Re: BattleTech PBeM Development Group

From: Jesse.Taylor@launchpad.unc.edu (Jesse Taylor)

Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 19:05:43 +0000

>	1) Setting: one suggestion
>
>	The game is played on a NxM bi-dimensional map with several
>planets, representing the domains of the Five Houses (shall we throw
>the Clans into the game, too?).
No. OmniMechs would be annoying to program up. Maybe as NPCs, tho, if you
used only the common configurations. You could bring them in after the
game had run for X number of turns...

>	Each planet is named according to the BattleTech Universe (if
>someone has a list, I'll be glad - I've only got the MechWarrior PC
>game as a source!!). They have also at least the following
>characteristics:
>
>	Mountains in %, Lakes in %, Rough land in %, Plains in %,
>	Light Woods in %, Dense Woods in %, etc.
>
>	... and allegiance to one of the Houses, of course.
perhaps you could also have 'disputed' planets, where the battles are
being fought, and there's no clear owner.

>	The purpose of this is to get a seed for the random
>battlefield generator.
on some computers, I think you can read in the time counter, which is the
only way to get a really random number on some system...

>probabilities. Perhaps a point on the planet for the battle should be
>generated in some way, and the battlefield, once generated, would be
>kept in the database, so that further battles at the same point would
>get the same battlefield. I don't know if this is pushing too far; for
each planet could have a certain number of "facilities", say 1-5, such as
Cities, Factories, Water Purifiers, Mech Factories (rare), Supply Dumps,
HPGs (if you want to involve ComStar in this, too), Training Camps,
Arenas. (that's all I can think of for now).

>	2) Units
>
>	I suggest that each player starts with one mercenary unit
>composed of a single lance with 4 'mechs. When joining the game for
>the first time, he may select one lance type (eg. Recon Lance, Light
>every player start with the same amount of money? And buy what he
>wishes?).
yeah, or you could use the system in MechWarrior. you should total up the
cost of an average lance of each type, and use that for how much they can
spend.

>	Later on, he'll be able to buy new mechs, sell older ones
>(lease them? Hmmm...), etc., and recruiting new members for his
>MechForce.
see my notes on facilites. players should need to be on a planet with a
Training Camp to recruit new MechWarriors.

>	If he has the money, he'll also be able to contract other
>players' lances to do the dirty work...
I *like* that idea. Put politics into it.

>	3) Turns
>
>	Adrian (agiblett@cch.coventry.ac.uk) proposed 4 battle turns
>followed by one diplomatic/economic turn.
yeah, this would go with the IS concept of honor and all (ie, you fight
for a bit, then both sides stop to pick up the bits and rebuild).

>get a list of available 'mechs for sale, available MechWarriors for
>hire, costs for repairing/mantaining/resupplying existing 'mechs of
>messages to other players, and, of course, to announce contracts and
>
>	Here I find one big problem: how to get the Houses to announce
>contracts for the players? This will be the normal case. I'm still
>thinking about the MechWarrior PC game, where contracts appear
>randomly (is that really so? I've never played the game to an end).
>One alternative would be to have some players for the Houses, too, but
>they would obviously be mega-powerful...
perhaps you could use both ideas, random contracts and a "moderator" for
each house that looks at what's going on and makes contracts based on that.

>overall description of enemy & friendly 'mechs on the field (such as:
>"heavy mech, lightly damaged, on hex #463"). He'll also get a
>(partial?) map of the battlefield (which would change on subsequent
>turns, as his 'mechs advance on the field and find new features).
>	Orders will be something like "attack heaviest mech" or "run
>to the base and seize it", "run to avoid", "ambush at hex #foo", etc.
>Actual weapon choice, etc., or precise movements are beyond the scope
>of a scale like this one (and, after all, the player has only 4 turns
>to win or lose...!). Of course, there must be a way to convert basic
>BattleTech stats into something like a points based system.
perhaps each 'mech could have an 'attack Rating' and a 'defense Rating'.
This would be a summation of the weapons and armor levels the mech had,
and could change during battle as the mech becomes damaged.

>	Or should the computer fight the battle, and add a colorful
>description? E. g.:
>
>    "Bloody Axes' Warhammer fires PPC on Blue Thunder's ShadowHawk"
>    "A hit, ShadowHawk -12 armor on left arm and upper arm actuator destroyed"
>    "Bloody Axes' Warhammer runs to base on hex #432 and destroys it"
>
>	This would be nice, but it also implies that many actions must
>be dealt by the computer while he tries to obey the players' orders.
so? allocate yourself some more CPU time. :)

>	Here a *LOT* of suggestions are welcome!
I think you might be able to skip the technical stuff like 'arm actuator
destroyed'. Just tell the player how badly the mech had been damaged. Ie:
Arena-game style.
	"Drakkarim Marauder fires PPC at Kurita Pheonix Hawk. A hit!
Pieces of armor fly everywhere and the Kurita mech is disabled!"

>	Ok, that's for a beginning. Hope to see some suggestions on
>Monday...
comin atcha. :)

>- Luis Sequeira

--
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References

BattleTech PBeM Development Group
bc@fccn01.fccn.pt (Luis Miguel Sequeira)
Fri, 13 Nov 1992 18:38:21 +0000