03-04-2005 23:18									#31
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I want game to has possible micromanagements, but it will be possible to select many ships like in starcraft, using shift+click to add or remove from selection. Then set behaviour of many ships at the same time.

This will be very much faster combat system than moo2 even in network play, when both players can plan their attack same time. Autoplay can be partial, so that player can modify some critical ships behaviour only if they choose to.

	04-04-2005 03:21									#32
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Looks like Ray reached the same conclusion. I think with some standard selection methods (eg hold ctrl key down while selecting multiple ships or as you said shift click or just dragging the mouse with a maximum selection of 10,20? ships at a time) will do away with the time involved, but, there won't be any of the intricacies of moo2 battles.

Ray: maybe this belongs in the other forum, but isn't just 6 type ships somewhat limited? Can they be refitted atleast?

	04-04-2005 04:42									#33
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Well.. wasn't it 5 ship designs in moo2? It is just to keep things simple. Yes, ships can be refitted.

I could make it take shift or control, whichever player likes more for selecting. When either is pressed, there comes selection rectangle and previously added ships remain in selection, which can consist of all ships in the fleet.

	04-04-2005 07:36									#34
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quote: Originally posted by Brutalisk Ray: maybe this belongs in the other forum, but isn't just 6 type ships somewhat limited? Can they be refitted atleast?

I dunno. I have found in MOO1 that 6 designs is plenty. Unless you have so many techs that your designs are constantly out of date, then there's really no need for refitting.

Besides, one could argue that refitting has been abstracted by the 1/2 ship BC you get back when you scrap ships.

	04-04-2005 10:04									#35
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I liked (part of) how Alpha Centauri handled designing units. Well, not necessarily how you could have a hundred or so designs at once. That got unwieldy, and I only used 10 or 15 at a time at most anyways (usually closer to six, not counting the various kinds of worker units (terraforming, colonies, probe teams, supply thingies, etc)). What I liked, though, was that when you marked a design obsolete, you kept your obsolete units instead of immediately having them all scrapped.

So here's a suggestion for RFR: When a design is marked obsolete, the player has the choice of scrapping the ships or keeping them. So long as ships exist for an obsolete design, the game would remember the design. However, obsolete designs wouldn't be shown on the ship-design screen - in fact that would stay the same as it is now. The only real visual change would be that the fleet view would show a 7th column for obsolete ships in addition to the six columns for existing ships.

Last edited by Shadowlord on 04-04-2005 at 10:11

	04-04-2005 10:10									#36
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Oops. Double post due to hitting quote instead of edit. And I can't delete it. Bah.

	04-04-2005 18:26									#37
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As far as i have planned and coded structures, i have made each ship unique. It bacomes unique when it is fully built, so if you change design during its progress, game will warn before constructions are scrapped. But there's no link between ready ships and design sets.
It can be compared to mobile phones There is always few new models and old remain functional.

	04-04-2005 19:39									#38
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quote: [SIZE=1]So here's a suggestion for RFR: When a design is marked obsolete, the player has the choice of scrapping the ships or keeping them. So long as ships exist for an obsolete design, the game would remember the design. However, obsolete designs wouldn't be shown on the ship-design screen - in fact that would stay the same as it is now. The only real visual change would be that the fleet view would show a 7th column for obsolete ships in addition to the six columns for existing ships.

Actually, the problem with not scrapping obsolete ships is that it opens the game up for an exploit. For example, you could create 6 designs, build a ton of ships, scrap the designs and start 6 new designs. Rinse and repeat.

Then you can enter combat with 12, 18 or however many stacks of ships you want and break the balance in combat.

	04-04-2005 21:59									#39
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Hmm. Good point. Didn't think of that! Gotta start thinking outside the box more. :P

	05-04-2005 00:15									#40
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quote: Originally posted by Shadowlord Hmm. Good point. Didn't think of that! Gotta start thinking outside the box more. :P

I didn't think of it either. I think it was brought to my attention when I was thinking about allowing just what you suggested.

	05-04-2005 00:24									#41
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That's essentially the problem I am talking about. User, in moo2, yes you have fewer designs but each ship is not attached to its design. In short, it doesn't get scrapped if you delete that design.

One of my biggest problems with Moo1 was the fact that all the ships you had built get scrapped. There should be a way to upgrade them.

Ray: While also having the scrap option, you could also introduce an option of upgrading a design .

Let's say I have 50 "design a" ships and I have just discovered gatling lasers and shield II and want to upgrade them instead of scrapping. 50 x the cost of refitting to allow me to refit the fleet (="design a").

Thus, you still have only 6 types in combat but atleast you don't lose the ships. (btw, are you going to introduce "experience" in similar style to moo2? ie older crews become better)

	05-04-2005 00:54									#42
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quote: Originally posted by Brutalisk That's essentially the problem I am talking about. User, in moo2, yes you have fewer designs but each ship is not attached to its design. In short, it doesn't get scrapped if you delete that design. One of my biggest problems with Moo1 was the fact that all the ships you had built get scrapped. There should be a way to upgrade them. Ray: While also having the scrap option, you could also introduce an option of upgrading a design . Let's say I have 50 "design a" ships and I have just discovered gatling lasers and shield II and want to upgrade them instead of scrapping. 50 x the cost of refitting to allow me to refit the fleet (="design a").

I don't really see the point. There is a cost associated with upgrading a ship. After all, you can't pay 20BC to go from a 30BC design to a 50BC design.

By the same token, there is also a cost associated with scrapping a ship (you lose half of its value). It's really just a different about of BC going into a different 'bucket'.'

Here's an example:
Let's say that you have 10 "Design A" ships orbiting your planet, worth 20BC each. That's 200BC worth of ship, and you want to replace them with 10 "Design B" ships worth 30BC each.

Let's also say that your planet is spending 15BC per turn to build ships.

To upgrade, you would have to pay for the 100BC increase plus whatever the arbitrary upgrade pct is. Let's say it's 50%, so you have to pay 150BC, so it will take you 10 turns to upgrade your ships.

If you scrap, the scrapped ships immediately put 100BC in your reserve, which you can use to temporarily double your planet's production. Of course, now you need to spend 300BC to build the 10 new ships. With the reserve from the scrapped ships your planet can produce 30BC per turn until that 100BC reserve runs out:
Turns 1-6: 30BC (180BC)
Turn 7: 25BC
Turns 8-13: 90BC

In 13 turns, that's 295BC, which means that the 10th ship will be done on Turn 14. With upgrading, you get it on Turn 10. However, this difference in turns is almost completely dependent on the % upgrade cost vs. the % scrap recovered. If the scrap recovery % was raised to 75%, both would have required exactly 10 turns.

So, to me, the difference between scrapping and upgrading is not a functional difference, but just a player preference. Programmatically, however, scrapping designs is much cleaner and more difficult to exploit.

	05-04-2005 04:44									#43
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My prob is the following:

I have a sizable fleet and I am at war. Some key new techs arrive at the scene and I want to incorporate them onto my ships.

In Moo2 you could do that by gradually upgrading the ships without jeopardising your empire. In Moo1, the ships are gone and leaves a GAP in the size of my fleet. That is the problem (and the difference) between the two. I wouldn't even mind doing it at a greater cost (overall) than scrapping and building from scratch. (ie the problem is not the BCs)

I don't have a problem with being limited to 6 designs, but I don't like having to scrap my ships in order to add a new laser on them...

I can understand it's tricky to program.. a suggestion I guess would be for the BC cost of the upgrade to be an OPTION only IF there is enough in the empire RESERVE (and thus the BCs are then deducted from the empire coffers) and you get instantaneous upgrades on that design.

For example, I have 100 "design A" ships. The upgrade cost comes up as 50$ BC per ship plus 50% upgradecost (as a counter measure for the fact that you won't need to put any production in it; heck we can even make that +100%). You can only upgrade that design once you have (50x100)+50% = 7500$ BCs in your reserve. Clicking on the upgrade button instantaneously deducts that amount of cash from your resevre (pending a confirmation "Are you sure?" from the player) and the ships are instaneously upgraded (just like they would have been instantaneously scrapped instead).

The option for scrapping will ofcourse always be there.

	05-04-2005 06:33									#44
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quote: Originally posted by Brutalisk My prob is the following: I have a sizable fleet and I am at war. Some key new techs arrive at the scene and I want to incorporate them onto my ships. In Moo2 you could do that by gradually upgrading the ships without jeopardising your empire. In Moo1, the ships are gone and leaves a GAP in the size of my fleet. That is the problem (and the difference) between the two.

But don't you see that it's the scrap option that forces you to make a tactical decision? Simply selecting 'upgrade' whenever you want to stick another laser on a ship removes key elements of the ship design process...

1. Can I upgrade my fighter?
2. Is the improvement large enough to warrant a new design?
3. If I am at max # of designs, which design should I scrap?

All 3 questions applied to MOO1, whereas only the first applied to MOO2. In MOO2, you could redesign you entire fighter fleet whenever you wanted without consideration of anything else.

In MOO1, you might not want to upgrade your fighter JUST YET because maybe you are about to learn a new engine tech and want to ensure that are included in your new design.

And with good planning, question #3 was a non-issue because you always had an old design ready to scrap. I don't think any experienced MOO1 player scrapped a valuable part of his fleet to make a new design.

	05-04-2005 06:42									#45
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Nah, in Moo2 you did have the logistics of arranging an appropriate upgrade cycle (plus production costs). Your ships are afterall needed elsewhere. "2" applies to moo2 as well. Upgrading is not exactly "free" and moving ships towards planets that DO have a starbase and a large enough production to upgrade in a reasonable amount of time takes time, money and the risk of having fewer ships where your fleet is needed. Granted the dynamics of the fleets/ships and the way they work is somewhat different. The 3rd one is the one that doesn't apply to moo2.


Anyway, I can see that you don't like that idea, not much point dragging this on. I do like the 3 way battle though. (what's the maximum "x-way" battle you can have?)

	05-04-2005 08:50									#46
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quote: Originally posted by Brutalisk Anyway, I can see that you don't like that idea, not much point dragging this on. I do like the 3 way battle though. (what's the maximum "x-way" battle you can have?)

Arrgh. The multi-fleet battles are giving me headaches! The starting positions need to be improved.

Technically you could have all 13 races with Pacts orbiting peacefully at an uncolonized system.

When one of them suddenly colonizes it, then they all have to leave or fight. So you could have a 13 race battle...

That's the kind of headache I'm talking about.

	05-04-2005 11:06									#47
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Just a thought on that.

You have 13 races.
Each with potentially 6 ship types to accomodate.
Each race should then have 3 (columns) x 2 (rows)
The battle area can be enlarged depending on how many races are involved in battle. Each race numbered (0-12), where race #0 is the HOME race (or if there is no home race race #0 is the ATTACKING race)

The races can be distributed in the following setup:



You might have to decrease the square sizes to be able to accomodate or settle for a scrollbar

	05-04-2005 11:31									#48
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quote: Originally posted by Shadowlord I liked (part of) how Alpha Centauri handled designing units. Well, not necessarily how you could have a hundred or so designs at once. That got unwieldy,

Not the number of designs, but the linear listing, combined with the lack of a place marker, made the design handling unwieldy.

quote: So here's a suggestion for RFR: When a design is marked obsolete, the player has the choice of scrapping the ships or keeping them. So long as ships exist for an obsolete design, the game would remember the design. However, obsolete designs wouldn't be shown on the ship-design screen - in fact that would stay the same as it is now. The only real visual change would be that the fleet view would show a 7th column for obsolete ships in addition to the six columns for existing ships.

Space Empires 3 and 4 have that feature.

Aside: personally I much preferred SE3 to its successor: ministers did something (and usually the right thing), and multiple orbital spaceyards were great!

	05-04-2005 11:39									#49
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quote: Originally posted by Ray K Actually, the problem with not scrapping obsolete ships is that it opens the game up for an exploit. For example, you could create 6 designs, build a ton of ships, scrap the designs and start 6 new designs. Rinse and repeat.

What's wrong with that?

quote: Then you can enter combat with 12, 18 or however many stacks of ships you want and break the balance in combat.

Then allow only six stacks in combat! (But let the player choose them, or designate the preferred stacks for combat.)

	05-04-2005 11:47									#50
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quote: Originally posted by Ray K Technically you could have all 13 races with Pacts orbiting peacefully at an uncolonized system. When one of them suddenly colonizes it, then they all have to leave or fight. So you could have a 13 race battle... That's the kind of headache I'm talking about.

Why must they fight or leave? Why can't they remain orbiting peacefully?

"News flash! New settlement near US border compels war with Mexico! Local sheriff says only alternative was to pack up and leave Texas to the crows."

	05-04-2005 18:07									#51
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quote: Originally posted by Zoetrope Why must they fight or leave? Why can't they remain orbiting peacefully?

Because non-aggression pacts do not allow alien fleets to orbit your colony. If you want to allow that, that's what alliances are for.

	05-04-2005 23:21									#52
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Surely you allow fleet in war remain in orbit without it needing to attack colony or be sent away? They would only be blocking freighter passage to colonies. They don't have any pacts in war.

This thing is simpler in moo2 and my version.. they can always orbit.

	06-04-2005 01:01									#53
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Ray stick to Moo1 play until you have a finished product. Then if you want and other prefer, you could try to implement changes.

To me the value of your product is that it frees me from concerns about future OS and hardware issue that exist in Moo1.

I also prefer the 6 design and no upgrade, that is how Moo1 is and as you said, it forces you to plan a bit. You do not want to keep making lots of those large ships and end up with a huge investment that is obsolete. Better to make around 10 and then make a new design, even if nothing is changed. Just so you can scrap a deign without killing your power.

If you remove the exploit of being able to retreat back to the same planet, then maybe you need to allow orbit for non combatants. The game does not allow you to orbit now you have to fight or retreat, but you can retreat in place so to speak.

	06-04-2005 01:05									#54
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quote: Originally posted by Zoetrope Aside: personally I much preferred SE3 to its successor: ministers did something (and usually the right thing), and multiple orbital spaceyards were great!

The obsolete design in SE is the same as Moo2, except that in Moo2 you cannot view the old designs in production view or design view. You would have to find the ship and look at it and could not build them any longer.

In SE the design is viewable and has a toggle to keep it in the list or not.

	06-04-2005 01:22									#55
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quote: Originally posted by User137 Surely you allow fleet in war remain in orbit without it needing to attack colony or be sent away?

Absolutely! However, they would be considered a hostile force and the entry of any unfriendly fleet would trigger combat.

If they want to stay in orbit around a hostile planet, they have to militarily control the space.

quote: They would only be blocking freighter passage to colonies. They don't have any pacts in war.

We weren't talking about fleets that were at war. However, signing a pact with a race does not allow them to park a fleet of ships at your colony, whether you are at peace or not. Alien ships orbiting a colony is an inherently aggressive position unless there is an alliance.

quote: This thing is simpler in moo2 and my version.. they can always orbit.

Unless, of course, another fleet forces them to retreat.

	06-04-2005 01:34									#56
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 Ray stick to Moo1 play until you have a finished product. Then if you want and other prefer, you could try to implement changes.

MOO1 is certainly the inspiration for the game, but it is definitely no longer a MOO1 clone. However, I think that the differences are understandable and within the spirit of MOO1 gameplay.

quote: To me the value of your product is that it frees me from concerns about future OS and hardware issue that exist in Moo1.

Hopefully it will be fun as well.

quote: If you remove the exploit of being able to retreat back to the same planet, then maybe you need to allow orbit for non combatants. The game does not allow you to orbit now you have to fight or retreat, but you can retreat in place so to speak.

The exploit was removed because it was an exploit that placed the AI at a disadvantage (since the AI played by the rules). That is only reason I needed. However, non-combatants (unarmed ships) ARE allowed to orbit planets in Rise From Ruin. For example, if you and the Bulrathi do not have a pact or an alliance, your unarmed scouts can still orbit the same system at least until a fighter arrives. This, by the way, fixes another exploit in MOO1 where you could use your scouts to scare away the AI scouts.

There are quite a few exploits fixed in RFR, including the "scrap a large ship in production to build an instant fleet of high-tech medium ships" exploit.

Also, players do not automatically get the last vote in the Council meetings. You cannot contest the election if you voted for the race that won. You don't get any diplomatic bonuses simply for being the player. You can't find out who the other races are at the beginning of the game by looking at the galaxy map. The AIs are no longer handicapped by erratic rulers that randomly declare war for no reason.

Oh yeah... the AI absolutely and positively DOES NOT CHEAT. No map cheats, no diplomacy cheats, no research cheats, no production cheats, nothing.

That's the goal. We'll see how sucky it turns out to be in the end.

	06-04-2005 02:54									#57
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That's my goal too. Impossible AI doesn't mean he gets twice more race pick points to make game unfair. It should play harder with all that player has too. Micromanage every smallest detail to keep empire optimal...

	06-04-2005 03:34									#58
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I submit that having the ability to see who is in the game from the map is useful and does not impact the game. Ok, a tad, but for long time players, you may want to see or not a certain race in the current game for personal or any reason.

So you see that race and start a new game or not see the race you want and start a new game.

I don't care about the other stuff one way or another. Well I may end up missing the final war option to stop contacts.

Exploits do not matter t ome either or AI cheats. You get to know them and work around them or use them, your choice. If it had MP play, then it matters.

I do not mind CivIII giving the AI a ton of stuff at sid level. So long as you know what they get, you accept it or don't play.

As for fun, no one plays any games that are not fun, sorry Moo3.

	06-04-2005 05:51									#59
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Of course now in RFR the AI regularly scares away my unarmed scouts with his armed ones (since, early on, I can't fit both a laser and reserve fuel tanks onto the smallest ship class). :P

	06-04-2005 14:45									#60
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I almost completely agree with Brutal here.


Nice ideas user137.
@AI: You should work on MP first. Most considerations with respect to your AI (esp. strategy) are a complete waste of time at this stage. You should play dozens of MP-Games first....then you have the feeling for the equilibrium paths of several races.