System Security Ratings

[SteveAlt (OP)]

A couple of weeks ago there was a brief discussion on security ratings in the Computer-controlled Empires thread and how they might affect civilian shipping. As something along these lines was needed anyway to avoid NPRs blindly sending freighters and colony ships into harms way, I decided to implement the following system for v4.0. It will affect NPRs and civilian shipping.

1) All security ratings are set to zero at game start

2) Each race will have its own security rating for a given system, so that system might be regarded as safe by one race and very hostile by another.

3) Whenever any damage is caused to a ship, population, shipyard, ground units, convoy, etc, the security rating of that system for the race that was attacked is increased by the amount of damage caused. So if a ship was hit by four strength-6 missile warheads, the security rating of that system would increase by 24.

4) Security ratings gradually fall over time. During each construction phase, the security rating is reduced either by a percentage equal to the number of days since the last construction phase, or by the number of days since the last construction phase, whichever is greater. For example, if a system had a security rating of 300 and it had been 5 days since the last construction phase, the security rating would fall by 5% of 300 or 5, whichever was greater. In the case of the system above with a rating of 24, it would fall to 19. For the system with a rating of 300, it would fall to 285.

5) Civilian ships and NPR non-combatants will avoid systems with a security rating above zero unless sufficient protection is available in the system. The level of protection for a system is equal to the combined PPVs of all mobile units in the system. If the level of protection is greater than the security rating, then civilian ships and NPR non-combatants will regard the system as safe.

6) if the level of protection is less than the security rating, civilian traffic will ignore destinations in that system and will not travel through the system to reach other destinations. Effectively, the system is treated as non-existent when civilian traffic decides where to visit.

Example:
A battle was recently fought in the London system in my own campaign and the Commonwealth suffered a total of 360 points of damage. As there had been no recent combat in the system, the security rating for London became 360. Unless the Commonwealth maintains forces with a total PPV of 360 or more in London, civilian traffic will not visit the system and will not travel through it to visit the colony in the adjacent Roma system. Over time the security rating will fall and the Commonwealth will be able to reassure civilian traffic with a smaller force. Eventually the rating will return to zero and the civilian traffic will visit the system, regardless of the presence of Commonwealth warships.

A new view on the galactic map shows those systems with a security rating greater than zero and the total PPV of all mobile forces in each of those systems

Steve

[sloanjh]

Cool - I especially like the last bit (about civilians ignoring the system unless there's a PPV presence).  It feels like this makes a commerce raiding strategy plausible - you can interdict a system by making occasional raids into in, unless the system is garrisoned.

A few thoughts:

Do you have a feel for how significant civilian trade is in terms of total economic activity for an empire?  Right now it feels pretty small.  If you could arrange for it to be a big component, then navies will be forced into a commerce protection role.

Convoys come to mind as a different way to increase ppv value.  Not sure how to work them - maybe a convoy order for a warship that would aggregate civilian ships until some threshold and then depart?

The pirate idea also comes back.  If you can figure out how to allow pirates to hide in populated systems, then their attacks can affect the security rating.  One of the uplift scenarios I'd like to play is the development of a navy as a commerce protection organization (before first contact).

John

[SteveAlt (OP)]

Cool - I especially like the last bit (about civilians ignoring the system unless there's a PPV presence).  It feels like this makes a commerce raiding strategy plausible - you can interdict a system by making occasional raids into in, unless the system is garrisoned.

A few thoughts:

Do you have a feel for how significant civilian trade is in terms of total economic activity for an empire?  Right now it feels pretty small.  If you could arrange for it to be a big component, then navies will be forced into a commerce protection role.

Convoys come to mind as a different way to increase ppv value.  Not sure how to work them - maybe a convoy order for a warship that would aggregate civilian ships until some threshold and then depart?

The pirate idea also comes back.  If you can figure out how to allow pirates to hide in populated systems, then their attacks can affect the security rating.  One of the uplift scenarios I'd like to play is the development of a navy as a commerce protection organization (before first contact).

John

Civilian trade starts off pretty small but will grow as the game progresses. The Commonwealth is fairly small in Aurora terms and has four civilian freighters, eight civilian colony ships and two civilian geosurvey ships. A population with a max level 10 civilian space port (requires 1 billion pop) will eventually produce quite a lot of civilian ships. That said, I have kept the chances of civilian ships fairly low anyway while any bugs were worked out and there are still a few in v3.2. v4.0 seems very stable as far as civilians are concerned so I could up the chances of civilian ships being produced in the future.

As far as convoys go, it would be relatively straightforward to create default orders for warships to automatically provide escort for any civilian ships in the same system, or any nearby system if preferred. Is that the type of thing you mean?

V4.0 has pirates of a sort as precursors return to the game. The surviving precursor units are not limited to those at ruin sites. Smaller ships, lacking jump drives, that have been trapped in various star systems when the Precursor civilization fell are still a threat to unwary shipping. Their instructions to fight the invaders still remain and they attack any forces entering the system in which they are trapped. Of course, if you happen to build a jump gate into their system, they wouldn't be trapped any longer . Its a little thin but it does provide a reason for 'pirates'

The other idea I had, although unlike the 'pirates' above I haven't implemented it yet, was an optional enemy similar to the Andromedans in Star Fleet Battles. They are planning to invade our galaxy and are sending the first waves of the invasion forces using some type of inter-galactic hyper-drive. These units would appear at random as they pop out of 'hyperspace' and would plague our galaxy's defenders to prepare for the full-scale invasion. As the game progresses the follow-on waves would arrive with far more powerful ships.

Steve

[Erik L]

The other idea I had, although unlike the 'pirates' above I haven't implemented it yet, was an optional enemy similar to the Andromedans in Star Fleet Battles. They are planning to invade our galaxy and are sending the first waves of the invasion forces using some type of inter-galactic hyper-drive. These units would appear at random as they pop out of 'hyperspace' and would plague our galaxy's defenders to prepare for the full-scale invasion. As the game progresses the follow-on waves would arrive with far more powerful ships.

Steve

Does that mean we get PA panels too?  

[SteveAlt (OP)]

The other idea I had, although unlike the 'pirates' above I haven't implemented it yet, was an optional enemy similar to the Andromedans in Star Fleet Battles. They are planning to invade our galaxy and are sending the first waves of the invasion forces using some type of inter-galactic hyper-drive. These units would appear at random as they pop out of 'hyperspace' and would plague our galaxy's defenders to prepare for the full-scale invasion. As the game progresses the follow-on waves would arrive with far more powerful ships.

Does that mean we get PA panels too?  

Interesting idea. They would be relatively easy to simulate in Aurora and would provide a suitably alien technology. It might also be fun if they also had powerful beam weapons plus some type of transporter-bomb equivalent that made them very hard to hit with missiles. As with the SFB Andromedans, there would have to be a restriction on duplication of their tech. Although gaining PA Panels through scanning "extra-Galactics" might not be that big a deal if I was to make them less powerful than the SFB version. They would just be an alternative to shields. Something for the future perhaps.

Steve

[SteveAlt (OP)]

Do you have a feel for how significant civilian trade is in terms of total economic activity for an empire?  Right now it feels pretty small.  If you could arrange for it to be a big component, then navies will be forced into a commerce protection role.

I'd though I revisit this point. After thinking about this for a while, I decided to give Empires the ability to sell certain ship types to the private sector. In this way, the player can create a much larger civilian sector if he wants one. At the moment this is possible for freighters, colony ships, grav survey ships and geo survey ships. Eventually it will be possible for other ships types too (as I expand the AI code). The selling is done via the Additional Information tab of the Fleet window and you gain wealth equal to half the build cost. You can sell fleets of mixed classes and the civilians will sort them into suitable fleets with one class type in each civilian fleet.

The advantages of selling ships, in addition to the wealth, are as follows:

1) Colony ships will continue to transport colonists but you will no longer have to provide the fuel
2) Freighters will transport infrastructure that civilian space centres will provide for free using fuel that you don't have to provide.
3) Geo survey and grav survey ships will carry out the same mission but without you needing to provide fuel and maintenance support

The disadvantage is that you lose control over where they will carry out their missions. In addition, civilian controlled grav and geo survey ships in v4.0 will explore new jump points so they might expand your territory when that isn't a good idea.

Steve

[waresky]

hundreds of NPR active Races,pirates,Extra Galactic Invaders...this awesome game become more fast on a DoomsDay un-playable nightmare:)..

Careful on too many implements..0.001% of them and PUNY Solomani was annhilated on few years..DD

[schroeam]

I like the idea of being able to sell excess ships, but how about an option to lease, or contract, civilian ships for special missions.  This would be useful if an emergent need for more shipping came up and there weren't any ships available for purchase.  

Adam.

[sloanjh]

As far as convoys go, it would be relatively straightforward to create default orders for warships to automatically provide escort for any civilian ships in the same system, or any nearby system if preferred. Is that the type of thing you mean?

Dang - board just burped and lost my message.  Trying again....

I was actually thinking of a modification to the civilian behavior.  Right now its "ignore any system whose security level is greater than the PPM of all present ships" - the new version would be "... greater than the PPM of all present ships, plus convoy escorts of the ship's convoy."  I wasn't thinking in terms of game mechanics as much as from the way wet navies tend to deal with commerce raiding in wartime.

From a mechanics point of view, I see two problems:

1)  Getting the civilian ship to not ignore a system because the ship knows it will be traveling in a convoy and the convoy escorts' PPM outweighs the security level.
2)  Getting more than one civilian ship into a convoy, so that you don't have 5 DD escorting a single freighter.

The only idea I've come up with is to have an order for a TF that says "Form 5-ship convoy at planet Terra and proceed to planet Eden".  This would cause the TF to go to Terra, then wait.  As civilian ships stop at Terra, they join the convoy.  Once the number of civvies in the convoy is 5, the convoy departs for Eden.  The thing I don't like about this idea is that it has the player micro-managing convoys - I'd rather have the civlian ships picking convoy routes, but I can't think of a reasonably easy way for you to code it up.  Did that make sense?

One other thing I realized the other night - I think the security rating rules give a subtle advantage to player races.  The reason is that they have player-controlled freighters and colony ships, which can be ordered into systems into which a civilian ship wouldn't go.  I assume that NPRs don't have that advantage - all their civilian ships will avoid such system.  OTOH, I just remembered you saying that you simplified a lot of stuff for NPRs, so maybe this is ok.

John

[sloanjh]

I'd though I revisit this point. After thinking about this for a while, I decided to give Empires the ability to sell certain ship types to the private sector. In this way, the player can create a much larger civilian sector if he wants one. At the moment this is possible for freighters, colony ships, grav survey ships and geo survey ships. Eventually it will be possible for other ships types too (as I expand the AI code). The selling is done via the Additional Information tab of the Fleet window and you gain wealth equal to half the build cost. You can sell fleets of mixed classes and the civilians will sort them into suitable fleets with one class type in each civilian fleet.

Great idea - I'm basically thinking in terms of expanding the civilian economy, and it sounds like this is one way.  BTW, have you considered giving a wealth (taxes) bump when civilian freighters transport "stuff"?  This would be a way to earn back the other 1/2 build cost.

Long term, if I sell a frigate to the civilians, will it become a privateer? [BEG]

John

[MWadwell]

The other idea I had, although unlike the 'pirates' above I haven't implemented it yet, was an optional enemy similar to the Andromedans in Star Fleet Battles. They are planning to invade our galaxy and are sending the first waves of the invasion forces using some type of inter-galactic hyper-drive. These units would appear at random as they pop out of 'hyperspace' and would plague our galaxy's defenders to prepare for the full-scale invasion. As the game progresses the follow-on waves would arrive with far more powerful ships.

Steve

You could actually make the "intergalactic hyperdrive" researchable too - but as the journey takes _years_ (or even generations), it's not feasible for the player race to use it to attack the Andromedan homeworld.....

[jfelten]

I'd though I revisit this point. After thinking about this for a while, I decided to give Empires the ability to sell certain ship types to the private sector. In this way, the player can create a much larger civilian sector if he wants one. At the moment this is possible for freighters, colony ships, grav survey ships and geo survey ships. Eventually it will be possible for other ships types too (as I expand the AI code). The selling is done via the Additional Information tab of the Fleet window and you gain wealth equal to half the build cost. You can sell fleets of mixed classes and the civilians will sort them into suitable fleets with one class type in each civilian fleet.

Steve

I can see people wanting to sell old warships to the "civilian" sector to use to escort their civilian freighters and such.  Although I'm not sure you could call them "civilian" anymore if they are operating warships.  

Civilian controlled grav and geo survey ships in v4.0 will explore new jump points so they might expand your territory when that isn't a good idea.

Governments should be able to control this since entering new systems could unleash a new alien and result in the annihilation of the species.  Perhaps restrict them to surveying known systems but not to transit an unexplored warp point.  Or maybe give governments the option to sell exploration rights to civilians and thereby control where they explore.  

I don't really know the purpose of civilian geo survey ships since they can't do anything useful with the information and give it away for free.  Perhaps if civilians could build their own automated mines and ship the minerals back to the homeworld where they offer the minerals for sale to the government.  That would also give aliens something to try to capture and the government something to defend.

[waresky]

Coool idea:D.
This r true otherwise for the Aliens's Civilians fleets toward us..our interesting am mean:) capture the ore or aliens resources from they Trade Fleet around into space..
Hope Steve can build up an AI similar or same capability.