Re: Galaxy: trading ?

From: cpdohert@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Chris Doherty)

Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 00:00:00 +0000

In article <34450ae1.6561263@news.rotterdam.luna.net>,
Paul van der Valk <poing@luna.nl> wrote:
>On 13 Oct 1997 13:29:10 GMT, phy3dxl3@sun1.bham.ac.uk (Mr D Lovett)
>wrote:
>>troops as a cargo type.
>Now that's a nice idea!

All this back-and-forthing makes me wonder if anyone's ever looked at the
other PBeM galactic conquest games out there.  A lot of this stuff exists
in VGA Planets, for instance - not that I'm recommending one over the
other, but it might be worthwhile to look at how it's handled in other
systems.

>There's good potential in this radar/cloaking stuff. I wonder if
>distance and mass can be incorporated in a single formula.

Sure.  Effective cloaking strength is inversely proportional to the ship's
mass; probability of detection is proportional to the strength of the radar
divided by the distance, and the cloaking strength is a factor which
increases the distance:

p[detecting a ship] = RADAR STRENGTH / CLOAKING STRENGTH*(DISTANCE)^2

Or some such.

Interesting idea. By applying a damage factor to each of the ship
>stats (drive/weapons/shields/cargo) you indeed get more lively
>situations than "this is the ship and it's either alive or dead".

I like - certainly better than some generic ship damage stat - a ship
actually has specific types of damage (so one could knock out weapons and
leave the rest of the ship intact).  This leads very quickly to a much more
complex model of combat, though: ships should be able to select specific
ships to target and specific areas on that ship.   Hey, maybe some kind of
"doctrine" command subset that would allow you to set out a list of commands
for your fleet - say, "only target ships that have a mass of > x and Attack
rating > y"  "target the weapons systems of those ships"

>Another idea: give cargoships the ability to carry other ships, for
>example driveless ships (stationary AA-guns or ships with damaged
>drives), or even an escape pod for your beloved general :-)

Or fighters, say.  Not that this is really a big deal as there's no fuel
limitations in Galaxy, but you could put a bunch of fighters in a
well-shielded and fast drive ship, escort it with a couple corvette-sized
things, and have a better chance of your fighter fleet getting somewhere.
It would also allow you to give the fighters dinky little drives (or no
drives at all) as long as unloading happens before combat.
--
Chris Doherty                              cpdohert@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca

References

Re: Galaxy: trading ?
phy3dxl3@sun1.bham.ac.uk (Mr D Lovett)
Mon, 13 Oct 1997 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Galaxy: trading ?
poing@luna.nl (Paul van der Valk)
Wed, 15 Oct 1997 00:00:00 +0000
Galaxy: trading ?
phy3dxl3@sun1.bham.ac.uk (Mr D Lovett)
Thu, 02 Oct 1997 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Galaxy: trading ?
poing@luna.nl (Paul van der Valk)
Sun, 12 Oct 1997 00:00:00 +0000