Alternate Realities > Endless Stars
Combat
The Jade Knight:
My thoughts, in no particular order:
Space battles are 3 dimensional, not 2 dimensional. This complicates things further
The "multiple command" system seems like it would quickly get complicated and difficult to handle for a neutral player (quite a chore, and it seems likely mistakes will be made in executing commands properly).
Attacking would also be a complicated and slow affair, as every individual squad would need such a set of commands for every battle, on top of unit stats.
While we could do this, and it certainly would involve an element of strategy, I wonder if a quicker system could be devised that would be less of a burden on a netural player.
However, that system does have the advantage of taking armour and weapons into account.
Here I'll present two alternative systems we could also consider:
Here's a potential fleet and one potential glance at the combat system to go with it for an alternative.
10 X Starfighters (1 Power [laser] each, 3 defense [evasion] each, size: small, target: small)
1 Heavy Battle Cruiser (7 power [laser], 5 power [concussion missile], 10 defense [shield], 10 defense [armour], size: large, target: large), Synergy: Adds 1 to evasion defense of friendly ships.
1 Missle Boat (10 power [phase missiles], 5 defense [shield] 5 defense [armour], size: medium, target: large) *Cloaking Device installed
Overall strategy: Hit & Run (Evasion synergies are lost, combat lasts 1 round only, cloaked targets may not be attacked unless all other ships are destroyed)
Opposing force:
3 Z Starfighters (2 power [laser] each, 3 defense [evasion] each, size: small, target: small)
2 Heavy Battle Cruiser (7 power [laser], 5 power [concussion missile], 10 defense [shield], 10 defense [armour], size: large, target: large), Synergy: Adds 1 to evasion defense of friendly ships.
Overall strategy: Concentrate and Destroy (Large ships add 25% armour bonuses for each large ship, all evasion bonuses are doubled, first strike bonuses are lost)
Notes:
Laser = standard weapon, 1 power deals 1 point to shields OR 1 point to armour. Lasers are always fired before missiles
Concussion Missiles = 1 power deals 1 point to shields OR 2 points to armour, inutile against evasion
Evasion = attacking power must be greater than evasion to destroy. Starfighter squads may total power and compare that to opposing evasion. That many starships are lost.
Phase missles = ignore shields, do damage directly to armour.
Cloaking Device = grants "first strike"
Okay, so when combat commences, every ship has a size and a "target". The target is the size of ship this ship will attack first. In this conflict, the Hit & Run force is doing a brief assault (fleeing after 1 round), in an attempt to damage the opposing force but not destroy it.
So, let's pair up targets:
The starfighters (X & Z) attack eachother
The missile boat and cruiser (1) attacks the other cruisers (2). The other cruisers (2) atack cruiser 1.
First thing is the cloaked unit takes a first attack with an element of surprise: The missle boat deals 10 damage straight to the armour of Cruiser 2a, who is left with only 3 armour (because of the 25% strategy bonus; 13-10 = 3)
The cruisers then attack. Cruiser 1 has to attack one of the other cruisers. However, since both are large and attacking it, what it will attack is determined by a) if it can destroy one and not another, it will attack what it can destroy, and b) if it can destroy multiple targets, it will destroy the largest. If it can not destroy any, it will attack the whatever it can do the most damage to, or the weakest. So it will attack Cruiser 2a, since it can destroy it, and not Cruiser 2b.
Cruiser 1 deals 10 points of damage to Cruiser 2a's shields (7 laser, 3 missile), bringing them to 0, and then the remain 2 concussion missle power multiplies x2 to do 4 damage, which destroys Cruiser 2a (3-4 = dead). Cruisers 2a and 2b fire on Cruiser 1 at the same time, however, dealing 14 points of laser damage (destroying its shield and bringing it down to 6 armour, and then finish it off with 20 points of concussive damage ([5+5]x2).
In the starfighter battle, Squad X has 10 power and 3 evasion, while Squad Z has 6 power and 7 evasion each (3 + 2 [doubled for strategy bonus]).
X deals 10-7 (3) damage to Z, which is enough to destroy both starfighters, and Z deals 6-3 (3) damage back, destroying 3 of the 10 starfighers in X.
And then Force 1 flees with its 7 remaining starfighters and missle boat, while Force 2 has only 1 battle cruiser.
So that's another potential system. Fairly complicated on the unit-level, but much simpler in dealing with overall strategies.
I'll mention the next (even simpler) later.
GorgonlaVacaTremendo:
That's a lot of stats to deal with. It seems to me that it wouldn't be much easier to compare damage to evasion or evasion for multiple ships and then factor in things like first strike and special abilities of the such that than it would be to factor in the secondary commands.
But you are right, that is a rather deep flaw in my system, which I think could be fixed without loosing the strategic element. Perhaps no secondary commands to units that aren't moving? Or just one?
I may be missing something here, but how does the new system show 3D warefare any better than the one I posted? Your units are specifically told to attack another unit. It doesn't matter if that unit is above you or in front of you, or wherever else in the 3D atmosphere of battle, they still attack it. As for movement, a range is a range. Moving just tells them to get closer, whether it be down or up or whichever way...
The Jade Knight:
Actually, I don't think this system is necessarily any better than yours. It's one alternative to consider, however.
It handles 3d combat by ignoring dimensions entirely. There is no such things as flanks in this system.
Like I said, I have another system which I feel is simpler than both of these, which may also be worth considering.
The more ideas we have to look at, the better we will be to form an opinion as to what course to take.
GorgonlaVacaTremendo:
I didn't mean to make it seem like I was bashing this system, I just don't think it seems much simpler. If your other simpler system is still strategic then we should probably go with that one. The simpler the better. I never said that yours was being promoted as better than mine, just being promoted as showing 3D warfare better than mine.
Anyway, I'm excited to see your other system, as this one is well done, so if you have a simpler version it should be readily applicable.
The Jade Knight:
The last one nixes weapon and armour types (perhaps someone can find a way to integrate them), and overly simplifies.
Sample army (space-based):
# Type (power/HP each)
Force 1:
10 X starfighters (1/3)
1 Heavy Battle Cruiser (5/10), adds 1 to power of accompanying starfighters [support synergy]
1 Missle Boat (10/5) *opponent must sacrifice largest unit possible, *cloaking device
Total power as set: 35
Force 2:
2 Z starfighters (2/3)
2 Heavy Battle Cruisers (5/10), adds 1 to power of accompanying starfighters (each) [support synergy]
Total power as set: 18
Tactics (we'd want AT LEAST 6 or 7 of these, if not 10 or 15):
Hit & Run (Cloaking units may not be wounded if any non-cloaked units are present)
Mass & Destroy (support synergies are doubled)
Divide & Conquer (attack synergies are doubled)
Ambush
We'll only look at two of these for simplicity's sake, but assume they all match up on a grid with this result
Hit & Run vs. Mass & Destroy: +20%/-50% casualties
Mass & Destroy vs. Divide & Conquer: +50%/full cas
The first percentages are bonuses applied to the first strategy's overall power.
Assuming the first group takes a Hit & Run approach, and the 2nd takes a Mass & Destroy approach, the first group gets a total power of 42, and the second gets 22 (for the synergy bonuses).
The -50% casualties means we halve all damage, so Force 2 takes 21 points of damage, and force 2 takes 11.
Force 1 decides to put 5 damage on its battle cruiser, and sacrifices 2 X starfighters (for a total of 11 damage), force 2, because of the missile boat, is required to sacrifice one of its battle cruisers (10), and then gets creative, putting another 9 on its other cruiser, and then 2 on one of its starfighters, for a total of 21.
So force two is left with 2 starfighters (one crippled), and one crippled battle cruiser, while force 1 is left with 8 starfighters, 1 damaged battle cruiser, and its missile boat.
The point here is to have tactics which work as a sort of ro-sham-bo system, where each tactic has an innate bonus (by doubling synergies, etc.), but each tactic match up offers different bonuses/penalties, requiring players to outguess eachother, and figure out what tactics they think the other player will be using, and then trounce them with a countering tactic.
After combat, each player can assign damage as he/she likes to his/her own units. It would be good if there was some sort of incentive to kill off units, though (such as special events/cards which can do damage to ships, or tactics which penalize players with wounded ships, or saying that 50% wounded ships can't hyperjump, or something.
The major advantages to this system is that A) is is very simple, B) there is fleet customization in special rules and synergies, C) there is TONS of strategy in the use of tactics, where players have to consider force size, synergies, and tactic matchings to try to outwit eachother in the tactic department.
In addition, we could include "admirals" and stick them on certain ships and say that they affect power/defense/synergies/tactics/etc., if we wanted. Or if someone has a more innovated way of employing admirals, that would be better yet.
So, what do you think?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page
Go to full version