Way TOO Intelligent

Emperor Zodd · #1 January 22nd, 2001, 01:50 AM

I think hunting for Warp points would slow the game up.

Zanthis · #2 January 22nd, 2001, 04:55 AM

Hidden WP:
Could easily be an option. Could actually be a three choice option:
1) Normal WPs
2) All WP outside your home system hidden
3) All WP hidden

I wonder, can you "cloak" WPs right now? Might be able too, but it would require you to get to level 2 sensors (at least). I wonder if you could use a cloaked WP if you didn't have the sensors to spot it?

Active/Passive Sensors:
There are 5 sensors in the game already: EM Active, EM Passive, Gravitic, Psychic and Temporal. Technically, that yields four types of sensors (EM Active and EM Passive are different Versions of the same sensor type).

So, if you have a really heavily cloaked ship and you entered an enemy's system, you could have active temporal sensors screaming like a mad and unless they have passive temporal sensors, they'll never spot you (or other sensors good enough to pierce your cloak).

You'd have to be able to toggle up to four different sensors between active and passive. I don't think it is impossible, or even very hard, just guessing it won't be seen in SE4. Too bad, I think it could work well.

DirectorTsaarx · #3 January 23rd, 2001, 12:16 AM

Zanthis - good idea; makes psychic and temporal racial techs more attractive (which is good, since organic and crystalline are still the most powerful racial techs; although my personal preference is temporal, just because I like the concept).

One way to implement part of this would be adding the "Combat To Hit Offense/Defense Plus/Minus" factors to the various sensor components. Then a ship on passive would be harder to hit in combat, ships on active would be easier, etc.

Not certain how to implement outside of combat, though. Probably something along the lines of what happens in nebula/storm systems. And it would have to be applied to warp points somehow, since you can see all warp points in a nebula system now (although you can't see a planet in a nebula system unless you own the planet...)

Barnacle Bill · #4 January 23rd, 2001, 03:57 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Cybes:
er, why? unless you assume relativistic effects like making a black-hole around yourself... in which case the whole notion of interstellar flight breaks down anyway.

a bullet is extremely difficult to detect when in flight compared to at rest - it's going too fast to see. but a speedboat at rest on the open ocean is a lot more difficult to spot than one going at full tilt - the moving one generates a highly visible wake and spray plume.

Passive sensors detect some sort of energy emmission. A bullet is ballistic. It is not expending any energy, at least not in a vacuum. So, in a vacuum there would be nothing to detect that would change based on speed. Firing the bullet would make a big emmission, though, and the higher the muzzle velocity (i.e. the bigger powder charge you burn) the bigger the emmission will be.

A reaction drive spacecraft, like anything we could aspire to build today, works like your bullet except that instead of being fired out a barrel it carries its fuel on board. So, when it is burning the engine it is emmitting big-time. A reaction spacecraft has to burn the engines to change course, too. No burn = fly in a straight line at constant speed forever (unless you get caught in a gravity well).

SE4 ships change course instantaneously, and lose speed when they lose engines. Ergo, they don't use reaction drives. Since they lose speed when they lose engines, they must need to run all the engines full out to get full speed. Logically, to travel less than full peed means either all the engines throttled back or some of them turned off. Either way, more speed = more energy being expended. That is what the passive sensors pick up. Ergo, the more movement points you expend during a turn the bigger your signature would be. The way to model that in the program would be that passive sensors would, at each range, have a minimum signature they could detect. The program would check your signature against that for all enemy units in the system, using your closest point of approach, and adjusting your signature strength for stealth, cloaks, speed, etc... If you pass through a sector where your current signature strength is detectable, the other guy gets an appropriate message at the beginning of his next turn. Going active with your own sensors would decrease the minimum signature for you to detect things in sectors near your ship, but greatly increase your own signature.

[This message has been edited by Barnacle Bill (edited 23 January 2001).]

Zanthis · #5 January 23rd, 2001, 08:57 AM

DirectorTsaarx wrote:

quote:
One way to implement part of this would be adding the "Combat To Hit Offense/Defense Plus/Minus" factors to the various sensor components. Then a ship on passive would be harder to hit in combat, ships on active would be easier, etc.

I posted about a system to base to hit values off of the sensors a ship carried. If you dig back around 10 days or so (less than 20 for sure) you could check it out. I think it is the only topic I've started so far and mentions to hit in the subject.

DirectorTsaarx · #6 January 23rd, 2001, 09:19 PM

Zanthis: now that you mention it, I remember reading it; at the time, I was tired & didn't have time to think about it, so I don't remember any details. I'll have to go searching for it now...

Nyx · #7 January 23rd, 2001, 10:37 PM

quote:
Hidden WP:
Could easily be an option. Could actually be a three choice option:
1) Normal WPs
2) All WP outside your home system hidden
3) All WP hidden

Anyone here familiar with the Fading Suns universe from holistic Design? They're universe has these big gargoyle-encrusted warp gates at the edge of many, many systems. Sending the proper signal to them (I think with radio waves, but I'm not certain) in the presence of a huge mass (the gates and most races who have reverse engineered the tech use contained singularities for this, one race uses contained, artificial stars) opens the gate to another gate. The trick is that many people don't know all the keys to each destination. So one noble house might be able to take the gate from planet at to planets B, C, and D, while house 2 can take it to c, d, e, f, and g. Unless they share data (not done in this universe except in the most extreme circumstances) or use a device to track another's ship, noble house 1 just can't use the gate as well as their rival can.

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