Posts: 69
Threads: 3
Joined: Jun 2016
I've also toyed with simultaneous turns that are executed together. This is the first time I've thought of it in terms of 1-d combat though. The lack of collision on a tile may actually help smooth out some of the bumps it had before.
Simultaneous Turns allow both sides to pick a location for a ship to move to as well as a "primary" target for beam weapons. This is done for all the stacks and then the turn does all the movement and firing of ships from both sides before giving control back to the player to survey damage and repeat. There are plenty of pros and cons for this approach. Some would argue it takes more forward thinking and 'mind games' (in the case of pvp). It is not clear if this would speed up single player games though. There may be more analysis paralysis in planning 3 ship movements (and targets) together as opposed to sequentially (and seeing how the enemy has moved up to that point). However, I think the 1-d case fixes this because the number of movement choices is pretty limited.
My hunch is that it will be easier for an AI to play optimally, but for the optimal play to not be as good due to more hidden information on what the player is doing.
I'll ignore missiles/torpedoes/specials for now and focus on the beam-weapon mechanics.
As I mentioned earlier, the 1-D mechanic really helps with the issue of "who got there first?" because collisions no longer matter. Nice coincidence!
Assume that each ship has a tile to move to and a primary target (an enemy stack of ships or planet) programmed in. We now process movement in order of initiative. Let's assume initiative is on a roughly 20 point scale (not too far off considering it is sum of movement + computer + scanner). There happens to be a stack with 15 initiative, two stacks with 12, and another with 10.
The turn processes by asking if there are any 20 initative (or whatever the max is) in combat. If there are, they can move 1 space. It then asks if there are any 19+, and if there are, each can move 1 space.
In our case, the 15 ini ship is able to move 3 spaces (at ini checks 15, 14, and 13) before the two stacks of 12 can start their turn/movement. If the 15 ini ship is still not at its destination after those 3 turns, it will keep moving but now so will the 2 sets of 12 ini stacks. In the extreme case, the fastest ship will be able to move 5 spaces before the slowest one does. Note it is possible for the 15 and 10 ini ships to still have some simultaneous movement if the 15 ship is traveling at least 6 spaces.
What happens when a ship gets within range of its primary target? (this is checked every 1-space move).
Case A -- The primary target has significantly low initiative and has not yet reached its ini check or the primary target has not been able to reach its own primary target yet. Then the attacking ship does a traditional MoO1 beam attack on the target.
Case A' -- The primary target is in range due to longer range weapons on the attacker than the target. Then the attacking ship does a traditiaoinl MoO1 beam attack with only those long range weapons.
Case B -- The primary target has also reached its initiative check level AND its primary target is the attacking ship. We enter simultaneous combat where two stacks exchange fire.
Case C -- The primary target has also reached its initiative check level but it has a different primary target than the attacking ship and that same ship is in range this initiative check as well. We enter k-way simultaneous combat.
Case A is pretty self explanatory. 1-sided damage either due to range or initiative. The damage is done and any destroyed ships are immediately updated before next initiative check. This is similar to the advantage of high initiative ships in MoO1. I will say that this may be a nerf to long range weapons because the order of operations is to fire them as soon as possible whereas in MoO1 you could confidently move closer to the (stationary) target before unloading all beams.
Case B is actually a special case of Case C. Therefore I will try and explain Case C and B (hopefully) will make sense.
Each stack of ships involved in the k-way combat is split into deciles. That is, if there are 200 ships in a stack of smalls then each decile has 20. If there are less than 10 ships in a stack (quite common) there will be some empty deciles and the non-empty ones will be evenly distributed. These deciles form a queue. The k-way combat will take place over 10 volleys. 10 is somewhat arbitrary and is certainly up for creative modifications.
All ships in the first decile (volley) of each stack fire at their target stack. Only after that exchange is damage (destroyed ships) calculated. Incoming damage on volley 1 is applied to ships in decile 1 (after they have fired). Any damage that goes beyond the HP of all the ships in the first decile is applied to ships in the BOTTOM of the decile queue. Next volley, ships in decile 2 all fire their weapons. This repeats so that incoming damage on round 2 is applied to ships in the top 1 or 2 deciles (after the ships in decile 2 have fired). Any damage that goes beyond the HP of the remaining ships in the first 2 deciles is applid to ships in the BOTTOM of the decile queue. By round k, all incoming damage is applied to remaining ships in the top k deciles of the queue. Any damage that exceeds the HP of the ships in the top k deciles is applied to ships at the BOTTOM of the decile queue.
In the 200 ship case (20 per decile), lets say the first volley did enough damage to destroy 17 ships. These 17 ships are removed from decile 1 (with 3 left in the decile). The next volley, all 20 ships in decile 2 will attack. This time, incoming damage is high enough to destroy 25 ships. First the remaining 3 ships from decile 1 are destroyed, then the 20 ships from decile 2 are destroyed, finally 2 more ships from decile 10 are destroyed. On the 3rd volley, all 20 ships in the 3rd decile fire their weapons. Incoming damage only destroys 15 ships and these are removed from decile 3. (Decile 10 still has 17).
After a k-way battle all ship stacks are updated with the various destroyed ship counts. It is possible for multiple k-way battles to happen within a single combat turn. In fact, each initative check can have its own k-way battle. In the case of a partially damaged ship, that ship is automatically put at the top of the first decile in the next k-way combat.
This has all assumed so far that the ship was able to get in range of its primary target. What happens at the end of all ship movement and the primary target was not in range during the movement? We then allow secondary targets to be fired upon. However, secondary targets are not designated by the player. Instead, secondary targets are identified by the highest initiative enemy stack in range at the end of movement. If there is a tie between enemy stacks with the same initiative (both in range) then the one with least amount of total HP is chosen. (These rules up for discussion of course).
Secondary target damage is calculated as one big k-way battle at the end of movement.
This system is generous and assume that most ships are able to get their attacks off before being destroyed. In K-way battles, the semantics is that incoming damage is applied first to ships that have already fired. Only when all those ships are dead will ships that haven't fired be targeted--and specifically the ships that will fire last anyways. This actually leads to the bloodiest battles with losses on both sides.
Most of this is of course abstracted from the player. I imagine he/she would see a 'timer' which is reflecting the current iniative check. As the initiative counts down, the ships will all move and attempt to fire at their primary target. "Ties" are resolved through k-way combat.
I'm not quite clear if there are advantages to combining the 1-d and simultaneous systems. I like the 'heavy losses' version of simultaneous combat. I haven't quite decided if the simple movement space of 1-d gels with simultaneous turns or not.
