Topic: The best way to improve III

[Cleaven]

Diverging from the topic a little but warship design is a cultural thing. The design of the Hood was the result of the culture present in the Navy Ministry 30 years prior and they told the British people how their warships were going to come out. The same must be assumed of the Klingon and Romulan empires, in that some group arrived at a core design philosophy and this is seen in all it's warships. There is also a key link to technical and engineering ability as well. No point in having a cloaking doctrine if you can't build a power source to power the weapons and the cloak at the same time. But these things do feed back on themselves, in that  engineers will be motivated to produce not just a better power source, but a power source that works successfully within a warship which adheres to a cloaking doctrine. Same applies to weapons design. If your doctrine calls for close-in firepower and heavy shielding then these facets of design will achieve more attention. Unless you have a change of thinking in the war department you won't suddenly start producing ships that call for high speed long range combat capability with poor shielding. To this end it's not an issue as to whether a Man-of-War can go faster with less guns, but whether the First Sea Lord will let you out of port with half your armament left sitting on the dock. To paraphrase an old CO, "You can run your troop any way you want, as long as it's my way."

     

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Nanner, here is some "racial flavoring" for ya...

The Russian T-80 main battle tank does not have a loader, but instead has an automatic loader for its main gun. While this allows the tank to be smaller than the US M1A1 due to the removal of one crewman, it creates problems: Namely, the loader is much slower than a human loader, and it jams on ocassion.

The British carriers of the modern navy use Harriers and are much smaller than USN CVA's which use catapult launched standard take-off aircraft.

Surely the Brits KNOW about standard take-off aircraft, they did have the Spitfire and Hurricane just to mention 2 of the better known aircraft, and conventional carriers in WW2, but now they have gone with much smaller (compared to US CVA's) jump-jet carriers with small "ski-jump" type ramps for rolling take-offs for heavily laden Harriers.

The M4 Sherman tank was the main tank of the US for a good part of WW2, but it was smaller, more lightly armed and armored and slightly faster than the German Tigers and Panthers it had to go up against.

All of the above were made by HUMANS on the same planet, yet they are all very similar in form and yet oh so different in function.

The Japanese built the Yamato and Musashi with 18" main guns and the heaviest armor to ever appear on ANY naval vessel, but even after they were afloat the US Navy went with the smaller, lighter armed and armored but much faster Iowa class, etc.  Why?

Different military doctrines determined ALL of the above differences.

Sure, everyone could have and still could build "cookie cutter" military hardware, but they all build it according to their own doctrine and style of warfare.

Now, scatter those Navies over thousands of light years AND make them ALIENS who have never set foot on Earth and most of whom have never even seen a human in person, and THEN wonder how much "ALIKE" their ships are going to be.

Everybody does things different, all the way down to one County Sheriff's office issuing 12gauges and carbines while another only issues select-fire submachine guns and assault rifles.

Forgive me, but your "cookie cutter" Utopia is rather simplistic and quite illogical.

Have a nice day!  
 

[SSCF Hooch]

Quote:
Aside from at least two more races.

Can this game be made so you can take ground (hexes) in an organized way? The way I see it, hexes flip in a very hap-hazzard way. There is no way "plan" anything for a fleet to do. It has a map, maps mean something needs taken, to take ground and put the fear of god into your enemy and force him to play "your" game.

The point and shoot stuff I can live with, but what I really miss is focusing on an objective, having a do or die tactical situation where evrybody pulls together and wins or loses as a force. Yes, you can lose an offensive but still take pride in the effort.

Can this be done?

Hooch, the starved hex muncher  

Hey guys remeber this post? I am think'n we took a turn somewhere...

Hooch

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I think Hooch that the way the AI is contsructed in SFC3 (as a Non player charactor instead of being generated for a mission) effects the fundemental way we are used to doing bussiness....

DV2....want to advance a front(one hex at a time).....battle generated AI or present players in said hex to effect DV...march march...

DV3....want to advance a front(one hex at a time)...you must wait for an AI to happen by or get a player to meet you there.....


I think the operational area concept would be more suited to DV3....LOS dosnt work if you have no one to battle...no show in hex...no battle....

IMHO...meaningful extended campaign play in DV3 should be considered to be based on "assets" instead of just  "territory"....VC conditions help alot....but I think the concept of a "front" as in DV2 wont work ...and if there is no effective front.....how can you say someone is deepstriking

It not only requires thinking outside the box...it requires burning it

 

[NannerSlug]

actually ajtk - that is exactly what i am trying to avoid is "cookie cutter" stuff.

thanks for making my points for me.

you are correct on all your accounts.

[D. Boon's Ghost]

From an 'outsiders' perspective, this is one of the more interesting threads of late - thank you Hooch.

I have played this game from the time I purchased SFC Gold a few years back, though I never tried the dynaverse until this latest version.  Can someone point out what made the D2 experience different from the D3?  It may help those of us that have no way to compare the two to actually contribute to its improvement.  
I hear very often about the lack of 'strategic depth' with SFCIII, and in that I agree.  I am assuming, by the critique, that the D2 was more rewarding.  Is that correct?  If so, how?  
- on an unrelated note, I am so very much leaning towards playing on any D2 server that will have me... but drad gummit, the cloak is too cool in III.

One of my main concerns with the D3 is that the whole process seems far too sterile.  
It all boils down to flipping hexes.  The problem is, there are but a handful of ways in which to go about this and only one of them brings true thrill - PvP (and even that is sometimes questionable).  One can only go on so many scan missions (when a frigate pup) or planet runs (when a wee tougher) before it gets stale.  Once it gets stale, you do not play as much.  Once you do not play as much, you return to find the ten to twenty hardcore players zipping along in their superior hulls.  This, in turn, removes the thrill of PvP from the equation and leaves you back at square one.            

As far as contributing ideas to better the process...  (and forgive me if some of these can not be seen to light)
*For the smaller class hulls just entering a dyna, more missions will help alot in my opinion.  It will make navigating within your borders, while working your way up to higher hull classes, much more interesting.  
*A better working of neutral zone economic values would make the capturing of hexes more interesting.  Provide pockets of 'rich' systems with low defense values but high economic ones within the neutral borders of Empires, perhaps?  In this way, the taking and maintaining of hexes would become much more important.  It would lead, in theory, to more intense (and again, important) PvP battles within these 'hot spots'.
*Opening up LOS rules on larger maps may help.  Make it three to five hexes, instead of one.  I bring up the classic TOS episode 'A Balance of Terror' as an example of the interesting nature of crossing through no mans land and finding oneself in enemy territory.  Totally cut off and at the mercy of the enemy's organization skills, and yet able to hurt that enemy's economy with hit and run tactics.  Open LOS up and yet feather the economic and defensive value of the homeworld hexes so that they progressively get stronger the deeper in.  To further prevent these 'deep strikes' from doing too much damage, it would be nice if you could make it so that hexes within your borders (those 2 and further deep), if captured/flipped by the enemy, became neutral - instead of enemy owned.  It would hurt you while not necessarily helping the opponent (and avoid the multi colored checkerboards that LOS is there to protect against).      

I don't know... Just a few ideas to whittle away the day by.  Forgive its length.  
Hopefully the braintrusts of the community will figure something out sooner rather than later.      
I am doing my best to keep the interest alive.  I love the series too much not to.

       

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Quote:

Quote:

That's the old game, this is the new.  You need to think outside the box.  The game had to evolve, it's a game about choices.    

come back and talk to me when you want to discuss relevant rule set issues like range breaks, racial penalties (like why a federation cruiser MUST have a turn mode of D and a 1.0 move cost) and other things of that nature which remove common sense and things of that nature.

thanks.  

You guys might not remember this tidbit....

Quote:
Originally posted by Erik Bethke:

Well said on ship configuration ZTempest...

Botom line is that the SFC series has always meant to provide the most compelling experience as a real-time tactical naval simulation set in the Star Trek universe.

That is it's mission.

SFB has served as a means to that end, not the end itself.

   As a piece of Trivia ADB received a generous license for SFC3.    

-Erik

Heh





     

[NannerSlug]

that might be true crimmie - but that does not mean that the sfb rule set could not be improved on  - especially considering the real time nature of the game in addition to other various things which i have mentioned in this thread.

again - in my view, its a matter of whether a person likes to stick to a dice based game or not.. or is happy with the pure sfb rule set or believes it can be improved.

my self, i believe that you can improve on many things - and even break with the sfb rule set altogether and be fine (There are plenty of examples out there of it). so at that point, it becomes rather subjective.

my core point is simply common sense.

[EmeraldEdge]

The problem being that if anyone in the past even mentioned putting something from the old games back into this one you went through fits and told them/us, that  they need to think outside the box, and this is a new game, etc.  Not only that, but when someone recommends a way to possibly make something different or complains about how the implementations is seemingly only done halfway, you jumped on them for that too.  Taldren knows best, and that's it.  So, I guess that's what you have to live with.  To add T-bombs to the game would be redesigning the entire structure of the game, rebalancing everything all over again, not to mention the fact that it wasn't meant to be in there.  To even mention it is an affront to their programming and design abiltities.  They are professionals at this, you are not. (how many times have I heard that one).

I personally dont' care if SFC breaks from the SFB rules, but SFB gives the most solid base from which to spring something new.  By using SFB as a base you don't have to reinvent the wheel, which ends up meaning you'll probably end up with less in the end.  In the Nanner world SFB is the source of all evil and any scent of it is a taint.

 I don't care for the strict range breaks, although I don't have a problem with a weapons reaching a certain distance and beginning to decay at a faster rate (which I think would be cool, like plasma torps when the casing erodes, and so forth).  I think that SFC3 could have done well with the lack of range breaks.  On the other hand when you take something out of a series, overall weapons diversity (their use, not pure numbers mind you)  I believe you should have to replace it with an adequate replacement.  But that's my non-professional game programmer opinion.  Too bad we couldn't have agreed on these issues earlier, rather than labeling someone an SFB fanatic and telling them their opinion didn't matter.  

I really don't want this to seem like an attack at all, but it's just so shocking I guess to see you wanting to put something from the old games back in after so many feverish attacks on anyone who even brought the subject up.  I suppose we should be happy that you're finally seeing that the other games had something valuable that could have been brought over to the new game.

Now, as the the first subject of the post.  Crim is coming from the right place, imo, but there is still a problem.  If D3 is a game of assets instead of territory, then the only reliable assets are planets.  Bases aren't permanent installations, and you can't reliably get missions in "terrain" hexes any easier than an empty hex.  If this weren't so then perhaps you could set a larger variety of assets.  Capture the asteroid field wouldn't fall to repeatedly going in and out of a hex to try and get a mission.  So, I guess the solution, in the end (at least at this point) is to base servers upon planetary captures.  Perhaps even planetary systems that need to be captured.  The only other option might be if a custom mission scripter were to make scripts that could pop up reliably in terrain spaces.

I have heard rumor of someone getting mandatory missions to work, but dont' remember if I have seen it first hand.    

[kevlar]

Just some minor corrections to AJTK post:

the stock M4 Sherman was slower than the Panzer V  "Panther". Only the M4 A2 Wet Sherman ( 76 mm) was slightly faster ( 1.5 mph) than the Panther. Even so the panther was still a superior tank, probably the best medium tank ever produced during the WW 2.

?The Japanese built the Yamato and Musashi with 18" main guns and the heaviest armour to ever appear on ANY naval vessel, but even after they were afloat the US Navy went with the smaller, lighter armed and armoured but much faster Iowa class, etc. Why? ?

I'll answer, but will be a complex one.

When the US projected the Iowa class, there wasn?t any clear data about the Japanese super battleship?s, except that they had a displacement of around 46 000 tons.
US Navy intelligence believed that, in a war situation, the Japanese would use the reformed Kongo class and fast heavy cruisers to attack US naval supply lines. The more recent Japanese heavy cruisers had been credited with speeds in excess of 35 knots and so, when the first rumours about super heavy Japanese battleships arrived to the US, many thought that the reason for such displacement was the weight for heavy propulsion machinery.  

It is important to know that the ?shakedown? and tests of the Japanese navy produced a lot of misinformation, since the ?japs? had the tendency to perform tests in surrealistic conditions, normally without loading their ships with standard fuel and ammo ordinances.  As a result, in tests the Japanese ships were considerably lighter and faster than in real war conditions. This wasn?t known on the western hemisphere.
 
When the UK and USA decided to set in motion, in 1938, the ?rolling stair? clausal of the London articulate of 1936, freeing themselves of the Washington treaty limitations over the displacement of battleships, the first sketches of the Iowa class were already made based on assumptions about the Japanese constructions. There were some rumours circulating about the japs producing 18 ?? naval guns, but intelligence reports credited the new ships with speeds above 30 knots.  Every report about recent Japanese ships credited them with abnormal high speeds, and it didn?t appeared that the japs would invert such tendency. There are also some reports pointing to the construction of battlecruisers, putting even heavier emphasis on fast vessels.
Since the Us navy didn?t know how the Japanese conducted their naval test, common sense dictated that the Japanese ships would either use 16 ?? guns, standard armour and  high speed or 18?? guns , high speed and light armour. No matter how the equation was defined, high speed appeared to be a constant.  
Since the USA firmly believed that the Japanese navy was building fast battleships capable, the Iowa?s attributes were defined to counter such vessels.

When the first of the Iowa was commissioned, it was much faster than the Yamato ( 33.5 knots versus 27.5), less armoured in terms of belt and barbettes ( but not in terms of vertical protection)  and  less armed ? although probably the 406 mm/55 cal guns of the Iowa had greater precision at the extreme range.

When clear data about the Yamato and Musashi reached the navy board it was too late to redesign the Iowa and the New Jersey. There where some plans to reform the four last ships of the class in a way they could be equivalent to the Yamato, but at that time the carrier had already supplanted by far the battleship and so no action was made. More, the fifth and sixth units of the Iowa class, the Illinois and the Kentucky, were cancelled in favour of the Alaska great heavy cruisers.
 

[Lepton1]

Best way to improve SFC3?  Answer: Decompile.  Uninstalling aint enough for this piece of crap.

[Stormbringer]

Quote:
Best way to improve SFC3?  Answer: Decompile.  Uninstalling aint enough for this piece of crap.  

You forgot the part about taking it out to the local parking lot and driving over it repeatedly whilst spinning out the tires.