Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » New game idea - The nuclear football game (Updated with poll)
New game idea - The nuclear football game (Updated with poll) |
Fri, 09 July 2004 03:23 |
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I'm watching this show on the history channel about "The Nuclear Football" and it gave me an idea for this game.
In this game, the host, or a 3rd party, plays "The Overseer" (or a differently named) race. This race would be a Packet Physics race, and would start out with planets in the center and four corners of the universe (or other locations). Flying nearby each section of the universe the overseer controls is a fleet of special ships, collectively named "The Nuclear Football _" where the _ is replaced by an identifier to denote which section of the universe this fleet belongs (center, NE corner, etc). This overseer race will be set to friend by all players at all times.
Now, the purpose of this game is to be the last race left with power in the universe (not counting the overseer race). What makes this game different from just a vanilla stars game are the nuclear football fleets. These fleets will roam undefended in the area surrounding their overseer world(s) (center, NE corner, etc). The purpose of these fleets is to be "controlled" by the players of this game. "Controlling" a nuclear football fleet gives the player the ability to command the mass drivers of the planet (or planets) from which the nuclear football fleet originates, allowing them to launch miniature nuclear bombs to planets of their choice. The size of the packet launched will be predetermined for each overseer planet and known to the players at the start of the game.
The players "control" the nuclear football fleets by "tagging" them. Tagging them involves "intercepting" the fleets at any given point in the universe, with "intercepting" being defined as being within 5 light years of the nuclear football fleet. If multiple races intercept the same nuclear football fleet at one time, the fleet will remain uncontrolled. Once the fleet is under control of a player, the nuclear football fleet will "follow" the intercepting fleet at a predetermined warp speed known to all players. All the player has to do is have the nuclear football fleet follow the players intercepting fleet back to a planet the player controls that has a starbase. Once the nuclear football fleet within 10 light years of this planet, the player will have the capacity to launch packet attacks from the planets of the nuclear footballs origin.
The nuclear football fleet is comprised of two ships, which may not necessarily be together in one fleet: "The Nuclear Football" and "The Biscuit". (If you know something about the US governments nuclear control policies, "the nuclear football" is a briefcase which carries documents describing nuclear options available to the president in the event they are necessary, and "the biscuit" refers to plastic cards carried on the presidents person which allow him to verify that he is actually the president by using the codes contained on those cards.) In order to make use of the nuclear football fleet, the player must control both "The Nuclear Football" and "The Biscuit" at the same planet which contains a starbase.
The player launches a packet attack by sending an in game message to the overseer race stating which sector they would like to use to attack which planets.
There would be a few conditions that would have to be followed by all players to make this work.
1. Mass drivers and planetary defenses are banned.
This is required to keep the "nuclear missle attacks" (packets) effective. If the players are allowed to build 93%+ defenses with mass drivers in orbit, the packets launched are useless, and the point of the game is lost. The defenses that start on the homeworld will have to remain and I don't see that as being a problem.
2. Obviously, "The Nuclear Football", "The Biscuit", and "The Overseer" worlds are not to be attacked under any circumstances.
3. Nuclear football fleets will never be in orbit of a planet, but only c
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[Updated on: Sat, 10 July 2004 20:36] Report message to a moderator
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 06:38 |
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Micha | | | Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002 Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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SnakeChomp wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 09:23 | [update]
In thinking about the planetary defenses being banned, I realize that this has rather large reprocussions when it comes to bombing. A fleet of 20 mini bombers sporting cherry bombs would be able to wipe out any planet in one year with no defenses. Maybe limiting the useable bomb tech would fix that? But that again only requires larger bombing fleets to wipe a planet out in one year. Limiting the number of bombers you can have in any given fleet would require alot of work by the host or overseer race so not sure if that is a realistic option.
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Just a suggestion: instead of packets use bomber fleets? Make the Overseers IT and build a few 1000 mini bombers (whatever mix of bombs) and let those sit at an any/any gate along with a few 1000 highest init omega nubs. Whenever a player in control of the nuclear fleet can give orders he points at a (or more?) enemy planets and BAM! Overseers Strike Fleet moves in, takes out the base and nukes the planet!
Obviously this only works with planets with gates, and of course the bigger planets will have gates (ban HE ). Small gateless colonies will be protected by not having a gate ...
Having an IT Overseer means the ships will only take damage from overgating they won't get lost to the Void. The next turn however they will not be available for another strike. Shouldn't be a problem if the Overseer has a big enough supply (which is "easy").
Big differences are that the strikes are now instant while with packets the players can see them coming unless the Overseer PP planets are everywhere ... this is very dependent on universe size however ... So they can evacuate or intercept the packets ...
With bombers players still can protect their planets by removing their gate ... BTW the IT Overseer will be able to see through IT gate scanning if the target planet has a gate.
Also once the players reach nub tech they might have a shot at killing the Overseer fleet before it kills the base using an equal design (Overseer can bring chaff) and what is worse bombers can be killed ... (maybe use nubs with the MCM and have 2.5 movement retreating bombers ... but that will give away the MT part ... and the bombers might still be killed). Killing the Overseer fleets will also provide minerals, so I might consider letting the Overseer attack my own planets. But that could also be the case if you use mass packets of a reasonable size.
You can always tell the players to remove warships from the orbit of the targetted planet, but the warning will ruin part of the "fun" ...
This however means you can still build defenses and mass drivers, so that aspect of the game doesn't change. Not allowing defenses (and massdrivers to a lesser extent) will change gameplay drasticly ... (favouring certain race designs, PRTs, ...)
But the idea of Killer Packets of Doom might still be more appealing. However an instant planet kill looks nice as well.
Quote: | What do you guys think? Please post any ideas you have. I personally am rather exited (possibly only because it was my idea ). It would require some work to set it up, but I am willing to do so, after finding out how of course.
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I think it's a very cool idea if it can be balanced enough,
mch
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 11:59 |
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Quote: |
and of course the bigger planets will have gates
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In such a game my most important planets would not have gates, I would set ones up on nearby red worlds or unimportant colonies.
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 14:56 |
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Micha wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 06:38 | So they can evacuate or intercept the packets
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Intercepting packets? I'm no stars expert so could you tell me how that actually works?
Micha wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 06:38 | This however means you can still build defenses and mass drivers, so that aspect of the game doesn't change. Not allowing defenses (and massdrivers to a lesser extent) will change gameplay drasticly ... (favouring certain race designs, PRTs, ...)
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How would a certain race design be better off because defenses are not allowed? Do you mean pop dropping wise? I've never seen anybody kill a large planet simply by throwing colonists at it, but I haven't been playing forever either.
Micha wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 06:38 | But the idea of Killer Packets of Doom might still be more appealing.
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I agree.
Using IT bomber fleets instead of packets brings about one main problem. The player can render themselves immune to any attack by simply not having gates anywhere. Then they don't have to worry about not having control of the football as they cannot be harmed by it. The IT could always just fly their fleet there instead, or have minor outposts with orbital forts for them to use to gate within range of their target planet, which could work. Those bomber fleets could be carrying Annihilator Bombs, sort of like dropping an A-bomb or two on their target. Having full defenses only slightly dampens the effect of these bomber fleets as they would simply have to stay in orbit for 2 turns to kill the planet off (with the right distribution of bomb types of course).
Do annihilator bombs damage defenses? Their description says they won't hurt facts or mines but doesn't mention anything about defenses.
And theres always the problem of the player potentially killing the IT bomber fleets. Only true way I see to fix that is to use a tech limit for all players but the overseer.
I could always not ban defenses but keep mass drivers banned. This would require the player controlling the nuclear football to either launch alot of packets to have the desired effect, or to be ahead of the game and come kill the starbase of the target planet and them bomb most of its defenses away allowing the packet to strike for full force. But this probably wouldn't work because if you are already bombing a planet you most likely have the force to bomb it completely within 2 turns.
Using my starscalc a bit, if the overseer race has megatonnage of minerals on all planets it uses to launch packets, it could simply launch 5000kT of minerals in a single packet which (at warp 16) would kill off about half of a planet with 93% defenses, and kill off 41 defenses (if there were 100). This gives the planet around 50% defense coverage which is not enough to save it from a second 5000kT mineral packet, especially if that second packet is already in space and destined to strike next year. It will hit before the planet can build more defenses and guarentee that the planet dies. If there are more than one packet launching planets per cluster, all of them could fire at one planet and it would still be killed even with max defenses. It seems that even a 2000kT packet will kill off 100% colonists (1,000,000 in this test) from warp 13-16 (at 300ly) if the planet only has 50% defense coverage.
I think I like the idea of 5000kT packets better than bombing fleets. Even if the destination planet decides to offload all of its pop, the player launching the attack could prepare for it ahead of time and have warships nearby the destination planet. Once all the people are offloaded, they have to take an entire turn to re-colonize the planet while the pop is still in frieghters. You can give your warships battle orders to kill frieghters and send them in killing off alot of colonists. You could then sneak a colonizer over with some frieghters of your own and steal all the minerals. It doesn't take very long for warp 16 packets to get where they're going either.
I think using huge packets allows defenses to still be useable by players while still banning mass
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 16:07 |
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And then as your entire population sits helplessly in frieghters above your planet I could send in a few scuicide missle ships with high init and accuracy with orders of kill freighters. Or I could just attack your planet ahead of time and kill off the freighters that are already in orbit.
I seem to have forgotten whether or not packets striking planets will destroy factories and mines as well as defenses. There wouldn't be a way to prevent the mine / factory damage because packets (in space) will strike the planet and do damage before stars checks for planets with 0 population and renders them uncolonized. If it does kill them, it would definately disrupt the production of the entire planet for a few years as you take the time to rebuild your mines and factories. That is only if your population survives its stay in frieghters of course.
Interupting the production of an entire planet is very useful, especially if that planet is a breeder or production center for your empire.
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 16:09 |
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True-Chaos | | Crewman 1st Class | Messages: 26
Registered: October 2003 Location: Canada | |
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And that assumes that you see the W16 packet soon enought to do all that... depending on planet locations you very well could only have a single turn warning.
~The World be black and white except for the shades of gray~Report message to a moderator
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 16:22 |
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Or no warning at all and the planet simply goes boom.
[update instead of adding a new post]
The overseer packets could also contain only boranium, which is a relatively infinite resource for all races anyhow so bombing a planet won't help the victim if they manage to recover the minerals deposited onto the target planet.
[Updated on: Fri, 09 July 2004 16:33] Report message to a moderator
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 16:34 |
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craebild | | Lieutenant | Messages: 568
Registered: December 2003 Location: Copenhagen, Denmark | |
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SnakeChomp wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 20:56 |
Intercepting packets? I'm no stars expert so could you tell me how that actually works?
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To intercept a packet you send (or have) freighters at the same location as the packet, and transfer the minerals from the packet to the freighters.
Getting the freighters to be at the same location as the packet is the hard part, of course.
If the packet hits the target same year as it is launched, then it is impossible.
If the packet is only in space for one year, then the freighters need to be prepositioned, by calculating which exact position a packet will be in the year it is launched from the Overseer planet toward the important planet. For best security, several intercept freighter fleets should be used, at the locations corresponding to each possible warp speed.
If the packet is in space for two or more years, then the packet can be set as waypoint by the freighter fleet, which must be starting from a position where it can reach the position the packet will reach the following year.
Med venlig hilsen / Best regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Christian Ræbild / Christian Raebild
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 17:26 |
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Micha | | | Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002 Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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SnakeChomp wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 20:56 | Intercepting packets? I'm no stars expert so could you tell me how that actually works?
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craebild already did a good job explaining that.
Quote: | How would a certain race design be better off because defenses are not allowed? Do you mean pop dropping wise? I've never seen anybody kill a large planet simply by throwing colonists at it, but I haven't been playing forever either.
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Like vonKreedon mentioned the WM PRT will be at a less disadvantage since everybody will have bad defense coverage (namely "none" ). They'll also have it easier to use their popdrop advantage. IS loses the advantage of cheaper defenses.
As for other factors: -f usually don't build defenses since loosing a planet means nothing to them, while HPs need defenses to protect their precious factories. (exceptions in both cases of course)
Quote: | I think I like the idea of 5000kT packets better than bombing fleets. Even if the destination planet decides to offload all of its pop, the player launching the attack could prepare for it ahead of time and have warships nearby the destination planet. Once all the people are offloaded, they have to take an entire turn to re-colonize the planet while the pop is still in frieghters. You can give your warships battle orders to kill frieghters and send them in killing off alot of colonists. You could then sneak a colonizer over with some frieghters of your own and steal all the minerals. It doesn't take very long for warp 16 packets to get where they're going either.
I think using huge packets allows defenses to still be useable by players while still banning mass drivers. Why use your own mass driver if you can control a warp 16 5000kT mega death bomb anyway?
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I understand you want to use packets and in the right circumstances they are indeed a better choice. The most important matter is to get them big enough to hurt and actually kill a planet with full defenses. And if possible get more than the 5 original suggested planets (one in each corner and one in the center) depending on universe size of course, to prevent interceptions.
Quote: | Just one problem, how to get megatonnage of minerals on all the overseer packet planets without pre-genning 1000+ turns?
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That's the least of your problems. Use the zero cost hack. You can hack the Stars! exe and make the tech needed for a nub zero in all fields and make the cost of a nub zero resources and zero kT in all minerals , possibly stuff them with an item that you also make zero cost, build a few million (they will cost you nothing) of them in the first turn with your Overseer race (other races play with their normal exe and won't be able to do this). The next turn the change the mineral cost to the highest possible number (forgot what that was) and scrap them. Voila, tons and tons of minerals at your disposal to bring joy and happiness to the other races in the universe.
Note that you won't be able to use AH for those first turns.
mch
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 18:19 |
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Micha wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 17:26 | Like vonKreedon mentioned the WM PRT will be at a less disadvantage since everybody will have bad defense coverage (namely "none" ). They'll also have it easier to use their popdrop advantage. IS loses the advantage of cheaper defenses.
As for other factors: -f usually don't build defenses since loosing a planet means nothing to them, while HPs need defenses to protect their precious factories. (exceptions in both cases of course)
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Aha, now I see.
Micha wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 17:26 |
I understand you want to use packets and in the right circumstances they are indeed a better choice. The most important matter is to get them big enough to hurt and actually kill a planet with full defenses. And if possible get more than the 5 original suggested planets (one in each corner and one in the center) depending on universe size of course, to prevent interceptions.
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It would be better to have clusters of planets in each section of the universe instead of just 5 planets. In a medium galaxy, it is possible to locate the clusters such that no planet is more than 300 light years away from any given overseer launch point. This means no more than 2 years to impact for a warp 15 packet from anywhere.
I did a little calculation test with starscalc against a planet with 100 Neutron shield defenses and heres what I found.
Packet 1: 5000kT, Warp 15
Distance: 300ly
Pop: 1,000,000
100 Nuetron shield defenses: 98% coverage
118,000 pop killed
12 defenses destroyed
Packet 2: 5000kT Warp 15
Distance: 300ly
Pop: 882,000
88 Nuetron shield defenses: 97% coverage
156,114 pop killed
16 defenses destroyed
Packet 3: 5000kT Warp 15
Distance: 300ly
Pop: 725,886
72 Nuetron shield defenses: 94% coverage
256,964 pop killed
25 defenses destroyed
Packet 4: 5000kT Warp 15
Distance: 300ly
Pop: 468,922
47 nuetron shield defenses: 84% coverage
442,662 pop killed
47 defenses destroyed
Pop remaining: 26260
Stick a little bit more mass onto the packet and the planet would be wiped out with 4 packets. If the planet was only 250 ly away a warp 16 packet would do more damage and be better at killing the planet off.
Micha wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 17:26 | Voila, tons and tons of minerals at your disposal to bring joy and happiness to the other races in the universe.
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Micha wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 17:26 | Note that you won't be able to use AH for those first turns.
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How would I actually go about setting up a game like this? I went and got StarsEd so I can make my megatonnage of minerals. I know there is also a way to make your own .xy file, but how is that done? I'd want to move planets for the overseer clusters of 4 or 5 planets into little rings to make sure they are evenly spaced giving them good galactical coverage and making sure the overseer race can inhabit them.
Is there any way to colonize the overseers ring planets during the game setup outside of autohost without having to actually fly all the way over there and set up shop? That would take a while and require more work on my part in regards to playing everybody elses races (scouting namely). No pain, no gain.
Micha wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 17:26 | That's how the packets will end up being used, to disrupt the others production, killing the freighters and pop will not always be possible ...
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While that isn't the use I would have originally hoped for, it is realistically what will occur. However, so long as the controlling player has control of the nuclear football fleet, they can effectively eliminate a few planets from doing anything by continually launching planets for them. Their target wont ever have a chance to put the pop back down onto the planet. And if the controlling player uses the mass drivers well, he can force the target player to constantly shift his pop in frieghters or simply abandon the target planets until he can take control of the nuclear football from his attacker. This invokes what I wanted to happen originally: fighting over the nuclear footballs. I like.
On another note, is anybody reading this actually interested in playing in a game like this? I'm serious about running one if I can get players and figure out how to do everything.
Seems micha has made a ton of posts while I was writing this so let me take a moment to read and respond.
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 18:41 |
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Micha wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 18:05 |
Also this won't be the situation for a large part of the game. Defenses will be lower.
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I could only "enable" certain planets in each overseer controlled section of the galaxy during the intial stage of the game. Say only one active mass driver per cluster for the first part of the game. Once there are more heavy planets around I'd enable another one of the drivers allowing for more death to be dispersed.
Or instead of enabling them during the game, the size of packets that they launch could increase as the game progresses. In the early game it won't take much to kill off a planet but the super defended planets at the end game need as you said about 25kT.
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 19:43 |
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As it stands I'm thinking about (in a mdeium galaxy anyway) 5 overseer clusters of 4 planets each. I also stand to allow each planet in an overseer cluster to attack a different target, while still allowing multiple planets to target the same victim.
I'm wondering if having so many planets per cluster would be overpowered. Maybe only having 2 per cluster but having them be able to launch packets of up to 12500kT in mass would be preferable? They could both target the same planet and guarentee killing even the most heavily defended end game planet.
In doing more calculations, does anybody know if the maximum defense converage is 97% or 98%? It makes a huge difference in the damage calculations, as 97% coverage allows the packet to do almost twice as much damage as a 98% coverage.
If the cap is 97%, two 10,000kT packets will kill the planet if launched at warp 16 with two ultra driver 13's from 300ly away. The second strike is a bit overkill due to the destruction of defenses by the first packet. But if the cap is 98%, two 11,000kT packets are required. The first packet should lower defense coverage to 93.31% which if rounded down to 93% allows the remaining colonists to be wiped out.
Another question arises now, if two packets strike a planet at the same time, will each strike due damage to defenses and cause them to be recalculated? If not its near impossible to completely kill a planet in one year. I assume they are recalculated after each strike however.
Again all this is based off the extreme end game. I should probably be more focused on the early game where the maximum defensive coverage is 63% with SDI, 87% with missle batteries, and 91% with laser batteries. At 63% defense coverate, a measly 2000kT packet at warp 16 launched with 2 ultra driver 13's from 300ly away will destroy a 1,000,000 pop planet. 87% coverage requires 6000kT under the same circumstances. Of course the requirements are lower if the distance is shortened. A warp 16 packet can reach its destination the same year it is launched is the destination is 128 light years away. Thats some pretty long range no warning planet implosions.
Is it possible to launch warp 17 packets? I thought that having two mass drivers allowed you to squeeze another warp speed out of that starbase. Two warp 13's would then allow warp 17 packets. The starscalc actually tells me that a packet would do the most damage at warp 17 when I told it I had 2 warp 13 mass drivers, but the packet warp speed box won't let me enter anything higher than 16.
All my rambling...Anyway, Maybe having 2 planets per cluster and incrementing the packet size as the game progresses is the way to go? That way the controlling player won't be able to completely overpower the target of his packet attacks allowing the victim to strike back to attemp to gain control of the nuclear footballs while still allowing the controlling player to do damage. The packets wont decrease in effectiveness as the game progresses and people gain better defensive tech due to the scaling of packet sizes.
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 20:18 |
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vonKreedon | | Lieutenant | Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003 Location: Seattle, WA USA | |
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Can Overseer starbases be attacked?
Is a first strike possible to take out an enemies nuclear capability before the launch code can be decrypted?
Can Overseer packets be launched at Overseer planets?
OTOH, OTOH means "On The Other Hand".
[Updated on: Fri, 09 July 2004 20:20] Report message to a moderator
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 20:56 |
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Micha | | | Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002 Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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Quote: | How would I actually go about setting up a game like this? I went and got StarsEd so I can make my megatonnage of minerals. I know there is also a way to make your own .xy file, but how is that done? I'd want to move planets for the overseer clusters of 4 or 5 planets into little rings to make sure they are evenly spaced giving them good galactical coverage and making sure the overseer race can inhabit them.
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You can use the Universe Creator to move planets, however limited to moving them North-South only.
There is a link in the download section of AH:
ftp://library.southern.edu/uc.zip
Quote: | Is there any way to colonize the overseers ring planets during the game setup outside of autohost without having to actually fly all the way over there and set up shop? That would take a while and require more work on my part in regards to playing everybody elses races (scouting namely). No pain, no gain.
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You'll have to get your pop there yourself. You don't have to play everyone else their race. Make sure you have all paswords, note down starting pop and minerals. Set all races to alchemy and build transports to pick up the extra pop and minerals when you are done with your setup. This will bring the situation back to a normal 2400 starting year.
As for the Overseers to get the tech for massdrivers you could build eny scrappers to get you to eny22, using the zero tech/cost method. You build yourself a lot of scrappers, transfer the ships to another race and start scrapping. You'll have to get the last levels yourself though ... Might be hard since that higher research will cost a lot ...
You might want to start with lesser drivers and research the last ones while the game is already running. Just check how much resources it will cost you to get there. You won't have much planets.
You can give the Overseer HP factories and HG pop for maximum resources, eny cheap, rest expensive and no mines, ... habs ... a bit more difficult since you'll want more or less good planets I assume ... centred OWW, or all wide if you bring factory cost to 25 ... 3i with low growth ...
Or just gen a lot of years you'll get there eventually ...
Quote: | On another note, is anybody reading this actually interested in playing in a game like this? I'm serious about running one if I can get players and figure out how to do everything.
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You can make a poll.
I like the concept if you can balance it enough. Though I've just got another game starting and probably another one as well, so no time ...
mch
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 20:58 |
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The overseer is not to be attacked by anyone at any time. This includes the nuclear football fleets as well as his planets. You cannot launch a packet attack against an overseer planet.
While a first strike option sounds like a realistic idea mimicking the real life basis of this game, it is not realistic to implement in the stars environment. In order to enable the overseers to start with ultra driver 13s they need to have the required tech before beginning turns on autohost. If they also have to worry about starbase defense, they would need to further research weapons. This adds unecessary overhead to the game setup.
Furthermore, in order to attack the overseer starbases, they would need to be set to neutral or enemy. This opens up the potential for "accidents" where a component of a nuclear football fleet is destroyed. The destruction of either the nuclear football or the biscuit is not allowed and would force a turn regen to fix.
Besides, the order of events in a stars game allows production before fleet battles. Even if you have a first strike fleet in orbit around an overseer planet, the planet would be able to build a new starbase and launch a "nuclear missle" before the fleet in orbit could destroy the starbase. This effectively just creates more work for the overseer race to constantly rebuild starbases.
More akin to real life, the "first strike" ability relates more to firing the first nuclear missle triggering nuclear holocaust. If two races both control overseer launch sites that can target their enemy, they are guarenteed mutual destruction should they decide to utilize their nuclear capacity.
A minor detail, would it be better for the player to email the overseer race notifying them of the targets they wish to strike, or sending an in game email. Using the in game option delays the strike by a year allowing the enemy another year to contest control for nuclear football fleets thereby preventing the nuclear launch from hapenning. Using in game email does not reflect the actual process of using the nuclear football and launching a nuclear attack, which takes only 5-10 minutes. I'm thinking email is the best option.
Another minor detail: Should nuclear football fleets that have "just" arrived in orbit of a planet with a starbase be able to launch a nuclear attack immediately? Or should they forced to remain in orbit around the planet in uncontested control before being able to launch an attack?
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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game |
Fri, 09 July 2004 21:08 |
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Micha wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 20:56 | As for the Overseers to get the tech for massdrivers you could build eny scrappers to get you to eny22, using the zero tech/cost method. You build yourself a lot of scrappers, transfer the ships to another race and start scrapping. You'll have to get the last levels yourself though ... Might be hard since that higher research will cost a lot ...
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Why would I have to transfer the ships to another race? Wouldn't that require having 2 races as overseers?
[update]
I'll sniff through the PP forum and see what I can dig up. I had completely forgotten about the detarraforming.
[Updated on: Fri, 09 July 2004 21:10] Report message to a moderator
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