my 2 cent of ideas for the future DW game. (Full Version)

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Brainsucker -> my 2 cent of ideas for the future DW game. (12/22/2013 5:37:07 AM)

Let face it, why big ship will always win against a smaller one in DW? Because it is obvious. DW combat system use the rule that favor to bigger ships. A ship that has 2 shield and 4 weapons will always win against a ship that has 1 shield and 2 weapons. Well, unless the smaller one has the best weapons in the game while the bigger one use the early tech.

Then how to make a smaller ship useful? You can't. Unless you put more rule into the game combat system. So here it is, a system that can expand Distant Worlds into a very different, more complex but interesting combat system.

1. More complex radar system
- Like it or not, space combat always happen in BVR area (Beyond Visual Range). Even if you have a big screen like in the enterprise, it still happen in BVR area. And BVR combat always depend on radar and another electronic systems. But also radar or sensor or camera always have the same rule. That it is harder to detect small ship than the bigger one. So here it is, smaller ship has 1 advantage to a bigger one.

2. Electronic Warfare
- And here it is, war is not always about shooting the enemy with gun. Sometimes, you must blind their "eyes", the radar or camera, or other gadget. So here it is, ECM won't only to add a ship defend, but can also blind the enemy ship. This way, you can render a big ship helpless if their visual capability become zero. So with this, you can send a small stealthy growler to blind the enemy's strongest ship before your force come into contact. Another winning strategy.

3. Stealth
- What is stealth? it is not a cloaking device like what Romulan has in Star Trek. It is a system that reduce a jet fighter RCS, thus decrease the detection of an enemy radar. For example, a radar that can detect F-16 from 200 km, can only detect a F-22 from 70 km. So, imagine a small ship with stealth armor and equipped with electronic warfare system come to your fleet base, blind your best, biggest star ship, and then go away, after their fleet come to destroy yours. Or a group of 150 Kton starships with stealth features come to your long range radar station to destroy it before it run away and left you blind. That is a new spectrum of warfare that make DW more interesting.

Yes, you can make a big (300 KT ship and more) ship and put stealth and electronic feature in it. But, it still not perfect as it is big, thus has not the small frame advantage that make it very stealthy.



Spidey -> RE: my 2 cent of ideas for the future DW game. (12/22/2013 7:57:12 AM)

Radar in space? A signal would take hours to get from Earth to Pluto and then more hours to get back. I'm not sure that's going to be a particularly reliable way of doing things. Why not just look at the disturbances of the waves that are already being blasted everywhere by the sun?

No, human eyes can't see clearly enough but why would we rely on human eyes anyway? It's not like humans can react fast enough to navigate a road at a few hundred km per hour. How would we do if we tried navigating anything at millions of kilometers per hour? Mind you, light speed is about a billion km/h, so 10 million km/h is a pathetic .01 light speed. Going from Earth to Pluto at this snails pace would take weeks.

We really shouldn't forget that we're not dealing with a planetary setting. On a planet you've got loads of stuff that blocks your view and which hostiles can use to hide, be it the curvature of the surface, different things on the surface, or even the atmosphere. In space, there's really not a lot of anything. It's practically nothing all over and nothing won't block your view. We've already got satellite cameras that take really nice pictures of ground targets through the atmosphere and we've got Hubble that has seen much further into space than any radar system humanity will ever build. What will we have by the time we can build warp engines?

Another thing to consider is that the engines needed to push stuff at meaningful speeds are necessarily going to be freaking huge. I'm not sure how you're going to hide what's essentially the energy of a continuous chain of exploding nukes. Can you get around that by having a small radar cross-section?



Canute0 -> RE: my 2 cent of ideas for the future DW game. (12/22/2013 8:08:15 AM)

quote:

Like it or not, space combat always happen in BVR area (Beyond Visual Range)

Not true. It depend on the tech.
Example Star-Trek,Battlestar Galactica, i think everyone know these TV-series. The ship can fly faster then light or jumpp through the space. But their sublight speed is pretty slow, they fly with km/s but not with % of lightspeed. Their combat distance is allways on visual range.

Only when their sublight speed comes at the upper % of lightspeed, the combat distance move into lightsecounds/minutes, and while they are move closer to lightspeed a visual observion is pointless/late before the attack strikes in.
But even there the optical systems are good enough to detect/see them at the other end of the solar system (check the hubble teleskope).

But i think DW is more the first tech model.

quote:

Electronic Warfare

DW allready got this, countermease to increase the Miss chance of incoming fire, and a targeting system to increase the Hit chance of the own weapon to counter that. But DW isn't a tactical spacecombat, it's more a strategical. Or a mix of both, you already bave alot of micromangment during the fight, the ships rarely do that you want they should do. You need to change the course, the target, need to change ship stances during a tough fight several times.

But the idea of EW weapon systems like you got at EVE-Online maybe can work. But you should need alot of them to jam a target. It can't be that 1 module that is big like a blaster can complete jam another ship. If this could be you just can put this module on big ships too and would be more effective.
These EW-weapons should need ALOT energy to operate, at this way there isn't enough energy left for other weapons.
Hmm ok, now we got a small/medium ship who can jam big ship, at this way a fleet of many smaller ships got a good chance to defeate a fleet of a few big ships.
But then all defence and weapons systems of single stations become pointless, the station got jammed and destroyed. To defend your colonies you need a whole phalanx of smaller defence stations. Or like at Eve-onlone use Drones or at DW Fighters they are to many to be jammed.

But my tactic stil would be to build Big ships only, but mostly carriers. And yes i already played serveral games with fighter/bomber as only weapon i researched, they are a good choise. And yes at EVE-Online i allways fought with Drones only too ! :-)

quote:

3. Stealth

Like a prevoious said, you can see ships at the other side of a solar system with optical system without big problems, since there isn't a atmosphere to block/disrupt the light. You will need a kind of Romulan cloaking device.
Only a system to disrupt radar don't help, a spaceship emitte serveral other EM-ray, the warp engine emitte a faster then light thing.




ReadeB -> RE: my 2 cent of ideas for the future DW game. (12/23/2013 3:03:02 PM)

Not sure if the processing power needed would be too intense, but detection physics ala Harpoon would make a huge difference.

I would suggest simple steps, like:

1. Far off ships should be detected as "targets" vs Federation Starship Mark III. Might help the fog of war when you have 30 unidentified targets approaching vs 30 escorts or 30 capital ships.

2. Natural phenomena should reduce detection ranges. Nebula clouds, black holes, even gas giants with radiation rings could all mask ships and bases presence. Would make those locations "preferred" for pirate bases. Would require regular patrols to these high interference locations.

3. Detection of ships using Long range/Ultra long range sensors. Far off targets could be detected as "high energy emitters" This would help hunt down monitoring stations and explorers being used as "AWACS". Might introduce small "passive" monitoring stations etc..

Note that currently instantaneous communications and sensors seem to be assumed in DW. I assume quantum coupled communications and ftl sensors are just part of the technology.

Would take some significant doing to train the AI to competently handle these situations as well.



robc04_1 -> RE: my 2 cent of ideas for the future DW game. (12/24/2013 3:39:17 AM)

It sounds like you might like Sword of the Stars. It has some of these features. It is a very combat focused 4X game with tactical RTS battles.



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