Kavik_Kang

They don't have to nerf the fast ships. Through using the smallest map that is still fun, and designing the ships so that each has a means of hitting you with a weapon (health does not regenerate) or getting within range of you in some way, or dealing with that situation in some way. This same problem existed in SC2, it is no different here. I think I can help solve it better, even completely if they were willing to go as far as changing some current ship abilities since

Like I said, there are no complete solutions to speed problems that I know of. This wrapping screen just does the most to eliminate it. The ships always have to be designed to work with the map. The only direct solution, other than as small of a map as possible, is to ensure all ships have some means of dealing with this situation. This is probably not the case in the current designs. Some indirect ways would be as simple as a 3 minute time limit on battles and

And, actually, in SFB terms (:-))... This is how the Klingons fight in SFB. The core of their tactics that many other races use as well. It is the most common "opening gambit" in any 1v1 fight. We call this "The Klingon Saber Dance" or "The Oblique Attack". Most often both players are seeking to do this on the first pass of any 1v1 fight no matter what faction they are playing, and the "Oblique Option Point" is one of the most discussed aspects of the tactics of SFB. &

Because you are just going to come right back too me if you are going too fast. There is no solution to the speed issues when it comes to making it fun. I see what you are saying now. In this, if you have a significant speed advantage, you can "dance on the edge of the neutral zone" out on the edge of where it is about to screen wrap. But this is "self correcting" in the nemesis design (or "rock, paper, scissors") that SC already uses. This is a good example of w

Haha. The screen wrapping is what "solves" that problem, actually. It's not that it solves the problem, it is just one of the ways of doing it. It is the easiest, and most free, way of dealing with it. Infinite space is really not workable, as fun anyway, for a wide variety of weapons/systems and ship designs. That is really the best way of thinking of the problem in the most general sense, how restricting it is to the design of the ships. So an "open

I thought that pretty much everyone here would unanimously like this. I just discovered this last night. It's not Star Control, but... It's that Rodney Dangerfield thing again, SFB never get's any respect. They made it past Paramount's objections and are actually making this thing now. Our influence is never credited, but meet "Star Fleet Battles: The Movie". Oh baby!!!! I am going to love this so much when it is finished!!!

I hadn't noticed this post when it was made, another Subspace player! Hi Zyrakeb. I was "Disco Duck" in Death Star Battle Zone and my brother was "Indra", that legendary unbeatable dueling zone guy:-)

I think they should make the "terrain" selectable, like the original "top down shooter" Space Wars. In Space Wars there was a keypad and a list of options you could pick for the fight, like putting an asterisk in the center of the screen that had gravity. That's what they should do with this simple supermelee. Have it default to an empty "open space" map, but have a list of options to add a star at the center. Or a planet with moons for multiple gravity well. &nbsp

In another thread someone suggested adding a second weapon to "modernize" the game a little. That made me think of a different idea for doing that, which also might help out the devs with the "spare points" issue. Say we decide to fight with 200 point forces. There might be some odd points left over. But because we are using such small numbers for a tight balance, assuming you are, then this will work great. Assuming there was a cheapest ship that cost 6 points g

They have revealed a lot more than is apparent. Some things simply must work certain ways, and because SFB has been so overwhelmingly influencial within this genre modern gamers are essentially programmed to think along the lines of the SFU even though they've never heard of it before. For example, The Measured will have a weapon with a high rate of fire, certainly much higher than a Photon Torpedo, which is essentially what the Dan 'Nath weapon is. The Meas

Like I said, I understand about half of these pretty well. The other half I will need to wait and see, like you are saying. The Greegrox ship is the most confusing too me, it must be unique in some way that I am not understanding because it seems totally useless... but they've been using these ships internally for quite some time now, and they are not idiots, so I must not quite understand exactly what that ship is. Others I am unsure of. But these two I have used

The supermelee point system from SC was actually just SFB's “Basic Point Value” system, there is a lot of the Star Fleet Universe in Star Control. As I mentioned before, this system means that the ships don't have to be balanced. The more powerful a ship is, the more points it costs. Too an extent. Since SC is always 1v1 you can't make any ships like the Death Probe or Juggernaught of the SFU that can only be destroyed by multiple ships, but other than that it really d

I couldn't resist looking at the ships, haha... Dan 'Nath - Seriously? This one is going to be too powerful, haha. It's "Gravitic Torpedo" is immensely powerful weapon tactically. To give you an idea... it is my "dream design wonder weapon" from 3 decades ago. A Photon Torpedo that leaves a short duration micro-singularity. It's OK to have this weapon, it's combining it with "Repel" that is the problem. Repel is just about the be

I skimmed through the new release, I'll make a post about the ships later. I didn't really even look at the ships yet. Thank you for the 2D galactic map. I really despise confusing "3D star maps". The original wrap around map edge of SC2 is a very freeing thing, the ships will be much easier to design this way. Speed is no longer that big of an issue, you can even have a super fast ship now... the map will just bring it right back to the enemy

[quote who="Hunam_" reply="11" id="3656279"] ^ Yeah, except Avatar is better, 'cause drones followed your ship. And this is made to where your opponent has a huge chance to avoid them completely since they are drop-off and stationary (?). The main gun being short ranged doesn't add to versatility at all. The only way I see this being played semi-effectively is running away, plopping drones behind yourself and letting your enemy chase you. Another, not a much better strategy is pl

You're right, and that has a very unique feeling too it. Definitely, if it is just going to always remain 1v1 Supermelee and they never plan to make more of it through DLC or something, that does give SC a unique feeling that only it has. I would keep that, too. It doesn't work for more than 1v1, but if there will never be more than 1v1 then that really is part of the unique feeling of SC.

As I remember it, the original SCII snapped between 4 or 5 different zoom levels based on range. It wasn't a constant expanding and contracting of the screen, which I think will be very distracting and disorienting.

Actually I think a "constant smooth zoom" is going to be very distracting. Instantly snapping between the two relevant view ranges is much better. A constantly changing view area size is just going to be awkward and distracting. Harder to maintain a perspective of where you are in relation to the rest of the map, too.

Exactly. I know Pirates! pretty well, so I see what you are meaning. Pirates does represent "the life of a pirate" very well... Sid was a big fan of the hobbyist era games so he always did that at a basic level. Civilization also does this more than most other computer games. So, yes, that is a "light" version of what I am talking about. And exactly the same concept. It's not something generally recognized as even being an issue among modern gamers, tha

it depends on what you mean by "galaxy map". If you are wanting to make something unmanageably big, to be "realistic", then you can do that with just raw PG. Nobody is likely to notice the patterns and repetition because it is too much for the human brain to comprehend so we just see a mess of stars either way. But if you are making a manageably sized "game galaxy", then you are probably going to need to re-arrange whatever the computer generates. Both to destroy the r

PG is great for some things, generating "dead worlds" to populate a galaxy with is certainly one of them. Drawing that galaxy map, for example, is not one of them. In SC2 they carefully designed the map of the galaxy, and PGd the "dead worlds"... then "hand designed" the worlds with life. An excellent example of exactly how PG should be used.

It can be faked, kind of, I think you are thinking of some games that might have been faked well that way. I can't remember any computer games where the game actually matched the story. I used to work in the board game industry, sort of "the high game design side" of the old board game industry. Avalon Hill/Task Force Games type games, not RPGs and board games. Our system of game design was, for a while, adopted by science as a their form of simulation des

It's "The Glorious Vision" syndrome. The procedural generated thing is giving lots of people a "Glorious Vision" of a perfect super-game that the system isn't actually ever going to be capable of creating, but lots of people see this "perfect game" in it that can never actually exist. In the end they will finally realize that it is a powerful tool, that must be used to create the basis of something that humans must then complete "by hand". It's patterns are mor

The wonders of pseudo-scientific technobabble... it's an "amphibious" lander. It can fly in an atmosphere or act as a hovercraft over land. It actually already looks like this. It is actually a lot of work for the programmers/artists to also include "landing" on gas giants as far as I can see, for what you get out of it. Unless... and I don't know if this will work, but they will, they can "fake it". If "painting the ground" and then putting a "layer of

I[quote who="hyunhochang" reply="5" id="3656004"] I think we can point to plenty of modern titles which do this well so it's certainly not impossible. I think it's generally harder now than it was in the past because games overall have more mechanics and it's possible to make a good game which sells well without worrying about the narrative and gameplay always being in sync. [/quote] Maybe we are talking about diffe