Difference between revisions of "User:Geoff the Medio/Ships"

From FreeOrionWiki
Jump to: navigation, search
(Delivery Mechanisms)
(Delivery Mechanisms)
Line 153: Line 153:
 
* Damage is guaranteed to occur on all susceptible targets in range
 
* Damage is guaranteed to occur on all susceptible targets in range
 
* Chance to hit is 100% for susceptible targets in range, so chance to hit is independent of size of target or distance to target within range
 
* Chance to hit is 100% for susceptible targets in range, so chance to hit is independent of size of target or distance to target within range
 +
 +
====Contact====
 +
 +
The attacking object comes into physical contact with a single target, doing damage directly to the target.
 +
 +
* Damage is done continually while in contact, or instantly when making contact
 +
* Attacking object must be within some very small range of target to attempt to make contact
 +
* Making contact is a "hit", and has some chance of occurring when in range
 +
* Chance to make contact (hit) depends on manoeuverability and size of target and attacking object
 +
* Contact duration may vary, which may determine the total damage for continuous-while-in-contact damage or affect the delay between chances to make contact for instant damage weapons
  
 
===Defensive Types===
 
===Defensive Types===

Revision as of 18:29, 16 June 2005

Ship Designs

When building ships, players pick from ship designs. The design of a ship design of a ship determines many of its properties, such as costs, speed, special effects, combat characteristics and appearance. The design of a ship cannot normally be altered after it is built (though exceptions may occur, through effects).

Basics of a Design

A ship design consists of a set of components, a hull size, and potentially a hull type.

Slot Type

The components that may be put into a design are determined by the "slots" of the hull.

The type of a slot largely determines the components may be put into that slot when making a ship design. Components are classified by the type of slot into which they may be put. Every ship design and hull has the same slots:

  • Offensive - Battle weapons used to attack other ships, space monsters or to disable planetary defenses
  • Defensive - Battle potection against battle weapons used by other ships, space monsters or planets
  • Engine - Interstellar and in-battle propulsion
  • Payload - Other ship components, such as command and control centres, cloaking devices, supply modules, ground troop transport modules, colonist modules, special-effect components, planetary bombardment weapons (distinct from offensive slot battle weapons), long-range or in-battle sensor packages

Slot Size

Slots and components also have sizes. The size of a slot determines the maximum size of component, or the number of smaller components that may be fit into the slot.

Slot and component size is a number, in arbitrary units. The sum of the sizes of the components in a slot must be less than or equal to the size of that slot.

If a component is half the size of, or smaller, than a slot, two (or more) of that component may be put into the slot, giving an appropriate benefit to the characteristics of a ship built to that design.

Offensive & Defensive Slot Limits

The Offensive and Defensive slots have an additional limitation on the components that may be put in them: only a single type of component for each slot. For example, as long as the combined sizes of the components are less than the sizes of their respective slots, a ship may have 6 Weapon X components, and 2 Defense Y components; however regardless of the total size of the components, a ship may not have 3 Weapon X components and 7 Weapon Z components. Only one type of component may be placed in a each of the Offensive and Defensive slots of a ship design.

The Engine and Payload slots are not limited in this way, however. A ship may have two different types of Engines (ie. one good for battle and one better for interstellar travel), and any number of different Payload components, as long as the total sizes of these components are less than or equal to the sizes of their respective slots.

Designs & Component Versions

Components in a ship design are specified only by their general class, not by a specific version of that component. For example, if the component "Weapon X" has several refinements available, such as Weapon X Mk. 1, Weapon X Mk. 2, ... , Weapon X Mk. 12, ship designs which use Weapon X only specify that the ship design has a certain number of Weapon X components, not the refinement version number of those components.

Components Versions & Upgrades

Individual ships do have a particular version number of their components. The version number that a particular ship has is independent of the ship's design. Two ships with the same design could have different refinement versions of their components.

When an individual ship is built, the most advanced refinement version for all of the components in the ship's design that can be made for that ship are used. (This could potentially not be the most advanced version known to the empire, if there are restrictions on what can be built where).

A ship upgrade consists of replacing its lower refinement version components with higher refinement version components. Upgrades can neither add additional components, nor change the class of components in a ship or design, or change the design of a particular ship.

Building Ships

Build Orders

Players order ships to be built by specifying a ship design, and a number of ships to build. A build project is then added to the build queue, and when the project is complete, all of the ships appear at their build location.

There is a distinction between ordering multiple ships in one build order, and ordering one ship multiple times. If multiple ships are in one build order, then none of the ships appear until the build order is completed, at which point all the ships appear simultaneously. If multiple build orders are made, each for one ship, then each ship appears as soon as its own build order is completed.

Building multiple ships in a single build order costs slightly less per turn than building the same number of ships in multiple orders for a single ship.

The total build time for an order of ships is independent of the number of ships being built.

Shipyards

Ships are built at shipyards. Shipyards are themselves complicated multipart objects, with various components that determine what sorts of ships designs (limited by the restrictions on their individual components) can be built, and how many ships can be worked on at the shipyard simultaneously (max PP spent per turn).

Combat Mechanics and Balancing

Offensive ship components have one or more damage types, and a delivery mechanism. Both of these give bonuses or penalties to to the weapon's damage and chance to hit against specific defense types. Each defensive ship component has one or more defense types. Bonuses and penalties may be explicitly given in a table for pairs of damage type and defense type or delivery mechanism, or may be dependent on how delivery mechanisms are simulated / executed in the combat engine.

Damage Types

A component's damage type indicates the means by which it does damage to a target. Damage type is distinct from the means by which a weapon's damaging effect is transferred from the attacking object to the target, which is determined by the delivery mechanism.

A component may have one or more damage types. If a component has more than one damage type, the bonuses and penalties for all its types are combined to determine the total bonus or penalty.

Kinetic

A solid object physically impacts or contacts the attacked object, causing localized damage by crushing, piercing, shattering, etc. May consist of projectiles, such as mass drivers, shrapnel or bullets, or involve direct contact such as jaw-like crushing or ramming.

Energy

Some form of energy is delivered to the attacked object, causing damage by heating, burning, melting, vapourization, etc. May involve a electromagnetic radiation (eg. a laser), highly energetic matter (plasma, particle beams) or other more exotic forms of energy.

Explosive

A shockwave of some sort meets the attacked object, causing damage by compression, shear, tearing, etc. Is distinguished from kinetic by continuously distributed damage over an area or volume. Could also involve manipulation of the shape of space in which the attacked object exists.

Reaction

A chemical or particle reacts with the chemicals or particles that compose the attacked object, degrading or destroying them. May involve corrosive chemicals or antimatter, which react with the matter of the attacked object once in contact with it.

Delivery Mechanisms

A component's delivery mechanism indicates the means by which its damaging effect is trasferred to the target, which is distinct from what is delivered.

A component has only one delivery mechanism.

Each delivery mechanism will likely need significant specialized rendering and simulation code, and should be notably different from the others in its behaviour to the player.

Directed

A direct line from the attacking to the attacked objects. May involve a beam of energy or matter between the objects, or a line of sight transfer of some sort.

  • Damage done is independent of distance to target.
  • Damage occurs instantly and/or continually while firing
  • Range is short, chance to hit falls with distance to target (as 1/r^2)
  • Chance to hit depends on target size.

Missile

The attacking object releases self-propelled autonomous self-guided missiles which move towards the attacked object, and detonate in some way when within range. Missiles may be interceptable after they are launched, but before they detonate. Missiles are "dumb", and cannot be retargetted or controlled after they launch, or manoeuvre to avoid defenses.

  • Damage done is independent of distance to target from firing ship
  • Damage is delayed after firing until detonation, at which time damage is instant
  • Range of missile before detonation is long or infinite
  • Chance for missiles to hit is dependent on distance from ship to target (as 1/r; missiles are guided by firing ship)
  • Chance for missiles to hit may or may not be dependent on target size (depending if missile has to impact directly, or just explode nearby).

Fighter

The attacking object launches self-propelled pilotted vehicles which move towards the attacked object, and then launch or fire some weapon at it from short-range. Fighters may be destroyed after being launched, before they fire their own weapons, but they may also repeatedly fire or be ordered to attack alternate targets or to avoid defenses after being launched.

  • Damage done is independent of distance to target from launching ship or distance to target from fighter when firing
  • Damage is delayed after launching until individual fighters fire, at which time damage is instant or continual
  • Movement range of fighters is long or infinite
  • Chance for fighters to hit is independent of distance to target from launching ship or distance to target from fighters
  • Fighters have to be within a certain range to fire on a target
  • Chance for fighters to hit is independent of target size.

Stationary

The attacking object releases something which sits in space immobile. In the event another object moves into or into range of the something, it either begins to do damage continuously until expended, or is detonated. Examples include clouds of gas, or proximity mines.

  • Damage done is independent of distance to target from deploying ship
  • Damage is delayed after deployment until a target comes within range, at which time damage is instant or continual, depending on type of stationary object (corrosive cloud does continual damage, mines do instant)
  • Deployed weapons do not move, but remain in place for the duration of the battle unless destroyed by detonation, self-destruct or minesweeping of some kind
  • Chance for deployed weapons to hit is independent of distance to target from deploying ship or deployed objects
  • Targets must be within some range of the deployed weapon to be a target, and that range may depend on target size (so smaller ships can slip through a minefield or asteroid field that bigger ships cannot pass)
  • Chance for deployed weapons to hit is independent of target size (better to have size determine with certainty whether a ship can pass a field that leave it up to chance... though this is debatable)

Wave

The attacking object emits a damaging wavefront with travels out in all directions from the object, like an expanding ring.

  • Damage done falls with distance to target (1/r)
  • Damage is delayed while wave propegates from attacker to target, but damage is instant when wave meets target
  • Chance to hit is independent of distance to target
  • Chance to hit is independent of size of target

Field

The attacking object emits a damaging field that hits all targetted objects within some range, continually doing damage.

  • Damage is independent of distance to target
  • Damage is done continually while target is in range
  • Targets must be within range to be targetted
  • Damage is guaranteed to occur on all susceptible targets in range
  • Chance to hit is 100% for susceptible targets in range, so chance to hit is independent of size of target or distance to target within range

Contact

The attacking object comes into physical contact with a single target, doing damage directly to the target.

  • Damage is done continually while in contact, or instantly when making contact
  • Attacking object must be within some very small range of target to attempt to make contact
  • Making contact is a "hit", and has some chance of occurring when in range
  • Chance to make contact (hit) depends on manoeuverability and size of target and attacking object
  • Contact duration may vary, which may determine the total damage for continuous-while-in-contact damage or affect the delay between chances to make contact for instant damage weapons

Defensive Types

A component's defensive type indicates the means by which it blocks or reduces the damaging effects of an attacker's weapon.

A component may have one or more defensive types. If a component has more than one defensive type, the bonuses and penalties for all its types and all the attacker's types are combined to determine the total bonus or penalty to the attacker's damage or chance to hit.

Energy

Some form of energy is delivered to, meets or diverts the attack. Examples might include energy shield bubbles, shaped plasma or energy armour, or directed energy defensive weapons.

Ablative

Some immobile passive defensive mechanism that is consumed or destroyed when used, and which flakes away or breaks off from the remainder, limiting total damage due to ongoing processes in the attack. Examples might include fibrous material that burns away when struck by a directed energy beam, or some sort of liquid plasma shell that absorbs impacts by spashing off some of itself.

Absorbtive

Some immobile passive defensive mechanism that absorbs damage that is designed to be as strong and resiliant as possible, in order to prevent or minimize any damage to itself or what it protects. Examples might include hardened metal armour that absorbs impacts and deflects explosive shockwaves, or the liquid plasma shell from ablative.

Point Defense

An active defensive system that tracks and attempts to intercept incoming projectiles by launching countermeasures. May involve firing a stream of defensive fire (bullets or lasers) at missiles or fighters, or perhaps telekinetic crewmembers who deflect incoming ordinance.

Balancing Combat Components

Each offensive component has one or more damage type, and one delivery mechanism. Each defensive component has one or more defensive types. Each defensive type has bonuses or penalties against each odamage type and delivery mechanism. By adjusting these bonuses and penalties, an interesting strategic game will hopefully be creasted, which is not too complex, nor too simple for most players.

Payloads

The combat value of a ship is not determined solely by its offensive and defensive components; payload components can also make a ship essential in a combat support role, or a valuable target to protect or destroy, due to its strategic value outside of combat (such as due to its effects, or the ground troops or colonists it carries).

Ship Size

Ship size can play an important role in determining the combat capabilities of a ship. Smaller ships may have limitations on the types and numebers of offensive, defensive or combat support componets they may be equipped with, reducing their effectiveness in direct combat. However, smaller ships a faster and more manoeuvrable, more difficult to detect with sensors / easier to cloak or hide, and may be generally less individually valuable or seen as expendable in some situations where a larger ship would need to be protected.

Stategic Map Balancing

In addition to doing damage to other ships while in combat and providing combat support functions, ships have a variety of uses outside of battle. These include scouting and exploration, colonization, blocking supply lines, carrying ground troops, possibly ferrying around valuable unique items or leaders / spies, and acting as source objects for effects of various kinds.

As well, in order to increase the value of having a range of ship sizes in a fleet, larger ships should be prohibitive to use in anything but a carefully planned and prepared manner, while smaller ships can be used more freely. These limitations are imposed by a variety of factors:

  • The necessity of maintaining supply lines to ships with an unbroken link, requiring multiple ships to defend the line, which is prohibitive expensive to do with large ships, especially for longer supply lines into enemy territory.
  • Upkeep costs for larger ships are disproportionately high, discouraging players from keeping a large fleet of large ships that aren't being used at a given time.
  • Slow speed and high cost of actually moving large ships, compared to small ships. Smaller ships zip around faster with cheaper, lower-tech engines.
  • Larger ships are much more useful for transferring colonists and ground troops
  • Many useful payload components only fit into larger ships
  • Large combat ships are generally better than medium or small ships, up to a point. Very large ships are less effective than all others, and may be better used for support or non-combat roles.