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Ubbax -> (6/24/2003 11:14:40 AM)
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[Posted by Voidhawk]
"Why would you want to fly to an uncolonized planet in one of your own systems? I'm not implying that such a thing would be pointless, I'm just curious. "
Here's one reason I wished I could still do this:
One of my ships is in a system collecting artifacts and an AI controlled opponent whose home world I've not yet discovered shows up. At this point I've seen two things happen:
1) The enemy ship heads straight for an artifact I've not yet gotten to. He collects it and then if it was the last available one in the system, either takes off, or parks and waits for me to finish collecting my artifact and then attacks me.
2) The enemy ship parks himself by the sun in the center of the system and waits till I've fought all the planet guardians and collected the artifacts. Then he immediately attacks me.
In both the above scenarios, if it's early in the game, I've often suffered substantial damage by the time I've picked off all the guardians, especially if it's a large system (3-4 planets) or this is the 4th or 5th system I've visited. When I've finished collecting the last artifact I'm easy pickings for the AI Player thats sat and waited.
In the above scenarios, the enemy ship, 9 out of ten times, will always be on you before you can leave the system. Combat has started and while you can hit "break combat" to try escape, that usually results in my ship attempting to pass by the AI ship, often incurring a multitude of hits as the computer attempts to get me by on its "locked in" pre-selected path. More often than not I loose my ships as well as my hard won artifacts. On the higher difficulty levels and small galaxies of 50, I've found this even more prevalent.
When you select "Break Combat" in a fight, the AI draws a straight line to home, and moves you directly on that pre-selected path. It does not take into consideration you may well need to pass by an opponent allowing him a series of "free shots" as you go by. Even if you've selected "Break Combat" as long as you are still within range, you are actually in 'Navigation mode" thus the volley of shots you take as you slide past the AI ship.
You could try to manuver your ship into a position where it can flee away from and ahead of the AI controlled ship. Doing so however seems useless as ship speed appears to have no bearing within a system, you cannot pull far enough away to drop out of combat. (I must admit though on one occassion I actually saw the AI controlled ship give up and leave.)
If I had the ability to move to a point of my choice within the system, I could immediately engage the enemy when he enters the system.
It would be nice to be able to decide which planet to attack first. Better artifacts are guarded by more/tougher guardians. Depending on the condition of my ship I may wish to attack them first or leave them alone.
Occasionally I've entered a system where the AI enemy ship is gathering artifacts. What's curious when this happens, is that my ship moves to the center of the system and then sits there. Not only that but I cannot thrust to a planet within the system still holding an artifact and take it. I have to watch the AI controlled ship gather the artifacts. Once he is finished he either flees or engages me. If he chooses to flee, I've been given no chance to intercept or engage him.
[Posted by Andrew]
"I'm curious as to why you'd want to do that as well. This is the first time that anyone has ever asked for it."
While I've never asked for it, I've often wished you could do it :D
Since you need to be in close proximity to engage an opponent in combat I thought you most likely chose not to allow it for possible abuse reasons.
What would happen in multiple ship combat where the player could have a ship/ships sit back out of range, waiting for a ship/ships you've chosen to sacrifice, to cause damage before you bring the heavy hitters into play?
Perhaps what might work in scenarios 1 and 2 I mentioned above, is a "Contest system" button of some kind for systems containing artifacts. This at least would give the player a choice of immediately attacking if/when an AI player entered a system he was harvesting.
"In the original version of Starships Unlimited, I allowed you to manually choose navigational orders. But with the missions logic handling navigation so nicely, I found it a pointless feature, so I removed it. "
I was able to occassionally use the "thrust to" command within a system in ver. 2.0. I could not do it it on demand and assumed perhaps it's use was limited in a way I did not understand. I distinctly remember using it to move towards an AI controlled ship one time when I entered a system where it was just finishing harvesting the last artifact so I could engage it before it chose to flee.
As of the ver. 2.1 patch I've not yet once been able to use the "Thrust to" command. I figured you removed it or disabled it for some reason. I came to the forum today thinking I would post on this issue and discovered this thread.. Great minds and all... you know ;)
Just my humble thoughts ;)
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