Pre-SysNES2: Beta-testing and Submission

[qoou]

Spreadsheet bug: on the Ship Design sheet, the tech requirements for Burst Drive point to the wrong row (Charm Drive's).

When did I ever indicate that I was going to do that?

Woot, no more pressure to get a background written down.

Near 5000 words explaining how ship combat works.

Ships which are already at the volume in question and not moving will arrive first. Ships already at the world have IP 10 for the purposes of evaluating ability resolution.
Ships arrive at the volume in the order determined by the result of [IP Speed] * K – (10-[IP Speed]) + [Initiative] + [Randomiser], where K is 3.
During the engagement phase ships attempt to move around, in and out of close range instances. All engagements are resolved through the engagement section of the battle calc.

Thank you, very nice guide. Minor in typo in bold/underline; there were a couple that were even more minor.

You mention that if ship arrivals are separated by more than 10 units, they cause separate battles. What happens if A vs. B is a tie (nothing can be hit), then C arrives on the scene?


Revamped this post, mostly for readability but also with some small design changes. Symphony's inspired me to turn my jammer-ship ("Falcon") into a fighter (dodge 6, IP 6).

Spoiler Fleet Matchups :

I believe 10 Falcons + 20 Phorids + 2 Kangaroo (2970 APR) might perhaps beat HellJammer II in V10 with some losses. Nothing outside of a close-range instance with Songbird can get hit until all 10 Falcons go down.

1 Honey Badger (+ 1 Kangaroo) will take down Outrider, but I doubt Outrider was designed with that in mind. Same with Railspike.

1 Honey Badger (+ 1 Kangaroo) will take down Albatross, as I don't believe Orbital Platforms can close with ships. Needs more shields.

Metatron will beat any combination of my ships.

1 Falcon + 26 Phorids + 1 Kangaroo should capture most of HellJumper and lose an average of 9-10 ships.

I don't think HellJammer can be beat by any combination of my ships.

1 Falcon + 26 Phorids + 1 Kangaroo should capture most of Devastator and lose an average of 2-3 Phorids.

And that's all that's been posted recently.


Not really fleet matchups if I mix and match my ships to exactly counter the opponent, actually.

 

[Symphony D.]

Guess what? A STEEL REIGN update will be cheaper than the original and field more missiles per unit resources:

11 Burst Drive
2 Deuterium Drive
3 Computer Module
1 Scanners
7 Kinetic Lances (Refined)

Cost: 44e (20e) / 34m / 14v / 0a / 0t / 21s
Size: 55 / Mass: 52 / HP: 56 / Power: 2 / Heat: -10
IS: 1 / IP: 1 / Range: 0
Init: 5 / Dodge: -14 / Avoid: 0 / Armor: 3 / Shield: 0
Refine: 61e / 15s

Missile Total Damage: 56

 

[Symphony D.]

Not particularly enamored with the jump colorization scheme, and the way the names are labeled isn't good, but here's this. Not done yet by a long shot.

 

[Disenfrancised]

You mention that if ship arrivals are separated by more than 10 units, they cause separate battles. What happens if A vs. B is a tie (nothing can be hit), then C arrives on the scene?

Three way battle of course.

 

[Kal'thzar]

Not particularly enamored with the jump colorization scheme, and the way the names are labeled isn't good, but here's this. Not done yet by a long shot.

That is much clearer already (compared to the MAP that Dis put up on one of the later pages, this one is similar to the one still on the front page in that the jumps are quite clear again though the labeling is better)

 

[Disenfrancised]

Uh, here, actually:

Kentharu has since indicated that he's unlikely to be able to play due to his impending military service, so I thought that qoou would make an acceptable replacement replacement, especially since he has been active on here doing designs, and is reportedly working on a background.

I like the rules, though it needs some conceptual diagrams of an example battle.

I said kentharu could post something, just like anyone else, no indication of my approval or not.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Looks good SymD, one thing is you seem to have Obscurum Alpha and Gamma mixed up, and O Alpha is a yellow star.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Yeah my plan was just to overlay the high energy jumps on the low energy shape like so:

Spoiler :

Because I thought doing it like SymD would be difficult to follow.

Also here is the easy look up table:

 

[Frozen In Ice]

Ok I have a few questions on the battle Calculator. I was looking into the weapons hit chance in the default V10 Battle Calculator and noticed something odd. When I raised ship B's missile avoidance to 1 from 0 ship A becomes more likely to hit ship B.

Is this an error or am I missing something?

Also, on line 23, is "Ship B missile dodge" supposed to just be "Ship B dodge"?

 

[Symphony D.]

Because I thought doing it like SymD would be difficult to follow.

You pretty much have to load it up in an image program and lay down straight lines to be absolutely sure where you're looking, but I personally prefer to have all transit options visible at the same time while plotting movement rather than shuffle back and forth. It's just down to individual taste, I think. You've got two Obscurum Alphas on your Very High jumps, by the way. Seems that star is nothing but trouble.

I'll make the corrections and keep working on it. I liked the yellow/gold-fuschia/purple scheme on the front page and tried to emulate it, but it looks a bit wonky with colored subsectors, so might go for yellow/gold-greens or go back to primaries. I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Thlayli]

I vote that higher energy spectrums of visible light should correspond to higher energy traverses. So a dull red for low energy jumps, yellow or green for medium energy, blue for high, and bright violet for very high.

Ok I have a few questions on the battle Calculator. I was looking into the weapons hit chance in the default V10 Battle Calculator and noticed something odd. When I raised ship B's missile avoidance to 1 from 0 ship A becomes more likely to hit ship B.

Is this an error or am I missing something?

To hit with what? Can you reproduce it with all weapon classes?

 

[qoou]

I vote that higher energy spectrums of visible light should correspond to higher energy traverses. So a dull red for low energy jumps, yellow or green for medium energy, blue for high, and bright violet for very high.

Actually, yes, that would make it extremely easy to follow.

To hit with what? Can you reproduce it with all weapon classes?

I think he was seeing the EM/Particle numbers refresh to a slightly higher value (32 -> 34 kind of thing).

 

[Symphony D.]

Or there could just be a key because that sounds like a truly awful coloration scheme. If you want a general work, use the official map. This one's going to be themed.

 

[Kal'thzar]

Ok I have a few questions on the battle Calculator. I was looking into the weapons hit chance in the default V10 Battle Calculator and noticed something odd. When I raised ship B's missile avoidance to 1 from 0 ship A becomes more likely to hit ship B.

Is this an error or am I missing something?

Also, on line 23, is "Ship B missile dodge" supposed to just be "Ship B dodge"?

I thought this issue existed but couldn't find it at first. Found it now, Close range, 1 weapon doing 1 missile dmg against ship with -1 dodge and 0->1 missile Avoid. Increases your to hit by 9%.

This is because at close range dodge*1.5*IF(AND(Dodge<0;MissAvoid>0);2/MissAvoid;1). Thus for a missile avoid of 1 you are multiplying by 1.5*dodge by 2 instead of 1, as soon as you go to missile 2 you break even or come out ahead (by reducing the dodge bonus to the equivilant of no missile avoid: 1.5*dodge, but you also get the missile avoid term:
-MissAvoid*IF(Buster="Y";1;0.8))

That, I assume, is a bug.

On the stats page, yes 'Ship B Missile Dodge' should just be dodge.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Yeah that's easy to fix

 

[Kal'thzar]

A musing on lasers: perhaps make it the heat addition is equal to the highest laser output and not the total laser output (i.e. 3 beamers coupled together make more heat than 3 separate beamers)

Although I have not really studied laser ships.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Okay here is V11, hopefully theres nothing tremendously broken that requires another version right away, as I do actually want to work on the army and economy sheets.

ShipDesigner2 and BattleCalc V11

V11 Change Log

Battle Calc
-Some Values adjusted
-Missile Avoidence bug fixed
-Arrival time section added
-Surprise calculator and surprise stats section added
-Catapult relationship with shields tweaked

Ship Designer
-Atmospheric streamlining added, increases cost but makes it easier to be built in an atmosphere
-'Can be built' rebranding as 'rating' governs where a ship can be built, where it can be refueled and recharged, and what environments it can enter during combat. Massive defence stations that run off capacitors will need extensive orbital infrastructure to run, as you'll need a space frame, shipyard and orbital power plant.
-New Section in can be built, space differentiated into spacedocks and shipyards. Spaceport is now a groundside building only. Spacedocks and shipyards somewhat more e expensive than spaceports, much more m expensive.
-Several components costings tweaked, I may have forgotten what :3
-Fire control rebranded as regeneration
-Metal Capacitors are now heat neutral.
-Jammers take more power, jamming provided rather decreased
-Bug fixed in secruity teams providing 1/5th the amount of S2SB they're meant too. For people who haven't worked out what they're good for - Secruity team bonus (and cost) scales with ship size, whilst space marines do not.
-Efficency of providing slave charm drive boosted when charm drive is refined
-Charm drive bug fixed, now provides correct amount of IS
-Man jets now increase the planet rating of ships, slightly buffed in dodge bonus

 

[Disenfrancised]

An example of why a massive defense station might not be the be-all and end-all of defence:

SS Tsetse Fly
Atmospheric Streamlining
3 x Manifold Drive (Refined)
5 x Deuterium Drive (Refined)
3 x Pulse Drive (Refined)
2 x Computer Module (Refined)
1 x Lubricants
1 x Viral Bombs (Refined)
3 x Manoeuvring Jets (Refined)

With IP 7, Init 2 and Dodge 6 its a tricky bugger to catch, and can wipe 10-20 population points off your world in the second round if it's not intercepted.

 

[Kal'thzar]

You should probably focus a bit on the economics sheet, the e,m,v,t output is going to feed into the battle and army sheets as well.

 

[Kal'thzar]

Atmospheric Streamlining is not adding to the cost of ships properly; everything on that line refers to if an Atmospheric Platform is selected (row 9 vs Row 10).