@Geoff the Medio
You talk about weapons firing differently not being strategic and that there is no reason to pick one over another. Its all about preference. If you go with an intricate countering system where there are a hundred different items that counter eachother, then how is that any different? I put weapon A on my ship, but shield B counters it and weapon C is countered by armor D and by the time you get through with it, it isn't going to matter what you put on your ships because there will always be a counter. So according to you, this means that there is no strategy involved in it.
If there is some limited counter that is easy to understand, then I'm all for it, but when you talk about a hundred different things countering eachother, that is just far too complex.
Geoff the Medio" wrote:You miss the point. The diagram was to illustrate the shape of 5-way rock paper scissors, and how it's not necessary to have some of every kind of equipment to cover all your weaknesses / have a winning / optimal fleet / task force. The specific words that were put into the nodes of the diagram are irrelivant.
How are you going to put a hundred different items into this?
Geoff the Medio wrote:I guess nobody would ever play chess or WarcraftIII, since there are just so many different counters for every move/unit that it's impossible to keep track of then...?
The whole point is to make it complex enough to be interesting to the player... without always having obviously right, wrong or best choices. The player will need to plan and weigh the options.
This is just a silly and stupid arguement. Chess has no countering other than moving to block. That is what would happen in combat. Attack here, retreat there, stand your ground. Comparing a board game to a space strategy game is ridiculous. s for Warcraft III, I've never played it. I played one and two so I imagine that it is the same. Cheap units do small ammounts of damage, stronger units cost more, etc. How does this fit countering? It is balancing. You build the stronger units to do more damage even though they cost more and you build the small stuff because its cheaper and fast so you can have more. This would be a comparison to hull sizes, not counters.
The Key to the second part of that quote is "complex enough." If you make it too complex, the player won't be interested either. How can there be obviously right or wrong choices when choosing between a dozen different types of weapons each of which do damage in different ways and each of which have individual characteristics. Maybe you didn't read the thread before posting. Beams would fire at longer ranges than Bolts, but Bolts would do more damage. Projectile would have a long range and do more damage, but they are limited by ammo. Missiles do a tremendous ammount of damage but can be destroyed by PD. The Wave Emitters would effect more ships but have a range shorter than that of Bolts. Is all this counters, in a way yes. I never said I didn't want a countering system, I just don't want a complex one where every weapon is countered by a shield or armor everyone of which is countered by a weapon. Throw in hull sizes, sensors, and anything else and it is even more complex.
Geoff the Medio wrote:A diagram showing graphically what's strong and weak against what would be easily understood.
Not if there was a hundred different items on it. First you have to find the item you want to use, then you have to follow the lines to find what it's strong and weak against. Then you have to see if there's anything that would work better, etc., etc. A complex system like this also requires a lot of devotion and complexity with spying. Spying is fun to destroy buildings or ships or maybe assasinate a leader or steal technology, but if you have to get down to paying attention and constantly spying just so you know what your opponents are up to, it would put too much focus on spying.
Geoff the Medio wrote:By restricting the complexity to workable levels, and designing understandable patterns or rules into the system. Possible ways include using concepts like "damage type" (kinetic, energy, chemical, explosive...), that determines how much and what kind of damage will be done if a weapon hits, "delivery mechanism" (fighter, beam, missile, spray...) would determine range and how likely things are to hit, or "defence type" (armour X, armour Y, shielding Q, really fast ships that outrun anything). Alternatively, we can just keep the number of distinct weapons, defences and other ship properties to manageable levels, so a web showing all the strengths and weaknesses the individual options is readable. This needn't be much more complicated than unit-countering in an RTS, and people seem to be able to understand that well enough.
If you can draw out a diagram showing how this would work and make it understandable, I would back countering. If I feel it is too complex, I'll point out where it is too complex. I just don't want to have a headache after trying to design one ship.
Zpock wrote:In short, dumbed down average joe just play the game type of game vs abyss deep you-will-never-master-it gameplay that forces you to THINK THINK THINK more and better then your opponent.
I find this mildly offensive. If the word dumb wasn't in there, I would have no problem. I am not lookig for a game that "dumb" peopl can play. I am looking for a game that anyone can play.
tzlaine wrote:This is about as wrong-headed as it gets. We are not trying to appeal to an audience of potential customers. We are not making this game for anyone but *us*. We are smart people who can handle a little complexity, or we wouldn't play TBS games.
Define "us." Is us the people actually doing programming, graphics, audio, etc? Is us the people contributing to these forums? Is us the people who were disappointed in MOO3? How many people does us encompass? If us is just the programmers, then why spend money on a forum to get other peoples ideas? If us is anything else, then Zpock is right. Granted, you aren't selling it but you do want people to see the game and like the game and maybe for the big companies who sell to consumers to like it and possibly adopt some of the concepts into there games. If this is the case, which I think it is, then you need to make the game easy to understand.
Zpock wrote:Yeah about the ratio that was what I was trying to say about complex game - complex strategy. I think moo3 is a good example on a really bad ratio, game complexity was "washed out", too much little details that didn't make any real difference.
Yes, MOO3 is a good example. It was far too complex for the rewards that we were able to get from it. That turned a lot of people off from the game. Too complex = uninteresting.
Programming different layers would take a lot of extra time, something that I don't think most of us want to wait for. There should be one way the game is done, with difficulty changing how the AI plays.
I agree with everything utilae said in his post. I don't need to elaborate more on that.
Geoff the Medio wrote:If a ship has more than one weapon and can shoot at more than one other ship at the same time anyway, then not at all. And even if it's only one target at at time for lasers, if the combat effectiveness is balanced, then no. Why would you pick one option or the other? That you can shoot at 12 at once instead of 1 at a time in of itself is not strategically different in of itself, if both options have the same result, which they would if things are balanced (which they should be) and there are no counters.
Even if lasers can fire at multiple targets, the wave would be stronger. The balance comes in a few ways, price of the weapon, size of the weapon, range of the weapon, recharge rate of the weapon and damage of the weapon. If everything is balanced by making the damage about equal, then I go back to my "What's the point of having different weapons" commnet. For example, Phasor Beam would cost 10, have a size of 5, do 10 damage, have a range of 10 and a recharge rate of 2. Pulsar Wave Emitter(PWE) would cost 50, have a size of 10, do 600 damage, have a range of 3 and a recharge rate of 10. In this way, they would be balanced. While the PWE would do massive ammounts of damage, you would have to get in close to the ships to make it effective, where with the Phasor, you could stand off and fire at the enemy.
Geoff the Medio wrote:"The way you use them" is exactly the same: you shoot/launch/fire at something until you win or loose. The decision whether to shoot at your own ships to get rid of the drones is insignificant and purely tactical (assuming no countering), because the drones would have to be balanced so that all other weapons would have even chances against them. For each given other weapon that would either mean either shooting the drones or not, and would be well-known beforehard, meaning there isn't actually any real choice for the player here anyway; for each case, there is an obvious best choice (be it to shoot the drones or not).
How would a countering system effect this differently at all? You will still "shoot/launch/fire at something until you won or lost." You would still have to deside between doing X, Y or Z. Your choices will always be the same. The only difference wouldbe that you would do more or less damage depending on how well each side had done at countering. The other difference would of course be that you spent an hour designing one ship instead of 5 minutes.
Geoff the Medio wrote:Zerglings are different and usable at the end because of the countering system of Stracraft, in which they fill a specific niche.
Since I have also never played Starcraft, I don't know how this works for sure, but I would also imagine that it is based on speed, damage vs. cost, etc. Again, this is balance, not countering.
I like what LithiumMongoose said. It made sense and sounds reasonable and workable. I disagree that Nova (aka Wave Emitters, I just like the name better) weapons would be the most powerful. A new type that I thought of: Kamikazies. They are packed with heavy explosives and when they are near enough to enemy ships, the explode massively destroying everything nearby. They would be balanced by making them very expensive to build and unless you had the right type of government, unrest would be caused due to you sacrificing lives in that matter.
Geoff the Medio wrote:I was objecting to the claim that the shape of the weapon blasts would make a difference in the context of a system without any counters.
You seem to be focusing only on what the weapons would look like in combat, not how they would actually work.
Geoff the Medio wrote:Also, shields could let certain kinds of weapons out (lasers) but not mass drivers / plasma etc, as (fluff) you have to turn them off when something you're firing out passes through. Thus shields would be good on ships with pulsed energy weapons, but bad for continuous fire gatling-type guns or ships with lots of non-laser PD.
I strongly disagree with using this as a counter for shields. It would be far to huge. You would only be able to use the shield half of the time because of having to lower it constantly. All the enemy has to do is to time their recharges for when the shield is down for you to fire. Then the shield is useless. Lets stick with certain things be stronger against others.