Should a ship be stopped for battle mid flight, the rest of the fleet following will only be stopped if they scan the ships in question and note that there is actually a battle present. If they do not they will carry on, leaving the stopped ship behind.
Obviously allowing automatic scanning of all positions on support and defend lists is wildly innappropriate e.g. an IMP ship could add DTR to its defend list and effectively have a perfect sensor ship guaranteed to spot all DTR positions.
The only alternative (that I can see) is to make all positions flagged as being in a battle (ticked as soon as they are stopped for battle) as being sensor opaque, i.e. 100% chance of being scanned irrespective of location.
This will of course allow affiliations to build sensor ships whose job it is is to lock down positions, even in ring 15 for the rest of the fleet. The question here is, is this reasonable?
| QUOTE |
| This will of course allow affiliations to build sensor ships whose job it is is to lock down positions, even in ring 15 for the rest of the fleet. The question here is, is this reasonable? |
The issue here is that ships may fail to scan a ship that they would want to support or defend, right? This would certainly be annoying - in real life, the stopped ship would probably know who its friends are, so it could send a distress signal.
For the sensor ship example, that's completely reasonable - if the sensor ship can maintain sensor lock (i.e. a pin) then it can radio the target's coordinates to its allies. I'd kind of assumed that this was how things worked, anyway, I pin the target with a fast ship then call the fleet in.
From a gameplay point of view, I don't see any exploits here. Obviously, the pinning sensor ship also becomes visible, but one can assume that it is also radioing its mates.
Personally, this is the kind of situation that I find quite annoying: when a battle doesn't happen because of some silly set of rules. (I imagine that getting hammered because of a daft rule would be annoying, too, but it's never happend to me.)
BSE pinning rules spring to mind here. I remember being very annoyed by them when we were RIP hunting.
yours,
rob
It's dead easy not to scan your own ships. I've moved 150 light hulled ships to the same point in a system (not even the outer rings) and none of them managed to scan any of the others. Something is needed so that ships can respond to battles while "on patrol" as the current situation of "I didn't see you so kept on going" is not good.
What Mica suggests seems sensible to me.
| QUOTE (Mica Goldstone @ Jul 30 2003, 09:13 AM) |
| The only alternative (that I can see) is to make all positions flagged as being in a battle (ticked as soon as they are stopped for battle) as being sensor opaque, i.e. 100% chance of being scanned irrespective of location. |
Does it have to be all?
Maybe each ship could have it as an extra combat option:
"Send distress signal" Y/N
thus, some ships can carry on as they are and have to be scanned first, but others can become 'sensor opaque' if they get involved in battle.
If a battle is in progress it should be a bit more noticable than a ship just being in that quad, irrespective of if the participants want to be more visible or not. Have to have a "send distress call" flag set is just another thing to forget to do which will irritate players when they fall foul of it.
| QUOTE (Kragnost @ Jul 30 2003, 10:44 AM) |
| Have to have a "send distress call" flag set is just another thing to forget to do which will irritate players when they fall foul of it. |
This is absolutely spot on. Even now there are players leaving flee option on, adding positions to the wrong enemy list, adding their own affiliation to the enemy list, forgetting to defend, support, pick up ammunition etc. Sometimes it seems simply getting into a fight is a lesson in anal retention.
I'm glad to see we agree on something
| QUOTE (Mica Goldstone @ Jul 30 2003, 12:49 PM) |
| Sometimes it seems simply getting into a fight is a lesson in anal retention. |
Have you given any thought to having an single order that sets the most reasonable tactics for the ship in question based on it's ship category (i.e. Capital Ship, Heavy Cruiser, etc) or even allowing as part of the ship design process/BP a standard tactical setting the ship defaults to when say a Use Default Combat Settings order is issued (the ship would of course come with said default combat settings when built)?
| QUOTE |
| Have you given any thought to having an single order that sets the most reasonable tactics |
There will no doubt be too many choices.
I think that a checklist for combat may be useful in order to make sure a player submits all the right orders:
Check Rank
Check Ammo
Combat Options (on patrol, flee etc)
Enemy/Support/Defend and Ground Enemy
Check TU's to destination
Check starbase/outpost happens to be either public or on information archive.
Move to correct location
Issue scan
or
Starbase assault order
"These checks are just for opening battles. Once a battle is happening in a location then all participants in the battle will be visible to any position entering the location on subsequent days until the battle is over, thus allowing new arrivals to join in if their lists are triggered by the participants. "
The DTR had assumed that this meant that once in battle everyone was opaque but re-reading it does say that on "subsequent days". However the last statement suggests that "allowing new arrivals to join in if their lists are triggered" so battles should be opaque immediately because they will definitely be on day two.
| QUOTE (Romanov @ Jul 30 2003, 05:25 PM) |
| However the last statement suggests that "allowing new arrivals to join in if their lists are triggered" so battles should be opaque immediately because they will definitely be on day two. |
The statement is actually true as it stands, but has nothing to do with being sensor opaque.
On following days, i.e. after the first day of battle, anyone can enter the location. They will be drawn into the battle if they are there at the end of the day, even if they failed to scan anyone. This has nothing to do with being sensor opaque as even on subsequent days a ship that only has support/defend passing through the location will not be stopped unless it scans somebody to support/defend or somebody scans the ship and halts it for battle.
This is why we will be changing it so that positions in battle become sensor opaque. This is simply one of the needed refinements to the game that become obvious with playing. No doubt there will be more.
Couple of queries/observations about all of this. Not sure if any of them have been addressed elsewhere so my appolgies if these are old questions.
The possibility of not automatically scanning your own ships at a given location can be a real pain. Say you are moving a squadron of 10 Battleships for point A to B and run into an enemy force on route. Technically the majority of your fleet could sail straight by any of your ships that get stopped for battle. This could leave your ships dangerously split. Sure it could happen so that only the 10th ship through the area is stopped but if its the first then the rest could just sail on by.
Additionally, how does not spotting your own (or other players) ships in deep space affect cargo transfers? If you know a ship is there to recieve your cargo but you can't find the damn thing what happens?
What happens if a ship is trying to sneak through an area? I agree that any ships in a battle should be a lot more obvious but given that fact (and assuming the battle is not taking place in a planets orbit) it should be easier to sneak past them. If all ships in a battle are 100% sensor opaque then they should be easy to avoid.
When you say 'sensor opaque' you mean 'cannot fail when checking sensor power vs. sensor profile', right? Do you also mean to include 'cannot fail because you don't come into sensor range'? At present, ships that are already in battle (from the previous day) are not automatically scanned by anything entering the area, the normal range rules seem to apply. Presumably they would be scanned in an orbit location.
I think that 'sensor opaque' should mean 'ignores range rules', i.e. they're so lit up that they can be seen by passive sensors from anywhere in the orbital quadrant.
rob