Supporting continuing development for Empyrean Challenge / Cluster Wars
You are not logged in.
Pages: 1
The docs and Vern never shared much about the allocation of combat damage - although there was a provision to target general categories of items on COL, but not SHPs. There seemed to be an adjustment down with large amounts of damage - that way my observation and it seems Jay confirmed that with Vern.
I propose this basic mechanism:
Imagine a line of boxes each representing 1 MU (or perhaps 1 volume unit) not he target S/C - which would be as long as there are MU to destroy. All the items in the S/C would each have a representation on this line - say a SEN-1 would have 3000 contiguous boxes. When say 1 MSS-1 hit it would randomly land on the line and take out 100 boxes(MU). More MSS or EWP individually land randomly on the line taking out there number of damage units represented as boxes. With many hits the damage would overlap and be diminished somewhat at random - kind of like you can only die once. If say all those 3000 boxes for that SEN-1 were not destroyed there would be a percentage of destruction above which would destroy that SEN all or nothing. Say it was 50% then 1500 of those boxes would have to be hit to destroy that SEN-1. Each type of unit could have a degree of "heartiness", which could be cut in half when specifically targeted in a COL.
What do you think?
Offline
My recollection of targeting was that you did indeed do less damage overall, however, you were far more likely to hit the target and not other things. This would have to be considered in the damage allocation vs not targeting. Ships of course could not be targeted as it's so much harder, they move, sometimes real fast. On colonies, factories don't really move very quickly so easier to target.
Offline
Interesting problem. If the ship takes 10,000 damage, and that damage is applied randomly across all components (by mass or volume), then necessarily there will be components that take far less than full damage. My sense is that Vern used logic such that if the SEN-1 (in your example) took a hit, it would soak off 3000 worth of damage before any further damage is calculated. This might have simplified things, and prevented the problem of what to do about a SEN-1 that takes just 1 damage (is it destroyed or unharmed?) But it left open the question of what would happen if the ship were hit with 1000 damage, and the first thing hit is the SEN-1. It's not enough damage to destroy the component altogether, unless the logic determines that ANY amount of damage destroys the component.
If the SEN-1 must absorb 3000 damage before being destroyed, then an unlucky 1000-damage hit on a ship might be completely negated if it hit that SEN-1 first.
If the SEN-1 (and all other components) is targeted one damage point at a time, then either everything would get knocked out very quickly (assuming each component is disabled upon the first single hit) or everything would be quite robust (assuming each component remains fully functional until it absorbs its last hit).
You could model each component as its own object, keeping stats on how much damage it has absorbed, but that might end up being murderously fat in terms of data and processing power. Or you could go with your damage-threshold idea. Any component that is damaged UNDER the 50% threshold remains fully operational, and is magically-repaired at the end of combat. And component damaged OVER the 50% threshold is inoperable, though that component can continue to absorb hits *during that combat* (and soak off damage that might hit something else). At the end of combat, it would be destroyed. And of course, any component that takes 100% damage is immediately destroyed.
Seems like a good compromise between accuracy and insane computation. Maybe the damage threshold could even vary. Maybe HEN is delicate, with a 30% threshold, while SPD is heavy and solid, with a 70% threshold.
You could also add something akin to the old "MTSP" stuff -- military supplies. That was supposed to be an abstraction for ammo, medical supplies, hull-repair equipment, necessary after any combat operation. You could revive that, maintain a damage stat on every component that remains from one turn to the next, and have CNW pop consume MTSP to repair components after combat.
This would add a dimension of battlefield repairs, ships with disabled engines, etc. Could be wild.
Offline
Extending the idea:
A component remains functional throughout combat as long as it isn't damaged beyond the threshold. But instead of "magically repairing" at the end of combat, some combination of CNW or SLD would repair damaged components by consuming MTSP. Repairs "beyond the threshold" would require double the MTSP. CNWs would be more efficient, and could handle many more repairs, than SLD. Anything that doesn't get repaired to within the threshold gets destroyed/scrapped. Anything that remains damaged will not function until it is repaired. This would make a case for building repair ships, MTSP freighters, etc.
Offline
Pages: 1