Story based combat engine

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Aquitaine
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#16 Post by Aquitaine »

If the project gets derailed because of tactical combat and/or ship design, then the project is more or less meant to be derailed.

I am not going to work on a project with the anticipation of failure.

That aside, I am a big proponent of story-driven games and would love to look at incorporating elements like these. I just don't see it as something we need to settle for.
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drek
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#17 Post by drek »

There's no need add formation information to the fleet dialog. Rather, as ships are designed by the player, he might assign a role to the starship. This role would also eliminate any need to define targetting information for weapons.

A ship in one role might natually favor attacking larger capital ships, another role might be to provide point defense for the fleet.

noelte
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#18 Post by noelte »

Aquitaine wrote:If the project gets derailed because of tactical combat and/or ship design, then the project is more or less meant to be derailed.
if you mean that combat gets to complex and becomes the main part of the game, i understand und agree completely with your concerns. Combat should be more than a calculated battle, but imo it's going to far right now.

drek
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#19 Post by drek »

Aquitaine wrote:If the project gets derailed because of tactical combat and/or ship design, then the project is more or less meant to be derailed.
I don't see ship design as a potential problem, but am concerned with overly ambitious tactical combat designs. If the target is a combat engine of the same quality of Moo2 or SC2, it's certainly doable. But, after a lot of pondering and reading, my current impression is that an RTS with a 3d engine is unrealistic.

By derailed, I mean that with attention divided between a complex tactical combat engine and the main game, the time to completion will be doubled (if not more). Beyond GiGi, not a single line of FO code is applicable to a 3d RTS engine. We'd be starting at ground zero again.

This "story based" idea is an attempt to leverage the pre-existing engine...I was imagining using the excellent fleet dialog code as a base for much of the UI functionality, for example.
I just don't see it as something we need to settle for.
There are gameplay advantages to this particular system compared to more advanced tactical engine, including the speed at which players will be able to complete turns and the type of space opera features we'd be able to include that would otherwise be costly to add to a full tactical engine.

Anyway, we've still got plenty of time to think about things re: combat. I'm certain someone will come up with a better idea than what I've presented here, or at least a revolutionary refinement.

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#20 Post by Lyx »

A ship in one role might natually favor attacking larger capital ships, another role might be to provide point defense for the fleet
This "could" work - but i'm skeptical about weird AI decisions in such a case. IMHO, AI-failures or simply doing stuff different than the player intended it to be, is the biggest danger to a story-based battle-approach.

The player designs ships, goes into combat, and gives control of his ships over to the AI - he needs to trust the AI - if the AI messes up or does things which the player didn't intend it to do, then the player will think "stupid ai and story-based approach - just give me a UI, a mouse and some waypoints and let me control my fleets myself!".

Anyways - what about the "position" of a ship or group of ships inside of the fleet? How, in a fleet with 40+ ships, does the player tell the ship where it should be positioned just with a "role" ?

All in all, i'm very sceptical about just asigning every single ship a "role", and then letting the AI do the rest. Just imagine you have a strange mix of weapon-systems on a ship - how do you define that "role", without explicitely telling the AI which weapon should be prefered for which targets?

- Lyx
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noelte
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#21 Post by noelte »

drek wrote: If the target is a combat engine of the same quality of Moo2 ...
Over all i liked how moo2 handle combat. It's quite simple and i also believe that it could be done without delaying fo to much.

Lyx
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#22 Post by Lyx »

noelte wrote:
Aquitaine wrote:If the project gets derailed because of tactical combat and/or ship design, then the project is more or less meant to be derailed.
if you mean that combat gets to complex and becomes the main part of the game, i understand und agree completely with your concerns. Combat should be more than a calculated battle, but imo it's going to far right now.
Imho, the other approach, where there would be a tiled system map, with moving ships on a grid around, would make the game MUCH more complex:

tabletop-approach - combat turn
- the player sees a tiled system-map with ships, planets and objects on them, and moves his fleets on it.
- Then there are questions like "can fleet A (small ships) move more fields, then fleet B(large ships)"? Aka, there may be special rules just for the system-map.
- Anyways, after that, combat takes place, including a complex GUI to give ships orders, set waypoints, etc. on a hexagonal-map
- ground-combat again may happen on a small tiled map, moving units around - on a hexagonal-map.
- tactical GUI for commanding ground units?
- in the meantime, the other players which weren't involved in the battles went off for dinner
- or, combat takes place that fast, that the players dont have time to make use of all these strategic toys fully

story based approach - combat turn
- the player gets presented with a short summary of stats(his ships, enemy fleets, current location in the system)
- the player chooses what to do from a multiple-choice menu
- eventually the choice leads to a second sub-menu. player makes his choice
- if the player has another fleet, he does the same with them
- graphical feedback is shown (be it text-based or realtime-combat). player just watches
- summary of the battle is shown
- turn ends

- Lyx
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drek
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#23 Post by drek »

No one's contending that a "narrative" combat engine would be less complicated than tile based engine.

"narrative" (dragon pass) --> turn based tiled (moo2) --> 3d rts engine (hw and moo3)

In order of complexity to implement.

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#24 Post by Lyx »

i will post a refined version of the story-based approach in a seperate thread, which will blend better into the rest of the game, provide an "engine" for special events in general and balance the load of waiting-time for other players(not involved in combat) even more.

- Lyx
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Krikkitone
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#25 Post by Krikkitone »

I think the 'story based' or.. lets say 'Nontactical' combat engine would be useful and much more appropriate to the 4X game style.

It also would do very good at allowing multiturn system combat because orders could be 'hit+run+hide' or 'search and destroy' or 'scan and report' , etc.

This would work well for things like piracy and would allow a numerically inferior foe not to defeat you but to provide a constant nuisance that could end up lethal if you get overstretched.

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RTS aspect

#26 Post by guiguibaah »

Not to be a nitpick, but Moo3 was really a 2d RTS, with 3d 'models' (if you would call those voxels models).

Even homeworld kept a few 2D aspects (like setting the degree, then the azimuth, for a course).

- - -

Another combat engine which I liked was the combat engine in BOTF (birth of the federation). It resembles a little like Utilae's proposal.

BOTF is turn based, but between turns you are treated to action.
It worked well both for small fleets and big ones... (Although ironically huge battles took less time than did small battles because destroying ships is quicker).

Each ship has a variety of commands based on it's ship type, and it boiled down to a sort of 'rock paper scissors'.

- - - -

For those who haven't played BOTF, here's a little how it worked.

At the beginning of battle, you would select your ships and give them a command.

Attack (Assault, Encircle, Strafe)
Evade (Long range, Evasive)
Retreat (Careful Retreat, Full retreat)

Not all ships had access to all orders. A group of long-range, slow moving assault ships couldn't encircle their foe.

You could select a group of ships based on their fleet number, based on their type, or a single ship.

You could target a group of ships based on their fleet group, their type, or a single ship.

When all orders were given, you pressed turn, and combat ensued. Ships would fly about, duke it out, etc... until that ended.

Commands were rock-paper-scissor like. Assault worked a little better against ships that selected "strafe", Strafe worked better against encircle, etc...

You could view the combat as "tactical", or "Cinematic". Tactical being better for planning, cinematic for enjoyment.

It also took place in a limited 3d environment (mostly 2d, but a little bit of up and down).

You also had the option of doing a full "Combat resolution", and you could watch the AI calculate the whole battle in cinematic mode.

- - -

The only thing I didn't like about the combat engine in BOTF was that, as the battles got bigger, they didn't last as long. You'd push TURN, and in one turn, 3/4 of your fleet was destroyed. They needed to "reduce the amount of events" during the two turns.
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Aquitaine
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#27 Post by Aquitaine »

If the FO space combat engine materialized into being exactly as I'm envisioning it right now, it would be:

(Birth of the Federation + Total War Engine) /2 + FO tweaks
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Impaler
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#28 Post by Impaler »

How about a potential Variation on the Tactical Tiles based Combat with some potential benifits of the Story based aproatch.


Rather then having MULTIPLE turns back and forth between the players their would be only 1 comand for each ship or ground unit.

Movment distances would be greater to represent a full Galactic turn/year or interactions.

You would give generalized orders and engagment types such as "Task Force F Harras that Enemy Cruiser", "Battleship bombards the Nobium Garrison on Planet H", "Fighter wing Scouts and Reports on Enemy fleet disposition", "Task Force G moves to and Hides Behind Plant Q", "ArmyGroud B makes Flanking Attack on Enemy Bunker". The combination of what you pick and what the oponent picks (and some random modifiers) determine the comparitive advantage/disadvantage in the battles a bit like the Moo3 ground combat matrix (but more sophisticated as the failing at differnt attacks have differnt effects)

Another advantage is that Ground and Space combat can now easily work in the same Engine, using the same Code esentialy cutting out a big requirement for our work. The ground units will just have extreamly short moment (1 tile) and must stay on the planetary "Island" as the Ships fly around in the "Ocean" of space around it. Ground units use Ground attack manuvers against other ground units, Ships use Space Combat manuvers against ship and Ground troops (they can bomb the ground troops or evacuate/deploy friendly ones). Both operate off the same set of rules though giving continuity and simplicity to the whole combat engine.

The biggest change is these orders would be entered durring the NORMAL galactic turn by opening up the systems Tactical Display. We no longer need to have a back and forth turn based battle in every sytem between the normal Galactic turns. The battle orders are conducted simultaniously and at the same time between turns as all other orders such as production/diplomacy. So as soon as the End turn button is pressed your get to see your battle results and your Event Reports and get back to the PLAYING, no down time AT ALL!

This will also mean that space combats are likly to stretch over several Galactic turns. Mainly because it will take a ships some time to move across the system tactical map, say that an average ship might move roughly 1/4 of the Diameter of the system map in a turn. We can just say that Sublight travel isn't very fast in FO (their are a number of interesting Sci-Fi settings that do this, the Foundation series for one)
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drek
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Re: RTS aspect

#29 Post by drek »

guiguibaah wrote:Not to be a nitpick, but Moo3 was really a 2d RTS, with 3d 'models' (if you would call those voxels models).
The issue is not the number of dimensions in which gameplay occurs, but rather the technical hurdles that must be surpassed with a polygon or voxel engine. (the voxel engine would actually be more complicated, imho, since it wouldn't be able to leverage much of opengl's functionality.)

I believe that within the realm of possibilty to use 3d models. But mixing in RTS elements (selection of units, unit orders, real time networking, etc) will require a legendary effort.

Getting all this stuff to work is cake....compared to getting all this stuff to work at an acceptable framerate, for every common graphics card on the market, for at least two OSes.

I'd love Total War: Space, but I don't think it's sane target for an open source project with no budget. For that reason, I'll continue to suggest finding a simpler engine that all the principals can live with--at very least for v1.0.

Anyway, again: there's still plenty of time to think about this stuff. I'll shut up about it till v.3's design is locked.

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#30 Post by Marijn »

- I do not think showing a detailed animation would be viable in the 'narrative' combat system. Unless we create a really brilliant AI the player will get very frustrated by the stupid things his ships do and his inability to micro-manage them. And I suspect we won't be able to make the AI brilliant enough.

- Creating a 3d engine for simple space-combat is not all that hard. Performance is less of an issue than in most 3d engines because most of the screen will be showing 'deep space', and no complex animation is needed for spaceships. The nonessential stuff like special effects, shadow casting and whatnot can be added later - it is not necessary for a playable version.

That being said, I really like this idea.

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