I had those categories and mized the subspace category the way I did to try to balance things out, which many people have mentioned before. Those of course can be moved around and I'm atarting to think that maybe they should be.
Geoff the Medio wrote:Adding new concepts to the mix other than weapons, armour and shields doesn't necessarily mean the resulting system will be more complex. For example, you could start by scrapping 1/2 to 2/3 of your shield and armour types, lumping the shields and armours together under "defences" and (optionally) scrapping 1/3 of the damage types. Then add in factors relating to delivery mechansims to the mix (simplified from the previous suggestions), and then add a few different types of PD to defences, and maybe include engine speed and ship size factors as well. The resulting total number of part options wouldn't necessarily be much different than your list.
Delivery systems are pretty much covered by the damage types:
Weapon Type (Delivery system)------------------Damage type
Beam---------------------------------------------------Energy, Thermal, Phased
Bolt-----------------------------------------------------Energy, Thermal, Phased
Projectile-----------------------------------------------Kinetic
Subspace-----------------------------------------------Subspace
Wave Emitter------------------------------------------Energy, Thermal, Phased
Missile---------------------------------------------------Explosive
Torpedo-------------------------------------------------Explosive
A better system than the one I made will be used, but I was attempting to actually draw out a workable system with names for examples instead of letters.
PD is for missiles, torpedos and fighters, there isn't much else that can be covered by PD. While PD is a countering system, it's one that is countering how powerful missiles, etc. are. Engine speed and ship size would just complicate matters, IMO, by adding confusing things into the system. How would engine speed and ship size effect the weapons? Causing the weapons to miss maybe? That is manueverability and is something completely different. Why would a small ship be effected by a certain weapon more than a big ship? Without actually making a system, it's hard to imagine how the system would work.
This is also why it would be difficult to make a system using letters and numbers for the items being countered. You can make the system all you want, but then you have to figure out what you are going to put into that system. What if something doesn't fit into like you wanted it to? You then have to completely rework the system just for that one thing. If you start out with names and purposes, you still have to adjust the system, but it is easier to do.
Geoff the Medio wrote:You lost me... "couldn't get enough fluff to it" ?
I couldn't think of enough names for weapons to make it a category. I was looking at acids only and it seemed it would be a very limited area.
Geoff the Medio wrote:I don't follow... Whether you decide on 6 damage types before , simultaneously with, or after deciding what the types will be, you're going to have the same limitation: 6 damage types. Are you suggestiong there is some other limitation that arises...? How/why/what?
If you look at my system, you'll notice I have certain damage types grouped together in certain areas. Reactive armor exists today and effects armor piercing and directional charge weapons by exploding outward to mett the incoming explosion/projectile, which forces it outward and doesn't allow it to penetrate the armor. If I had just gone with a A is stronger than B & C system, how could I assign names into the system and make it work like it works? I'm not saying it's perfect, but certain armor and shield types were named because they primarily target certain damage types.
Geoff the Medio wrote:If you were playing an RTS, would you rather that (for example) all 3 playable factions/races had the same set of 60 units, or that each race had 20 units of its own that no other race/faction had? Which is more diverse?
I have never played StarCraft or WarCraft III so I don't know for sure if those work the same as WarCraft II. In WC2, each side did have the same units, they were just named the same. Peasant=Peon, Footman=Grunt, Archer=Axethrower, Demolition Team=Sappers, Submarine=Turtle. Although SC and WC3 have counters in them where WC2 didn't, I'd be willing to bet they work similarly. Basic Foot unit for all, Basic Ranged unit for all, Basic Mounted unit for all, etc. RTS also aren't the best example since the units are pretty much set with little or no customizability. Even if they do allow you to customize units, it wouldn't be on the scale of FO.
Nobody is going to design their ships exactly the same, but if you give the same things the same penalties all of the time, that will result in similar tactics and strategies having to be followed all of the time.
LithiumMongoose wrote:Aaaand I still say drop armor types altogether and just use the hull types (metal organic crystal energy is a nice list). This keeps things simple while still providing 3 or 4 types on both sides. I really don't think we want more than that.
On shields I like the MOO2 approach: one type, energy. You can enhance them with optional "mods", for this I'd stick to just "variable random phase" and "hard", which add benefits at the cost of making the shield generators much larger/heavier.
utilae wrote:I don't think a very wide range is covered here. It seems like metal armor with small variations. I think woven isn't very good and resonating is like a subspace armor I guess, isnt it.
Using hull types means all types would have to be usable by all races. While I'm not opposed to this, I favor having the hull types preset for each race. I also said:
Ranos wrote:The easier way was to come up with a few different armor types (six to be exact) and allow all hulls to mount them, but with different names.
While the six I have listed use the Metal names, each hull type would have the same armor type but the names would be different. Yet at the same time, they don't need to be different. Woven can be metal fibers, organic fibers, crystal fibers or energy fibers. Either way it doesn't matter.
For the system to be able to work, at least from the way I see it, every aspect of it must be equal or multiples. I used 6 for all of mine because thats what I came up with. If you changed it to 3 damage types, 4 armor types and 2 shield types, how would you balance it out so one armor type didn't have more strengths than another? If everything isn't balanced, it favors one thing over the other which would lead ot cookie cutter builds.
utilae wrote:Ranos wrote:
Armor
Doing this would give the same races the same two armor types all of the time and therefore, certain races certain benefits and advantages.
That would be ok, if a race has a set hull, and the hull had set armor types (i like my idea for hulls and armor though, yeah i know, i am biased).
As I said, this would limit diversity in builds and lead to the same races having to use the same shields to counter the weaknesses in their armors.
utilae wrote:Shield 6=Heat Shield ???
Thought of that but was looking for a better name. That would probably do though.
utilae wrote:With both shield and armor types the weapon has to get through two types of counters.
eg Kinetic weapon VS Particle Shield + Woven Armor
The weapons damaged is effectively reduced twice. And the weapon has to deal with two layers of counters, rather than just one.
Yes but while that ship would be strong against kinetic you also have to take the weaknesses into account. A ship using Woven Armor and Particle would have the following bonuses and disadvantages:
Energy 0, Thermal 0, Phased +1, Subspace -1, Kinetic +2, Explosive -2
Woven is +1 against Energy but Particle is -1 which zeros it out. The above ship would be very strong against kinetic but very weak against explosive.
utilae wrote:I disagree with 'Phased' as you describe it. I think that phased should be closer to sub space. The way you describe it it is jut another type of energy that fluctuates. Also I think that thermal is too common, ie heat can possibly be found in all weapons (which is why you propose to mix explosive with other types, i don't like that idea).
I'm not saying that anything I wrote should be set in stone, it was merely an attempt to show a workable countering system. Thermal is produced with just about everything, but there are weapons that have their primary means be thermal for burning through. Maybe just throw it in with energy but I like it as a separate category.
As for explosive mixed with other types, lets look at the torpedos I listed. Plasma Torpedo, it does Thermal damage (because it's plasma) but when it impacts, it also explodes. Subspace Torpedo, it does subspace damage but explodes on impact. Missiles would be the same. No matter what kind you had, it would act with an explosive force, therefore needing to be in the explosive category while also doing some other form of damage. Photon Torpedo would do Energy damage, Nuclear Missile would do Thermal Damage, Scatter Missile (blows up launching hundreds of small projectiles at the target) Kinetic. The list goes on. Thats why I said to mix them with other damages. If you just go with explosive, you neglect another damage type that they do.
utilae wrote:Corosive (as I called it) was not necesarily acid or chemical reactions to armour, it was the effective of wearing down armor, etc, like poison wears down you hp over time.
I couldn't figure out how to get a bunch of weapons that would fit in the chemical category, but by naming it corrosive and puting anything that would eat armor opens up the door. It could be chemical, it could be biological or it could be technological (nanites).
LithiumMongoose wrote:Sort of a "crushing vs piercing, disregarding slashing" approach, if I were to make a fantasy-setting analogy eh? Okay, I'll buy that.
Thats an excelent analogy. Slashing = Energy, Piercing = Thermal, Crushing = Explosive. Now I have a reason, even if it is somewhat twisted, for having Thermal be a category.
LithiumMongoose" wrote:Why's that? Nothing wrong with more types of guns, and the names just *sound* cool lol.
I think the more names for weapons that we can come up with, the better. Just because we come up with 300 doesn't mean they will all be used, it just allows for more names and differences in weapons.
LithiumMongoose wrote:If you mean what are they from a realistic standpoint... dark matter is the more commonly known of the two, it's the stuff no one's been able to see or identify yet (hence dark) that is deduced to exist because it is necessary to account for all the "missing" mass in the universe. Without it, the universe would have stopped expanding long ago, or something. Dark energy is a newer scientific concept, and they don't know much of anything about it either yet. The term was coined because they were having trouble explaining all their results about the universe with just dark matter I think. Plus they needed something for it to be interconvertible with (like normal matter and normal energy are ultimately the same thing). I'm sure a google search would turn up more if you're really curious, but as it is I *am* pretty sure these are real astrophysics terms.
While many scifi games/movies/TV shows make Dark Matter out to be this exotic, invisible to the naked eye thing, the way the astronerds mean it is different. Dark matter is stuff we can't see because it emits no light. Planets are considered dark matter. They emit no light and don't reflect it strong enough for us to be able to see them at this distance. Other dark matter is brown dwarfs, black holes and interstellar gases. Since we don't know enough about what is out there, it is quite possible that there is matter that not only doesn't emit light, but absorbs it. This seems to be the common perception of what dark matter is in the scifi area.
PowerCrazy wrote:Thank you.
I know we all want our system to have neat little names etc that each person comes up with. However if we get caught up in semantics about what a Phase Beam consists of and how its different from a Subspace beam we won't get anything done.
What we need to do is come up with how many weapon types/armor types/shields etc. we want. And then come up with an interesting matrix that will relate all the relevant items. We must be careful to insure that not too many factors are included in our matrix especially considering that many of the features in FO have yet to be decided. Ship Size, races, the way combat will function etc. Thus adding special cases like Weapon A counts as both Damage A and B exept against Armor C where it counts as E, is useless and convolutes the weapons matrix.
So what I suggest is we decide a few key things:
1. How many Weapon types/damage types/armor types etc. we want.
2. How many Bonuses/Penalties does each have (they don't necessarilly each have to be the same.)
3. Any extra considerations, such as weapon type coupled with armor type equals increased damage, or decreased damage, etc.
How can we come up with a set number of types of things we want, without coming up with the types themselves? How can we make them interact with eachother without knowing what they do? How can we make special considerations as you list them without knowing what we are using?
If we come up with all of the names first and then group them into categories, everything will look good, work well and make sense to people. If we go the other way around, things that should be different may get squashed together and things that should be the same may get pulled apart.
Zpock wrote:If you put more then one type of armor on a ship, the resistances could be averaged.
I think only one armor type per ship should be allowed. Same with shields. If you allow more than one, you start to lose the purpose of counters.
I've said this before and I'm going to sy it again, the countering system should be simple and not highly complex. KISS. Make it more complex and it will be very confusing for people.
Many of you have pointed out problems with my countering system, but not one of you has made up a countering system yourself. If you don't like mine, then fine, but make one so the rest of us can see what you think would be better.
200 and still a Wyrm!?! I don't want to be a Wyrm anymore. I've been a Wyrm for 100 posts now.