Request: Simultaneous combat

[Grandpa Kim]

The alternation of one empire fires and moves then the other empire always did seem a little extreme to me. How about alternation by ship. Initiative could be resolved by speed, experience etc. This would make a big difference in large fleet engagements where it really matters, but would make no difference one on one. I do still think the defender at a warp point battle should have an advantage; perhaps a bonus to each ship/unit's initiative.

Unfortunately, this is all just wishful thinking. I doubt Aaron would ever do this.

Kim

[TerranC]

Originally posted by Grandpa Kim:
The alternation of one empire fires and moves then the other empire always did seem a little extreme to me. How about alternation by ship. Initiative could be resolved by speed, experience etc. This would make a big difference in large fleet engagements where it really matters, but would make no difference one on one. I do still think the defender at a warp point battle should have an advantage; perhaps a bonus to each ship/unit's initiative.

Unfortunately, this is all just wishful thinking. I doubt Aaron would ever do this.

that's not the question: the real question is COULD he do that?

And Also, the idea of a permanently ready-and-able fleet is lost to me:

A fleet has been stationed over a warp point for 60 turns.
It's orders are to destroy any unidentifiable ship coming through it.
The fleet has been drilling and running continous sweeps of the warp point to see if anybody is coming through.
Nobody has come through for 5 Terran Years (60 turns).

And then, bam, a fleet comes through.

There should be a penalty because in a situation like that since the crew will not run continuous drills for 5 years under the circumstances, and even if it did, the surprise would still leave the defenders finding their jaw.

That creates 2 options:

1. Keep the fleet on a short patrol perimeter along the warp point. although some ships may go through, there is no disadvantage, with the continuous able stance. The defending fleet may even have an advantage as the crew now has the whole drill in their heads: a result of 5 year patrol.

2. Keep the fleet on the warp point. NO ships would get through without you/the fleet commander knowing about it, but they suffer disadvantages, with idleness.

The "idleness" penalty would come when:

A Ship/fleet has been sitting active in a sector for more than 25 turns.
A Ship/fleet has not recieved any orders in 25 turns.
A Ship/fleet has not recieved any reinforcements in 25 turns.
A Ship/fleet has not encountered any of their ship/friendly ships/fleets *encountered=being in the same sector* for 25 turns.

Mines and satellites will have a more workload, since they don't recieve idleness.
Fighter squadrons also recieve idleness, but for 2 turns.
Freighters and bases do not recieve idleness.

Shore-leave is now a new scrap menu item: where the ship is under a semi-mothballing where it's ship maintenence is reduced by 75 percent, and that it does NOT destroy ship experience. The crew after a shore leave will not be affected by idleness for 50 turns.

Planets with spaceports/resupply depots/space yards have the option to perform shore leave.

As soon as you start to temper a shoreleave ship with other scrap options except scrap and analyze, the ship turns mothballed, and cannot be unmothballed for 5 turns.

Scrap and Analyze is turned off for a ship that is shore leaving.

shore leave is only allowed after 20 turn service, only Lasts 1 turn, and after shoreleaving does not recieve shoreleave for 20 turns.

You cannot turn off shoreleave, it turns itself after 1 turn, you may put an extended leave for an experienced ship that Lasts 5 turns, a shoreleave automatically terminates with the presence of an enemy ship/s and cannot be turned on with the presence of enemy ships.

[Arkcon]

[quote]Originally posted by TerranC:

And Also, the idea of a permanently ready-and-able fleet is lost to me:

See, I had a simpler explanation to myself why ship on a warp point has an initiative advantage. Either the "warp" capability of the engines is separate from the movemement capability, or the ship is in some "non-real-space" or some such technobabble. Whatever, exiting a warp point put the ship or it's crew unaware or unable to react.

Modeling shoreleave to improve crew effectiveness at a small penalty of having the ship ready would be a great addition to the game, however. For all ships, not just those that partol warp points, ships on a long trip would also benefit.

[Mylon]

The idea of ship idleness is just a little too complex for my tastes and also would have to take into account race traits such as happiness, emotionless, whether the fact the ship is using a computer or not, ect...

I do like the idea of iniative. It isn't truly simultaneous, but it's close enough. It would also make sense that smaller ships, fighters, and seekers would all get a huge bonus to iniative.

[tbontob]

Originally posted by Mylon:
The idea of ship idleness is just a little too complex for my tastes and also would have to take into account race traits such as happiness, emotionless, whether the fact the ship is using a computer or not, ect...

I do like the idea of iniative. It isn't truly simultaneous, but it's close enough. It would also make sense that smaller ships, fighters, and seekers would all get a huge bonus to iniative.

Mylon, we share the same thoughts...

[Stone Mill]

Agreed.

In all the simultaneous games I've played, this is the absolute #1 priority issue that would make the biggest improvement.

The slaughter one side or the other (lopsided battle outcomes) is probably the thing that still disappoints me a bit.

The drastic results are expanded by the sizes of the forces clashing. Just once, I would love to see to equally massive forces fight it down to the Last few ships.

I somehow believe this proposal would remedy the issue. You have my vote (and the vote of my friends). Great idea.

[Groggy]

You all have good points about initiative and surprise affecting battles at warppoints. My concern is primarily with fleet firing orders. Someone replied with a proposal for ship-based instead of fleet-based firing order; this doesn't sound all that hard to do and would go a long way toward realizing simultaneous combat and movement. And I like how crew experience, ship speed, etc. all play into who get to move and fire first.

A few years ago I wrote a C++ program to simulate battles with simultaneous movement and combat, lots of text output but I never managed to couple it to a GUI. Based on that experience, I don't think it would be all that hard to implement this. I also included the effects of ship explosions causing damage to nearby ships, that would be a cool feature to add as well. Give people second thoughts about using point-blank or short weapon range.