Space combat terrian

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

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Captain Action
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Space combat terrian

#1 Post by Captain Action »

This may be all a moot point. It depends on the nature of the "warp" drive systems. If they are like star wars or Elite's then this could be an interesting idea, but if the drive engines are like Star Trek's then this won't work.

It bothers me for most 4x games ship to ship combat is devoid of nearly any sort of obstructions that could effect the outcome of battle. Moo1 had asteroids that one could use as cover adgainst missiles, and moo2 had nebula(s,ea?) that prevented sheilds. But that is about all there was.

My suggestion :

Suggested fiction for targetted warping :
Although the warp drive allows for quick travel between star systems, not all ships arrive at the same time. There can a few nanoseconds between ships of the identical mass or several hours for the more massive ships. Add in the easiness of finding the arrival warp point of an invading fleet, you now have a "duck shoot" where the defending fleet can kill the arriving fleet 1 by 1. So it is important that the invading fleet pick a location that gives the largest possible advantage.

Gameplay suggestion.

allow the attacker to pick location to hide their arrival warp point. This would allow for more varied combat situations. Got kick ass sheilds? Warp next to the star and watch your enemy's ships melt if they choose to attack. Does your enemy have great missiles? Warp into the asteriods.

Note : should the defender choose to attack anyways, the attackers will have to "Hold the line" until their larger ships arrive.

What if your opponet chooses not to attack? Now you can attack his planets at your choosing or blockcade the system.

Suggested fiction for targetted warping :
Although the warp drive allows for quick travel between star systems, not all ships arrive at the same time. There can a few nanoseconds between ships of the identical mass or several hours for the more massive ships. Add in the easiness of finding the arrival warp point of an invading fleet, you now have a "duck shoot" situation where the defending fleet can kill the arriving fleet 1 by 1. So it is important that the invading fleet pick a location that gives the largest possible advantage.

Some suggested techs :

Synchronised Warp arrival - endgame

Fighter warp engine (assuming that fighercraft don't have one already) - midgame


Some other thoughts :
Not just asteroids and stars.
Upper atmosphere of gas giants (reduced ranges due to HEAVY gravity and thick clouds)
Radioactive moons (EMC noise!)
Comet tails! (well maybe not.. :D )

That Guy
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#2 Post by That Guy »

That would be a very good idea for a tech, but there should be a way to limit where it can go. I mean like nowhere near enemy planets, or they could just a easily flank you before you know what is happening. Special ships could be made to act like a indercater(sp?) to prevent full surprise attacks like that.
"The one perfect impossibility is perfection."

Captain Action
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#3 Post by Captain Action »

Thant is why I've suggested it being an endgame tech. Like stellar converters, doomstars, ect...


But there's nothing stopping early game warp arrivals on a player's homeworld. Other than the attacking 1 ship vs all defense (ships, planet, spacestation) :twisted:

Impaler
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#4 Post by Impaler »

The plan (unofficial ofcorse but popular with most of us) is to have all the whole solar system (not to scale) in the combat map, all stars, planets, asteroid fields, space Stations, Worm Holes, moons and Ships would be in the combat map.

Thus is would be rather unbalancing if you could choose to come out of warp anyware in the system. It would be like a sudden Blink attack with no way to defend against it, unless the defender gets to place his ships after the attacker has chossen his points of attack.

I think a better strategy is to have the attacker start on the outer edge of the system beyond the outermost planet (possibly at some kind of StarLane "on ramp") or anyware along the edge if he came in by deep space travel. The attacker places his forces in the legal entry zones first and then the defender places their forces ware ever they want after seeing the choices of the attacker. This would give a nice proper advantage to the defender.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

Captain Action
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#5 Post by Captain Action »

Ah I wasn't aware of the current plans. While it would seem the attacker has all the advantage, remember that the attack's ships come in few at a time. It all depends warp tech vs sensor tech.

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utilae
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#6 Post by utilae »

Impaler wrote: I think a better strategy is to have the attacker start on the outer edge of the system beyond the outermost planet (possibly at some kind of StarLane "on ramp") or anyware along the edge if he came in by deep space travel. The attacker places his forces in the legal entry zones first and then the defender places their forces ware ever they want after seeing the choices of the attacker. This would give a nice proper advantage to the defender.
What if the attacker starts on the outer edge like you say, though if they come from the bottom then they are at the bottom edge, if they come from the top then they are at the top edge. You could choose the direction you enter the system at, when you attack a planet.

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skdiw
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#7 Post by skdiw »

While you read about our combat plan, it might be a bad idea to drop in the tech thread. There could be obstruction made based on planetary defense like mines, dense space generator where travel slows down, time nullifier where objects crossing here stops... The attack could launch probes to generate things you were talking about like holo decoys coming from other direction, black eye where the enemy screen turn pitch black for 10 seconds...

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skdiw
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#8 Post by skdiw »

oops, a typo. I mean dump your ideas into tech thread or combat threads.

Ablaze
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#9 Post by Ablaze »

You do know that you can edit your own posts, right skdiw? Look to the top right of any of your posts for the edit button.
Time flies like the wind, fruit flies like bananas.

Bastian-Bux
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#10 Post by Bastian-Bux »

Traveller (the RPG) has a limitation for its jump drives. There gravity disturbs the drives. Thus you have to "gate-in" a certain distance from any gravitational mass. Its 100xdiameter of the gravitational mass (yeah, rule of thumb). With some risk you can come as close as 10xdiameter.

I would suggest a similar tech-branch for us. In the beginning of the game, your drives are so easily distracted by the solar gravity, that you have to "gate-in" at the very outskirts of the solar system. When you fine-tune your drives, you become able to get closer to planetoid masses, but to use that ability you need better processor power as well to get a clear forcast of the planetoid positions. So if you invest enough research into this field, you should be able to "blitz", but you will need ruggedized drives and a bigger computer on your ships, thus using up place you could use for weapons or armor.

Impaler
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#11 Post by Impaler »

That sounds good Bux. In the Early game the attacker can only enter at the very margin of the system. As they get better drives and computers and other such advances their entry zone grows larger and compresses the "no entry zone" into a smaller and smaller area at the center of the system.

I dont realy see any need or desired to make a connection with the direction a ship is traveling from in the Galactic map. If we want to make a Deep Space 9 like worm Hole entrace at the edge of the system for using the Star lane thats one thing but we also have to consider deep Space travel which would logicaly be able to come in at any angle they desired.

Also another idea conserning the scattering/dispersing effect. Lets say we include a component on your ship "Navigational Array" and other such sumilar devices. The better your Navigational ratting the less scattering and dispersing (across different turns) will Occur to your ships. If your Navigation is realy bad some ships might get lost and go to the wrong stars system or be in realy crazy positions half way across the system or they acsidently fly into the sun or are lost forevor in the void of space.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

Moriarty
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#12 Post by Moriarty »

Arn't u folks forgetting that most warp travel is done by way of starlanes anyway?

Sh.Tac.
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#13 Post by Sh.Tac. »

I've a proposal for that thing, imagine that only one or more ship of the lot, has warp-drive, and the remainder haven't, so this "tranporter" ivolves other ships across certain area (or sphere) to pick it at new location.
Two near located "transporters" can directly split the space when starting (the main obstruction ;-) ) and its destination points in system may variate rather than arrival time.
So the starlane do not means much, it is an abstraction designed to limit and define destination systems only.
This is what you get ...

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utilae
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#14 Post by utilae »

Hey we could have ships that go on different types of terrain.
-through starlanes
-across nebulas (ships with nebula engines go faster through nebulas)
-open space
-gravity slingshot?
-solar winds?

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