Re: Stars Supernova Genesis Beta

RJLadd wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 10:21:49 +0200, Dirk Thierbach
> <dthierbach@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >RJLadd <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> But consider a game where you can have only one scanner per start
> system, and can control its shape as long as its total area is
> constant. Do you leave it as a circle, so you can see things in all
> directions? Are there particular directions that are more interesting?
> If you point it long and narrow at an emery, and the enemy figures
> that out, will they go around it and hit you from a blind direction?
> Can you make an enemy think that you are doing that, while actually
> covering the blind sport some other way, and ambush them?
>
> But I'm not yet sure how to make the tradeoff between extra strategy
> and extra workload worthwhile.
>
> The entire idea falls apart if you can have many scanners per
> location. But the game engine is designed to permit things, instead of
> imposing arbitrary (and complex to implement) restrictions. The
> limitations that make the game interesting are, and should be,
> properties of the scenario design / game setup.

The configurable, powerful scanner could be the planetary scanner (or
an upgrade to it). You can only have one of those per planet, and it
could perhaps be switched between a few "modes of operation", to keep
things simple. If you have several clumped outposts (and the money to
equip/man them), good for you. If you have an isolated forward colony,
then blind spots seem the natural thing to happen.

And if all your border scanners are pointing forward but a sneaky SS
gets past them thru some corner spot, then, trouble! ;-)


> From a game designer POV, the 16 design limit is one of my favorite
> features in Stars! 2. Forces the players to make choices and
> tradeoffs.

IIRC, widening the number of slots as a function of overall tech level
was discussed long ago. Start with 10, grow to 16, then to 20...


> Drawing a zone and saying that being in / entering the zone triggers
> some status change in your units is already planned. Likewise, drawing
> a zone and saying that the occurrence of some event in that zone (such
> as another player's unit being seen in it) triggers some actions on
> the part of your units. These are outgrowths from the poorly designed
> S2 patrol orders.

I'd say one of those "trigger" zones which also has a function to warn
trespassers should work nicely as a "border".

Some civilizations can have well-defined but poorly defended bordes
(say, ancient China), while others can have loosely-defined but
ironclad "borders".


> I haven't done any work on the AIs yet, but much of this automation is
> provided by scripts that are intended for eventual AI use.

Cool, that. :-D

.

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