damage per bout or per combat will be soaked by the shields.


For a SHIP we have [structure] [gun dmg] [PD dmg] [fighters] [shields]
Hovering over gun dmg and PD dmg could work exactly the same as for fleets.


PS: I'm not proud of the wordings in the examples. It must be explicative but also as concise and compact as possible.

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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#6 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 3:30 pm Another thing, for ship shields it makes most sense to show actual value (the damage you avoid from each shot). And thus, it becomes ackward to compare total-damage-per-combat of a weapon against damage-avoided-by-shield. What we need there is damage per shot.
One way to side-step the complexity introduced by shields would be a simple way to set an global "expected enemy shield value" - if all those battle estimates are shown for that shield value you do not need to get into per-shot damage so much
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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#7 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:43 pm One way to side-step the complexity introduced by shields would be a simple way to set an global "expected enemy shield value" - if all those battle estimates are shown for that shield value you do not need to get into per-shot damage so much
For me, that gets into combat simulation field.
If I have good combat result estimations, I no longer need to know details about shields, fire rates, etc.
If I don't have a simulaton but I need some reliability based on estimations, then I want to know all details.

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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#8 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 3:30 pmAnother thing, for ship shields it makes most sense to show actual value (the damage you avoid from each shot). And thus, it becomes ackward to compare total-damage-per-combat of a weapon against damage-avoided-by-shield. What we need there is damage per shot.
Do you also mean on fleet level or only on ship level?

My head hurts too much right now but I think scaled_shield (i.e #bout * shields) vs combat_damage works similar to shields vs bout_damage; its value multiplied by the number of expected hits decreases the damage. So I think as you long as you ignore alpha it works fine(?).
Oberlus wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 3:30 pm <# of this weapon in the fleet> x <weapon name, level and pilot skill>: <#> x <dmg> x <firerate> (<total dmg per bout> / <total shots per bout>)
I think the effects info would be a little hard to get and maybe involve some hardcoding of FOCS names into the backend. It totally would especially novice players I guess.
Also for bout-dependend-targeting weapons like tentacles etc. you need some kind of bout info.
The real bout info is not directly accessible - it is encrypted in arbitrarily complex targeting conditions. That is why there is a valueref in the weapons which calculates the combat damage estimation. (You can though calculate targeting against a dummy object in order to obtain bout-dependency). What is accessible is the combat damage estimation and the weapon damage meter.
Oberlus wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 3:30 pm

Code: Select all

Total damage per bout: 306 in 12 shots (average damage per shot 25.5) 
Total damage for 4 bouts: 1224 in 48 shots.   <-- This line I wouldn't care to have it, it's just the above x4.
So it would show info for one bout and then totals, because each successive bout shows the same values for each weapon and I don't think it is worth it (something different would be to show a simulation against another fleet, then each bout would be different).
True that a weapon (ignoring mixed targeting like arc disruptors) always does the same damage each bout (or doing zero damage) - so that info is redundant. Also I remembered the opaque nature of the bout info.

For arc disruptors you can make it right by saying "Total maximum damage per bout", not "Total damage per bout".
How would you handle e.g. tentacles? Show an average per bout? That would make it wrong again for shields. Showing the maximum weapon damage per turn? That could make it right like for arc disruptors (but the discrepancy is way higher).
Oberlus wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 3:30 pm By comparing the average damage per shot of the attacking fleet with the average shield per ship of the defending fleet you can estimate in a single calculation how much of the total damage per bout or per combat will be soaked by the shields.
Isnt it: the number of shots of the attacking fleet multiplied by the average shield per ship of the defending fleet?

Also note that on level (which ignores any bout-specific effects), you have total_damage_soaked_per_combat = total_damage_soaked_per_bout * #bouts <=> total_damage_soaked_per_combat / #bouts = total_damage_soaked_per_bout
What I mean is you can use the #bout scaled shields value instead of the shield meter values; in one direction you have to multiply in the other you have a division.

Oberlus wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 5:00 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:43 pm One way to side-step the complexity introduced by shields would be a simple way to set an global "expected enemy shield value" - if all those battle estimates are shown for that shield value you do not need to get into per-shot damage so much
For me, that gets into combat simulation field.
If I have good combat result estimations, I no longer need to know details about shields, fire rates, etc.
If I don't have a simulaton but I need some reliability based on estimations, then I want to know all details.
I partly agree - a "simulation" (meaning a estimation for combat result) is the right thing for reliability. But setting up a simulation is way more complicated than setting a single global value.
And for comparing your own fleets (and decide where to deploy which ships) having useful "estimates" (meaning estimates for a generic combat value) makes a lot sense. Of course such estimates could also be shown in a separate simulation or estimation screen - in that case it should also have the option to rearrange fleets.

So the use case would be to get a general feeling of combat value of your ships or fleets in the presence of enemy shields. Of course following my argument one could also argue that you want to set a global button how many bouts to aggregate in the estimates and for getting a general feeling of combat value of your ships in the presence of alpha effects (answering "what would be the combat value of my fleet if all its ship get shot down in bout 2" or "how much damage can ships/fleets deliver in bout 1").

Shields greatly influence combat value and are hard to predict: you need to sum up (per weapon type) the multiplication (weapons * shots per weapon) of differences (damage-shields).

Currently bout knowledge for direct weapons is not so important as probably monster weapons either play a minor role or are just a few so handling those manually is not such a chore - that may change with contents though.

So I think such a default-enemy-shield setting would be a very useful (but very ugly) tool - even if we had combat simulation available for the players.
vezzra wrote:
geoffthemedio wrote:
Do we have enough time to try such a feature (a global setting of enemy shield strength for use in the estimates) in the 0.5 timeframe - it seems stuff which does not land in master never gets playtested
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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#9 Post by Ophiuchus »

So, for overview I would go for the following

Fleet overview (two ship with one mass driver, a flak, and shields-18 global average enemy shield setting 6, and a troop ship);
followed by Ship overview:
number of shipssum_current_structuresum_combat_damage_vs_shieldssum_combat_point_defense_shotsaverage_shield_meter
33841921812
current_structurecombat_damage / combat_shotscombat_point_defense_shotsshield_meter
128120/4918
128120/4918
128000
For fleet it could also show something like ( sum_combat_damage_vs_shields + (average_enemy_shields * sum_combat_shots) ), so in this case ( 192 + 6 * 8 ) in order to show the expected enemy shields average. But probably not.
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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#10 Post by drkosy »

I would be happy to have a gun hover box for one ship only. That wouldn't be to complex but extremely helpful early on as you fight the first monsters. It would be enough for me to have the single shot damage per weapon type:
2x Massdriver Lvl 3: 2x 30 dmg
1x Arc Disruptor Lvl 1: 3x 12 dmg

As I know the shields this would be enough to estimate how many bouts it needs to kill the monster and if I have to take losses into account cause combat last to long.

For more complex situations with whole fleets, maybe a combat simulator could be implemented. You start the simulation, click on your fleet and on the enemy fleet an get the combat report. Maybe there could be a button with "custom fleet" where you can create two virtual fleets and let them fight against each other. That could introduce a new mini game to replace the one with the Inter Design Academy with might be removed...
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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#11 Post by Ophiuchus »

drkosy wrote: Tue Mar 29, 2022 4:05 pm It would be enough for me to have the single shot damage per weapon type:
2x Massdriver Lvl 3: 2x 30 dmg
1x Arc Disruptor Lvl 1: 3x 12 dmg
so what would it show for a weapon which does no damage in the first bout? e.g. the flux lance?
drkosy wrote: Tue Mar 29, 2022 4:05 pmThat could introduce a new mini game to replace the one with the Inter Design Academy with might be removed...
the reason placement of an academy is a mini game is not for the sake of having a mini game.
the distance requirement enforces a certain spread, which should be a natural fit for a hidden peaceful empire.
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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#12 Post by drkosy »

so what would it show for a weapon which does no damage in the first bout? e.g. the flux lance?
Well, could be like fighters:

bout 1:
flux lance 0x24 = 0
arc disruptor lvl 1 3x12 = 36
2x laser lvl 1 2x30 = 60

bout 2:
flux lance 1x24 = 24
arc distuptor lvl 1 3x12 = 36
2x laser lvl 1 2x30 = 60
...
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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#13 Post by Oberlus »

I'd really like someone to make some improvements in how damage is shown for ships. See this:

Four ships each with an arc disruptor and a flux lance, piloted by Chato, with policy Charge adopted:
tooltip_weapon_attacks_1.png
tooltip_weapon_attacks_1.png (196.08 KiB) Viewed 2037 times
How much damage per shot will I inflict to a ship with defense grid (shields 18)?

Hard to say without consulting scripting files! Let's see:

It says 384 structure damage, 12 fighters down, for four bouts.
Checking out the documentation of Arc Disruptor, I find out it does 3 shots per bout, 12 damage per shot. But that would be 12*3*4 (I get a calculator) = 144 damage. Knowing that the weapons descriptions only show the base damage of the weapon, ignoring researched refinements or any other modifier, this number can't be trusted.
So I guess I have to divide 384 by 3 shots, and again by 4 bouts, so I get a calculator and find out that damage per shot is 384/12 = 32. Makes sense. So each arc disruptors will inflict 32-18 = 14 damage per shot, 42 damage per bout, 168 the four ships.
That is presumably wrong, because if I remember that I have Charge adopted, and if I check out its description, which says that it increases by 1 the shots per bout of arc disruptors: 384/16 = 24 damage. Damage per shot is just 6, less than half! So the four ships would do 72 damage per bout.

When the UI showed for ships the damage per shot and the number of shots (including any active modifier), it was much easier for me. I really miss that and find the present system a downgrade.
From the current system, I like to see totals for fleets, but the figures for direct damage weapons of individual ships are a PITA.


But we can't just come back to previous, simpler system, because now there are weapons that do not attack until later. When you see a kraken's damage totals, you have no idea how much damage you will get (or if each shot is enough to kill a ship, or when will it start shooting) unless you check out descriptions and stuff to figure out.


So, probably repeating what's above in this thread:


For ships' damage tooltips,

Simpler: show number of shots per bout, bouts in which it shots, and damage per shot.
Better: same system than with fighters, showing number of shots and damage per shot for each bout.

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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#14 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 9:00 amKnowing that the weapons descriptions only show the base damage of the weapon, ignoring researched refinements or any other modifier, this number can't be trusted.
yes, showing the weapon part damage definitly makes sense for a ship.

for a fleet we could show the average damage
Oberlus wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 9:00 am For ships' damage tooltips,

Simpler: show number of shots per bout, bouts in which it shots, and damage per shot.
Better: same system than with fighters, showing number of shots and damage per shot for each bout.
For the simple version - what do you suggest for shots per bout;

Code: Select all

#  name          str.shots (dmg)  fighter kills - TOTALS
2x Arc Disruptor 3-3-3-3 (18)     3°-3°-3°-3°   - 12*18 = 216  12°
1x Flux Lance    0-0-1-1 (12)     0°-1°-1°-1°   -  2*12 =  24   3°
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Re: GUI for ship/fleet damage

#15 Post by Daybreak »

I am not arguing about what you are suggesting, and would like to add to it.

Currently the firepower shown in the gui is just "potential" firepower, and very far from what may happen. In a battle you may only get 25% of that firepower (or less if it includes close up weapons), and a ship is destroyed 1st round, and up to 100% if that ship survives, + 33.3% of the firepower for a fighter if destroyed 2nd round, and up to 100% again if it also survives.

Yes firepower may not be entirely accurate, when flux lance is included, but for a users point of view it can be closer than it is now.
Divide all gun firepower by 4 (or less for close distance direct weapons)
All fighter firepower by 3

and just display that in the gui.

It wont make any difference to the game mechanics at all, and it is still just potential firepower for guns, because enemy ships may have shields, but a lot more accurate for User purposes than displaying the potential firepower of a ship/fighter making it all the way through 4 rounds.

We know there are 4 rounds, and we would know that what was is displayed is the potential fire power that may be used at first (even if part of that firepower is in the second round for fighters) and if parts of the fleet survive, will be fired again.


So no need for gui changes at all, just change the calculations of what is displayed. My vote would be for firepower displayed to only be -
Gun firepower divided by 4 (or less for close distance direct weapons)
Fighter firepower divided by 3

a lot more accurate, and we also know there is the potential for that same amount of firepower to be fired more than once. We can now also easily size it up against structure and potential damage.

Its not perfect, but does not entail, major changes to show 4 round potential in another screen or hover, that is only potential, if a ship/fighter survives all rounds..

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