capturing ships and bases (Full Version)

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Kevin2202 -> capturing ships and bases (1/15/2011 12:29:16 AM)

If there isn't any feature of capturing ships or the bases, there should be. Or... does that add even more micromanagement to the game?



Lord_Astraios -> RE: capturing ships and bases (1/15/2011 2:13:12 AM)

I haven't seen it in the game,  i once placed that idea on the list of suggestions.   And i would like to see an option to do in the game.

But i don't think it will put a lot or slight micromanagement to the game.   As i remember in Space Empires 4 and 5,  in SE4 it was easier to capture a ship because it was in turns and you can select a weapon to deplete the shield and then tell the ship to capture it,  in SE5 you can capture the ship but in realtime was a little harder,  since there is less to control and you had to pray that the ship won t kill the other ship to be captured,  but not much micromanagement since in both you just had to click in the ship orders to capture the ship and let the machine do the rest.   Then when the ship is captured,  2 things happened,  it self destructs or the ship captured is added to your fleet and the designs are in the database.  And you have ways to repel intruders on the ship,  you had the automated turrets to defend that took out a quantity of enemies and you have the capacity to put personnel for defense and offense.   I cant remember if getting the unknown technology is like here,   you had to send the ship to a base to be ripped apart to be examined and points or given technology is added to your empire.



Sabin Stargem -> RE: capturing ships and bases (1/15/2011 3:35:53 AM)

Maybe all ships can come with Crew, Passengers, and Troops depending on their size and components, and be populated with one or more races, with their ability to resist invasion reflecting the species aboard? Pirate vessels and over factions intent on taking over ships could assess what size and empire a ship is from, and decide if they want to attempt a takeover based on that. It would be cool if we could place troops on abandoned vessels that need repair, so that other empires would have to use troops of their own to assert control over the ship(s).

Passengers
- Low strength (compared to racial strengths)
- Consists of immigrants and tourists, caps out according to passenger capacity.
- Tends to be multi-racial, thus there are many different racial strengths for passenger makeup.

Crew
- Mild strength (compared to racial strengths)
- Largely made up of the Empire's race, of the races that add an bonus to the ship's performance.
- Cap is based on ship's number of habitat and living modules.

Soldiers
- Full strength (compared to racial strengths)
- Cap is derived from troop compartments



Lonck -> RE: capturing ships and bases (1/15/2011 4:32:43 AM)

don't u capture ships that are destroyed and can't move?  I thought some posted that they capped a few pirate ships this way.



Data -> RE: capturing ships and bases (1/15/2011 9:48:29 AM)

afaik, you can't do this atm but it would be a great addition to this awesome game....i think it's already on the wishlist



BigWolfChris -> RE: capturing ships and bases (1/15/2011 10:25:38 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Lonck

don't u capture ships that are destroyed and can't move?  I thought some posted that they capped a few pirate ships this way.


Can't capture ships, but sometimes, after destroying a pirate faction, another faction may join you, giving you control of their base and ships



Sabin Stargem -> RE: capturing ships and bases (1/16/2011 3:42:34 AM)

Come to think of it, there probably ought to be multiple ways of getting troops onto hostile vessels and planets, according to what technology you equip the ship with. I got four ideas off the top of my head, and what is involved. Naturally, it is composed of 100% unnatural theorycraft! [:'(]


Docking: The aggressor forcibly docks with the victim. This has a huge downside, in that you have to mutually disable shields, and the vessel with greater size/speed/maneuvering will be able to move around. This means that small vessels with weak thrusters will be basically a cowboy riding a bronco. On the plus side, this ensures that your entire complement of troops and crew will be fighting it out with the enemy. Downside: the entire enemy force can fight back. Researching grappling technology will allow a ship to not have to dock directly with enemy vessels, but they will have to stay in the vicinity of the enemy while boarding with grappling space elevators.


Landing: A vessel without advanced options may have to land on a planet in order to drop off the troops. This involves dropping through a planet's atmosphere, which may take some time. Furthermore, the ship could take some damage due to atmospheric conditions and heat. As such, a vessel landing has to take a considerable amount of time in order to do it's business, leaving ample opportunity to get shot full of holes by nearby opposition. (Say, 30 seconds to offload troops at minimum?) Loading troops from a planet also requires landing, which in turn requires some extra time to do.


Dropships: The vessel releases a number of dropships containing troops, which promptly will attach onto an enemy ship. These dropships are vulnerable to enemy fire and can only carry a limited number of troops for each dropship, which basically makes their impact bite-size individually. However, this means you don't have to dock with the enemy vessel or land on the planet for your troops to be delivered. Just fire and forget. Once researched, Dropships will automatically launch from friendly planets to be loaded onto nearby troop vessels when they need to be stocked.


Teleportation: A very useful technology, you can quickly send troops to important enemy locations without involving much risk during transport, and with fair range. However, teleportation requires a fair bit of energy to do, and the dropping of shields for your own ship and the enemy's. However, the period needed for the shields to be down is very brief. Loading of troops from a planet is very quick, since there is no need for docking.




apd1004 -> RE: capturing ships and bases (1/19/2011 12:21:17 PM)

Boarding parties were a huge part of the old Starfleet Battles system and made the game quite fun, and it would be interesting to have them in here too. In DW, boarding parties would be a component to add to ships just like weapons. In SFB, some ships carried more BP's than others, so maybe in DW each "purchase" of a boarding party component would yield 5 BP's or 4 BP's or whatever, so you would have to purchase multiple BP components to get more BP's. For instance, the Klingon D7 carried something like 15 BP's on it. In SFB, not all ships carried boarding parties, so the size could be pumped up somewhat to be a limiter so players wouldn't be tempted to put them on every ship, or they could be class restricted to Cruisers & Capital ships, or whatever. Transporters were necessary to get BP's over to the ship to be boarded and would have to be added to DW as well, and could be damaged like any other component and could take out the ability to even board at all.

The rules in SFB worked something like this (IIRC... it was a long time ago): To use BP's the enemy ship's shields had to be down or disabled and the ship attempting to board also had to voluntarily drop shields, so this would no doubt become a major PITA to manage in a large battle in DW. So one tactic of a ship about to be boarded in SFB was to use emergency power (assuming there was some available) to divert to shields to bring them back online momentarily and therefore block the boarding attempt for at least another turn but also possibly buying enough time for a friendly ship to fire on the ship attempting to board (keeping it from dropping shields), or for damage control to repair a weapon, etc. Once BP's were aboard, you basically fought any BP's that may exist on the boarded ship, and any boarding BP's remaining had to attempt to take control of the ship's vital areas like bridge, engine room, weapons, etc. Once the critical areas were captured, the ship was officially captured. At that point, you would take control of the ship and in DW it would be treated just like when we find abandoned ships currently - you could restore the ship and use it as your own or you could retire it to a spaceport and possibly gain research bonuses.

Yes it would create more micro-management, but it would add a whole new dimension to DW, that's for sure.



Sabin Stargem -> RE: capturing ships and bases (1/19/2011 1:48:26 PM)

I think it would be good to making the means of boarding a ship different from how much force could be mustered. That is, a boarding component is "how much you can move, and what method", with their own benefits and risks, while the amount of passengers/crew/soldiers is related to the appropriate compartments, such the hab/life support modules, passenger compartments, and troop containers. I think it would be important to make important distinctions between the Passengers, Crew, and Soldiers in terms of what they do on a ship.


Passengers: minimal strength, can't invade other ships, and offers no benefit beyond getting transported to a location for stuff. The death of passengers and their capture by pirates would degrade empire morale, because civilians are not supposed to die in a shooting war. They will be attacked in combat last when compared to Crew and Soldiers, since the latter pose more danger, but civilians will inevitably be lost in a conflict, just because they get in the way.

Crew Members: Medium strength, and each crew member contributes to the overall performance of the vessel they occupy. The loss of crew members on a ship would make a ship move more slowly, be weaker in a fight, and consume more resources. Most ships overstock on Crew as an result, especially since some would be used to man captured vessels. These are often take 2nd priority, while Soldiers are first in a conflict. They will not board an enemy vessel until it is secured. It is recommended to move an captured vessel out of the fight, since it probably would have damage and most likely would have a skeleton crew, considering the original crew is dead, vaporized, gibbed, or otherwise out of the game of life.

Soldiers: These possess the full military strength of their race, and will put up the most fight in a boarding scenario. Furthermore, they can board enemy ships to take them over, and gain experience/strength, unlike civilians and crew. However, there is a price to be paid - soldiers require troop compartments, and have an upkeep cost. As a general rule, soldiers on a ship cost more to maintain than their ground-based brethren, due to requiring equipment needed for the hazards of boarding vessels in space. They also need boarding components in order to get onto an enemy ship, unless their own ship is physically boarded. (An enemy using teleporters to move troops can't get counter-boarded unless the opposition docks or has their own teleporters.)


When it comes to the loss of people aboard a ship, I think that the system should be "leaky", in that all three groups are likely to receive losses, but are considered for attack in this order, with some dice rolling for mixing it up a little. These are just demonstration numbers to communicate the concept, since I don't have a decent sense of balance. :(

5 out of 10 attacks against soldiers.
3 out of 10 attacks against the crew.
2 out of 10 attacks against the passengers.



Data -> RE: capturing ships and bases (1/19/2011 1:58:45 PM)

i like it



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