New Rules for Combat for Ships in Formal Alliances

Hey Folks ,

With help from @dysp and @xjhdexter we have a new combat function that is nearly ready to be turned on in next games starting next week some time.

The most exciting thing about the new rules, is that it allows players to keep ownership of careers when they land at the stars of Formal Allies.

Currently combat is fought between all players at a star as if they were all enemies. (Which is why we had to hand ally ships over to star owner). In the new combat function, all ships will be divided into two teams. The attackers and the defenders.

The defenders will be any player in a formal alliance with the star owner. The attackers are everybody else.

All players on a team fight with the same weapon tech, the highest of their team. The defender then receive the +1 defenders bonus.

If the attacker wins, the player with the most ships on the attacking team captures the star.

However, if there were players at war with each other in the attacking team, a second subsequent combat will take place in the following tick.

Note: I not 100% sure, but I suspect it may be possible to fly away from this second combat before it occurs. - Needs testing

There are still some interface issues to work out, and I may not have it completely ironed out before this goes live next week. For example, I’m not 100% sure how the map should look when there are two players at a star, right now just the stars owner gets the colour ring.

I’m also not sure whether to not a star or career should be able to transfer ships to and from another player’s carrier. My first instinct is to block all transfers, because thats easy, but allowing all transfers easy too. Do you guys have a preference.

I suspect fleet orders right now also fail to work if the star is not yours, but we might want to allow you do drop but not collect, or perhaps you should be free to collect as well. You are after all Formal Allies.

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A quick screenshot of the new combat report.

Edit: updated design.

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HEY … that’s AWESOME … and lays the groundwork for team games … :wink:

BTW, since you are fiddling with the combat screen, any chance of adding a line that if you win:
"You received $40 for destroying 4 points of Economy"
Especially in dark games and/or long turn games, you don’t know what you ended up with … but there is a sense of satisfaction when you cause some damage to the enemy

BTW, I assume in a team-based attack, the player who wins the star also gets the Economy … although I guess you could split/pro-rate it based on the attacking ships.

P.S. So if I’m aligned with player B, can I bounce through his stars to get to the front lines quickly?
This is a HUGE issue in turn-based games … because right now, you come to a stop at the first star.

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Good point, @Dysp or I will nee to make sure your orders are not cleared when you hit an allied star so you can jump through. Needs testing.

Good point about the loot. It was difficult before because star capture was in a completely different part of the code, bit now its in the combat function so should be easy.

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This will fix so many things about alliances and about people giving away games. If you want to encourage more combat, being able to skip over an ally will certainly do it. May even lead to some dissolutions of alliances when someone realizes their ally is both fast and greedy.

Oh forgot to ask: what happens to allies ships in orbit if the alliance ends while they are still there?

1… @JayKyburz , is there a way to continue a second round of combat at this star until final ownership is resolved ?
could there be a loop that continues when combat is not finally resolved ?

Owning a star determines new scan range and new hyperspace range for the new owner.

No one should get the $ 10 Economy loot unless final ownership is resolved from all combat.

2… have you tested the case where the original star owner is not in FA, but is attacked by players who are and also are not in FA ?

If this is allowed at all, then I believe only an owner can give orders to what he owns.

So owner can give orders to his carrier to drop ships to his ally’s star, but not collect from a star that he does not own.

An owner can give orders to his star to transfer ships to his ally’s carrier, but not the other way, not allowed to drop ships from carriers that he does not own.

I noticed it is undocumented, but looping carriers have a smaller icon than non-looping carriers. So icons can be different sizes.

What if all stars have icons larger than carrier icons ? This way ally ships can be found at ally stars ?

@Hulk, jumping through allied stars is working in the latest version I’m testing.

WOW - GREAT progress … and ditto what @cptcrackers wrote that this will address a number of issues. Awesome to see NP get some polishing.

FYI that I’m pretty sure that if allies are co-existing on a star and the alliance dissolves, they fight - presumably the owner of the star gets the defensive bonus.

@cptcrackers @Hulk Yes, allied ships that are still in orbit when alliance ends after 24 hour wait will fight a normal fight.

@xjhdexter Also just added a loop to the combat so that fighting on star will continue until there is only one player left or all players are allied. All enemy fleets will first fight against the star and the largest attacker will get the star. If there are more enemy fleets on the orbit then they all will attack the new star owner and so on until there are only friendlies left. Will still need a lot of testing to make sure it does the job…

@HULK the problem with that is that it eliminates the 24 hour notice. An ally can line up all your stars and poof, your dead.

I think that in the case of a dissolution, then theere ought to be additional modifiers or some action that takes place. Maybe half the ships blow up instantly, or the home player gets a bigger defensive bonus or somehting. Just something to prevent REAL surprise attacks. Especially in a 24 hour turn game.

@Dysp, that’s unfortunate. Because look at this:

Lets say player A owns a star. he has 100 ships there. His nearest reinforcements are 6 hours out.
Player B is is his ally, and he parks 400 ships there. His nearest planet is 8 hours away, but it doesn’t matter. His ships are already there.

Player B declares war. Player A can’t get reinforcements, the star is lost - instantly in a 24 hour turn in game. I believe that this could end up making people hesitant to formally ally once they lose a slew of planets in one moment all at once. A smaller ally could literally lose every star to a larger ally in one turn. No chance at recovering.

This will be an especially big issue in games with 24 hour turns.

@JayKyburz ,

I think your screenshot shows the attacker getting first strike, instead of the defender ?

hrm, looks ok to me. Defenders were weapons 4 +1 with 100 ships. Attackers were weapons 2 with 16. Should have 94 remaining.

@cptcrackers The combat will not take place until 24 hours after the alliance is ended. Players are “locked in” for 24 hours

Just say no to 24 hour turn games.

+1 to not letting 24 hr games dictate rules. If you play those time jumps you must enjoy chaos already so this should be a bonus.

I do see Crackers’ point…but im not so sure its enough of a problem to stop the change…If you see your ally bunching up in your territory, you better start reinforcing yourself I suppose.

Looking at the screenshot, I thought the defenders had weapons 5 +1.
I did not realize the defender had weapons 5 = 4 + 1 .
That message could be a little more clear. It would take a bit to get used to.

Otherwise, it is great !!

@cptcrackers: Actually, you don’t actually go to war until after 24 hours. So that situation isn’t that much different than if you launched a bunch of ships from that star that is 8 hours away, timing it to arrive at 1d1h. But yea, there is a big trust issue with doing alliances … :wink:

@Valhallan: 24 hours jumps are chaos - I’m in this game - pretty sure a Hulk sandwich is coming up!

I agree with @xjhdexter that the combat screen looks great but could use a minor tweak - recommend you change “Weapons 5” to “Weapons 4 +1 Defensive Bonus” across the top (and you can remove the line at the bottom and replace with that Economy destroyed line if appropriate!) which should make it more clear.

@JayKyburz - how about enabling Formal Alliances as the default in game creation?

In general, I think this makes for more interesting gameplay and adds an interesting dimension to diplomacy. Along those lines, I’d also highly recommend making trade scan ONLY the default for the same reasons.