Here is some hopefully meaningful input for you to contemplate Bonk. First of all, outstanding work on a potential front end application for the SQL kit. If you were Romulan, I would petition the Emperor to bestow on you, the Order of Red Leaf, in recognition for your service to the Empire. This includes the tedium of decrypting the various ?blobs? in the DB. We really need a stress test though to see if your current config is stable enough for ?Prime Time?.
For many years I (and many in the community) have dreamed of a good front end, looks like you are well on your way to making many dreams come true. All of this without Server Kit Source code.
First of all, I like the concept behind CW?interesting to say the least. The shipyard works well enough as an illustrative example of how things could work with an external shipyard. Others have remarked, and I concur that it could use a more efficient way of presenting the data to the user, I do have a couple ideas on potential layout schemes, needs more work before I make it public. One thing that could be done right away, is seed the Ship List with the OOB from Federation and Empire, with refits stock as they become available. I could post it again as a reference for debate on the merits of the Stock FnE OOB versus a Custom Version. There are some here, myself included, that feel the Federation and Empire OOB is all you need, with a little tweak here and there to make it compliant with the number of ships currently available.
Initially, the Map should be seeded with AI in accordance with initial Fleet Composition per Federation and Empire (or player/RM defined if that is preferred). Border Fleets dispersed on the relevant borders, Reserve Fleets on the Starbases as noted and the Home Fleet on the Homeworld. That will populate the Map nicely with AI to hunt and Kill in the area they are supposed to be located in.
New construction should be what is available in the web based shipyard. How do we determine what gets placed there? I am glad you asked that question. First the default build list should automatically be built. I know that is at variance to my beloved Federation and Empire economic rules, but as everyone knows, SFC-OP is not Federation and Empire. Here is I would handle new construction:
Players seed the Shipyard by spending PP to place ships for bid there. Now this might get tricky with the nutters who regularly have 40k plus in the bank, but a simple equation could equalize things, i.e. the more PP a player has in the bank, the more PP it cost that player to request that a specific ship to built so that it could be purchased. It could also be run as bid system similar in nature to the default bid system in the DV. Since the shipyard is ?programmable?, the Federation and Empire Restrictions in ship production could easily be implemented, such as no more than one DN per year. The ?system? would track how many ships were ?ordered? by the players and would automatically restrict illegal purchases such as two DN constructed in a single game year and the like. Overbuilds and build substitutions could also be handled in the same way.
Example, 5 war cruisers are the maximum built using normal cost during a build cycle, but some player wants another one. The end price would be doubled, both for the order (placed in shipyard) and the price of the ship that is purchased is also doubled. Variants would be handled exactly the same with a couple restrictions, only a percentage (admin defined) of available new construction are eligible for conversion during the build cycle.
Say you have 6 destroyers normally built during the cycle in accordance with the OOB. Admin decides that only 1/3 of the total can be constructed initially as variants, that means Four stock destroyers at Normal Prices automatically will populate in the shipyard. Two of the Six are eligible for conversion to variants. If no Player chooses to convert these before the end of the build cycle, they will populate as stock destroyers. Any player could spend PP to convert one of the two before the end of the build cycle, to a legal variant with the corresponding deduction of PP from their account. Once all those that could have been ?selected for conversion? are designated, any further construction of destroyers and subsequent conversion, would be at the overbuild cost both to place in the shipyard, as well as purchase price.
Substitutions to the build list would be handled similarly. Example, if the OOB states you can replace a CA with BCH once per cycle, once a player has done so, the option would not be accessible for another player until the time passes and the choice would become available again.
Server Admins could also use scripting to seed the ship list. Say if one race took a strategic objective, they could get as a reward an extra big ship in the shipyard for their labors.
What else can SQL allow?
How about players spending their accumulated PP to purchase AI ships and spending PP to move them around on the map? That would be very interesting factor in itself and provide another angle to strategic game play as well as give players something else to spend the hard earned PP on. Right Now, the AI is pretty much ignored and treated with disdain, but it does not have to be that way.
How about players moving themselves strategically on the map using the web map, with, of course the necessary expenditure of accumulated PP. This could be restricted, example include player must start at a base/planet and end their movement at a base/planet.
Players could trade PP with each other (say 3 points invested = 1 point to the player) or even with allied players belonging to another race. Think the lend/lease deal with Great Briton and USA during WW2 for an historical example.
Players ?hire? AI Pirates to harass the enemy behind the lines as it were, this might not be workable, but an ideal nonetheless.
Players could spend PP to increase or decrease political tensions. This could include non-allied as well?think propaganda and efforts of diplomacy, all which require funds to be successful.
What about internal development? Player would expend PP and the hex they were in could be improved in some manner. Improvements could be as radical as bringing a Minor Planet on board if 100k donated by players, or increase the DV or Econ of the hex by one for every 10k-50k PP spent. I am certain once things get rolling, others can come up with some other ?uses? for accumulated PP.
Topic: Classic War (experimental/fun server) (Read 10902 times)