Author Topic: Boarding Torpedos."Easy" way to implement limited boarding actions.  (Read 1984 times)

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Offline Pury (OP)

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While I cant be sure, as I'm not the one doing the actual coding of the game, I think that implementing boarding torpedo's might be  both easy to implement and interesting addition to the game. As far as I remember there is no boarding by the NPR mostly because of the work it would require in terms of working AI behaviors. Boarding torpedo's in my mind can bring few interesting additions to the game while not needing to redesign AI:

a) Gives NPR and Spoilers limited boarding potential.
With this addition there would be brand new threat to our ships!!! And for me the more variety in possible threats for my ships there is, the better the experience will be for me.

b) Not that much work required. (obviously subjective point, and can't really be sure about it)
No new logic for the AI needed. Not much at least. Boarding torpedo's would be just regular missiles with a checkbox enabled. They would use all the existing missile mechanics. The only problem would be adding them to AI ships, and possibly writing the code to spawn boarding troops upon impact.

c)Alternative way of performing boarding for players.
They may act as less efficient troops delivered more efficiently to the enemy ship.



In terms of how i imagine it would look like in the game.
After researching regular boarding, we could also research boarding torpedo's modification, witch would function like this:

You get a checkbox in missile design, witch upon being checked would change the current warhead to "boarding bot's"

Boarding bots stats are tied to the tech level upon their boarding torpedo research. They would have the INF LPW (or something close to it), in order to be dangerous to the crew, but not too dangerous to any real fighting units onboard. Each warhead point would increase the number of bots by 2-5. (While 1 Warhead point is 2.5t, and INF LPW is 3t, in other posts Steve explained that this weight consist of all the logistics needed for the troop to function for prolonged combat. For Boarding bots, they only need to function for few hours at most and are rather compact in their design. So i think it is reasonable to assume that 1 Warhead point would fit few of them.)
In terms of resupply, each boarding torpedo would always spawn 1 small INF unit with supply to replenish bot's ammunition.

Upon impact, there are different ways to go about it:

a) If torpedo hit's the target, all of the bots unload and follow the regular boarding combat mechanics in term of getting into the ship.

b) To simulate high speed impact into the ship, some bots are destroyed depending on the number of armor layers of the impact area. Each armor layer would destroy 1 Bot (starting from the fighting ones) to counter the losses, bot's would not need to find "a hole" in the armor to get in. If they survive the impact, the got into the ship as the torpedo pierced the armor. (not destroying it because it is not what it is designed to do)

c) To simulate high speed impact into the ship, some bots are destroyed depending on the number of armor layers of the impact area. Each armor layer would destroy 1 Bot. After that, they follow the regular boarding combat mechanics in term of getting into the ship.

The boarding action would commence after that following present rules (maybe exclude morale, or some other mechanic as they are bot's, not meat/thinking soldiers?)

If they succeed, and take over the ship, their are either incorporated into the crew to boost its numbers, or just despawn, as they are not designed to be reused or to do any other task.



I'm not sure if Steve will be interested in implementing it any time soon,(or at all) but after a quick search i did no find anyone proposing this sort of thing, so maybe it will catch your attention.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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The AI already mounts some boarding actions. I just haven't extended that capability to the regular NPRs.
 
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Offline Pury (OP)

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The AI already mounts some boarding actions. I just haven't extended that capability to the regular NPRs.

Well, sorry then for creating a post based on miss information. I played quite a lot, fought all spoiler races (although not to a sufficient point it seems) And never encountered any boarding actions done by them. Looking few times on the forum and reddit I did not see any information about people defending from boarding actions, so based on quite old posts I thought that it is simply not there.

How far down on your list (and if at all) is giving the boarding action possibility for NPRs, and are you happy with the current extend of boarding mechanics, or are you planing some additions to it at some point?
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Here is a post from a C# campaign that featured AI boarding actions
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10462.msg116799#msg116799

I don't have a list per se - it often depends on a combination of suggestions, what is happening in my own campaign, available time for coding and whatever book I am reading or series I am watching :)

The code for AI boarding is available, so its more about adding the necessary ship designs and op groups to different NPR design themes.
 
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