Home » Stars! Clones, Extensions, Modding » FreeStars » Battles
| Battles |
Sun, 14 December 2003 23:53  |
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 Lebaron |
 | Crewman 3rd Class |
Messages: 8
Registered: December 2003
Location: NY | |
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The battles in Stars are fun and intense. However, the outcome can be determinded by a simple math equation. If other factors such as Moral, Leadership, Experience, crew skill, angle of attack, planet variables (such as battles around planets will have a planet say, in the corner of the battle map. Movement will be affected by gravity). By having variables other then the set number, it will make for more interesting game play and a more realistic style.
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| Re: Battles |
Tue, 16 December 2003 19:11  |
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| Lebaron |
| Crewman 3rd Class |
Messages: 8
Registered: December 2003
Location: NY | |
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| Sotek wrote on Mon, 15 December 2003 17:01 |
1)You've *obviously* never been in a multi-race battle.
2) The word is morale. With an e. Please learn the meaning of words before using them and use the correct ones.
3) Experience includes both leadership and crew skill
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1) I dont understand why you mentioned this.
2) You obviously got the meaning. This isn't a research paper, its a post on a website. If you feel the need to correct every mistake people make then it seems youve got a lot of work to do.
3)I wasnt aware that this was already in place, OR you *obviously* have some (deleted by moderator). Do me a favor and drop the idea that your god's gift to writing and Stars!.
And yes, battles can be determined with calcs and tests. There should be a more random factor involved.
[Updated on: Tue, 16 December 2003 20:51] by Moderator
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| Re: Battles |
Tue, 23 December 2003 12:46 |
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| LEit |
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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Here is one more take on the matter:
We will not be allowing you to make tactical decisions about the battle, that would mess up the turn based aspect.
However, we could possibly change the IQ of the battle commanders, and/or give you more available tactics. That will certainly not happen in the first version.
We could make the battles completly random: two sides show up, flip a coin, one dies. That's clearly not a good way to go, so some ability to predict the battles is a good thing, the question is where on the scale from completly random to completly determinate is the best place.
The more random the battles are, the more complete your dominance needs to be to insure victory. One thing I like about Stars, is that while a bigger empire has a better chance of winning the game, there are things that a smaller empire can do to fight that. Currently if you have 2x the opponents ships at a battle you will probably win with minimal losses. Therefore, if you are outnumbered 4 to 1, you just need to win 8 battles where you outnumber the opponent 1 to .5. This isn't easy, but is possible. If you need 10 to 1 to ensure victory, then you need to win 80 battles. Less determinate helps bigger empires more, they can get the numbers to the important battles, and a smaller empire cannot afford to lose a 1 to 1 battle, a bigger empire can take the chance.
Note that there is a lot of STRATEGIC variablity in the battles. In general, for every 10 I sim, only 1 happens the way I sim it, because the enemy doesn't cooperate..
We could make the battles completly determinate: remove all random checks and figure some other way to resolve those factors. (For example, if inits are equal, then go to range, computer tech level, ship hull tech level, elec tech, weapons tech, con tech, energy tech, player number). I don't think this is a good idea however.
Note that improving the battle board IQ and/or giving players more specific instructions for the battle will make the battles more determinate. However, there are ways this could favor bigger empires (mainly by removing or reducing the effectivness of chaff). Therefore any changes will be very carefully considered as to the impact it will have on balance, and that tends to be a very tricky thing (especially with all you bright people thinking of things that the progammer hasn't considered).
Short answer:
As much as I can, I'll get it to match the current battles. And I won't be changing without a lot of very careful thought.
- LEitReport message to a moderator
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| Re: Battles |
Wed, 21 January 2004 16:16 |
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| Naatti |
 | Civilian |
Messages: 3
Registered: January 2004 | |
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Hi!
This is my first post, since I just learned of Freestars today.
I would agree very much so with crewman Haileris that battles have been and are chaos. And being able to simply calculate the battle results would take it more towards the unrealistic direction.
However, what differs a good general from a bad one, is to make right decisions in the chaos. To pull out when things didn't go the good way. Or to strike where an opportunity appears.
In Stars! it would be impossible to interfere the battle while it happens, so it would be good to give the generals possibilities to make the "what if" decisions or "in case of" planning before the battle. One element which I hoped before, was to choose the battle plan for each ship, instead of (or in addition to) the fleet. It would be handy to have kill starbase ships in the same fleet with ships that target mine layers and then run the scene, even if you couldn't beat the whole warship arsenal of the opponent. If you intend to bring fleet commanders or crews, a sensible guy would know when to withdraw, or to hit that damaged ship.
Random thing is essential part of a battle, but so is planning and reacting to it.
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| Re: Battles |
Tue, 16 March 2004 14:39 |
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I think that we are missing the point here a little. First, we need to get a working version of Freestars that basically mimics the current Stars! game. That in itself is no simple task. Once the main goal has been accomplished it will be time to look at improvements IMO. Most notably would be a slightly more robust set of battle orders (like primary target capitol ships).
About the only thing we should do with the existing order set used by Stars! is tweak a few things to make them more logical. Max Damage Ratio and Max Net Damage don't exactly work the way I would like in conjunction with a chicken (run for your life) order - We should refine this more in the way of a 'fighting withdrawl' order in battle processing.
No matter what, as we develop the algorithms used for the Freestars battle engine there are sure to be several differences from the existing Stars! battle engine in that our algorithms will be different algorithms.
Ptolemy
[Updated on: Tue, 16 March 2004 14:39]
Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.Report message to a moderator
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It gives each player the chance to caculate how many ships he needs in order to win, be it chaff or other wise. Crew Skill just causes more MM headaches, SD has enough of those, and gotta say its starting to get a little hectic in the game Im playing. 
