A few simple things to make FO more playable

[Bigjoe5]

Weren't ships supposed to be slowly repaired when they were within supply range? That doesn't seem to happen, nor when they are in one of their systems.

Repairing hasn't been implemented. I don't remember if or what was decided about how it should work though...

I didn't really remember either, but this sounds good:

• * Ships located in a shipyard's system are fully repaired (current health set to max health) at the start of each turn, except on turns in which the ships engaged in battle.
  * Ships located within the fleet resupply network of their empire are slightly repaired by having their current health meter increased by some to-be-determined small amount each turn.
  * Ships located outside their fleet resupply network do not repair between turns.

5% or 10% maybe?

Yeah, I can get behind that. 5% sounds reasonable - enough to give an advantage to players who are in their own supply range, but not too much that players will retreat an sit their ships around until they're at max health again (as opposed to sending them to a shipyard).

Then there are species/ship parts/hulls that can also facilitate repair, but that can all be implemented via effectsgroups.

[Bigjoe5]

It occurred to me just know that the design pad said "except for ships engaged in combat" for the repairing thing. I think it should apply even to ships that are in combat - otherwise, its not really a significant combat advantage for being in your own territory.

[eleazar]

It occurred to me just know that the design pad said "except for ships engaged in combat" for the repairing thing. I think it should apply even to ships that are in combat - otherwise, its not really a significant combat advantage for being in your own territory.

Well it is sorta moot. The presence of enemies in a system prevents the planetary and ship supply lines from reaching it.

I don't know if you are right or not-- why don't we wait and see? If you are right, it shouldn't be hard to make ship supply lines go to systems with enemies in them, but not beyond those systems.

Alternatively supply for actively contested systems might not change until one fleet was destroyed or fled.

[eleazar]

It looks like all planets in a system need to have their shields down to 1 or less before any of them can be invaded.
Is this intentional?
It seems like it would make more sense if it worked planet by planet.

[Geoff the Medio]

It looks like all planets in a system need to have their shields down to 1 or less before any of them can be invaded.
Is this intentional?
It seems like it would make more sense if it worked planet by planet.

I'm not seeing that... I have my invasion fleet in a system with two native planets, one with shield 5 that I can't invade, and one with shield 0 that I can.

[eleazar]

My bad, it looks like the issue why i couldn't invade at first was all my ships in the system had a detection of 2. When i brought in another warship, it provided detection of 5 AND blasted down the shields.

I've previously suggested (and IIRC, implemented, but it doesn't seem to be the case anymore) that all ships have a base detection of 5. This is equal to the natural stealth of a planet, so Colony Ships and Troop Ships don't need to always be accompanied by Scouts or have special detection equipment to do their thing.

So, i set the minimum detection of hulls to at least 5. (R 4225) Hulls with a detection greater than 5 i left as they were.

And i observed a glitch, In ship design, no matter what the detection of a hull, or how many scanners you add, it reports that the ship design has a detection of 0. I assume this has something to do with the fact that detection is added via a effects group, rather than directly as a stat of the hull, like speed and structure, etc. are.

[Geoff the Medio]

In ship design, no matter what the detection of a hull, or how many scanners you add, it reports that the ship design has a detection of 0. I assume this has something to do with the fact that detection is added via a effects group, rather than directly as a stat of the hull, like speed and structure, etc. are.

Yes. If the detection parts used the capacity = functionality to set the meter, then it would account for that in that bonus in the design summary. With hand-written effectsgroups, there can be arbitrary conditions imposed on when the bonus is applied, so it's not simple, and sometimes not possible, to calculate a single detection (or most other) statistic for a design.

[eleazar]

In ship design, no matter what the detection of a hull, or how many scanners you add, it reports that the ship design has a detection of 0. I assume this has something to do with the fact that detection is added via a effects group, rather than directly as a stat of the hull, like speed and structure, etc. are.

Yes. If the detection parts used the capacity = functionality to set the meter, then it would account for that in that bonus in the design summary. With hand-written effectsgroups, there can be arbitrary conditions imposed on when the bonus is applied, so it's not simple, and sometimes not possible, to calculate a single detection (or most other) statistic for a design.

Yeah, i understand why effectsgroups don't translate into a single simple stat.

What i don't understand is why detection is accomplished using effectsgroups instead of by basic hull/part stats like "structure." It seems like the benefits of being able to clearly report to the player what the detection of his ships/fleets are would outweigh the advantages of hand-writting the occasional special detection rules. Do we even have any special rules?

[Geoff the Medio]

What i don't understand is why detection is accomplished using effectsgroups instead of by basic hull/part stats like "structure."

I think Bigjoe5 wrote the relevant content script, so I'm making an educated guess, but it appears that he used effectsgroups instead of the simpler part capacity number because the effectsgroups allowed him to make the detection bonuses not stackable. So, if you have 3 of a detection part, you're no better of than if you had 1, with the current scripts. With the capacity number instead, adding 3 would be 3 times as good at detection.

[Bigjoe5]

What i don't understand is why detection is accomplished using effectsgroups instead of by basic hull/part stats like "structure."

I think Bigjoe5 wrote the relevant content script, so I'm making an educated guess, but it appears that he used effectsgroups instead of the simpler part capacity number because the effectsgroups allowed him to make the detection bonuses not stackable. So, if you have 3 of a detection part, you're no better of than if you had 1, with the current scripts. With the capacity number instead, adding 3 would be 3 times as good at detection.

That's correct. Would it be possible to make an assumption about the condition of the ship, and use that to evaluate the effectsgroups and come up with an estimate of the ship's detection power(/other relevant stats)?

[Geoff the Medio]

Would it be possible to make an assumption about the condition of the ship, and use that to evaluate the effectsgroups and come up with an estimate of the ship's detection power(/other relevant stats)?

Doing something like that would be complicated... Conditions are evaluated on actual in-game objects, so "mak(ing) an assumption" would involve creating a test object and evaluating the conditions on it. If there are conditions about the location of the object, or the number of objects that match other conditions, or other similar tests, then they probably won't work properly for such a test object. This also wouldn't work well for giving estimates for a single part or hull, as there's no way to make a test object for just a part or just a hull (as opposed to a complete ship design that could be made as a ship).

[eleazar]

Currently a number is reported for "detection" in the fleet window.

[Geoff the Medio]

Currently a number is reported for "detection" in the fleet window.

Yes... that should be accurate, and apply to the particular object (a ship) it is displayed for. Bigjoe5 was asking about calculating / estimating the detection for a ship design, before it is made into a ship.

[eleazar]

I made new fleet icons and uploaded them (R 4231) for weaponless monsters and for ground invasion landers.

I still want to redo all those fleet icons for greater clarity, but that's for later.

[eleazar]

Life Frequency

I've tested a lot of galaxies since "life frequency" was added-- usually on high, sometimes medium. I feel the number of space monsters is good, but the frequency of neutral inhabited planets is too high. The large majority of habitable (not asteroids or gas giants) planets are already taken. If you want to expand, the ground lander is much more useful than the colony ship. With this kind of distribution it's hard to see how a diverse federation style player wouldn't have a huge advantage.

I think "high" should produce 1/3rd to 1/4th as many minor species planets as the current rate.

From the universe tables it doesn't look like the frequency of inhabited worlds can be altered apart from the monsters, so i haven't done anything.