Satelites/Starbases/Battle-Platforms/Mines

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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Impaler
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#16 Post by Impaler »

I would propose that Orbital bases/shipyards AND Mines be placed by the player on the battle Map of the system when they enter it into the build quee.

It would work like this.

Select "Build Orbital Facility"
Select the desired Facility
You are then imediatly taken to the sytem battle map and prompted to place the Orbital on that map much like in a RTS game.
The facility is now under construction.
If theirs a battle in the system a "scafolding" is present in that spot and enemies can damage it and delete it from the build quee (making raiding a cool tactic), once it finishes it becomes the desired Facility. In any future battle it works just like normal.

Mine Fields work the same way but dont apear as scafolding, their just not as strong yet. Mines would be invisible to the enemy (unless they get good sensors) and damage only enemy units (the mines have radio sensors and dont detonate when your ships are nearby)

Theirs no need to limit the number of mine fields or Facilites that a system can hold under this system, the physical space of the map is a limit along with simple practicality (huge maintance costs)
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Daveybaby
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#17 Post by Daveybaby »

I'd like to see minefields have some other negative effects like in reallife - e.g. reduction in trade, add an extra turn when entering/leaving a system to thread your way through the minefied, unrest in system when a passenger liner gets blown up by mistake etc.
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Rapunzel
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#18 Post by Rapunzel »

right. Minefields should have sideeffects.
I would like to place one a a starelane enterrence point or arround a Planet, or simply somewhere in space in the system.
o if I place one at a starlane that is not uses (way to enemy empire) it should have no economic and moral consequences, but my ships would have to get through as well and that takes time. --> if i want to get rid of a minefield I need to use a minesweeper, like any other enemy would nee to do
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Daveybaby
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#19 Post by Daveybaby »

Of course, once you make peace with the enemy, that minefield would then have a negative effect on trade with them unless you spend time and money clearing them up.

re: minesweepers, there should definitely be a way of reducing minefield damage when attacking but at some cost - e.g. fit ships with anti-mine devices which take up space which would otherwise be used for weapons.

OR: make ships more vulnerable to mines the larger they are - small ships and fighters can dodge easily - behemoths will get creamed. Thus if you want to attack a heavily mined system you have to choose your attack force with care.
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Rapunzel
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#20 Post by Rapunzel »

both seems nice. Why not give smal ships an evasion bonus & give big ships the posibillity of carying minesweeping technology.

You should need to reserch cloaking so as to be always a step ahead of the enemys scan ability. Although mines should be esear to cloak than satelites, wich are esear to cloak than ships or space stations...

Do we want minelaying ships? So that we can pick up produced mines an place them in a starsystem with no/few production, but which is vital to defence?
Dieser Text basiert ausschließlich auf frei erfundener Interpunktion und Orthographie. Jegliche Uebereinstimmungen mit geltenden Regelungen sind rein zufaellig und wurden nicht beabsichtigt.

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Ragnar
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#21 Post by Ragnar »

Impaler wrote:I would propose that Orbital bases/shipyards AND Mines be placed by the player on the battle Map of the system when they enter it into the build quee.

It would work like this.

Select "Build Orbital Facility"
Select the desired Facility
You are then imediatly taken to the sytem battle map and prompted to place the Orbital on that map much like in a RTS game.
The facility is now under construction.
If theirs a battle in the system a "scafolding" is present in that spot and enemies can damage it and delete it from the build quee (making raiding a cool tactic), once it finishes it becomes the desired Facility. In any future battle it works just like normal.

Mine Fields work the same way but dont apear as scafolding, their just not as strong yet. Mines would be invisible to the enemy (unless they get good sensors) and damage only enemy units (the mines have radio sensors and dont detonate when your ships are nearby)

Theirs no need to limit the number of mine fields or Facilites that a system can hold under this system, the physical space of the map is a limit along with simple practicality (huge maintance costs)
I totally agree with this.

I think minelaying ships would be cool too. You could then do offensive minelaying: sneak into enemy system(cloaked) and drop mines all over, thus reducing trade and reaking havok with fleets. Minefields should also be depleted/destroyed after a ship gets hit with them (the despot's method of minesweeping :) )

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utilae
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#22 Post by utilae »

Daveybaby wrote: I'd like to see minefields have some other negative effects like in reallife - e.g. reduction in trade, add an extra turn when entering/leaving a system to thread your way through the minefied, unrest in system when a passenger liner gets blown up by mistake etc
Naaaaaaaaa. Thats just adding a whole lot of extra unnecesary crap to deal with. :)
Daveybaby wrote: re: minesweepers, there should definitely be a way of reducing minefield damage when attacking but at some cost - e.g. fit ships with anti-mine devices which take up space which would otherwise be used for weapons.
Thats a cool idea. But even better: you fit ships woth a mine sweeper as you say, but instead of them being weapons you have to use, just make it so that where ever the ship goes it destoys mines, so it would leave a path of destroyed mines for other ships to go through. You would just have to move the mine sweeping ship ahead of the others. Maybe their could be a level system, where if a mine has a higher level than your mine sweeper, then boom.
Impaler wrote: I would propose that Orbital bases/shipyards AND Mines be placed by the player on the battle Map of the system when they enter it into the build quee.

It would work like this.

Select "Build Orbital Facility"
Select the desired Facility
You are then imediatly taken to the sytem battle map and prompted to place the Orbital on that map much like in a RTS game.
The facility is now under construction.
If theirs a battle in the system a "scafolding" is present in that spot and enemies can damage it and delete it from the build quee (making raiding a cool tactic), once it finishes it becomes the desired Facility. In any future battle it works just like normal.

Mine Fields work the same way but dont apear as scafolding, their just not as strong yet. Mines would be invisible to the enemy (unless they get good sensors) and damage only enemy units (the mines have radio sensors and dont detonate when your ships are nearby)

Theirs no need to limit the number of mine fields or Facilites that a system can hold under this system, the physical space of the map is a limit along with simple practicality (huge maintance costs)
Sweet idea. Mines or a minefield should be a special defense I guess. So you plot down massive amounts of mines at a time. Maybe you could have 'safe' mines which don't hurt your ships, and 'kill' mines which harm both you and the enemy. Mines could also have a level, representing the technology in mines achieved so far, which would also represent damage of mines, etc.

Impaler
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#23 Post by Impaler »

Agree with Utilae that complex negative trade effects on Mine Fields is overly complex and not woth the time/effort to create.

Infact much of what you guys seems to be aiming for would probably be better covered under "Warp Interdictors" idea which was droped from Moo3, they hamper your enemies ability to use your starlanes.

Mine Sweepers are a cool idea, but I think that a small ship is MORE vulnorable to mines because it will be destroyed in 1 hit, I am asuming yall were refering to the probability of hitting a mine when going through the field? If so that makes sense and I agree, another modifier would be speed, faster you go the more likly you are to hit something and if you have Mine Detectors they are less effective (and conversly more effective if you move real slow). So mines slow the enemy and/or cause them atrition if they come at you recklessly.

Mine Laying Ships would be clever, Star! has thouse and they quite interesting (Stars alows mineFields in INTERSTELLER space but I want to see them ONLY inside systems and possibly starlanes).

Under my proposal though the mines are built in the same way Satalites are (its realy just a small hull with a detonator and cloacking device). So any system with some Industrial capacity can build a mine Field. A Mine Laying ship would have to be represented as a Shipyard inside of a Ship which can only produce the "Mine" Hull. So once this ship is in a System you would open up that systems build quee and place the mines like normal (you would need to divert some industrial capacity from a nearby system, you cant get something for nothing after all)
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Daveybaby
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#24 Post by Daveybaby »

Impaler wrote:Agree with Utilae that complex negative trade effects on Mine Fields is overly complex and not woth the time/effort to create.
Heh, true.
I think that a small ship is MORE vulnorable to mines because it will be destroyed in 1 hit, I am asuming yall were refering to the probability of hitting a mine when going through the field?
Yeah... mines are (in general) considered to be big dumb brutes which make a BIG boom. So, while they'd kill a small ship, it would be massive overkill. They wouldnt necessarily destroy a huge ship, but would inflict significant damage.
Under my proposal though the mines are built in the same way Satalites are (its realy just a small hull with a detonator and cloacking device).
Eeep. That sounds like an awful lot of little things to keep track of. I'd kind assumed that it would be more of an abstract thing, i.e. you specify a location for a minefield, its size (area) and its density (affect chances of ships being hit) and you then build it as a single entity (and then maybe have to pay to maintain it). You could upgrade the size and density of the field at any time.

In combat, any ships entering the field would have a % chance to be hit per unit distance travelled (affected by, as you say, by size/speed/maneouvrability/sensors). Any minesweeping ships entering the field would have the effect of reducing the density of mines.
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Rapunzel
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#25 Post by Rapunzel »

Daveybaby wrote:I'd kind assumed that it would be more of an abstract thing, i.e. you specify a location for a minefield, its size (area) and its density (affect chances of ships being hit) and you then build it as a single entity (and then maybe have to pay to maintain it). You could upgrade the size and density of the field at any time.

In combat, any ships entering the field would have a % chance to be hit per unit distance travelled (affected by, as you say, by size/speed/maneouvrability/sensors). Any minesweeping ships entering the field would have the effect of reducing the density of mines.
Total agreement. That's what I had in mind. If ships are hit, they shoudl also decrease density (overall or in that specific field were the ship took a hit (which seems better))
Impaler wrote: A Mine Laying ship would have to be represented as a Shipyard inside of a Ship which can only produce the "Mine" Hull. So once this ship is in a System you would open up that systems build quee and place the mines like normal
I coudl also think a building a minelaying ship that has a Device which can lay X mines. After building them, the device is "desroid" and needs repair. this way repairing and or building the devices pays for the mines build and we don't need to fumble with lots of little mineyards.
Dieser Text basiert ausschließlich auf frei erfundener Interpunktion und Orthographie. Jegliche Uebereinstimmungen mit geltenden Regelungen sind rein zufaellig und wurden nicht beabsichtigt.

Impaler
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#26 Post by Impaler »

Excelent Idea Repunzel, but that would require Ship repair to consume resorces (something I agree with) but that has not been discussed much yet and I think is less likly to get implimented. (ashame).

I guess upon further reflection the Maintance cost of this ship itself represents a Cost to the player for creating the minefield and they then pay a maintance on the active mine field so we shouldnt have to worry too much about minefields covering the whole system.

On a further Note it should be Possible to "Mine" the StarLanes themselves. If we are going to have a specific point in the system that is the "end" of the starLane and ships entering the system must go through that point then that presents a place for mines to go (and defencive space stations). On the other hand if ships travel through deep space they would logical get to enter the system at any point on its periphery and could more easily avoid static defences such as Mines and Satalites.

Just as in any proper war the fastest way to your oponent is the most easily and heavily guarded but by taking an longer slower route you can flank your oponents defences and strike ware he dosent expect it.
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Rapunzel
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#27 Post by Rapunzel »

Shiprepai would be apropriate to coast extra. This would make take some of the bigger vs. smaller ship away, since repairing the big one cost and rebuilding smal ones does cost also.
Anyway having adequate maintenence coudl cover up for that fact (at least in minelaying aspects)
Dieser Text basiert ausschließlich auf frei erfundener Interpunktion und Orthographie. Jegliche Uebereinstimmungen mit geltenden Regelungen sind rein zufaellig und wurden nicht beabsichtigt.

Impaler
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#28 Post by Impaler »

Good point though about Free Repair unfairly helping larger ships, if ship repair is free then anything that survives combat is a write off, you can get in 10 battle and have your ships get 10% damaged each time but never sustain any REAL losses, stackis of small ships though are going to be worn down and truely LOST under thouse situations though.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

guiguibaah
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Minefileds

#29 Post by guiguibaah »

Quite simple, just have a general 'minefiled size' on the selected system as a whole. The bigger it is, the more chance a fleet upon entering the system will incurr damage. Especially if it is a bigger fleet.

And in the ship creation box, you could have a special that just says 'mine cleaner'. It would simply absorb more of the damage upon entering the system.

Just to keep it simpler, that is.
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