New Diplomatic Rules for v4.1

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Two questions:

1. I don't suppose there is somewhere that I can see what another race thinks of me?

Just as in real life, you can only determine that from their actions. If they give you trade access for example (or remove it), that will give you an indication of how they regard you.

2. From this thread on sensors and mines, is the targeting smart enough to NOT fire on somebody I have set to Neutral or Allow Trading?

Missiles aren't too bright . Even in real life, friendly mines will kill you just as efficiently as hostile ones.

Steve

[Beersatron]

I just managed to finally get an NPR to give me a trade agreement but then a couple of 5 day increments later they arrived over one of my worlds with ships using active search sensors and my standing with them dropped 60points (I looked in the DB).

I guess they have settled some civilians in the system - even though I got there way before them and have a very obvious colony with a division of destroyers as protection.

Is there any way of 'telling' a neutral power that you own or have a presence in a system and that there shouldn't be any negative effect? It is kind of annoying that I get a negative effect for a colony that has been active for years before they arrived.

[Beersatron]

I just managed to finally get an NPR to give me a trade agreement but then a couple of 5 day increments later they arrived over one of my worlds with ships using active search sensors and my standing with them dropped 60points (I looked in the DB).

I guess they have settled some civilians in the system - even though I got there way before them and have a very obvious colony with a division of destroyers as protection.

Is there any way of 'telling' a neutral power that you own or have a presence in a system and that there shouldn't be any negative effect? It is kind of annoying that I get a negative effect for a colony that has been active for years before they arrived.

I just did another 1 day increment and lost another 60 points, so in a matter of days I went from friendly trading to 'about to get shot at'  

I have a 60k ton gate builder and 3 10k ton destroyers in orbit with another 15 60k ton terraformers about to make orbit of my colony.

Am not sure it makes sense to go to war over something like this.

[sloanjh]

Is there any way of 'telling' a neutral power that you own or have a presence in a system and that there shouldn't be any negative effect? It is kind of annoying that I get a negative effect for a colony that has been active for years before they arrived.

I've run into the same issue.  My suggestion would be having one or more new race attributes (or maybe some function of existing ones).  The word that springs to mind is "stubborness", i.e. how likely the NPR is to change a plan to colonize another system if it would infringe on another race.  Another possible attribute is how likely an NPR is to want to colonize a particular system.

Here are some suggestions for implementation:

1)  Make creating a colony in another race's system a hostile act below a certain treaty status.  I guess variations on this could be to vary the size of colony allowed with closeness of treaty status.

2)  Have the NPR AI assume that any system in which it encounters an alien vessel or bouy (without observing the alien transit into the system, or without already having a colony in the system) is claimed by aliens.  The only way to clear the flag would be to survey all the system bodies, i.e. ensure that there's no alien colony.  Note that this would make picketing of warp points (with active sensors) a valuable thing to do at NPR boundaries - it would indicate a claimed system.

3)  Before doing something that will worsen status with an alien race, an NPR would do a check against some attribute of "do I want to end up at war with these guys".  The state of the check should be saved - otherwise it would eventually creep over into "do it".  This would (sometimes) prevent the situation I ran into, where the aliens just went dancing into my home system with a war fleet.

John

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I just managed to finally get an NPR to give me a trade agreement but then a couple of 5 day increments later they arrived over one of my worlds with ships using active search sensors and my standing with them dropped 60points (I looked in the DB).

I guess they have settled some civilians in the system - even though I got there way before them and have a very obvious colony with a division of destroyers as protection.

Is there any way of 'telling' a neutral power that you own or have a presence in a system and that there shouldn't be any negative effect? It is kind of annoying that I get a negative effect for a colony that has been active for years before they arrived.

I just did another 1 day increment and lost another 60 points, so in a matter of days I went from friendly trading to 'about to get shot at'  

I have a 60k ton gate builder and 3 10k ton destroyers in orbit with another 15 60k ton terraformers about to make orbit of my colony.

Am not sure it makes sense to go to war over something like this.

One way to look at this is that many wars have started because two nations both wanted to colonise the same real estate. However, I do agree there needs to be a little more intelligence in this area. I can think of two ways to handle it. One is your suggestion above that races can inform each other which systems they are claiming. You would then judge whether to intrude on the territory of another race and NPRs would have a chance to ignore the warning based on their racial characteristics. The system map could show any claims from races with which you have established communication.

The second option is for NPRs not to create a colony in a system that has an established colony of another race. For the purposes of the rule, I think an established colony would be a ten million pop. If an NPR creates a colony when you have a smaller colony than that, you can decide whether to fight for the system or pull out. How do those options sound?

Steve

[Beersatron]

I just managed to finally get an NPR to give me a trade agreement but then a couple of 5 day increments later they arrived over one of my worlds with ships using active search sensors and my standing with them dropped 60points (I looked in the DB).

I guess they have settled some civilians in the system - even though I got there way before them and have a very obvious colony with a division of destroyers as protection.

Is there any way of 'telling' a neutral power that you own or have a presence in a system and that there shouldn't be any negative effect? It is kind of annoying that I get a negative effect for a colony that has been active for years before they arrived.

I just did another 1 day increment and lost another 60 points, so in a matter of days I went from friendly trading to 'about to get shot at'  

I have found that it takes quite a long time to get a new colony up to 10million people.

Say you have a trade agreement with an NPR and they are using the nearest population to them which also has the above mentioned commercial ships and then a survey or patrol fleet from the NPR comes along as an escort. They are going to detect the non-freighters and also my own escorts which is within reason.

Does an NPR 'know' if a ship is commercial or not? So you can add all commercial ships to the white-list or allowed sensor contacts?

What about being able to classify a warship as a patrol/escort vessel and these ships are also added to the white-list? You would then need a house-rule were by you don't make a massive 20k ton dreadnought and classify it as one just to slip it into a first-strike position though!

I hope I am making sense, am just typing as I think since I am at work

[alanwebber]

Steve

How does the survey data exchange occur - automatically or via SM intervention.

Alan

[Paul M]

One thing though is that the NPR may not be colonizing the same realestate since not all races share the same enviromental tolerences.  So if the NPR wants to colonize the methane atmosphere moon and I want to colonize the low G oxgen terrestial planet why should there be a conflict?  

A colony should probably be any population >100K because 10 million is not a colony but a nearly developed world in terms of the game.  Also you should add in what you feel defines an exploited system since one with several mass drivers and a bunch of automatic mines would also be considered a "colony" system even if there was not a single person there.

I would also suggest that only ships classifiable as military for maintenance purposes count in the penelty to relations.  This is far more reasonable as purely civilian shipping isn't a threat but even a small warship can be a danger, or the equivelent in survey-scout-military lift.

To enable proper negotiations it might be worth developing an forumla that gives a basic number on the value of that system to the NPR.  This would allow for weighted response.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Steve

How does the survey data exchange occur - automatically or via SM intervention.

Automatically. If one of your allies surveys a system body or a survey location in a system you know about, you get credited with the survey data immediately. If any minerals are found you receive a notification. Also, if you are surveying in the same system as one of your allies, your ships will work together with those of your allies to make sure you don't both survey the same locations.

Steve

[Beersatron]

This is a part diplomacy, part mine field, part sensors post.

So I went into the DB and gradually stepped up my relationship to the first NPR I came across. Setting the modifier points to just 1 below the next level and let the game do the level-up.

I inflated it so I got Trade and then Geo and then Grav and stopped there. The NPRs are now green on the map when in Active Sensor range but red on thermal sensors - which I guess if ok since they probably don't have transponders on.

Two things:

1. I was wondering, could there be a way to distinguish a race's ships by their thermal signature? It takes a while for your sensors to calibrate and refine the signature down but once it does that signature is stored in the AlienRace table and then you could maybe color the thermal contacts according to that instead of having them always red? They are plodding about Sol and I can see their thermal signatures away out passed the asteroid belt.

2. I set up a mine field around the JP that they use, just in case they run into another NPR and it follows them to Sol. The mine has active sensors and 3 sub munitions.

Code: [Select]

Buoy Size: 10 MSP  (0.5 HS)     Armour: 0
Reactor Endurance: 24 months
Active Sensor Strength: 0.8    Resolution: 120    Maximum Range: 960,000 km    
Cost Per Buoy: 11.615
Second Stage: Mallet Sub Minition x3
Second Stage Separation Range: 150,000 km


Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 2 MSP  (0.1 HS)     Warhead: 2    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 11
Speed: 38400 km/s    Endurance: 0 minutes   Range: 1.1m km
Active Sensor Strength: 0.2    Resolution: 60    Maximum Range: 120,000 km    
Cost Per Missile: 2.005
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 422.4%   3k km/s 132%   5k km/s 84.5%   10k km/s 42.2%

I actually set the mines up a bit too far out and they only barely overlap around the JP.

The friendly NPR jumped into Sol and was green on sensors, they start moving towards center of system and I am holding my breathe - bam! All the mines release their sub munitions. I think you mentioned before that this would probably happen, but I set this up on purpose just so I could see.

A few things on mines:
- if I am using active sensors then surely it shouldn't fire on greens? Not sure how you would do it for EM and TH since they are passive and quite rightly would find it hard to distinguish between friend and foe.

- is it possible to set an option that would stop a mine field from firing on neutrals? Say I have expanded beyond my feasible economical and military reach and want to settle in for a while to feast on my current holdings. But, I want to ensure that my approaches are secure except that I do not have the resources on hand to deploy mobile pickets so I go with mine fields. Now, I do not want to start an interstellar incident so I will deploy the mines and set them to attack only known enemies and to ignore neutrals and friendlies.

- my designs above may not be balanced but I noticed the following happen when my mines went off: the separation range is set to 150k km and the NPR only came within that range of 3 of the mines yet all the mines around the JP released their sub munitions. Then what happened was that only those sub munitions from the 3 mines within range actually attacked. The others lost target and didn't even move 1km - then self destructed. Is that by design? Are they using other sensors on purpose?

- is there a way to self-destruct a mine? I can be a neat freak sometimes and it could be bad for the civies if a mine gets a short and goes off  :wink:

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I actually set the mines up a bit too far out and they only barely overlap around the JP.

The friendly NPR jumped into Sol and was green on sensors, they start moving towards center of system and I am holding my breathe - bam! All the mines release their sub munitions. I think you mentioned before that this would probably happen, but I set this up on purpose just so I could see.

A few things on mines:
- if I am using active sensors then surely it shouldn't fire on greens? Not sure how you would do it for EM and TH since they are passive and quite rightly would find it hard to distinguish between friend and foe.

- is it possible to set an option that would stop a mine field from firing on neutrals? Say I have expanded beyond my feasible economical and military reach and want to settle in for a while to feast on my current holdings. But, I want to ensure that my approaches are secure except that I do not have the resources on hand to deploy mobile pickets so I go with mine fields. Now, I do not want to start an interstellar incident so I will deploy the mines and set them to attack only known enemies and to ignore neutrals and friendlies.

At the moment mines fire on anything that isn't one of your ships. The reason for this is that alliances can change and there is no way for the mines to know who is your friend at the time they get activated, compared to the time they were laid. I don't think its realistic for all mines to be aware of the current diplmatic situation but I have an alternative suggestion. How about a window that allows you to specify the allowable targets for mines. This could be as simple as "Any foreign ship", or as complex as "Arachnid Ships between 5000 and 10,000 tons", "Thermal Signatures greater than 1000", or even a specified range of known alien classes. Perhaps even a command to ignore the first few targets or wait a certain time before activating. I think for modern captor mines the software can be set for targets within certain ranges so this would allow you to setup something similar. When you lay a mine, it would adopt whatever rules were set for your mines at that point in time. You wouldn't be able to change the targeting instruction for a mine once laid but it would still add a lot more flexibility. I think the window would have to contain a list of deployed mines so you could keep track. For those players who aren't interested in this level of detail, the default would remain "All Alien Ships"

- my designs above may not be balanced but I noticed the following happen when my mines went off: the separation range is set to 150k km and the NPR only came within that range of 3 of the mines yet all the mines around the JP released their sub munitions. Then what happened was that only those sub munitions from the 3 mines within range actually attacked. The others lost target and didn't even move 1km - then self destructed. Is that by design? Are they using other sensors on purpose?

No, that sounds like a bug I thought I had fixed. I'll look at it again.

- is there a way to self-destruct a mine? I can be a neat freak sometimes and it could be bad for the civies if a mine gets a short and goes off  

Steve

[Beersatron]

I actually set the mines up a bit too far out and they only barely overlap around the JP.

The friendly NPR jumped into Sol and was green on sensors, they start moving towards center of system and I am holding my breathe - bam! All the mines release their sub munitions. I think you mentioned before that this would probably happen, but I set this up on purpose just so I could see.

A few things on mines:
- if I am using active sensors then surely it shouldn't fire on greens? Not sure how you would do it for EM and TH since they are passive and quite rightly would find it hard to distinguish between friend and foe.

- is it possible to set an option that would stop a mine field from firing on neutrals? Say I have expanded beyond my feasible economical and military reach and want to settle in for a while to feast on my current holdings. But, I want to ensure that my approaches are secure except that I do not have the resources on hand to deploy mobile pickets so I go with mine fields. Now, I do not want to start an interstellar incident so I will deploy the mines and set them to attack only known enemies and to ignore neutrals and friendlies.

At the moment mines fire on anything that isn't one of your ships. The reason for this is that alliances can change and there is no way for the mines to know who is your friend at the time they get activated, compared to the time they were laid. I don't think its realistic for all mines to be aware of the current diplmatic situation but I have an alternative suggestion. How about a window that allows you to specify the allowable targets for mines. This could be as simple as "Any foreign ship", or as complex as "Arachnid Ships between 5000 and 10,000 tons", "Thermal Signatures greater than 1000", or even a specified range of known alien classes. Perhaps even a command to ignore the first few targets or wait a certain time before activating. I think for modern captor mines the software can be set for targets within certain ranges so this would allow you to setup something similar. When you lay a mine, it would adopt whatever rules were set for your mines at that point in time. You wouldn't be able to change the targeting instruction for a mine once laid but it would still add a lot more flexibility. I think the window would have to contain a list of deployed mines so you could keep track. For those players who aren't interested in this level of detail, the default would remain "All Alien Ships"

- my designs above may not be balanced but I noticed the following happen when my mines went off: the separation range is set to 150k km and the NPR only came within that range of 3 of the mines yet all the mines around the JP released their sub munitions. Then what happened was that only those sub munitions from the 3 mines within range actually attacked. The others lost target and didn't even move 1km - then self destructed. Is that by design? Are they using other sensors on purpose?

No, that sounds like a bug I thought I had fixed. I'll look at it again.

- is there a way to self-destruct a mine? I can be a neat freak sometimes and it could be bad for the civies if a mine gets a short and goes off  

Steve

The level of detail on mine control is actually more than I hoped for :oops:

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

The level of detail on mine control is actually more than I hoped for :oops:

It will probably be post-Xmas before anything like this was introduced. I am trying to avoid DB changes at the moment so I can make sure that v4.7+ is as stable as I can make it before I change anything significant. I have a growing list of things that I would like to do once I start making DB changes again and this will be on that list. Besides I just ordered a new digital piano so I will no doubt be totally distracted by that when it arrives in a week or so

Steve

[Beersatron]

The level of detail on mine control is actually more than I hoped for :oops:

It will probably be post-Xmas before anything like this was introduced. I am trying to avoid DB changes at the moment so I can make sure that v4.7+ is as stable as I can make it before I change anything significant. I have a growing list of things that I would like to do once I start making DB changes again and this will be on that list. Besides I just ordered a new digital piano so I will no doubt be totally distracted by that when it arrives in a week or so

Steve

That's fine with me, I'm thinking of changing my WP defense from mine field to OWP now.

Did you ever give any thought to creating the equivalent of the primary buoy in Starfire? Buoy with a laser instead of missile, heavily increased cycle time and possibly have it 'degrade' after every shot so it doesn't last forever?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

That's fine with me, I'm thinking of changing my WP defense from mine field to OWP now.

Did you ever give any thought to creating the equivalent of the primary buoy in Starfire? Buoy with a laser instead of missile, heavily increased cycle time and possibly have it 'degrade' after every shot so it doesn't last forever?

Yes I have considered it. It is very possible within the physics of the game so I will look at that when I look at mines for the next DB release.

Steve