Show Posts
1
Design / UFO interceptions
« on: August 12, 2007, 07:32:56 pm »
Hi I have to admit that I am not impressed by the idea of a MOO or MOO2 combat system. They do a poor job of rendering a 3d combat enviroment (space) into a 2d plane. That said I think that the way forward is to do it our own way and try to find something better than the other games mentioned.
I also found a topic not yet mentioned here. The aliens are going to have a variety of ship sizes, functions, and accessories. They will be using these options to defeat us in our efforts. When they make a better space ship, they are not just going to change anything they can and hope it does better than the last one that was just shot down. No they are going to research, review, and think about what is being done to bring them down and respond to that threat.
This means that if we are using our ‘primitive’ weapons to shoot down the first few ships they will react (upping armor or shielding, etc). If we continue to knock them out of the sky, they would respond again (additional speed or firepower, etc). Eventually they will invent or arrive at an option or set of options that renders our ‘primitive’ options useless.
We then either have to design weapons specifically for them, up the power in our existing weapons, or start using their weapons (that they likely already know how to defend against) and again we get into the war cycle of.
I hurt you. -> You learn to take it. -> You hurt me back. -> I learn to take it. -> Repeat infinitum.
The point here is that whatever combat system we arrive at needs to have the ability to reflect their latest response to our response. I also feel that what ever their response is it will not be picked at random, it will be calculated as their most successful response possible. This means that there should be a way to experiment with the combat system in a simulation system setting. This could tie into the AI and allow it to test options out against what it knows we are dong.
One response I personally would like to see thought over is ‘aversion to contact with greater firepower’. If I had a ship shot down and I knew what weapons were used to do it, I would do the following: start keeping every thing else that would be easy pickings out of the area until I get something larger, better, or safer than what they have into the area to protect my property and people, and to take them out if possible.
That said this comes down more into the area of linking the use of improved ships to the player’s ability to down the ships they have (AI) but we should keep in mind that everything in the game will be connected to everything else in some way, fashion, or form. The combat system should reflect this too.
BTW, just because they use technology ‘x’ does not say that we have to use it too. We could always as they would say ‘reinvent the wheel’ and do it our own way. In fact it may be quite fun to say that we found some other way (just different not always better) to do the same things they do. Then we could have them find out about our way and they could either improve it for use on us (we could then steel the improved version and use it on them again), or they could invent a way of preventing our invention from working (or both). This gets into the cat a mouse life again, and I hate admitting it I think my mind is pulling me into another thread (AI).
I also found a topic not yet mentioned here. The aliens are going to have a variety of ship sizes, functions, and accessories. They will be using these options to defeat us in our efforts. When they make a better space ship, they are not just going to change anything they can and hope it does better than the last one that was just shot down. No they are going to research, review, and think about what is being done to bring them down and respond to that threat.
This means that if we are using our ‘primitive’ weapons to shoot down the first few ships they will react (upping armor or shielding, etc). If we continue to knock them out of the sky, they would respond again (additional speed or firepower, etc). Eventually they will invent or arrive at an option or set of options that renders our ‘primitive’ options useless.
We then either have to design weapons specifically for them, up the power in our existing weapons, or start using their weapons (that they likely already know how to defend against) and again we get into the war cycle of.
I hurt you. -> You learn to take it. -> You hurt me back. -> I learn to take it. -> Repeat infinitum.
The point here is that whatever combat system we arrive at needs to have the ability to reflect their latest response to our response. I also feel that what ever their response is it will not be picked at random, it will be calculated as their most successful response possible. This means that there should be a way to experiment with the combat system in a simulation system setting. This could tie into the AI and allow it to test options out against what it knows we are dong.
One response I personally would like to see thought over is ‘aversion to contact with greater firepower’. If I had a ship shot down and I knew what weapons were used to do it, I would do the following: start keeping every thing else that would be easy pickings out of the area until I get something larger, better, or safer than what they have into the area to protect my property and people, and to take them out if possible.
That said this comes down more into the area of linking the use of improved ships to the player’s ability to down the ships they have (AI) but we should keep in mind that everything in the game will be connected to everything else in some way, fashion, or form. The combat system should reflect this too.
BTW, just because they use technology ‘x’ does not say that we have to use it too. We could always as they would say ‘reinvent the wheel’ and do it our own way. In fact it may be quite fun to say that we found some other way (just different not always better) to do the same things they do. Then we could have them find out about our way and they could either improve it for use on us (we could then steel the improved version and use it on them again), or they could invent a way of preventing our invention from working (or both). This gets into the cat a mouse life again, and I hate admitting it I think my mind is pulling me into another thread (AI).