Kavik_Kang

Join Date 04/2008

+107

Next Fleet Battle Patch

I had been spending a about half my time on my own stuff, and half messing with the Fleet Battles ship data files. I've been waiting about 20 years too have something like this to work out so it is a big deal for me to be able to play with something like this. I thought I'd mention the two really big things I am hoping are in the next Fleet Battles patch.

The first is that I am hoping that my gamepad works in the next patch, but not holding out too much hope that any time will be spent on making my obscure gamepad work. I'm guessing that this might never be done and I will eventually just need to get a different gamepad to play SCO.

The thing I am really hoping is in the next patch is a value exposed in the data files that allows for different acceleration curves to be set for each ship. Acceleration is big deal both tactically and in giving the ships a good feel in how they move. How long it takes each ship to get to full speed really is a major aspect both tactically and in the look and feel of the relative movement of objects. I simply can't do this right without it. This is as important to SCO as it is to my own experimenting for my own games. I've actually stopped messing with the data files specifically because what I am trying to do with it can't be done without having control of the acceleration curve. So this is the thing I am hoping to see most in the next patch, both for myself and for the sake of SCO.

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I thought I should explain more of what I mean, because I could see you saying "thrust establishes acceleration, it's already there".

The issue is that all of the ships have the same acceleration, because they all have the same mass (or "weight"). Thrust is also more than acceleration, it is also "power" or "traction". While you could do this the typical way that a programmer would normally do something like this, purely mathematically with an adjustable formula for an acceleration curve, it will be better and more versitile for the game to instead structure this as the ships having mass (or "weight). This will be more versatile for unanticipated expansion in the future, and is even more important for the ship editor. The ship editor needs for the ships to have mass even more than the tactical game does.

So I would do this through giving the ships an adjustable mass rating, which will do a lot for both the flight model and the ship editor.

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As for the ship editor, it is a great cosmetic tool that has so far been inspired by what the artists know, programs like 3D Studio Max (I'm guessing your laughing and that is considered to be really old these days, haha). Space ship design is governed by the same "laws" as aircraft and tank design. It is, like a law of physics, always a trade off between mobility, weight, and firepower. We don't call it "mass-based proportional movement" for nothing, you know.

This scales up with mass. The larger a vehicle is, the more (and larger) engines and weapons it can have. Like a mathematical formula. Your ship editor requires both inspirations, 3D model building and military vehicle design. So far, it is mostly 3D Studio Max.

I recently noticed that Stardock are the people who sell Sword of the Stars these days, so you know this game. That is good, because it was made by an SFB junkie and is heavily inspired by SFB, F&E, and Master of Orion (i.e. Civilization). As a result Sword of the Stars has, by far, the best ship editor ever seen in a computer game. Look to Sword of the Stars for inspiration for your editor, and it will lead you in the right direction.

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To continue with the ship editor discussion, since that is where this thread drifted too...

The best way to look at this for purposes of creating an editor like this is that the fundamental basis of ship design are the break points in mass that allow for the mounting of the next bigger size of engines, and how many engines a ship has. It is important that larger engines are more efficient/miniaturized and that, for example, 2 small engines take up more of the "available space for this mass" than a single medium engine.

So, to keep this simple, you might have three engine sizes... exactly like you already have. Using SFB as an example since this is so well-established there, imagine that small engines provide 15 thrust, mediums are 30, and large engines provide 45 thrust. The higher the mass, the more space there is for engines, weapons, crew quarters, bowling alleys (thank you Dr. Sorensen...), etc. In addition to this, certain break points in mass allow for the mounting of larger engines.

The size and number of engines a ship has is the sole factor in its classification. So, using SFB as an example... a Destroyer has two small engines. A heavy cruiser has 2 medium engines. A heavy battlecruiser has 3 medium engines. A Dreadnought has 3 large engines. And on and on. It isn't the size and number of engines that determine class, it's that those class names describe what modern gamers would call the "min/max" for how squeezing that many engines of that size onto a ship while still having the space available for weapons (and anything else represented in the game) that needs to be on the ship.

This is the beginning, this is the foundation of the ship design side of the kind of editor that you are wanting to have in Star Control.

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To continue this... translation... a little more, lining up with a lot of things that I've said previously in the ship threads...

The "base hull" of each class is what modern gamers would call the "meta" of that class. It is the most powerful pure combat ship that can be made of that class with the technology available to the builders. The USS Enterprise is the base hull of the Federation heavy cruiser class. Variants are always weaker in some way in a 1v1 fight, but specialize in something. A Destroyer (DD) is the base hull (meta). A Destroyer Escort (DE) is a lot better at shooting small things like fighters and missiles, but weak when facing ships unless they are at point blank range. A Missile Destroyer (DDG, in our lexicon) lobs missiles from long range but has little if anything other than its own point defense other than the missiles.

The Tywom is like a base hull, it is a meta design for its class. It's fine to have a few like this, Scryve and Dannath might be described as the meta of their class (base hull) as well. But this is generally the type of design you are trying to avoid with the stock ships because fights between these ships are pure dogfights. Close in twisting knife fights. What gamers perceive as "straight up, typical combat", which is exactly what people expect Star Control to not be. (I'm not saying this is an issue, you could use a few and you have a few.) The "rock, paper, scissors" aspect that most describe is more than that in Star Control. It is actually that the ships are very specific in their capabilities, and with more emphasis on their limitations than their capabilities. They get destroyed in a 1v1 dual with the base hull/meta of their class.

The ships of Star Control are generally variants, not base hulls. You might even think of them of "extreme variants", as specialized as they can be. That's what makes the fights between them feel so unique, the ships are highly specialized and not really made for a 1v1 fight in a general sense.

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In addition to Sword of the Stars you might also look at how mechs are built in Mech Warrior Online. The commercial game business began with companies like Task Force Games and SPI making what today would be called "clones" of Avalon Hill games. Task Force Games soon came up with their own new way of using those concepts, which became a "second generation" of that form of game design. Battledroids/Battletech was then the first ever "clone" of a successful commercial game other than Avalon Hill, Battletech is just a highly simplified version of SFB that uses robots instead of space ships.

This trickles down through the years all the way into Mech Warrior Online where you can see what I just described in MWO today. Different size and types (efficiency) engines that take up different amounts of available space (and use up more of the available weight). Mech design in MWO shows a different way of representing this than is used in Sword of the Stars when, really, it is the same thing. So MWO gives a different perspective on how the ship design side of an editor like this might work. For space ships, I think the Sword of the Stars way is better but looking at both will give you a broader understanding of how the general concept can be applied or represented in a ship editor.

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If I am remembering right, you were thinking of using check boxes to exclude certain weapons and devices from certain ships. It might seem as though a SwoT or MWO-like ship editor wouldn't work for SCO because the ships are so simple, but it does work because the key elements in are, due to the laws of physics, present in SCO. You have engines, maneuvering thrusters, and the weapons and devices. These are the key components of the system, so you have everything needed to make this work.

The "weight" (mass) of the total number of components would determine the class, which would determine which engines could be put on the ship. Each class might be able to fit 2 or three different engines into the "space" available on the ship diagram that is created based on the mass of the ship. That space, for example, might be capable of fitting 3 small engines or 2 medium. These choices then set the size of the space available (like legos, like SwoT) for the weapons and devices. Then the maneuvering thrusters are like single-wide 2 (or maybe 3) space legos. They have to be fitted into the weapon and device boxes. A "standard" thruster configuration would be a single thruster in each corner of both the weapon and device bays (areas of space). If you use less thrusters you will be able to fit larger weapons/devices into the bays. If you use more than one thruster in each corner of both boxes then you will be sacrificing weapon/device size that can also fit into the remaining space. Remember, engine size (speed and thrust) and configuration had determined the starting "weapon and device bay" sizes to begin with, and then sacrificing or enhancing maneuvering thrust (turn rate) further defines which weapons and devices will fit in the bays.

For an arcade game like SCO, it could be this simple.

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I didn't mention before that more powerful weapons and devices would be larger, because it is so obvious. A thing you can do that is not so obvious is to allow the player to place more than one of whatever one weapon or device they can have in their "bay". There are two ways of representing this in the game, as I do in Space Hockey, what I call "side-by-side" and "inline". Side-by-side, having multifire, doesn't work for Star Control for most weapons or devices. But "Inline" means for each additional version of that same weapon they can fit into the available space, that weapon/device recharges more rapidly (and/or uses less energy) and might be enhanced specific to the weapon or device however you want it to be affected.

The point is always to be trading between weight, speed, and firepower with the concept of "available space" always being considered equally. This makes it balanced in the end, and makes it a better and more interesting game.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2394

I'll try to get a good response to this shortly.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2394

Ok finally.

Re new update:

So right now I have the team focused on the adventure game milestone which means the Fleet Battles portion is not getting that much attention.

The next Founders update will add the Mu'Kay and have some balance improvements and a lot better sound effects and such. It MAY have the custom multiplayer feature in so that you can play your crazy ship designs in MP. This is due February 7.

The next PUBLIC update is due February 21 and that build will have the custom MP for sure along with lots of new elements in the arena and probably multiple arenas to choose from.

We won't have scavenging in (because my weapon AI guy is working on the Adventure AI) so that will have to wait until later.

Re ship design:

There isn't a scenario where our ship designer is going to get complicated as you describe. I fundamentally disagree with the level of sophistication you are looking for. This isn't Starfleet Battles, the game, it's Star Control.

We will have various types of pre-made modules that will affect the acceleration curves and such but we won't have an in-game UI for messing with that.

The designer will get more sophisticated than it currently is. Specifically you will be able to choose:

Primary Weapon
Secondary Weapon
Ship Size
Thrusters (affects acceleration and turn rate per mass)
Engine (determines max speed per mass)
Crew Quarters (your max crew)
Battery (how much energy you can have)
Reactor (how fast your energy regens)

But that's as far as we plan to go before ship because any further risks alienating most fans and making ship design "work" rather than fun into itself.

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I understand your view of what the editor should be, I would never lobby for my suggestions. That's what this process is about. We just make suggestions to give you ideas for your game. Your audience likes your style, and that is what they are expecting. SVC and I only rarely see eye-to-eye, and when his vision of the SFU is different than mine his opinion is, by definition, the right one. The audience loves his games, and his vision, not mine. You are no different. So I would never lobby for something after you've made your vision clear, just as I would never do that with SVC.

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