David Bethel
	This is to keep you informed on what has been done - its not complete.... please make any comments you like (don't bleet) on the comments thread and i will change anything that is stupid. The changes below will not be implemented for at least 1 month and will be added to as things are finalised. Targeting Lists This is an explanation of what will happen with the new targeting list for ships only. ie the enemy/support/defend (and now do not target) lists. [1] As a pirate (PIR) you can attack anyone but you can only support and defend other pirates [2] You can not add anyone to enemy/support/defend lists unless you have a naval officer or are a pirate. All none priate vessels without an officer will have its enemy/support/defend lists cleared. [3] Enemies -You can add any PIR position -You can add any posted list to your enemy list -You can add any posted position to your enemy list -You can add any affiliation or position you your enemy that you are not allied to -All allied affiliations will be automatically removed from your enemy lists. (note that posted allied positions can be added) [4] You can only support/defend positions that are in your affiliation or an allied affiliation. [5] Anything on the 'do not target' (DNT) list can not be targeted even if it is on the enemy lists. [6] Adding Everyone(0) to a list there are different effects in each case: - Ground enenmy/DNT lists: All affiliations are treated as if they are on the list. - Enemy: All affiliations you are not allied with are treated as if they are on this list. - Support/Defend: All affiliations you are allied with are treated as if they are on the list. Use of the DNT list and Everyone allows clear enemies to be defined especially for gound enemy lists. [7] Ground enemy lists only work at docked and sector ranges. This means that you have to add to enemy list to attack from a planetary range (ground assault order does this automatically). Also it means that boarding docked ships and ground attacks will only call in support/defendfrom space enemy lists [8] Alert status : Can switch off/on enemy/support/defend lists [9] Political situation order lists all alliances and wars [Make sure you want an alliance public - if you have one] New related orders: -Alert Status -Add to Do not target list -Remove from do not target list -Clear Do not Target List -Declare War (Issue, 4 weeks +ve) -Political Situation Political Issues To clarify issues (since they were a pigs ear). (The intension is to put issues online as part of a online version of the political - that will be done after combat). Issues are passed/failed immediatly when there is a majority for or against. A majority is when >50% of the affiliation votes for or against (after the ppl who abstain have been removed). So if the are 31 affiliation votes and noone abstains then you need 16 votes to pass an issue. If 10 votes abstain then you need 11 votes for a majority an issue. When issues expire with no majority. [1] Posative issues fail to pass [2] Negative issues pass by default Officers Offcier can be promoted from any lifeform as is currenly done via the 'Create Officer' order. The officer created is a civilian officer and can not add any enemy, support or defend lists. The 'Empower Officer' order can be used by any political and converts a civilian officer to a naval officer. Naval Officers can add anyone to their lists enemy, support or defend lists. There is also a option in the create officer order to upgrade to naval officer immediately. [1] Creating a civilian officer costs 1000. [2] Converting to a naval officer costs 10000. [3] All existing officers who are commanding ship will be converted to naval officers. [4] Ships without naval officers will have their enemy/support/defend lists cleared. [5] Changes in rank will be immediate and only have political order cost (100) and the rank is attached to the officer item. However at this time rank does nothing [6]To control who a player can attack who(after creating naval officers) an affiliation can set who it is allied with and who it is at war with. Players can only support/defend allied affiliations and only attack positions that the affiliation is at war with. [7] Pirate positions do not need an officer to add enemies and there are no restriction on who they can add. New related orders: -Empower Officer Posted Lists All positions on an affiliations posted list can now have a bounty added to them. This bounty is collected when the position is destroyed and it is shared between the positions attacking the posted position. Only on bounty can be placed at once and this is tied to the political that issued it. That political can reduce/remove the bounty or another poltical can offer a higher bounty. Bounties are only placeable on your own posted list. When a bounty is changed the old bounty is returned first. New related orders: -Add Posted Bounty Squadrons These are tactical units of ships that can have the same orders issued to all ships in the squadron via one ship. [1] Squadrons are created via a political order, and the political is placed in command of the squadron created. Any ship he has inside the squadron can issue orders to the whole squadron. [2] Squadron command can be transfered to another political or it can be flagged as 'open access' where anyone in the squadron can issue squadron orders. [3] Squadrons can be disbanded via a political order, and this is done automatically if the commanding political leaves the affiliation or the game. [4] You can join or leave a squadron via 2 ship orders and ships being transfered or leaving an affiliation have their squadron reset. [5]Squadron Orders are issued by adding the order 'Start Squadron Orders'. All orders added after this one will be attemped by the whole squadron (not all orders are allowed in squadron orders). Each order is exicuted by every ship in the squadron before the next order is attempted and movement is only attempted one 'step' at a time. [6]Each Squadron order is first exicuted by the ship issuing the order and then by all other ships in the squadron. [7]Squadron orders can be ended by issuing 'End Squadron orders', and this is automatically issued at the end of a squadron turn if it is not present. To create a squadron and issue orders you would do the following: -Issue 'Create Squadron {Alpha}' via a political -Issue 'Join Squadron {Aplha}' for each ship you want in the squadron. (You can also use the ID number for the squadron if you have it, as the squadron must be spelt correctly) After the squadron has been created you can issue squadron orders: -Issue 'Start Squadron Orders' -Then Issue the movement / standing orders you want for the squadron -Then optionally you can issue 'End Squadron Orders' All ships that are at the same location as the ship issuing thesquadron orders will have the orders run for them. -The orders will stop processing as soon as a ship in the squadron runs out of TUs or experiences a problem that can not be ignored. -All ships in the squadron will have their pending orders cleared before the squadron orders are issued. -After every 'movement step' there will be a check to see if any of the squadron have entered a battle. If one ship enters a battle then all the other ships will be flagged in the battle. New related orders: -Start Squadron Orders -End Squadron Orders -Create Squadron -Disband Squadron -Join Squadron -Leave Squadron -Squadron Commander General Space Combat Changes [1] Targeting computers / sensors are no longer degraded over multiple batteries [2] Target locking is changed to be in the following order -Positions attacking you (if you have not ignored it) -Position on the enemy list -Posted List if active (own aff) -Personal General enemy (PIR/AFFs etc) -Posted List if active (other aff) -Defending a position (Own Aff) -Defending a position (Allied Aff) -Supporting a position (Own Aff) -Supporting a position (Allied Aff) -Defending own Aff -Defending allied Aff -Supporting own Aff -Supporting allied Aff Each point will generate a list of targets weighted based on Target Preference and the chance of actually doing damage to a target, and it will pick one randomlym from that list. [3] Targeting is now weighted based on theoretical dmg that can be done(before a ships defence). So ships will no longer try to fire at something they can not hit. [4] Max targets is now a guidline - if you have more weapons to fire after all your main battiers have been used then you will try to fire at other targets that you can hit . [5] Indirect fire weapons are now directly flagged as being able to hit anything. These are currenlty fighters / rail guns / Missiles, however anything can now be flagged as indirect. [6] Changes to reporting of battle: There is a political summary sent to each account that was at the battle. It includes the battle summaries from each ship that the account had at the battle and a summary of the battle (an enhanced version of the existing battle lineup) [7] Target Preference: Will allow folloing to be set, all can have -'None' to ignore option -Positon Type {Ship/Starbase/Platform etc} -Ship Description {List of types} -Armoured {Heavy/Normal/Light/None} -Size {Small/Medaium/Large/None} -Ignore incoming fire - don't target position attacking you [8] Retarget Option: - General Option {None/Every round/Every day/Retarget if fired at} - Traget Options {None/if fleeing/if not fireing/if not moving} [9] Combat Efficency now effects -Combat Thrust -> speed and dodge -Shield Recharge (not level) -Weapons fired -Point defence systems active [11] Blockade Celestial Body: This makes sure that any ships leaving or entering orbit of a Celestial Body are scaned by the blockading ship. The scan may still fail due to stealth or cloaking. Any enemy lists are checked as usual with regard to pinning etc if the ship is seen by the blockader. [12] Weapon Loadouts: -The weapon loadout is used to decide what ammo to fire from a particular weapon. The quantities of ammo fired are adjusted to comply with the number of weapons you have available. If you set a missile launcher to fire 1 kinetic warhead and 2 missiles but you have 30 launchers then the weapon loadout will be changed to 10 Kinetic and 20 Missiles. -Everytime a position is updated the weapon loadout is updated for the number of weapons availible - it does not check the ammo -During a battle the number of weapons fired can change as ammo is accounted for. -Weapons always add the weapon that has the most ammo (and is not already on the weapon loadout) to the list of ammo's to be fire. This should ensure that some type of ammo is fired if available. New related orders: -Target Preference -Retarget Options -Weapon Loadout -Clear Weapon Loadout -Screen Position Other Changes [1] Changed ship bp TMs to have a list of installed components [2] Allowed same aff to pickup from debris with no prisoner conversion [3] Items destroyed in conversion to debris are now reported [4] Add political report for squadrons [5] Existing squadrons will be created and placed in the first ships found in the squadron [6] Fixed build times on ship reports [7] Added available labs on research and allowed for complexes that add more than 1 lab to the research pool. [8] Fixed cancel production for agents [9] Created a HTML for Techmanuals (attached later) [10] Added political warning for wars and posting [11] Rewrote issue passing code [12] Set control to 100% after boarding attempt [13] Removed agent order 'Remove from list' Add order to 'Add position to do not target list' [14] Removed a bug where a SB needs space weapons and sensor to fight in planetary ground combat [15] Reported armour/hull damage in a % on ships and patched required to fix [16] Totally changed space combat report to be readable [17] Add 'stealth to point defence' flag to all weapons, allows a % of weapons to no be targeted by point defence if they are so designed To complete [1] Screening: Ships can choose one position to screen. When a shiptargets a position from the above that you are screening (if the ship is fast enough) it will switch the target for the rest of the day.Combat speed of ship has to reduce to that what you are screening. [2] Ship / platform Damage -Damage that gets through armour/shields is applied to both hulls and installed based on the hulls internal split. (cargo/100) -Damage that hits an installed item with cargo capacity has the dmg done to it split (cargo/mus) between the item and the cargo. -Note that Life target needs to change to cargo with lifesupport.... -Damage to armour = dmg reduced / (integrity/100.)^2 (max x10) -Integrity break down = sqrt((integrity/100) * (1.0 - %dmg/100))*100 integrity = 100 unless its less than 80%. Integrity break down only stops a ship fighting on the next day (cos it will be debris) -Increased armour destroyed on conversion to debris from above. -Ships with no hulls left explode - everything is destroyed.... -Integrity breakup only occurs after a battle. [3] Stealth/Cloaked boarding - reduceds round of combat and can provent support/defence call if not detected. Bonus to scan on each subsiquent round [4] Shield improvement on SBs [5] Terrain modifers on damage taken by ground parties. [6] AA and GP vs GP battles.
David Bethel
	I lloyd-max quantised all the ship designs in the game based on 11 indexes decribing their compoents hulls etc. This is a much more subtle way of catagorising the ships, and can not be extented easily. With assistance of the existing descriptions of ships they boiled down to the following list..... Transports: -Freighter - general cargo carriers -Fast Freighter - any freight but fast -Ore Freighter - Carries ores -Passenger Liner - Light ppl carrier -Troop Transport - Heavy hulls people carreir Combat: -Capital Ship - heavy offence/defence 100 hulls+ -Heavy Cruiser - heavy offence/defence Smaller than avoid -Destroyer - heavy offence/ less defence and smaller -Interceptor - very fast with light weapons (pinners) -Gun Boat - very small and fast -Carrier - uses significant numbers of fighters Exploration/Survey: -Sensor Ship - lots of sensors -Scout - sensors/thrust/ISR -Explorer - general collection of stuff for exploring. Basically this will make the set of names short, so that we can use it in the target preferences and it actually reflects what sort of ships we have in the game (now every ship is now put in a catagory). We can also extend the names for sub classes of the avoid and keep their primary class to make things more descriptive (but still allow proper targeting). If anyone has any problems with the new decription set them pls comment on the other thread.