Pre-SysNES2: Beta-testing and Submission

Kal'thzar · Jan 28, 2012

Kal vs Sym

Spoiler logs :

I am now going to play around with Mirror and Plasma speed boosts, not sure if its a good thing that the speed boost is added on after everything in a linear fashion.

Maybe you should include a theoretical IP speed line in the CC sheet of a powered Mirror/plasma Shield, and display it on the Ship design page. Then you can increase the bonus speed by getting more mirror/plasma sails, regulated by the mass/size the ship.

Matt0088 · Jan 28, 2012

A new battle fleet:

1x MFS Pelican Mk2s for 103e (Unrefined)
1x MFS Swallow for 26e (Unrefined)
3x MFS Eagle Mk2s for 51e
6x MFS Seagull Mk2s for 138e
28x MFS Crows for 280e

For a total of 598e. The Crows would immediately fire everything at any long range ships, and then proceed to kill whatever they can. The Seagulls would hang with the Crows, dealing with any short range ships which come in.

Disenfrancised · Jan 28, 2012

Kal'thzar said:
do Interceptors have to decide immediately what missiles to intercept or can decide after each interceptor engagement?

BASE 11 Combat? REALLY?!? (RND 0-10)

Can you flee one Close Range Instance to engage in a different Close Range Instance?

Deaths are resolved at the end of the Phase or the end of the Round? I.e. Command Ship gets shot up in the Long Range Phase, does the movement and Close Range phase then proceed with or without int buffs and debuffs?

When do you do Passive and Active EW attacks?

Can Long range jammed ships in the LONG RANGE phase, fire upon ships within the SAME instance at Close range?

Do Missile ships really get to fire twice a round if it so happens?

They need to decide what they're trying to stop on launch, if they take those out and theres some left over, thats too bad.

Yep

Nope you have to get to long range then re-engage somewhere else.

Ships buffs and debuffs expire at the end of the round - its best to think of the engagement & Long range steps occurring at the same time, followed by the close combat phase, the coordination and jamming will take a while to be cleared after death.

During the long range phase, not sure why you'd be wanting to do passive attacks during a battle lol.

No, that turns worth of missiles have left their bays. Ditto long range lasers and particle weapons are still refreshing. Long Range attacks at close range happen in the close range phase.

Considering the Batsman fleet was lower tech than yours they did okay.

Pusher Sail bonuses are being reworked.

Disenfrancised · Jan 28, 2012

On refining, going to sit down tomorrow and work out some preliminary costs for all the components.

Kal'thzar · Jan 28, 2012

Disenfrancised said:
They need to decide what they're trying to stop on launch, if they take those out and theres some left over, thats too bad.

Yep

Nope you have to get to long range then re-engage somewhere else.

Ships buffs and debuffs expire at the end of the round - its best to think of the engagement & Long range steps occurring at the same time, followed by the close combat phase, the coordination and jamming will take a while to be cleared after death.

During the long range phase, not sure why you'd be wanting to do passive attacks during a battle lol.

No, that turns worth of missiles have left their bays. Ditto long range lasers and particle weapons are still refreshing. Long Range attacks at close range happen in the close range phase.

Considering the Batsman fleet was lower tech than yours they did okay.

Pusher Sail bonuses are being reworked.

Right, so that means I need to redo some things for the next simulations. Missiles will be less good. I've also been doing EW in their own phase after movement, before Close.

Symphony D. · Jan 28, 2012

I'd call that a Decisive Victory, personally. In terms of e destroyed in those turns, my losses were far lower, and all your ships remaining on the battlefield were doomed. Precise losses on my side would be difficult to calculate but on your end the only survivor would be the 22e Goliath. Of course, as you rightly point out, my total resource input was much higher for that fleet, so...

Interested in seeing how the others fare. Have you considered doing other player fleet combos (e.g., Thlayli vs. Dis, etc.)?

Thlayli · Jan 28, 2012

Do EMP Busters knock out Jammers? Also, do EMP Busters need to register a hit or just be launched in order to have some effect?

Also, particle ships aren't doing enough damage versus highly armored opponents, period. The Outriders' 4x coupled ion cannons getting 1dpt against Kal's armored ships when particle damage is supposed to ignore armor class just doesn't seem to be balanced.

As things stand now there's no point to shields since particle damage is effectively useless against anyone with armor.

Symphony D. · Jan 28, 2012

Disenfrancised said:
When your entire fleet will die to cute little exo-fighter like this:

D8 Superiority Fighter
3 x Metal Capacitor
5 x Pulse Drive (Refined)
1 x Water Suspension
1 x Microwave Laser

For only 36e dodge 8 and a short laser can beat any number of ravens and crows.

With Surplus Power 1 this shows up as doing 0 EM damage for me, and doesn't even list the Microwave Laser under #EM. Refining the Capacitors makes it pop up and do 4 damage, though...

Frozen In Ice · Jan 28, 2012

Well after looking at those logs it appears I have no idea on how combat actually works. Probably why I didn't do so well.

Has there ever been a single place in the thread where the combat mechanics have been defined? What's all this talk about different instances (I'm guessing they determine long and short range but I don't really know)? Can long range lasers and particle weapons be used at short range? If so do they still have bad accuracy or are they treated more like their short range counterparts?

Kal'thzar · Jan 28, 2012

Symphony D. said:
I'd call that a Decisive Victory, personally. In terms of e destroyed in those turns, my losses were far lower, and all your ships remaining on the battlefield were doomed. Precise losses on my side would be difficult to calculate but on your end the only survivor would be the 22e Goliath. Of course, as you rightly point out, my total resource input was much higher for that fleet, so...

Interested in seeing how the others fare. Have you considered doing other player fleet combos (e.g., Thlayli vs. Dis, etc.)?

I thought a draw was possible, but hard to get, so yes a victory in most cases.

I have considered it, and discarded it its been taking me long enough to simply do mine. Other people should do their own vs other peoples. It will help people gain an understanding of the way combat will work.

@Dis

Talking to Thy. He was wondering why his particle doesn't rip armour apart a bit more. I actually agree, there should be a scaling to the amount of dmg particle does, as opposed to a max of 1 dmg. In fact, I think Shields should block particle dmg more than armour, I don't see anyone really using shields that should probably be addressed. Make it more difficult for laser ships to use armour and prefer shields (i.e. power boosts both the offensive and defensive of the ship). And Nudge missile ships towards armour (make missiles a bit heavier?, less likely to be dodge missile ships).

Then you bias (but do not force!) missiles to go armoured, Laser to go Shielded (although the cooling effect of armour might still be too persuasive, nudge it a bit?), and particle to go light and Dodge.

Or rather to get the
Highest Armour => go Missile
Highest Shield => go Laser
Highest Dodge => go Particle

How to justify missiles having the highest Armour though? Have shields have an negative int effect?

EDIT:
Frozen
1. Your ships could be designed better, i.e. some had too much cooling
2. Your fleet was all missiles, my fleet had pretty good missile defence

RULES
RULE SET
ROUND 1
START AT LONG RANGE, ALL SHIP LOCATED TOGETHER; How this occurs is NOT the perogative of this simulation
1. Long range weapons locate and attempt to hit a target. Hits and damage are resolved.

2. Movement Phase 1 Begins, you can:

flee
engage
intercept
remain/avoid
board

All actions are resolved through engagement calculator.
If you flee, you move to an undefended/controlled planet, or deep system space. Take no further part of the engagement.
If you engage you attempt to merge the engaging ship with an opponent ships 'instance'. If both ships wish to engage, then the two join a new instance. If they want to flee, then opposed engagement rolls. But if a group of ships want to stay within the same instance then its the opposed engagement rolls of the two worst members (worst speed vs worst speed then => worst int vs worst int). Engaged ships are in a 'CLOSE RANGE INSTANCE', but not necessarily the SAME one!
If you want to intercept, you want to engage opposing ships that might be trying to engage your ships (as 'engage' for groups of ships). Succeed and you engage the attacking ship and they don't engage your other ships (thus you move to a CLOSE RANGE INSTANCE).
If you want to remain/avoid probably means your going to be opposing most engagement rolls!
So you have ships that you've either put into groups or want to scatter to remain at long range.
Next you resolve this movement phase.
3. EW Phase, resolve attacks and so forth

4. Resolve shared instances (either through engagement or interception).
All your particle/beam/missiles all resolved at the same time.

ROUND 2 BEGIN
Long Range Weapons fire ONCE per ROUND
Long range weapons can fire out of CLOSE unless there are enemy jammers in the same instance with you
EW can happen at long range unless the foe has jammers, in which case its short range only.
When in a CLOSE with a jammer ship, the EW ship can't EW out of that instance. (BUT CAN USE EW WITHIN THE INSTANCE!)
If a ship gets SEIZED, then the boarding ship has to stay with it for the rest of the battle.
Ships can automatically merge with an ongoing engagement (People too busy to really avoid?)
Continue until all ships have fled or been destroyed from one side!
Interceptors: ints are the same as the parent ships, enemy missiles have dodge equal to their propulsion - your propulsion

@ Dis Important!
Ships can automatically merge with an ongoing engagement (People too busy to really avoid?)

Matt0088 · Jan 28, 2012

Dis please adjust combat so my pet fleet design works the best!

Thlayli · Jan 28, 2012

Matt0088 said:
Dis please adjust combat so my pet fleet design works the best!

My contempt for your utter lack of worth as a human being cannot be put into words right now.

Frozen In Ice · Jan 28, 2012

Thanks Kal'thzar, I shall exmaine that and see if I can make some better designs.

Symphony D. · Jan 28, 2012

Updated! Among the outer limits of the tech level. Some components refined. Depending on how Sails wind up functioning this could be hilarious.

Scorcher IIIa (TL5, Racial Picks)

1 Twist Drive
5 DHe Fusion Core (Refined)
5 Deuterium Drive (Refined)
1 Mirror Sail
1 Hibernation Pods
1 Computer Module
1 Scanners
1 Salt Sinks
9 Interceptors (Refined)
3 Microwave Beamer (Refined)
2 Plasma Shield (Refined)
5 Tungsten Armor
1 Heavy Cladding

Cost: 193e (87e) / 75m / 54v / 0a / 0t / 67s
Size: 89 / Mass: 113 / IS Rating: 3 / IP Speed: 1
Range: 1 / Power: 34 / Heat: -4
Init: 3 / Dodge: -22 / Missile: 0 / Armor: 35 / Shield: 31

EM Total Damage: 291L (97 each)
Missile Total Damage: 9
Bonus to Sails: 4

Who left the fridge open?

You have weapons? SCREW YOUR WEAPONS! Drop a few of these in the thick of it and have a party. Putting together a wolfpack of 3 is relatively cheap in terms of resources vs. industry. Pretty strongly proofed against most things and capable of three almost certain one-hit KOs per turn. As a group, that's 9 knock-outs with 27 possible intercepts per turn. If they can push each other around any faster...

---

P.S. Shouldn't Laser Net receive bonuses from additional power, conceptually? That'd probably become really broken though.

Symphony D. · Jan 28, 2012

TL6 is when you start to be able to field truly nasty things:

Scorcher VI

1 Twist Drive (Refined)
10 DHe Fusion Core (Refined)
7 Deuterium Drive (Refined)
9 Pulse Drive (Refined)
1 Hibernation Pods (Refined)
2 Computer Module
1 Scanners (Refined)
2 Jammers
1 Security Team
2 Radiators (Refined)
2 Gas Vents (Refined)
9 Interceptors (Refined)
3 Microwave Beamer (Refined)
9 Maneuvering Jets (Refined)
1 Gas Rockets (Refined)
2 Plasma Shield (Refined)
5 Tungsten Armor
1 Heavy Cladding

Cost: 329e (101e) / 101m / 370v / 0a / 0t / 103s
Size: 144 / Mass: 172 / IS Rating: 4 / IP Speed: 2
Range: 2 / Power: 47 / Heat: -4
Initiative: 4 / Dodge: 2 / Missile: 0 / Armor: 36 / Shield: 40

EM Total Damage: 405L (135 each)
Missile Total Damage: 9

Could buy two for 658e. Expensive on volatiles, but cheap on metals, considering. A bit slow but not really compromised in any arena. Something more specialized in the same weight class will probably school it handily, but a solid performer by itself or in pairs.

You'll have to wait until TL8 to get antimatter, but ships in the 100-200 weight class using it will be quite sick, nevermind larger.

vvv EDIT: Just making a new damn post to make it more organized, give me a few minutes...

Thlayli · Jan 28, 2012

I approve of this prospective solution. Though obviously the Ion Cannon would have to maintain a middle-of-the-road role.

Symphony D. · Jan 28, 2012

We're still in Alpha so it's time for:

Heretical Weapon Balance Theory Chat!

Here is the RPS system of how damage currently works:

I've come to the conclusion that I don't entirely like this because it's a bit inconsistent. This is not an attack on the current system, just a thought exercise to improve it. Let me explain!

Missile wants Initiative to fire first and get the drop on opponents. Laser wants Power to boost single-shot damage and kill some one thing quick. And Particle wants... Dodge? Notice both the former two are offensive in nature and the latter is more defensive in nature. Particle is an anomaly. Why? Now, it's true that mobility can be a weapon, but...
... Everything should theoretically want Dodge. Dodge is basically the best kind of defense if you can get your hands on it, and the hardest to get good quantities of. Furthermore...
... You generally want to set your defense with what works well with your offense. Dodge sort of fills this role for Particle, but it could fill this role for any of the damage types, so its use seems strange.
Generally, Dodge doesn't seem to fit in. I propose Fire Volume for Particle instead—another offensive quality.

Why? Well...

Missiles are focused on a relatively small number of extremely Persistent and moderate-to-heavy damaging shots per turn.
Lasers are focused on a very few, extremely Powerful and damaging shots per turn.
Particle fits in well with producing a Prodigious number of somewhat inaccurate, weak-to-moderate damaging shots per turn.

This couples all three Weapons' relations of beating one another to an offensive, rather than a mixed mode, making for a simpler RPS model. In this regard it's more consistent:

Missile overwhelms Laser with limited shots.
Particle overwhelms Missile with lots of shots.
Laser overwhelms Particle with few, powerful shots.

Or: More Dakka > Macross Missile Massacre > Beam Spam > More Dakka ...

It also resolves another inconsistency: Interceptors are an active Missile-based defense, while Laser Net and Pebble Net are passive Laser and Particle-based defenses. Would it not make sense that all three be active? In other words, there are anti-ship missiles and anti-materiel missiles, and it makes sense that there would be anti-ship lasers and anti-materiel lasers, and anti-ship particles and anti-materiel particles. Materiel, in this case, means both anti-projectile/beam and anti-swarmer ship (in a sort of AA functionality).

This itself addresses another issue: the relatively low damage output of Particle people have been complaining about. On a real life naval battleship, you'd see a few big guns and lots of small guns—anti-ship and anti-aircraft. Rather than buffing Particle across the board, a simple solution presents itself: anti-ship guns track slow (can't hit fast targets), and have fast projectiles (overpenetrate light armor and do less damage, less kinetic energy transfer), while anti-ordinance guns track fast and fire a lot (but are inaccurate without computer support or volume of fire), but do little damage to heavy armor (can't penetrate). Real life AA guns like a Bofors or a ZSU-23-4 chew up light armor but can't do anything against heavy stuff, and conversely even if you stuff a 16" battleship gun with shot you'll have a hell of a time shooting down planes, and if you shoot light armor it'll just go straight through. You need a big gun to get through armor, and a small one to kill fast targets.

For Particle, Coilguns could be the small guns, and Mag Launchers the big ones; give the former a penalty against heavy armor and the latter a penalty against light, with each getting increasing bonuses in the opposite direction. Thus neither is good against everything, but specialized—likewise, Ion Cannons, Neutron Beams, etc., are more average performers with no real biases, and secondary effects. This makes the Mag Launcher more of a proper sieger and less just a catapult doodad (possibly just call it a Railgun or Mass Driver). It also gives Particle Coilguns as active defense, replacing Pebble Net (gunning down Missiles through volume of fire and semi-effective against swarms) at the opportunity-cost of big-damage guns.

To represent the effect of putting out so many projectiles, since guns are already about as small as they can get, perhaps the damage each gun does gradually increases with the number of guns mounted, to represent a "wall of lead" effect; similar to how Laser benefits from more surplus power. This in turn generates the "Flak" for defense. (If you think about it too much it makes about as much sense as going guns akimbo making your magazines infinite but it's a good Rule of Cool effect—pretend it's synergy of warhead types/converging fields of fire/ability to fill a killzone with exponentially increasing lethality by literally flooding space with death, albeit diminishing with the inverse-square of distance). This itself is "active" defense rather than the "passive" nature of armor and shields (in opposition to the above on anti-materiel defenses), but I'm not sure what else it could be.

For Laser, Lasers are the smaller, faster, close-in ones and Emitters are the big, slow, long-range ones. This takes over for Laser Net (mostly not anti-Missile, but frazzling large, high-damage Particle rounds and semi-effective against swarms), at the opportunity-cost of big-damage arrays.

For Missile, you've got Interceptors for mediocre anti-missile/swarm and anti-Laser duty (maybe large quantities of ablative/reflective material to diffuse/deflect beams), at the opportunity cost of Kinetic Lances as high-tracking low-damage, and Busters for low-tracking high-damage. (Kinetic Lances might need some slight rebalancing as seeking both Armor and Init will predispose Missile to being somewhat ungainly; although armor will help cool down their computers, so at least those two are synergetic—or you can just gamble on nukes making up the difference in tracking with extra Init to do damage lost by not having strong propulsion. Alternately Kinetics can mass less to be low-damage but swarm.)

This damage system also reinforces what's basically the "optimized" defense system already in place as well:

Particle beats Armor, which Missile needs to "survive" Laser and is best equipped to carry.
Missile beats Shields, which Laser needs to "survive" Particle and is best equipped to carry.
Laser beats Flak, which Particle needs to "survive" Missile and is best equipped to carry.

Defense and Offense both go fully clockwise, reinforcing the RPS nature of the system in lockstep. It's possible to put say, Armor on a Laser, but you might open yourself up to Particle instead of purely trouncing it. Generalists are possible and survivable, but specialists will tend to win, as the system itself is supposed to promote combat-wise.

Dodge, of course, is good for everyone, because targetting is always an issue, and it's the only good way of escaping all three weapon systems simultaneously; the counter for that is perhaps computers for fire-control—in this case, probably Command and Control, provided by Fleet Int, further specializing fleet construction.

Thus the damage/defense system is fully self-reinforcing; you can specialize ships toward big-damage against big, single targets or big-damage against small, multiple targets, or try and do both; specialization is promoted; and generalists work but will tend to be out-competed in any one area by specialists. In other words, this:

I think this minor set of changes cleans up lingering weapon troubles well. Feel free to provide feedback.

Kal'thzar · Jan 29, 2012

I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with Symphony D.

Dodge might be a passive defence compared to the missile+int or the power+laser, but thats because everything is front loaded onto the particle weapon and that weapon is small/light, easy to hit dInt. It only lacks punch.

Secondly just because everyone wants dodge does not mean everyone is going to be good at getting it. Everyone should want shield and armour too, but its not going to help their design become the best at it.

I DO agree that the active defence should be looked at.

I will think more upon the subject...

Disenfrancised · Jan 29, 2012

Symphony D. said:
P.S. Shouldn't Laser Net receive bonuses from additional power, conceptually? That'd probably become really broken though.

Conceptually yes, a laser net with more power will do more damage. But since Missiles are modeled as having <1 HP and no armour, any laser shot will kill them so there being more damage per shot isn't relevant. Extra power doesn't let you take shots more rapidly after all.

Symphony D. said:
With Surplus Power 1 this shows up as doing 0 EM damage for me, and doesn't even list the Microwave Laser under #EM. Refining the Capacitors makes it pop up and do 4 damage, though...

That's right, derp on my part.

Considering the arguments on the combat system, I'm going to try these changes for V7

1) Lowering the damage of coilgun type weapons* (HA, bet you weren't expecting that!)
2) Coilgun type weapons now will make 3 to hit rolls per combat step, each damaging individually and each having minimum damage vs armour (but not shields). All these shots will go at the same target though. This change will be built into the battlecalc.
3) Coilgun-type weapons will now add missile avoidance, computers will make them better at missile avoidance.
4) Laser and Pebble nets will remain, so that people who don't pursue the Coilgun tech path (Materials+Weapons) or the Interceptor tech path (Propulsion+Weapons) still have a chance to deal with missiles, but will be less effective per e at stopping missiles than the former two.
5) A component or three (Ammo Belts?) will be added that improve the number of shots coilguns take per turn and their missile avoidance score. These will be light but e expensive and make specialist gunships a design option.
6) Ion cannon type particle weapons will now do extra int debuff to more heavily armoured targets (since there is more structural mass for them to Bremsstrahlung off of and induce current in) but not extra damage. Their damage will be decreased and their to hit against dodge increased. Ion cannons shouldn't be your primary DPS but rather something you use to even the odds vs high int ships/weaken something for boarding.
7) Mag launchers will straight up ignore armour. Their allied speed buff will be restricted to ships 1/5th their mass.
8) The int debuff of EMPs on connecting will be greatly increased.

*If you look at the tech tree you can see that Railguns are already on there SymD (spoilers: it's the more advanced coilgun)

Disenfrancised · Jan 29, 2012

Kal'thzar said:
@ Dis Important!
Ships can automatically merge with an ongoing engagement (People too busy to really avoid?)

No? If two high IP fighters are having a dogfight or chase, how would a wallowing command ship be able to engage them. You make an engagement check against the lowest speed (with opposing int if said lowest speed is unfriendly, without if friendly) in the close instance to merge with it.

Pre-SysNES2: Beta-testing and Submission

Deity

Deity

Beep Beep

Beep Beep

Deity

Deity

Le Pétit Prince

Deity

Emperor

Deity

Deity

Le Pétit Prince

Emperor

Deity

Deity

Le Pétit Prince

Deity

Deity

Beep Beep

Beep Beep

Similar threads