Super Melee Stuff

from StarControl Forums

"Camp #1: Solar System Wars
This vision of Super Melee focuses battles across the entire solar system. There are multiple planets with their own gravity wells to contend with. It is 1 ship vs 1 ship at a time and the camera is tilted at around 45 degrees. When ships get to the edge of the arena they bounce off the edge. You have radar to display the entire star system but you don’t necessarily see the other ship at all times on your immediate screen.

Camp #2: Planet Wars
This vision of Super Melee is very similar to Star Control 1 and 2. You have a single planet but the arena has other objects that can affect the battle as well (gas clouds, ion storms, power up areas, power down areas, etc.). The camera is top down or very close to it. When a ship reaches the edge of the arena they wrap to the other side ala Star Control 2. Both units are always on the screen.
Camp 1 reminds us that nostalgia can be dangerous. Star Control 1 and 2’s Super Melee were great but very exploitable and sometimes very annoying with battles that might only last a few seconds and annoying camera behavior due to camera switching due to the screen wrapping. Having an angled view allows us to clearly display different gravity wells as a grid that looks cool and provides good gameplay. A lot of people may have forgotten how frustrating the Super Melee battles in Star Control could be at times and this new implementation provides more opportunities for depth.
Camp 2 argues that dealing with multiple planets and looking at an angle just isn’t fun. The fun of Star Control were the ships and their powers and not about using the planet strategically (sling shotting and such was fun but the ship vs. ship balance was what it was about)."

Your debate seems partly based on the huge variety that is available in setting up scenarios for this type of game.  "Barrier Wall v Open/Wrapping map".  Another common one is "Bouncing Bullets v Dead Bullets".  Or "Repel v No Repel" in a big multiplayer arena.  So realize that you are really just debating what one scenario you want your Super Melee to be.

I don't understand why you think the camera needs to angle to see ships off at an irrelevant distance near other planets on a solar system map.  The map size is not really relevant in that regard.  The player has a "visual range" and a "radar range" of situational awareness.  That "radar range" will always be much farther than any relevant fighting range, so you will always know where the other guy is, especially 1v1, from either having them on your screen visually, or on radar.  You can only hit off-screen "shooting on radar" for a very short radar distance (assuming no targeting assistance), so anything farther away than very close radar range is no longer relevant in a combat sense.  It is just a thing to fly towards to get within range.  So I don't see why you think the camera needs to be angled on a larger solar system map.  It doesn't.  Situational awareness is one of the things that makes this genre so great, you've got 100% situational awareness top down with a simple radar.

You don't need to see the gravity, you really don't.  You feel the gravity.  That grid seems to really clutter the screen, too.  If you want to show gravity I would do it with a little "tractor beam effect" like the Chmmrr had like someone else here suggested.  

There is no reason that the camera needs to be angled, other than aesthetic reasons.  It does look better, but don't fool yourselves into thinking that there are technical reasons that this type of combat needs to angle the camera, because there aren't.  There are a HUGE number of "technical reasons" to NOT angle the camera, though.  I really hope I will at least have the option to tilt the camera into top down, a warped 3D isometric view isn't even worth playing.  Just like SC3.

As for the map edge, I've never liked the wrap around thing... and that will cause balance problems with fast ships.  A barrier, or disengagement, map edge contains fast ships.  They either bounce of the edge, slowing them as well, or they disengage for leaving the map and you win.  A really fast ship can just keep doing high speed fly-by's on a screen wrapping map.  As I explained in very early posts I made, map size is a huge deal.  You essentially need to custom design the ships for the map size, and map edge rules.  The best map size is the smallest size that allows faster ships to control the range, but not large enough to allow the faster ships to abuse the Kaufman Retrograde.  A barrier or disengagement map edge will give you a better and more fun balance than a wrap around map edge, fast ships will be able to do really annoying things on a wrap around map.

10,341 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from StarControl Forums Top

"tractor beam effect" like the Chmmrr had like someone else here suggested.

That would be me.

My take on completely unknown super melee is in the works.

Reply #2 from StarControl Forums Top

Yes, that tractor beam effect from the Chmmrr would be the best way to show the gravity that I can think of.  That grid just destroys the look of the game.  I am an Avalon Hill/TFG hex map gamer and I don't want to see a grid like that in a computer game, at least not one that is always on and needed in a fight.

I am taking a few days off from writing after finishing an "alternate universe" variant of the prototype new first game of the PDU I have been making for a month now, and have been thinking about this more since I read it earlier today.  I think Stardock is thinking of the Super Melee in too limited of terms.  I get that they want it to be a very minor, minimalist thing, at least in the initial release.  But they might be thinking too minimal.  Even if it is going to be one thing, or one scenario, that doesn't mean it has to be JUST that same thing with no options.  Think of a "single map 1v1 only" scenario more like what inspired Star Control, than Star Control.  Space Wars.  So have 1 map, with options like Space Wars had.  So you have your one and only, 1v1 only, Super Melee map but, just like Space Wars, the players can pick options at the beginning of the match.  Star/Gravity in the middle, or not?  Multiple Stars/Solar System, or not?  Asteroids you might bump into, or not?  Barrier map edge, or disengagement map edge (I wouldn't do screen wrap at all unless you have no really fast ships and they are all about the same speed)?  So instead of deciding which one and only way Super Melee will work, make it the simple "one map game" you are looking too... but with Space Wars-like options for how that one map is configured for each game.  

You might not provide an option for map edge, because the barrier really is the way to go for this now that I have thought about it for a while.  Screen wrap is a real problem if any ship in your mix is significantly faster than some of the others.  If the speed difference between the fastest and slowest ships is not that great, it won't be a problem, but if even one ship is significantly faster than one other ship it is going to make things not be fun.  Disengagement map edges are fine for SFB players in that environment, but in real time they would just be annoying in a lot of ways.  What you want is a "Tournament Barrier".  This is the bounce-off wall you mentioned in the Sept release, except it also imparts a severe penalty for hitting the wall... you slow by 50% and need to re-accelerate back up to full speed.  The wall is there to contain the fast ships, and now they take a big penalty when they are running away so much they are at the edge of the map and bump the side.  I would actually use only this map edge and not even make it an option.

Finally, to help speed your learning/balancing process a little since I have so much experience balancing groups of space ships like this... Start by finding what you think is a good map size.  To determine what you think is a good map size identify 4 ships out of your group, you will have all 4 of these ["It's a Kind of Magic" ;) ].

1) Average Speed, Average Maneuverability, above average durablity with a weapon that is powerful at both short and medium range (it's probably your photon torpedo ship, that I know you have;-)

2) Fast, agile, below average durability medium-long range weapons that are only moderately powerful but also moderately rapid firing.  

3) Slow, durable with a long range weapon, it's probably a missile of some kind.

4) Fastest, most agile, least durable, very weak medium-short range weapon.

I know you have all four of these ships in your mix.  Forget about all of the other ships.  1 & 2 are the primary ones you are using here.  Find the map size that feels right that allows ship #2 to use it's speed to control the range without feeling trapped and boxed in.  Just barely big enough for that, as small as possible.  Once you find that, try ship #2 v Ship #3 for a while.  Then try Ship #2 v Ship #4.  And by then you should start to be getting a good idea of how big the map should be.  Is the map too big?  Try ship #3 v Ship #4... can ship #4 endlessly run from ship #3 and there is nothing Ship #3 can do about it?  If so, the map is too big... or the long range weapon isn't long range enough.  Or... well, you get the idea:-)

 

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #4 from StarControl Forums Top

ADB might be publishing the prototype I have made to show computer game companies as a board game, so I have been in contact with SVC and some of the SFB Staff again for the last few weeks now.  They are doing something right now that they have been doing for decades now, that made me think of doing that same thing here.  For decades now a favorite little thing among many in the community is what we call "Star Fleet Batttle Force" where we pick a point level and scenario, and then everyone picks a force of ships within that point level for that scenario.  The ones that are considered the best/most interesting, all get published in Captain's Log along with the scenario.  So the players wind up with a scenario and a dozen or so different forces to use in it, and all of those forces were the winners of what is essentially a contest to come up with the most interesting and cool force for the situation assembled, often by the person who practically created that race.

Later, when Stardock gives us Super Melee to test for them, they could also run a "Star Control Battle Force" thing for the founders, and then actually use the "winning forces" in the published game as the stock line-up's available.  Star Control uses a simple form of SFB's BPV system, and has stock lineups of ships available for Super Melee at different point levels.  So you could define the point levels you are going to have, maybe half a dozen different ones, and then choose from ones that the founders submit as the stock ones that will be available at each point level.  And there are many ways to go, for example a point level set assuming "4 average ships" might only really be 1 big ship and 2 average ones, or 6 small ones... Then in SC you have the Nemesis Balance to contend with, and want a mix to mitigate against that.  All of the same ship is bad, since your opponent may have the Nemesis of that ship and beat all of your ships with just one of theirs.

So this is a way you could involve the founders more, do a "Star Control Battle Force" project with the stock Super Melee lineups and pick the best ones from the ones the founders submit to you.