Home » Stars! Clones, Extensions, Modding » FreeStars » make PP what they are suppose to be
Re: make PP what they are suppose to be |
Tue, 09 August 2005 11:18 |
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mazda | | Lieutenant | Messages: 655
Registered: April 2003 Location: Reading, UK | |
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dethdukk wrote on Tue, 09 August 2005 15:59 |
the point is that we dont want a MD ship and one overcloakership flying in, packeting a planet from point blank range, and then flying back out unseen. In my opinion, that would be worse than the SS robber baron. Also, the closest Stars! comes to a doomsday weapon is a Warp 13 driver. We dont want to have 3 MD13 ships with overcloakerships taking out our entire frontier.
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Yes, but one MD ship won't be able to be cloaked to 98% by one overcloaker. Not if it has any minerals on board. So you'll be able to see it.
(Have you ever tried cloaking any number of loaded freighters ?)
And even if you don't see it, one 2000kT Warp 10 packet from point blank range would not destroy any planet with decent defences. (unless you are talking about PP having this at the start of the game when people don't have defences up - and if it is early in the game the PP will still have weak drivers, won't have cloaking, won't have many spare minerals, so it's still not a problem)
You seem to be overstating the effectiveness of packets by using phrases like "doomsday weapon" and "point blank range".
Packets are not all that scary as weapons, even at close range.
Believe me, allowing a PP to creep up (even reasonably cloaked)and packet a few planets is not going to break the game in the slightest. You might even thank him for the free minerals.
They are more likely to be useful against new colonies at a battle front than anything else.
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Re: make PP what they are suppose to be |
Tue, 09 August 2005 13:11 |
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Quote: | Also, the closest Stars! comes to a doomsday weapon is a Warp 13 driver. We dont want to have 3 MD13 ships with overcloakerships taking out our entire frontier.
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This is why my suggestion is that there only be a couple of hull based mass drivers - I would like to see warp 5, 6 and 7 hull based drivers. The most advantage to these drivers is the ability to fling back minerals from the closer remote mining worlds. Any of these drivers would have weapons potential but, it would be limited. Once warp 10 drivers are available to all races, even the warp 7 mass driver ship will be useless as a weapon.
There is then no real need to deal with special hull types for a mass driver ship - any ship with cargo space and a general slot should be able to have one.
Ptolemy
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Re: make PP what they are suppose to be |
Tue, 09 August 2005 20:30 |
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Quote: | Once warp 10 drivers are available to all races, even the warp 7 mass driver ship will be useless as a weapon
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Some things take time, such as setting up driver. Suppose you have just bombed and then taken my colony. Next turn you find you all you pop is dead before it even got a chance to do production... I had a cloaked driver 49 ly away that flung a packet at warp 10. Good day to be an SS, with robber barons and lots of guys to steal from.
[Updated on: Tue, 09 August 2005 20:31] Report message to a moderator
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Re: make PP what they are suppose to be |
Wed, 10 August 2005 23:36 |
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Hmmm... Recoil - now there's an idea. I like it. However, I don't think there should be a possibility of a ship breaking up under strain unless the packet has been launched at a higher speed than the MD rating. Think of it as the ship mounted mass driver equivalent of over-gating.
The only potential difficulty I see is when the MD ship is in a fleet. Ideally, only the MD ship should suffer from recoil and, recoil will need to be less than the first year travel of the packet. I do think though that mass driver ships should be required to have cargo space and only be able to launch packets as large as their holds are.
Ptolemy
[Updated on: Wed, 10 August 2005 23:36]
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Re: make PP what they are suppose to be |
Wed, 10 August 2005 23:56 |
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I was thinking more of them breaking up under great strain...up to 2x ship mass should be very safe whereas 4x would be almost certainly fatal. like overgating...
Was also thinking of linking the chance of breaking up to the recoil distance...with the unsafe speeds (W9/10+) being the danger zone.
Istill think the engine capacity should affect it somehow tho.
hmm perhaps a single Ship MD part that can safely throw up to the engines speed?
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Re: make PP what they are suppose to be |
Thu, 11 August 2005 00:18 |
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Quote: | hmm perhaps a single Ship MD part that can safely throw up to the engines speed?
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Now, there's an idea, and it makes sense. Additionally, since the MD requires all of the engine output, the ship can't move if it's firing a packet. Using this option, Mass Driver potential will be limited to warp 10 by the engines - and, allowing for 'over-driven' packets then provides the basis for both recoil and the potential of breaking up under strain. We can use a simple formula for calculating the possibiltiy of break-up that uses ship mass (with cargo), number of warps over safe speed and recoil distance (a random value 20% +- the distance of the first year of packet travel). The cargo used to create the packet is not included in the ship mass (since it's in the packet).
For MD ships in orbit, the recoil location will be a random location outside the orbit of the planet (orbital calculation require firing at an orbital breakaway angle which means the ship could be anywhere in the orbit and the reverse direction would not necessarily be the reverse of the packet direction). Alternately, ships in orbit simply can not over-fling packets.
For ships in space, recoil will be in the opposite direction of packet travel.
Ships that have travelled by re-coil don't hit mines during the recoil - recoil creates a temporary wormhole so the ship just ends up somewhere else.
Ptolemy
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Re: make PP what they are suppose to be |
Thu, 11 August 2005 04:35 |
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iztok | | Commander | Messages: 1210
Registered: April 2003 Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
Kotk wrote on Wed, 03 August 2005 10:48 | Yep... it is VERY easy to test that PP can make planet fully terraformed + few clicks of permanent terraform with just sole very large packet (say 10 000 kt).
Unfortunatelly the problem remains ... this feature is still too expensive to use it as a part of any strategy.
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IMO here's the point. What PPs needs to be more playable is more minerals, as those are used for almost everything they can do with packets: terraforming, attacking and scanning.
I'm still for the idea mass drivers collect space dust and transform it into minerals. But PPs MDs should do that with better efficiency. Like:
- every MD creates minerals from space dust.
- efficiency for normal MDs is twice the speed of the driver. So MD-7 would generate 2*7=14 of each mineral each turn, and MD-10 20.
- efficiency for PPs drivers is 5 times the speed of the driver. So SD-6 would generate 5*6=30 of each mineral, SD-9 45 and UD-13 65.
When I started thinking about those numbers, I designed formula based on squared speed of the driver. But in that case PP would get less minerals earlier (SD-6 only 18, MD-7 10), when they are most needed for terra, and more in late game, when those additional minerals could make a game spoiler (UD-13 generating 85, MD-10 generating 20, and for comparison a planet with 2000 mines operating at MC 10 200). Since a max tech AMP Nub costs about 160 of each mineral that would make more than a half of a nub each turn. This way it makes only 40%, and for other races 12%.
But in first 40 turns PPs would get from about 10 planets with drivers (and tech-13 for SD-9 reached at about turn 30) about 7-10MT of additional minerals, resulting in another 35-50 "clicks" in terraforming. Not a game-breaker, esp. because only one third of those minerals would remain available for building. And that's also the amount other races would get from their drivers if they'd chose to build them.
In late game PPs would still have more minerals as they have now, so the "running out of minerals faster than running out of enemies" wouldn't happen soo soon, and would make PPs more playable also in that time frame of the game.
BR, Iztok
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Re: make PP what they are suppose to be |
Fri, 12 August 2005 10:21 |
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Yes, the issue of mineral availability is the other item that realy does need to be addressed. Since packets and salvage 'decay' in space, all that mineral loss really should be collectable somehow and it is the PP that should be able to collect it.
The easiest way to deal with the issue is to handle it the same way as the SS spy bonus for planets with mass drivers.
Ptolemy
[Updated on: Fri, 12 August 2005 10:27]
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Re: make PP what they are suppose to be |
Mon, 06 February 2006 11:57 |
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rowenstin | | Crewman 1st Class | Messages: 38
Registered: December 2005 | |
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Ok, just another crazy idea. What if PP races could “fling” ships, giving them a 1st year speed boost? It could work this way: A fleet that leaves that year a planet with a mass driver has an Effective Warp Speed (EWS) of ((Fleet “nominal” speed)*(mass driver speed))/(Fleet speed+driver speed), rounding down.
So, in the first years of playing, a fleet traveling at warp 9 (using FM) would travel a single year at warp 9 + (9*5)/14, that is, 12. It would travel 144 light years the first year, and 81 the next ones. Even having only a warp 5 engine, he could have a boost +2 warp speed, going 49 LY the first year instead of just 25. This ability would help starting empires, allowing them to expand faster.
Later in the game, with warp 10 engines and warp 13 mass drivers a fleet could travel a mind numbing total of 225 Ly in a single year; really good to defend your empire when you are not a IT or launch surprise attacks, so PP races would be military stronger.
If the bonus is too big, maybe it could be toned down to ((fleet speed)*(driver speed)/(fleet speed+driver speed)) – 1. That´s a bonus between +1 and +5, depending on the drivers and speeds.
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Re: make PP what they are suppose to be |
Mon, 06 February 2006 22:39 |
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Nope - not logical. Mass drivers fling packets and a departing packet only travels half it's speed distance in the first year. Figure it as 'building' up to top speed. I don't think there is any real value in flinging ships.
Ptolemy
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Re: make PP what they are suppose to be |
Tue, 07 February 2006 05:25 |
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Madman | | Officer Cadet 1st Year | Messages: 228
Registered: November 2003 Location: New Zealand | |
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icebird wrote on Tue, 07 February 2006 17:59 | That's what's so cool about FreeStars; that idea is integral to the whole project. All the rules are stored in text files, so they can be changed like that very easily.
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Well, a lot of the rules are stored a XML file, but some of the proposed rule changes (such as flinging ships) would require code changes, with maybe something in the rules file to turn that option on or off.
For instance, I've got a new idea for a PRT that I'm really keen on trying out, but no point thinking much about it till there is a game to try it on.
Quote: | The idea of flinging ships is cool. I think it might be a bit too big a bonus, but heh... No point worrying about that yet, is there?
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One of the things that make Stars! special is that most of the PRTs have must-have bonuses or toys that you really don't want to be without, and you just get one choice. Looked at it that way, flinging ships probably isn't all that powerful, given that just flinging minerals makes PP a weak PRT.
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