FreeOrion

There's been a lot of recent discussion about the tech tree and refinements. Everybody has a different idea of what refinements should be, because we nearly have none. And sometimes (usually) when you are discussing things in the abstract, things appear easier than they really will be to implement.

So, i want to try implement refinements in an isolated branch of the tree and then we can see how well the theory actually works out. If it doesn't at least we'll all have something concrete to compare new ideas to.

Since i just recently threw in a dorky implementation of simplified weapons, i think that will be a good place to test this out.

Goals

* Each application is unique in some way besides having some number that's bigger.
* Each application is in all ways superior to the previous application.
* Each refinement is in all ways superior to the previous refinement/application.
* Each line of refinements is the same as the base application except for bigger numbers
* Refinements will not raise the production cost of making the weapon (either it stays the same or decreases)
* Names and labels should be clear
* These techs should be suitable for the short-range weapon techs when we implement multiple types of weapons that matter.

So to start with some possible application names for the tech tree In order from worst to best:

* Rail Gun
* Laser
* Ion Cannon
* Phasor (we have "phasors" in the tech tree, but what's up with that? "Phaser" is the normal spelling?)
* Death Ray / Disintegrator

Now for their uniqueness:

* Rail Gun (requires ammo)
* Laser (no ammo needed)
* Ion Cannon (also no ammo needed)
* Phasor (also no ammo needed)
* Death Ray / Disintegrator (also no ammo needed, bypasses shields)

So there i'm stuck, i can only think of three unique short-range weapon applications without relying on numbers to distinguish them. There's doesn't have to be five, but i was hopping for at least 4-- 6 if possible.

Other ideas?

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Apart from Gauss Guns (alias Coil Guns) there are Rail Guns (which, apparently, work in a different manner). Also, in MoO2 Gauss guns were not inferior to lasers, just had a bit different use strategy (no range damage dissipation). Disclaimer: I'm not saying that MoO2 is a perfect oracle of what should be done in space combat games.

So, you must ask yourself, which of these points is more important to you:
Because the first point suggest we could have weapons with efficiency depending on usage during combat, while the second point makes it a simple pecking order ("lasers are better than coil guns, period").

Other ideas to the mix:

* Graviton cannon (propels gravitons)
* Gravity gun (artificial gravity used to propel projectiles)

Do you allow only a single line of Refinements for a single Application, or multiple lines (one line improves range, other damage, etc)?
Also, do we allow Refinements that require a separate Theory as a requirement?

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For now, i'm not choosing between them. The game will eventually have different classes of weapons (short range, long range, point defense, etc), each of which has it's proper role in combat-- but i'm not dealing with all that now. Just one line, of one class of weapons.


What i mostly need is interesting, non-numerical ways for different short-range weapons to distinguish themselves from each other. I could have come up with a couple dozen names without too much effort.

That sounds pointlessly confusing. With a single line of refinements we can label them "Laser 1", "Laser 5" etc. With multiple lines, whatever label the resultant Laser gets will be more confusing and less clear.

I don't know if the game allows it, but for this topic's experiment, no.

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1. Shield-Piercing - could also be an advanced refinement for all/some SR weapons
2. Requires ammo - I'm not sure this is really suitable for SR...
3. Kills crew - presumably at least some ships (transports) will have some quantifiable amount of crew
4. Stealthy - lower stealth penalty for firing
5. Explosive (damages within a range of the target ship) - also maybe not appropriate for SR, but seems to go nicely with "Requires Ammo"
6. No-Range Dissipation - Will we even have range dissipation in FO?
7. Improved Accuracy - See above


The problem with most of these is that they could just as reasonably be made a refinement for other weapons. So do we want each weapon to have a special unique attribute that no other weapon has? If so, perhaps that feature could be a disadvantage, so that there's no reason for any other SR weapons to want to share this feature. Some examples:

1. Requires Ammo (Rail Gun)
2. Bulky - requires a large slot instead of a small slot, but has comparable power to (or greater power than) 4 small weapons (Death Ray)
3. Unstealthy - excessive stealth penalty for firing (Ion Cannon)
4. Blocked by shields - does minimal damage against shields (Phasor)
5. Generic and Average (Boring? Do we need it?) - (Laser)

You appear to be correct.

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Fair enough. I misunderstood what were you asking for.
Some weapon properties then:

* does no damage to shields (great for coup de grace after target's shields are down)
* does no damage to hull/armor (only damages shields)
* tractor beam (reduces ship's maneuvrability)
* must be fired with shields down (for quick attacks or races that rely more on armor and structure than shields)
* blinding (reduces effectiveness of target's sensors - by affecting it's shield, for example)
* disables target's shields for a couple seconds
* piercing (goes through ships and can hit multiple targets that are in line)
* overheats (must stop firing/disable some systems after a couple salvos)

Oh, and is the range dissipation of damage planned (I don't remember)?


This was mostly a lead-in to my next question, but since you shot it down I guess this one can also be ignored.


I was speaking hypothetically, not code-wise. But yeah.

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OK, good brainstorming list. I put them together

Probable Effects

Shield-Piercing / Weak against shields
Requires ammo
Kills crew (probably not a big advantage)
Stealthy / Unstealthy (may not matter much for Short-range)
Explosive

Effect FO may not Support

Wide Beam (damages everything in a cone, not just a point
No-Range Dissipation
Improved Accuracy
Bulky (Requires bigger slot)

I think each weapon should at least have an unique combination of non-numeric positive, or negative attributes (at least that's the lofty goal i'm aiming for in this thread). Otherwise what's the distinction? I'd rather have applications more distinct from each other. Refinements can cover "just make a number bigger" side of things pretty well.

By combining a couple effects we could create a sequence of applications like this:

1) - Requires Ammo, - Unstealthy
2) + No Ammo, - Unstealthy
3) + No Ammo, + Kills Crew
4) + No Ammo, + Kills Crew + Shield Piercing
5) + No Ammo, + Kills Crew + Shield Piercing+ Explosive

EDIT: em3 posted as i was writing. I like "Piercing", though it would make more sense for Long-range weapons.

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I don't think I like your way of thinking that there should be a strict sorting order of weapon effectiveness. I believe there should be a reason to choose between short range weapons based on tactics a player wants to use.

Of course, there will be weapons that are obviously stronger because they are very advanced technologically and need more time to be researched. I also understand, that the major decision is whether to deploy a SR, LR or PD in a given starship.

Still, I'd like to see weapons that add flavor to an empire just because that particular player decided to use this technology and not some other. Also, emphasis on "how you use it" weapons.

Then again, I understand that such weapons would favor people caring enough to enter tactical combat and not auto-resolve. Out of manual combat flavor would not be visible and special tactics could not be evaluated.


I do that sometimes. I must note I'm heavily biased in favor of super strong rail guns (mostly after reading this webcomic). I see them as a long range weapon with characteristics of a short range weapon (almost immediate hit, strong, cannot be evaded or destroyed by point defense)... but that's just me.

Side note:
If a weapon's weakness can be expressed numerically, refinements might reduce that weakness.

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I don't really see the problem - you're not unlocking a new type of Laser, you're unlocking a refinement to the Laser tech. So instead of "Laser 1" etc, you would have "Laser" as the base application, then refinements such as "Improved Range Laser" and "Shield-Piercing Laser". You wouldn't be putting "Improved Range Laser" or "Shield-Piercing Laser" in your ship designs though; you would be putting in "Laser", along with all (or perhaps optionally, some or none) of its refinements.

So there could be different streams of Laser refinements, for example "Laser Miniaturization 1/2/3", which increase Laser damage by 50%, 35% and 15%. Then parallel to that, you could have "Long-Range Laser" -> "Crew-Killing Laser" -> "Shield-Piercing Laser", which wouldn't require you to research any of the Laser miniaturizations at all.

Also, do we necessarily want the next SR weapon tech to be always "better" than the previous one? In general it should be better, but I think there should still be some situations in which the previous one is better (similar to ship hulls, where we want different hulls of all sizes to be used throughout the game). That's why I think each SR weapon should have a unique disadvantage to set it apart from other weapons (except perhaps the most basic weapon, which could just be weaker, but have no glaring disadvantages).

As a side note, what should the weapons be called? I personally favor Laser, Mass Driver, Phaser, Plasma Cannon and Death Ray.

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That's what I meant with multiple lines of refinements.

I was kind of also arguing that there does not have to be a "next/previous" relation between all SR weapons. Some SR weapons could be at similar depth in technology tree, only in different branches.
Something like (taking into account that this is a simplified diagram and the dependency relation is between theories, not applications):

I like Mass Driver too. More than Coil Gun, anyway.

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Then how is the player going to know what's going on, when he adds a laser or comes against an enemies' ship with a laser? With such an approach there's, the label "Laser" is unhelpfully indefinite, since it includes a broad array of powers and effects. You can't even learn what it means, you have to look up /tooltip the stats and effects for a particular laser each time.

IMHO the top-level weapon name should be associated with the most important details: i.e. the qualitative (non-numeric) effects. A Rail Gun might be: a short range weapon that requires ammo, and has vulnerability to point-defense. This would be true of all Rail Guns-- those details that define what "Rail Gun" means. Refinements might also provide minor qualitative benefits -- if there are enough left over after the applications take what they need. But primarily refinements are about numbers getting bigger. Thus "Rail Gun 1" and "Rail Gun 5" are meaningful and useful for quick comparisons.

I do agree with you that the player shouldn't be choosing between different refinements of the same base weapon when he is designing a ship. The newest refinement should always be the right choice, and it is pointless to clutter up the interface with a lot of absolutely wrong choices -- and if they weren't absolutely wrong choices, the there would be too many choices.


em3: Some of your effects ideas are creative, but not the kind of thing that's likely to work in a quick combat of dozens of ships. This is what we are aiming for:
See here for more info
http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/0.4_ ... let_Points


I thought of a another weapon effects:
"Stun" chance of temporarily incapacitating a ship



Yeah, we want small hulls to be useful throughout the game. That's like Short-range weaponry being useful throughout the game. It doesn't mean that the particular short-range weapon, and small hull that you start the game with should be still have some sort of unique edge. Kinda the point of advancing up the tech tree is to make your current stuff obsolete.

I'm open to the idea that there may be more than one weapon tech on roughly the same level, neither of which is superior, but each having different advantages. But for the purposes of this topic, i'm ignoring such things. I just want to make one line of weapon applications with appropriate refinements..


Geoff, BigJoe, correctly me if i'm wrong, but none of the qualitative effects we've listed so far in this thread are actually currently possible, are they?

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For the current auto-resolved combat, the only gameplay-relevant weapon details are damage, cost, build time, mountable slot type(s), and production location conditions. Ammo requirements, range and its interactions with ship movement, rate of fire, fighter/missile speed and stealth, shield piercing / ineffectiveness against shields, crew killing, disabling / stunning ships or parts of them, ship stealth changes during battles, interactions between PD and missiles or fighters, and anything related to damaging more than one ship at a time (including "explosive"?) don't exist or don't have any function in-game.

For the planned interactive combat, much of the above was planned to be included. However, I think the plan was to have no concept of accuracy; if you're in range and shoot, you will hit, unless it's a missile that gets shot down by PD. Also I think we planned not to have any range dependence for damage. I'd also like to minimize or eliminate randomness in damage dealt by a successful shot, if possible.

Ah. Okay.
Because I don't want Coil Gun (Mass driver) and Laser be thrown into the same bag, I give my own proposal:

Laser
Pulse Cannon
Photon Lance
Phaser
Stellar Cannon
Death Ray

Six weapons that represent (conceptually) more or less a line of applications.

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revision 4449:
"Simplified weapon line-up by adding refinements. Not well integrated with the rest of the tech tree and monsters and some predefined hulls may need new weapon assignments, because weapon strength was compressed to allow room for refinements."

Check it out when you can and see if the power/research/build-cost progression feels reasonable in a game.

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Well in terms of gameplay effects (if bonuses they can be offset with worse numbers, if penalties offset with better numbers)

semi-simple.......
Requires ammo
Bypasses shields
Only damages shields? (could be only does ~10% damage to hull)
Only damages hull? (same as above)

complicated....
Affects target movement [stop/slows or repels or pulls in]
Affects boarding (either kills enemy defense troops or mind/computer control ray or teleports troops)
Stealthy
Area Effect
Damage over time (ie Plasma web)
Time to acquire target (ie delayed damage like LR.. but unlike LR its not preventable.. unless you destroy the SR ship first)

Hi everyone. I’m quite new on this board and more generaly on FreeOrion, so, I may still say something stupid.

Concerning weapon types, I suppose some weapons could reduce the stealth and detection of hit enemy units. (radioactive weapons make the target more visible and less able to see for a short period of time) Nuclear weaponry could be very effective and limited by strategic resources (sorry, but I love to mix debates).

I also think that bioweapons could be interesting, particularly against biologic hulls, and of course useless against other hulls. Such weapons could also have as secondary effect to continue damaging the hit ships for several turns.

Another point I have is about defenses and shields. Several types of defenses could exist and protect mainly (or only) against some types of weapons. To take a not-that-bad example, point defense {laser,canon,…} and counter-measures can protect very effectively against “slow” projectiles (shells, missiles, torpedoes), but not against “fast” projectiles (rail gun?) or energy weapons (laser, ion, plasma, …). Having defenses that can protect against only certain types of weapons has however a very particular influence on game-play: players tend to build ships with mixed weapons, to have more chances of penetrating enemy defenses with minimal attacks, and ships that are built tend to be more useful against immediate enemies.

Here’s the list of weapons I saw in several games/series:

* railgun (exists IRL)
* Gauss gun (is different than railguns. The projectiles can be bigger, but slower, with reduced rate of fire and accuracy…)
* Laser weapons
* Ion canon
* Plasma canon
* Graviton weapons (torpedoes, canon, field, web, …)
* Phasers
* Wormholes, subspace, hyperspace weapons
* Temporal weapons (torpedoes, missiles, …)
* Antimatter weapons (torpedoes, missiles, …)
* Nuclear weapons (torpedoes, shells, missiles, …)
* Standard explosive chemical devices (torpedoes, shells, missiles, canons, …)
* Standard kinetic devices (auto-guns, canons, …)
* Biologic weapons, against biologic entities, ships, etc. or mechanic entities, via organic torpedoes, acidic weapons, etc.
* Nanotechnologic weapons

And here’s my list of known defense systems:

* Point defense laser, canon, phaser
* Counter-measures, Electronic Counter-measures
* Energy shield
* Subspace field, graviton field, temporal field, etc. (hides an object where only subspace weapons, gravitons, temporal particles, etc. can penetrate)
* Holographic counter-measures (to create images of any target, increase stealth, etc.)

I think the weapons to add into FreeOrion should be first those that have adapted prerequisites. That is, no temporal weapon if there no time-related research in the techtree. Besides, I also think the different weapon developments and enhancements should not be related to one another. This would make the player have weapons close to the rest of its technology. (players developing production will have weapons consuming lots of energy first, like lasers or plasma weapons, those who develop research will have antimatter or temporal weapons first, those who develop farming will have bioweapons first, etc…)

Well, of course I wrote a lot of things that are not really organized, and my ideas are sometimes confused, but I felt maybe some of it would be useful. \o/