System Defenses

These ideas all have merit and I'm inclined to agree they would be cool, but I think given what's been stated about how the game is being designed, there will be little if any focus given to setting up outposts or other fortifications in the context of the story.

It may be a moot point to consider aspects of the game that have been implied to be absent from the design objective. That being said, I'd still really love to see a strategy mini-game similar to the SC1 scenarios that has a small starmap with areas that can be fortified and mined for resources to produce more ships to hold territory. That's really all SC1 was, sort of an enhanced melee mode with an added board game element.

...the ultimate defense and futile obstacle to try to overcome was the Slave Shield.  That might be an interesting mechanic if it had some sort of weakness that first had to be dealt with (ie like taking out the generator on the Endor in some famous movie I saw somewhere...)

Actually, I thought this fit in with their description of the supermelee map as a "solar system".  I assumed that meant the fight will take place on a map of the solar system you are in when playing the full game.  The different planet layouts would put the gravity wells in different places and make fighting in each system a little different.  That's what I was envisioning when I was thinking of these defenses, you could defend planets in populated systems, or make special maps for quest/boss fights.

We really have to see the game to know how it really works, maybe the supermelee map is different that what I am thinking it is.

I didn't explain this aspect of it well in the first post.  I said these were the components of a simple defensive system.  These things create "layers" of defense that need to be taken apart in sequence.  SFB players call it "peeling the onion".  The minefield is the first layer, the defsats are the second.  A "base station" is equal to a big ship that can't move, and is a third layer.  A "Battlestation" is like an even bigger ship that has killable weapons/devices... creating 2 layers as opposed to having a base station at the heart of the defense.  This works particularly well for SC with the rock, paper, scissors balance where there can be a different ship that is best at peeling each layer of the particular onion they wind up creating.

Just in case it isn't as obvious as I was thinking it would be...  Here are some ways system defense might be used.

Example #1.  Homeworld the designers don't want the player to be able to defeat.  Starbase surrounded by minefields and DefSats at homeworld (Starbase is barely beatable on its own by players entire fleet, it would be almost impossible for the player to defeat this starbase or easily made absolutely impossible by extending the minefield out to protect the DefSats).  If designed to be almost impossible there could be an achievement called "Destroyer of Worlds" given for defeating a homeworld starbase.  Since this is a home system there might be more than 1 populated planet and those would also have defenses, possibly as large as battlestations since it is a home system you are intentionally wanting to make "unkillable".  This is much more immersive than "you can't defeat the homeworld because it has infinite ships.  

Example #2.  A "remote outpost".  Say their is an NPC that gives a quest.  The "populated planet" has just a minefield and DefSats around it.  If you anger the NPC and wind up fighting, the map you fight on will have this one planet that you can't get close to to use it's gravity because of the minefield, and the DefSats will shoot at you if you get to close.  You can kill them if you want, but it's also easy to avoid that one planet and just fight the ship.  Note that the visible defenses hint at which planets the NPC might be on, and stronger defenses would prevent early game players from having access... like a "gear check" in an RPG, which can be useful to the designers in an open-ended storyline game like this.

Example #3.  "Defended Item".  A needed quest item is on a planet.  It is defended by a battlestation with minefield and DefSats and 4 ships.  The ships are fought 1 by 1, in what SFB players would call a series of "approach battles" (the ships advance from the base and force the attackers to fight them before reaching the base).  During these approach battles, the battlestation and any defenses at other planets are on not on the map, because the defenders advanced to fight an approach battle away from the base. Or, you could say the defenses are present during approach battles and the player just has to avoid them while fighting the ships... it's really a design choice, either works one is just harder for the player. The final battle is against the battlestation/planet instead of just a ship, you might "zoom in" to this fight with a single planet map with the defenses present.  Adding 1 ship to the battlestation fight will make it a little harder, but not much since you would just lead the ship away from the base and kill it 1v1 first, which is why I think using an abstract approach battle system "feels better" to the player (and just happens to be how SC already works).

As you can see, system defenses can be used in many different ways.  I originally made this post because we were talking about "minimalism in game design" and "making what is already there work as interesting an dynamic as possible".  This came too mind during that conversation.  In the original SC the only way they had of making a fight more difficult was to make the player fight more ships... all the way up to the point that little blob says "here, bore yourself to death kill 10 (ten!!!) of the same ships in a row.  Anything more than 4 is just boring an monotonous.  System defenses can be used to vastly improve this aspect of the original design, providing a way to make fights more difficult with more than just "fight more ships".  

Now for a little harder fight you can make the player fight a number of ships on a map where 1 or more systems have DefSats and minefields.  For a harder a few might have basestations.  The player just has to destroy the ships, the defenses in this case are in reality are just an advantage for the AI... a lot of extra shots to dodge and denial of access to gravity wells.  The player only needs to destroy defenses if they want to land on the planet.  If they don't need to land on the planet, they don't need to destroy the defenses.  For an even harder fight you can require the player to destroy the defenses... at any level.  It might be just a minefield early game, or it could be a battlestation with minefield and defsats for the hardest "normal fight" (a fight with a starbase is a rare boss fight).  So this could really add a lot of game to the existing structure of Star Control, making the means by which more difficult fights are represented much more interesting, dynamic, and realistic.

Besides... "peeling the onion" is fun:-)

Quoting Kavik_Kang, reply 5

Besides... "peeling the onion" is fun
 

I think I saw a SD post stating that this game wouldn't be 4x, nor a RTS.

Quoting Tovanion, reply 6

Quoting Kavik_Kang,

reply 5

Besides... "peeling the onion" is fun
 

 

I think I saw a SD post stating that this game wouldn't be 4x, nor a RTS.

This wouldn't make it any of those things.  The player doesn't own or build these defenses, the AI does.  They could be used as little or as much as the designers see fit.

This made me wonder if the game will have a separate combat view. If you encounter a hostile orbital weapons platform around a planet, how would it shoot you as you cruised the solar system? (I posed the combat/solar system view question in a separate thread.)

Yes, I am also unsure of exactly how it will work.  It could be that you just fight on the solar system map and they use a few auto-zoom levels to focus you on where you are.  In that case the map would be very large and these defenses would just exist on that map.  Seems like a very large map for 1v1 dueling.  If there is a "strategic map" and a "combat map" that are separate, then you might use the "approach battle" system I mentioned which would be pretty much identical to how SC2 worked except the last fight is against the planet defenses.

I like the idea of everything just happening on one solar system map, although it is a huge open map for dueling which can cause problems in multiplayer 1v1 supermelee if a player in a fast ship refuses to engage, for example.  But they could easily just make the map smaller for supermelee.

Smaller map won't work with supermelee without wrap-around.

If they take away wrap-around then maps will have to be very big else slow ships will be at a disadvantage as they will be cornered.

Thinking about it as chess with the opponent having a bare king and you have a queen and a pawn. The King is not fast enough to escape the queen and pawn and you get trapped in a corner.

If combat takes place on the solar system map, with an SC2-like autozoom to focus on the players location, which I think would be awesome, then the map is HUGE.  Pointlessly large for 1v1 multiplayer dueling.

I've mentioned before some of the effects of map size within this genre.  A smaller map is actually better for 1v1 dueling and "fixed scenarios".  There are a lot of problems associated with large open maps, the ships need to be designed to work on a large map and even then there is always the problem of a faster player who refuses to engage.  A smaller map "the boxing ring" solves many of those problems but isn't necessary.  It's just harder to make it all work on a large map.  Much of this is not relevant against the AI, which is programmed to engage the player at all times.

Wrap-around does create it's own unique environment.  One of the biggest things it does is remove part of the speed advantage, allowing for very fast ships that wouldn't work on an open map or in "the boxing ring" (like the Druuge).

Map size is actually a very complicated issue in this genre that we could discuss endlessly for the next year without exploring all of the aspects of it.

A smaller map is better for 1v1.

Well yes it would be better for 1v1 because there are only 2 players.

But what is a smaller map?

A dagger is better at close-quarter combat than a long sword.

A long sword is better at close-quarter combat than a halberd.

If you like using fast ships with powerful short range weapons (the Zoq-Fot-Piq Stinger comes to mind...) then obviously you would prefer to play in smaller maps with no wrap-around where you would have the advantage against say the Druuge, the Melnorme, the Mycon, etc. very slow moving vessels that use long range weapons.

But imagine playing against the Kor-ah in a small map and they keep on spamming their spinning discs of death?

SC2 had actually a very good balance because of the planet in the middle with the gravity well that could be used to place your vessel in orbit and use as a shield against long range attacks. The wrap-around was so the player wouldn't become too dependent on the planet as a shield since if you hide behind a planet the enemy only needs to shoot in the opposite direction and wrap-around the bullet.

Fast ships could use the gravity well to fly even faster and catch with the slow ships.

But if the map is not wrap-around then it will have to be a large map. It is unfortunate for smaller short-range ships that would be at a disadvantage. but at least since it is not wrap-around you have a chance to catch and coral the enemy.

Yes, all those things are true.  And against the AI most of the problems associated with map size are not relevant because the AI is programmed to constantly engage the player.  The primary problems with a large map arise from a faster player who refuses to engage, or from a concept called "The Kaufman Retrograde" which in simple terms means that a ship running away and firing backwards towards it's pursuer is at about a 3:1 advantage.  The retrograde really is a big issue.

The best map size, in multiplayer, is one that is small enough to force the players to engage and just barely large enough to allow fast ships to use their speed to control the range.  A round map is better than a square map because a round map has no corners to trap a player in, which is particularly effective for ships armed with seeking weapons like missiles or plasma torpedoes (the Mycon's weapon).

Again, map size issues are only really relevant in multiplayer since the AI will always engage the player or defend what it is supposed to defend.  But for multiplayer it really is better for the map to be just the right size.  Large enough to allow room to maneuver, but small enough to force the players to engage and limit the usefulness of the retrograde.

You may also be getting confused by imagining SC2 ships on a fixed map.  Many of them relied on the wrap around and would be pretty useless on a fixed map.  The Druuge and Mycon, for example, rely on the screen wrap around and would not function well (or at all) on a fixed map.

More ideas for using system defenses...

In addition to enhancing the player combat these could be used extensively to deny players access to areas until they are powerful enough to go there.  There are many ways of doing this.  If the map is a solar system and these defenses are just on that map then very strong defenses (5 or 6 battlestations) could even largely deny access to an entire solar system.  Events later in the game, the assumed ongoing conflict, could then destroy most or all of the defenses allowing access to that system or systems.  For example, in SC2 Thraddash space could have initially been too heavily defended for the player to go to, but if you send the Ilwrath those defenses would be destroyed and then you could go there.  There could also be a battle taking place between the AI, for example in SC2 you might enter a system to find Ur Quan and Kohr Ah actually fighting each other and ignoring you.

I also had the idea that the starbase "boss fight" could be made kind-of reminiscent of Star Wars by having a second planet near the starbase planet.  This other planet has some type of big planet-based weapon overwatching the starbase.  Like Endor, the player must first land on this nearby planet and eliminate the gun before attacking the starbase.  If there was going to be a starbase fight you might also provide an alternate means of destroying the base without fighting it through quest options... this way the starbase fight can be as hard as it should be (barely winnable) and players who don't like/aren't good at the space combat won't get stuck at the starbase because they can choose a different quest path that destroys it without a fight.

System defenses could be used in a lot of ways to make the player feel a lot more like they are in the middle of a war than SC2 did.  You really didn't have the feeling that a war was taking place around you in SC2, system defenses could go a long way towards adding that feeling to the game.  Especially if the player finds himself in the middle of a few big AI v AI fights that make sense within the story over the course of the game.

I'm bored at work and thought I would clarify this a little more.  To put this in its most basic and simple terms, this creates a layered defense and any number of layers can be used to create a stronger and stronger defense.  The first layer are the "defense satellites", essentially mini-bases.  These can be armed with any weapons and used in many ways but defsats meant to be part of a layered defense have fast shooting, fast tracking weapons meant to overwatch/defend the minefield. The second layer is the minefield, but you might also have just a minefield as the weakest form of defense.  You might have just defsats as a single layer defense as well, and these might be armed differently than the ones that overwatch minefields.  The third layer of defense is a "base station", which is essentially a big ship that does not move.  The forth layer is putting a "battlestation" at the center which is a large base that is like a base station but much larger with destructible components that house extra weapons in addition to those of the "base station core" of the battlestation.  The component weapons of the battlestation are heavier, slower firing and tracking weapons than the defense satellites have.  The defsat weapons are hard for the fast and agile minesweeping ship to avoid, but the battlestations weapons are easier for it to avoid but still dangerous to a careless player.

How this ends up working is that the defsats protect the minefield, the minefield protects the base, and the base protects the objective point (usually a planet).  The minefield defends the base by extending out to a range where only the longest range weapons can hit the base without entering the minefield, and weapons with that long of a range are so weak it would take forever to kill the base (if not impossible due to some type of minor energy/health/shield regen).  The minesweeping ship is fast and agile and has a weapon that clears mines well.  It can take out the minefield while dodging the stations slower tracking weapons... but the defsats will kill it.  The defsats must be dealt with first.  The ship that does kills defsats is one that is reasonably agile and has a weapon with a long enough range to reach into the minefield and hit the defsats without entering the minefield (the minesweeping ships weapon does not have this range).  So to defeat the full 4 layer defense the player must use 1 ship to destroy the defsats, switch to a second to destroy 1/3-1/2 of the minefield, and finally switch to a third to destroy the basestation.  Battlestations could be something the player cannot take on until mid-game, or could be balanced to exist right from the beginning in which case in the early game it would take two ships to take down (one for the components and another for the core) but late game ships would likely be able to do the whole job on their own without even designing for it.

The starbase is unique and is a major boss fight.  It is very large and has many destructible component systems.  It is the ultimate challenge other than defeating the final boss.  It would be balanced to be a hard fight to win and the player would usually lose almost all of their ships unless they have done an exceptionally good job.  It is a layered defense in itself and is not surrounded by a minefield or defsats.  This way, you can use starbases with minefields and defsats for "unbeatable" homeworld defenses.

Hopefully everyone understands exactly how this works now.  It could be used in many ways to make SC a better game.

I'm in favor of this kind of thing; if you think about it, the grand finale in SC2 was essentially "this".

Like Kirk, I don't believe in the no win scenario especially for planet defense. There is always a weakness in defenses that a capable enemy can exploit. Though I concur Awkbird, I am willing to entertain the possibility that defenses will be a part of the game.  The problem of defenses they are based on your technology and your understanding of tactics and tactics of species you have encountered before. In reality defense is ever changing and developing thing. The same set of tactics should not be universal when taking on home worlds. Each alien as different technology for you to overcome. This will require you to develop technologies to defeat them. The same holds true with your own planets. Balancing for a multiplayer game aspect is great but frankly if your going to have a war the balance of power should never be even if your fighting a intelligent enemy.

It would be a simple thing to arm the different races differently so that they were different.  This is just how a true defense works within this genre.  A minefield protects the base, defense satellites defend the minefield, and the base defends the area.  SFB players call it "peeling the onion" and it lends itself paricularly well to SC where the player has a fleet of unique ships.  This would add a lot of depth and immersion to SC, and like I keep saying can be used in many ways.  One way it adds depth to the game not directly related to the system defense is that the need to "peel the onion" will make the player carry a mix of ships that allows them to do that.  A defsat killer, a minesweeper, and a base killer.  This is just one example, these system defenses are a whole lot of bang for the little programming/artist work buck needed to implement them.  It's just 3 relatively simple models (mine, defsat, base station) and 2 more complex ones (battlestation and starbase).  But they do so much to make so many aspects of the game better that this really is very little work for what you get out of it.