First, I never said that we shouldn't have single ship TFs. Second, as Impaler said, a TF is just a group within a fleet. It like the difference between a regiment and a division in the military.utilae wrote:Why can't you have a single ship TF? I would like it if it were more like Moo2. First of all, let's not call a group of ships Task Forces (sounds lame), we should call them fleets (like in Moo2, also sounds cooler).
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Another alternative is have the ships come out as not being in a TF, and thus be flagged as 'not being in a TF'. Whether they should be in space combat as single ship fleets depends on whether you control ships or groups of ships. So whenever a new fleet needs a ship, ships 'flagged as not being in a fleet' are contacted first.
MOO2 combat was fine being able to control only one ship at a time. It was turn based and, if I remember correctly, had no limitations on the length of a single battle. Have you played MOO3? Whether yes or no, can you imagine having somewhere around 200 ships all moving independantly of eachother, all attacking other individual ships and you trying to control every single one of them? It would be a nightmare.
While using phased-time or some other means of pausing the game during combat would help with this problem somewhat, it would still be a huge undertaking. Not to mention the fact that it would bog your computer down.
I have kept an eye on the MOO3 forums and somebody hacked the MOO3 exe. They were able to adjust the maximum number of TFs allowed in a single battle. You can set the number in a patcher that controls whether the patches are active or not and allows you to control how many of what the patches change. To make a long story short, the maximum number of TFs you can allow is 50 per side. That is only 100 independant moving objects in a single battle, not including battlestations. The guy who did it said that while you could set the number at 50, it severely bogged his system down when he did this and he has a faster than average computer.
The whole point of that was to illustrate what would accure if we allowed individual ships in combat. Battles that are so slow that you could make a three course meal during 15 second battle phases. That is why we shouldn't allow ships outside of TFs.
I disagree. If there is no max limit on how many ships are allowed in a single TF then you could again run into bogging down the system, especially if ships aren't going to be at full strength immediately following a battle. Can you imagine what it would take to keep track of a few thousand different ships, each damaged in a different way and ammount of damage taken? I think there would be some major problems if there are no limitations to TFs.Impaler wrote:Their should be no arbitrary restrictions on how many ships can be in a Task Force or requirments that their be any number of ships in any groupings like "picket" "Core" "Escort" these serve only to help organize the ships in battle. All the ships could be in the Picket or all in the Core (if we even have such a destinction).
Having makeups of ships is to add flavor. Maybe another option would be to have no requirements for how many of what ship type goes into a TF. If there should be no core, escort or picket classifications, groupings or whatever you want to call it, then there should be no Long Range, Short Range, IF, Carrier or any other classifications applied to ships or TFs.
The reserve idea sounds interesting and could work, but I still think that forcing the player to control when and where ships get deployed at the level you're talking about, causes some tedium in the system.Impaler wrote:Instead I would say let the player flag ships or TF in the Queue as "Reserve" in the same way they flag it for "go-to" and "merge-with" when these ships are completed they stay in the system ware they are build and create/merge-in-to a Reserve Fleet for that system. They will stay their untill the player initiates a "call up reserves" order to replace loses that some Fleet has suffered. The needed ships will be pulled out of the nearest reserve fleet and fly off to merge with the Task Forces that need it.
All such replacments need to be player initiated, nothing would be automated becuase this involves moving ships that may be defending some important place or putting a build order in the Quee. These kinds of replacment orders can be given at fleet level though so they is virtualy NO micromanagment involed unless the player wishes it.
If a player orders a shipyard to build a TF, then once it gets going, there is already a TF in the system to defend the shipyard and the planet. Instead of having a "reserve fleet", you have all of your TFs and before you could really concentrate on taking another system, you would have to make sure that the systems you currently control are well defended against attack. I know what I'm wanting to say but its after 3 in the morning so I'm not sure if I'm saying it so that everyone can understand.
I think I'll just try again when I wake up.