Author Topic: Pulsar 4X Ideas  (Read 30279 times)

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Offline iceball3

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #75 on: February 05, 2015, 10:38:49 PM »

What I am thinking of is instead of just a particle beam like Aurora has maybe there could be different subsets that could be researched that do slightly different things, IE a plasma beam vs a particle beam.
You mean like in aurora?
Laser: Highest potential range, most dynamically changeable, turretablr. Piercing Profile. Spinally Mountable. Reduceable size.
Particle Beam: Highest damage at end of range, with no damage dropoff. Higher general range per HS excluding laser reductions. Piercing Profile.
Plasma Carronade: Deals explosive damage profile. Damage drops off extremely with range. Highest point blank damage.
Microwaves, mesons, Et cetera. So there are different beam types, but i wouldn't mind a few more if they could meaningfully have a reason to exist in the combat system.

I honestly would personally like if all the beams had more modifiers to how they preformed. A couple of ideas:

Meson Attenuation:
Five levels at most, each level increases meson damage by 1, decreases range to (1/level^1.5) it's previous range, with level 1 being 1 damage. If pulsar is using the current system of minimum range increments, having a range less than a minimum increment should render the meson innefective at the minimum range increment. Each level should require research to ascend.
Mesons with damage more than one have a random chance of having their damage partially absorbed by shielding, but will damage shields in the process and 1 damage will always leak through.

Plasma Carronade Encasement: Plasma Carronades with a metastable encasement to hold it stable briefly in flight.
Range increase in the same manner range tech affects lasers.
Will still have damage falloff proportional to original, so the initial damage falloff will be steep relative to the significantly weaker end of the range. This could lead to an interesting effect with rather long range carronades that hit 1-5 damage on the ending range of the weapon, sharply increasing at shorter range.
The main distinguishing part of this tech from other range techs is that it will also increase the size of the carronade a bit with each level.

Streaming particle beam: Particle beams which rake across the target as opposed to piercing. Each level halves the depth of a particle beam rounded up but widens it, to elaborate :
Code: [Select]
Intact Armor
OOOOOOO
OOOOOOO
OOOOOOO
OOOOOOO

Particle Beam Str 6 No Streaming
OOOXOOO
OOOXOOO
OOOXOOO
OOOXOOO

Particle Beam Str 6 Streaming 1

OOXXOOO
OOXXOOO
OOXXOOO
OOOOOOO

Particle Beam Strength 6 Streaming 2
OOXXXOO
OOXXXOO
OOOOOOO
OOOOOOO
And so forth. Streaming particle beams which miss should have a very slight chance of hitting their target anyway, doing small amounts of damage. The chance is slightly higher at higher streaming levels.
 

Offline misora

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #76 on: February 06, 2015, 09:21:18 AM »
You mean like in aurora?

With the plasma beam thing I was thinking along the lines of Stargate, where they use plasma weapons that deal lots of damage against shields, so maybe just a look into other forms of fiction for weapons that might work within a Newtonian setting.
 

Offline iceball3

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #77 on: February 06, 2015, 11:08:33 AM »
With the plasma beam thing I was thinking along the lines of Stargate, where they use plasma weapons that deal lots of damage against shields, so maybe just a look into other forms of fiction for weapons that might work within a Newtonian setting.
Aurora has Microwaves and Railguns, both which seem to specialise as Anti Shield. Microwaves doing 3 damage with no dropoff, and railguns having high spread out DPS which is pretty effective too.
 

Offline rcj33

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #78 on: February 06, 2015, 10:14:25 PM »
At low range and low caliber, sure, HPMs are good versus shields. Unfortunately, the 25cm version (which can fire every tick with capacitor rating 16, but cannot hit max range) is outperformed by a PB-9 (1dmg/HS versus 3dmg/8HS). You can even use 2 10s PB-9s if you only have cap 12. They'll still be cheaper than the one HPM and do more damage. I don't have time to do an in-depth analysis, but I remember somebody did one awhile back. I think the HPM needs a shield damage buff in Pulsar  ;)
 

Offline Nathan_

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #79 on: February 06, 2015, 10:20:14 PM »
At low range and low caliber, sure, HPMs are good versus shields. Unfortunately, the 25cm version (which can fire every tick with capacitor rating 16, but cannot hit max range) is outperformed by a PB-9 (1dmg/HS versus 3dmg/8HS). You can even use 2 10s PB-9s if you only have cap 12. They'll still be cheaper than the one HPM and do more damage. I don't have time to do an in-depth analysis, but I remember somebody did one awhile back. I think the HPM needs a shield damage buff in Pulsar  ;)

well right now the focus is on getting the TN rules set out, but I am concerned both about the opportunity cost involved in not researching lasers(or missiles for that matter) and investing in a more exotic beam and their utility. I don't necessarily intend for all weapons to be equally useful, but they certainly shouldn't be flat out worthless.
 

Offline misora

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #80 on: May 29, 2015, 02:48:37 PM »
I was wondering if it would be possible to simulate biospheres on planets. It could provide incentive for not terraforming every planet you come across and might add more flavor to the universe if used in creative ways. One idea I had was splitting the biosphere into components, being Complexity, Diverseness, and how healthy the biosphere is. A healthy Biosphere could more easily withstand terraforming than one that is on the brink of collapse, while an extremely diverse one would suffer from terraforming as well.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #81 on: May 29, 2015, 04:07:48 PM »
Have you not considered mixing rail-gun and missile or guided ammunition technology?

I really think that shooting semi and/or fully guided ammunition (some even with nuclear warheads) can be an interesting weapon platform. Pretty useful for point defense as well, also more useful in space than the traditional rail-gun as in Aurora.

Rail-guns would in practice be pretty poor weapons in anything but knife fighting distances in a game such as Aurora or Pulsar... but with guided ammunition they can be much more useful although susceptible to PD weapons as well as other ECM or counter measures. They would be like todays mortars versus missiles (artillery).
 

Offline Rod-Serling

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #82 on: May 29, 2015, 07:40:50 PM »
I was wondering if it would be possible to simulate biospheres on planets. It could provide incentive for not terraforming every planet you come across and might add more flavor to the universe if used in creative ways. One idea I had was splitting the biosphere into components, being Complexity, Diverseness, and how healthy the biosphere is. A healthy Biosphere could more easily withstand terraforming than one that is on the brink of collapse, while an extremely diverse one would suffer from terraforming as well.

Possible? Yes.

My problem with biospheres is its a very complex thing to realistically generate, let alone simulate. While we're trying to make Pulsar4x a deep, complex, and realistic game, we do have our limits.

Have you not considered mixing rail-gun and missile or guided ammunition technology?

I really think that shooting semi and/or fully guided ammunition (some even with nuclear warheads) can be an interesting weapon platform. Pretty useful for point defense as well, also more useful in space than the traditional rail-gun as in Aurora.

Rail-guns would in practice be pretty poor weapons in anything but knife fighting distances in a game such as Aurora or Pulsar... but with guided ammunition they can be much more useful although susceptible to PD weapons as well as other ECM or counter measures. They would be like todays mortars versus missiles (artillery).

Personally, I have thought about this, especially for beam weapon combat at 1 second intervals (To increase the range past 1-second speed of light). I'm on the fence. While it would be a good realistic delivery system, it would blur the line between missiles and energy weapons and would be adding another type of weapon (Guided Railgun, Missiles, Lasers). I'm not sure it quite fits from a gameplay perspective.
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Offline Hydrofoil

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #83 on: May 30, 2015, 07:27:41 AM »
Possible? Yes.

My problem with biospheres is its a very complex thing to realistically generate, let alone simulate. While we're trying to make Pulsar4x a deep, complex, and realistic game, we do have our limits.

Personally, I have thought about this, especially for beam weapon combat at 1 second intervals (To increase the range past 1-second speed of light). I'm on the fence. While it would be a good realistic delivery system, it would blur the line between missiles and energy weapons and would be adding another type of weapon (Guided Railgun, Missiles, Lasers). I'm not sure it quite fits from a gameplay perspective.

Plus you also have to consider the scale of the game you could be fighting over millions of KMs of distance. This would be very very hard to represent on the User Interface. Guided munitions whilst would be a thing in any modern space faring races arsenal for game play purposes i dont think it would be easy to represent.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #84 on: May 30, 2015, 03:41:01 PM »
Personally, I have thought about this, especially for beam weapon combat at 1 second intervals (To increase the range past 1-second speed of light). I'm on the fence. While it would be a good realistic delivery system, it would blur the line between missiles and energy weapons and would be adding another type of weapon (Guided Railgun, Missiles, Lasers). I'm not sure it quite fits from a gameplay perspective.

From the free material that are available on the subject that you can find about war in space there actually seem to be a consensus on magnetically launched missiles would be the most logical progression of long range weapon capabilities above one light second range. Due to relativistic limitations we are limited to the distance of roughly one light second as the maximum distant to hit something unless it is guided somehow. We are however not constrained about this here though, but it is worth noting.

What I could see would be missiles that is launched by a rail-gun mechanism and that is what they get their main momentum from and then basically just keep enough fuel and engines for maneuvering... but they are for all intents and purposes missiles. I really believe that missiles fired from really great ranges such as millions or even billions of kilometers must need some self guidance to actually hit a moving target... even with advanced tech such as in Aurora. They should be able to be guided by a ships fire-control to some extent, but not for their final approach or run against a target. That might give the game a better balance between the options. You would simply remove the more traditional missile type...

You can then have rail-guns that fire smaller nuclear charges which are semi guided and with rather limited maneuvering and targeting capabilities and can only be fired shorter distances but still beyond that one light second distance... This way you can actually use rail-guns as an effective long range weapon and laser beams would be more of a short range weapon and mainly for point defense. In my opinion more probable in long range engagements (not missile range). Or you can replace the name to torpedoes or something cooler... ;)

You also get around some problems such as why missiles can't be grouped up in one large salvo even if launched in many separate salvos. With the way missiles work in Aurora and the times involved there are no real reason why you can't have several salvos fired arrive at the same time. But if you can't really control the actual speed of the missile this is not a real issue anymore.
 

Offline Thundercraft

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #85 on: December 04, 2015, 07:03:48 PM »
I see that the aim of Pulsar right now is to be a faithful reproduction of Aurora "as a baseline." But it sounds like some room is left for differences in mechanics and modification.

So, if players want certain things to be different, they will need to modify the game's JSON files. Correct? Or are there any plans for full-on mod support down the road?

Also, I found a brief mention in one of the Development Progress reports of "future multiplayer development." Will there be a configuration window specifically for a host or Space Master to configure multiplayer campaigns? (I'm reminded of multiplayer configure menus in other 4X games, like MOO2.)

I was wondering, among other things, if racial abilities might eventually be options that the Space Master could turn on or off (i.e., left off for those who want to enforce a purely vanilla Aurora experience) in an SM Mode or multiplayer config window. And by racial abilities I mean stuff inspired by other 4X games, beyond Aurora's adjustments to breathing gas and tolerances to temperature, gravity and pressure. I'm reminded of the THEORYCRAFT: Wierd Races thread and how Aurora players must merely roleplay them as we can't customize races very much.

Common 4X examples of racial traits:
 * Bonus to ground combat
 * Bonus to mining production
 * Bonus to industry
 * Bonus to research
 * Bonus to tax rate (Aurora has "Wealth" generation and income from CMCs)
 * Bonus to trade income
 * Bonus to espionage
 * Bonus to diplomacy
 * Hostile Xenophobe: Not able to engage in diplomacy or trade

Further ideas:
 * Bonus to shipyard production
 * Bonus to geological / gravitational surveys
 * Bonus to terraforming
 * Bonus to commercial shipping (Cheaper? Faster? More prolific?)
 * Aquatic: Requires a hydrosphere, but wider (hotter) temperature and atmo tolerances
 * Robotic: No atmosphere or gas requirements, requires minerals or industry to reproduce
 * Siliconoid: Subsist on a wider gravity range, requires minerals or industry to reproduce
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Offline Travis

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #86 on: February 02, 2016, 02:54:49 AM »
Was referred here by someone after I complained about a really annoying quality of life improvement I'd be unlikely to see in Aurora 4x.   The situation:

Half a dozen colonised systems, with a few dozen PDC's.   An absolute pain to micromanage when I'm under constant invasion, so they're on auto-fire (yes, I'm a lazy noob).   Problem is they're equipped with both meson cannons and missiles.   The meson cannons are for point defense.   If you set a PDC to auto-fire and the beam fire control to point defense, the PDC overrides your command for the beam FC as soon as you increment time and instead opts not to use the meson cannons.   Could this be fixed in Pulsar 4x?

Edit: Oh, while I'm here, any chance of transiting through wormholes to another galaxy to kick the invaders' arse?
« Last Edit: February 02, 2016, 02:57:31 AM by Travis »
 

Offline se5a

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #87 on: February 03, 2016, 02:15:22 PM »
I'd like to have a better combat control than aurora, we're a little way off that though.
 

Offline Rod-Serling

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #88 on: February 12, 2016, 12:27:07 PM »
I see that the aim of Pulsar right now is to be a faithful reproduction of Aurora "as a baseline." But it sounds like some room is left for differences in mechanics and modification.

So, if players want certain things to be different, they will need to modify the game's JSON files. Correct? Or are there any plans for full-on mod support down the road?

Currently, Pulsar4X has decent modding support. We're open source, so anyone can change the game code as they want. This represents the ultimate in mod support.

When most people talk about mod support, they don't talk about changing the source code.  I understand that. Pulsar4X (ECS-Crossplatform branch) currently supports mods in the following way:
Pulsar4X loads "Static Data" from JSON files. Pulsar4X allows users to select the directory they want to load the Static Data from. Static Data is generally things like component definitions, atmospheric gas definitions, types/names of minerals, and tech tree. If you look at https://github.com/Pulsar4xDevs/Pulsar4x/tree/ECS-CrossPlatform/Pulsar4X/Pulsar4X.ECSLib/Data/Pulsar4x you'll find all the JSON data that's currently loaded, and can be easily modified and redistributed without changing source code.


Also, I found a brief mention in one of the Development Progress reports of "future multiplayer development." Will there be a configuration window specifically for a host or Space Master to configure multiplayer campaigns? (I'm reminded of multiplayer configure menus in other 4X games, like MOO2.)

Space Master has the ultimate authority in Pulsar4x. SpaceMaster owns everything and can modify attributes that other players can't. While multiplayer is very long down the road, I envision SpaceMaster being the one responsible for initial game creation, including mod selection.

I was wondering, among other things, if racial abilities might eventually be options that the Space Master could turn on or off (i.e., left off for those who want to enforce a purely vanilla Aurora experience) in an SM Mode or multiplayer config window. And by racial abilities I mean stuff inspired by other 4X games, beyond Aurora's adjustments to breathing gas and tolerances to temperature, gravity and pressure. I'm reminded of the THEORYCRAFT: Wierd Races thread and how Aurora players must merely roleplay them as we can't customize races very much.

Custom racial abilities will be implemented as StaticData, meaning a mod can modify or remove these features as they wish. A SpaceMaster can decide to start a MP game with a mod that doesn't have racial abilities.
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Offline Mor

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Re: Pulsar 4X Ideas
« Reply #89 on: February 13, 2016, 06:00:51 AM »
I was wondering, among other things, if racial abilities might eventually be options that the Space Master could turn on or off (i.e., left off for those who want to enforce a purely vanilla Aurora experience) in an SM Mode or multiplayer config window. And by racial abilities I mean stuff inspired by other 4X games, beyond Aurora's adjustments to breathing gas and tolerances to temperature, gravity and pressure. I'm reminded of the THEORYCRAFT: Wierd Races thread and how Aurora players must merely roleplay them as we can't customize races very much.
Racial abilities is one of the easiest things to create, just make sure you have global modifier for each aspect of  eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate game.

With that said, i prefer Aurora like system with a small number racial traits. These traits may be governed by multiple modifier, but should have distinct effect on play-style and used to affect AI decisions. Because while I can RP the AI can't. For example see http://www.hoi3wiki.com/Politics#laws