A few simple things to make FO more playable

[Yakk]

You can get close enough to a star to flip it to being "explored" icon and side panel, without actually seeing the planets.

[Bigjoe5]

You can get close enough to a star to flip it to being "explored" icon and side panel, without actually seeing the planets.

That's true - since planets have a base stealth of 5 (or something like that) there's a point where you can see a system without being able to see the planets in the system. Once you enter a system though, you automatically gain visibility of all the planets in the system (IIRC). There should probably be a UI distinction between systems that have just been seen from afar and systems that you have actually entered, since the gameplay distinction is rather important.

Eventually, I'd prefer for FO to save information about the level of visibility (being detection minus stealth minus distance) you've had of any object, so you know how much you know about that object. For example, if you've had visibility of 19 of a particular star system, this tells you that there could be cloaked planets with a stealth of 20 in the system that you haven't seen, but that you can definitely see all the planets in the system with a stealth lower than 19. Or for example, perhaps you need a visibility of 20 to determine the owner of a ship that's been disguised as belonging to another empire. If you've had visibility of 19, you don't know for sure if that ship belongs to whom you think it belongs to. If you've seen it with a visibility of over 20, then the ownership is certain. For example.

I sort of doubt that's trivial to implement, or even universally agreed on though...

[Geoff the Medio]

You can get close enough to a star to flip it to being "explored" icon and side panel, without actually seeing the planets.

That's true - since planets have a base stealth of 5 (or something like that) there's a point where you can see a system without being able to see the planets in the system.

There's not much the engine can do to properly handle that... Effects can do arbitrary things, so the UI assumes near-0 stealth for most planets, and thus that seeing a system with detection - distance - stealth > 0 gives a strategically different type of information about that system.

There should probably be a UI distinction between systems that have just been seen from afar and systems that you have actually entered, since the gameplay distinction is rather important.

Since ships can have a wide variety of detection ranges / strengths, there's not really that much of a difference between being near and in a system with regard to visibility.

Eventually, I'd prefer for FO to save information about the level of visibility (being detection minus stealth minus distance) you've had of any object, so you know how much you know about that object.

A basic form of this is already done, with the game tracking whether and when you saw objects with basic, partial or full visibility, where basic just means you know it exists and what kind of object it is (ship, system, building), partial means you know most stuff about it, and full means you know everything.

For example, if you've had visibility of 19 of a particular star system...

I doubt we need or will have multiple different visibility excess thresholds for specific bits of data. Presently the only visibility / stealth threshold is 0, which gives partial visibility. Basic occurs in a few special cases, and full requires ownership of an object.

[eleazar]

You can get close enough to a star to flip it to being "explored" icon and side panel, without actually seeing the planets.

That's true - since planets have a base stealth of 5 (or something like that) there's a point where you can see a system without being able to see the planets in the system. Once you enter a system though, you automatically gain visibility of all the planets in the system (IIRC). There should probably be a UI distinction between systems that have just been seen from afar and systems that you have actually entered, since the gameplay distinction is rather important.

Yeah, to expand upon my complaint a little more:

When you get close enough to a star, it flips from the unknown system icon to showing what kind of star (if any) it is. If you click on that star, what you see in sidebar is exactly identical to what you see of a fully explored/visited star without any planets.

So once you explore part of the galaxy, (especially if it is in a more open formation) you'll have a situation where a decent number of systems show that they have no planets. Unless you remember exactly which systems your ships passed through, there is no way to distinguish between systems with no planets and systems that you merely haven't been close enough to discover if they have planets.

This is the kind of complication that occurs when you stray too far from KISS.

Anyway, which kind of "explored" is it that lets trade routes go through? The "iv'e actually been in the system" or the "i've been close enough to see what kind of star it is"?

Eventually, I'd prefer for FO to save information about the level of visibility (being detection minus stealth minus distance) you've had of any object, so you know how much you know about that object. For example, if you've had visibility of 19 of a particular star system, this tells you that there could be cloaked planets with a stealth of 20 in the system that you haven't seen...

I agree you need those numbers attached to every object (with the addition of the current level of scanning an object is receiving, and maybe what the source of the strongest scanning is) if the player is really going to know what's going on with this stealth system. Even with the numbers attached i have a hard time imagining that it wouldn't be at least somewhat confusing.

[eleazar]

Hiding certain types of "undiscovered" information in the Galactopedia. (like minor species you haven't met)

Monster types are hidden until observed. Not sure about doing this in general though... It's all going to be available online anyway... Why make finding info any more difficult for players than necessary?

I agree it is futile to try to hide information from a determined player-- even if we weren't an open source project with most data in text files.

My purpose isn't to keep them from "cheating" but to avoid cluttering up the Galactopedia with entries for things that may not occur in a particular galaxy. Also i think there's a bit of satisfaction to be gained by filling up blank parts of the Galactopedia with your discoveries.

But really this isn't something that's a real problem now-- it's more a feature request to make the nearish future cooler.

[Bigjoe5]

There should probably be a UI distinction between systems that have just been seen from afar and systems that you have actually entered, since the gameplay distinction is rather important.

Since ships can have a wide variety of detection ranges / strengths, there's not really that much of a difference between being near and in a system with regard to visibility.

Since a player automatically gains visibility of all planets in a system upon entering it (right? or did I completely make that up?), there really is a big difference between being near and in a system with regard to visibility.

[Geoff the Medio]

...a player automatically gains visibility of all planets in a system upon entering it (right? ...

Not that I know of... though I might be missing and forgetting some special case code.

There are special cases for if a player can see an object inside another object (ie. ship in a fleet, planet in a system, building on a planet) but not the containing object, in which case the containing object gets basic visibility. That doesn't grant knowledge of any other contained objects, though.

I am pondering making ships not in systems give no contribution to visibility. This would avoid cases where there's motivation to tweak the move path so you just barely don't make it to a system, but are very close so get near to max benefit from the ship being there since the distance-difference loss in detection power is very small. It would also handle cases of a starlane's midpoint being near enough to another system (not connected to the starlane) for a ship en-route to see into the system while passing by, which seems like it shouldn't happen, and also depend on micromanageable specifics of how move path distances add up.

[Bigjoe5]

...a player automatically gains visibility of all planets in a system upon entering it (right? ...

Not that I know of... though I might be missing and forgetting some special case code.

I just tested this by giving planets a stealth of 50. They can always be detected if I have a ship in the same system.

I am pondering making ships not in systems give no contribution to visibility. This would avoid cases where there's motivation to tweak the move path so you just barely don't make it to a system, but are very close so get near to max benefit from the ship being there since the distance-difference loss in detection power is very small. It would also handle cases of a starlane's midpoint being near enough to another system (not connected to the starlane) for a ship en-route to see into the system while passing by, which seems like it shouldn't happen, and also depend on micromanageable specifics of how move path distances add up.

Alternatively, we could make it so that ships can detect objects while moving provided they're close enough to any point on the ship's path.

[eleazar]

I am pondering making ships not in systems give no contribution to visibility. This would avoid cases where there's motivation to tweak the move path so you just barely don't make it to a system, but are very close so get near to max benefit from the ship being there since the distance-difference loss in detection power is very small. It would also handle cases of a starlane's midpoint being near enough to another system (not connected to the starlane) for a ship en-route to see into the system while passing by, which seems like it shouldn't happen, and also depend on micromanageable specifics of how move path distances add up.

I think that would be a good thing. It makes the game cleaner.

From a dramatic standpoint it improves the game, since it is less likely for exploring/attacking ships nearing a destination to provide you with information a turn before they actually arrive.

And it helps the player focus, since information on a system would generally be provided when the player arrives and can do something about it, instead of a little before and a little on arrival.

[Geoff the Medio]

I just tested this by giving planets a stealth of 50. They can always be detected if I have a ship in the same system.

There was a bug where (detection - stealth) was being rounded up to 0 if it was negative and then compared to the distance, which if objects were in the same system, would equal the 0 and thus allow the object to be seen. This has been fixed in SVN, so that stealth can actually function as intended in systems.

[eleazar]

I'm pleased to see Geoff has started work on ground combat. I would have included that in this topic's list, but I thougt it was beyond the scope of "simple" to implement. Of course the concept I think he/we have in mind is rather simple.

[Geoff the Medio]

...I thoug[ht ground combat] was beyond the scope of "simple" to implement. Of course the concept I think he/we have in mind is rather simple.

It is, for both points; I am planning a relatively simple implementation of ground combat, though even that will be a bit complicated to get working.

The motivation for doing this now was partly that the existing mechanism for conquering during ship/planet combat was awkward to handle for sitrep purposes, and splitting ground combat out into a separate turn stage would help with that.

[eleazar]

* Different strengths for various species -- i'm working on that one...

After looking things over and thinking about it, i don't think this is a good time to do that. The focus system doesn't seem completely balanced yet. If i give different species different focus calculations, it will be very difficult to reform foci in general, without throwing away the differences.

[Geoff the Medio]

The focus system doesn't seem completely balanced yet.

What do you mean by that? Something to do with the basic mechanics, or just the content currently scripted?

[eleazar]

The focus system doesn't seem completely balanced yet.

What do you mean by that? Something to do with the basic mechanics, or just the content currently scripted?

To answer that i'd have to know what i wanted to be changed-- but i don't have a solution at this time.
It just more clumsy, frustrating, and confusing than i'd like when you start out. Everything that effect the focus meters seems to do it in a different way.
Then there are 13 different foci (most of which are unlocked later, and i haven't seen in-game). Maybe some of these are foci simply because that's the only way to do things-- but i don't have a clear idea about what the concept is supposed to be, or how foci are supposed to work. I guess i missed a discussion sometime.