Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => The Babylon Project => Topic started by: IPAndrews on August 08, 2005, 01:09:46 pm
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It's in it's fairly early stages at the moment but it is playable and working out quite nicely. I'm not sure if I'll release it to the public or not. If I do it'll be on a "don't hassle me if it doesn't work" basis. The name of the campaign is "Babylonian History X". Please feel free to speculate as to what is involved in the campaign.
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Intrigueing...
I'm sure it will be as good as Raider Wars! :)
Does X stand for some never mentioned events or facts?
Or it stands for an alternative history?
Or for some top secret data?
Or something experimental?
:confused:
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The history and formation of Babylon 5? :D
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Babylonian History X = Babylon 5 + Malcom X = Racism on Babylon 5 :D
doesn't actually know what malcolm x about :nervous:
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I'm willing to bet it's a collection of 'historical' B5 missions. Like Severed Dreams, Fall of Night, Endgame, Into the Fire...
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It will be more conventional than RW. Yet typically unconventional at the same time. aipz is the closest so far with his collection of guesses.
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What if scenarios?? or from the other side of the fence.
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WTF Ian are bored or something?
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Bored no. Genius FREDder yes.
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Sure you are... ;)
But I'm looking forward to this. :)
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I'm modest too.
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And not a hard case at all. That's why it would be a pleasure to work with you. :p
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Actually I'm a pain in the ass.
Oh wait, oh I see now :)
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Could you please take your romantic interlude to PMs ? Thanks. ;)
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Well anyway, before I build up this campaign too much only to disappoint everyone (probably too late already) let me tell everyone what it's all about. It's a very simple idea really. Babylonian History X is a non-linear campaign about a war between two races of your choice. The fortunes of your race vary depending on how well you perform in the missions and the campaign continues until either your homeworld or that of the enemy is defeated.
Although it can be considered to be in a pretty embreyonic form at the moment it is already a fully working campaign. I played it through last night as the Vorlons and defeated the Earth Alliance in a fairly short campaign.
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Sounds good to me. :yes:
Still looking forward to it. :)
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that sounds like a great idea and i am happy that it is already working.
i am with you on this if you need any more models ;)
ideas also...
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Originally posted by IPAndrews
Well anyway, before I build up this campaign too much only to disappoint everyone (probably too late already) let me tell everyone what it's all about. It's a very simple idea really. Babylonian History X is a non-linear campaign about a war between two races of your choice.
Actually that paragraph has done more to pique my interest in the campaign than the rest of the speculation has.
How are you planning to handle that bit about the player choosing both sides? Multiple missions? Use of persistent variables?
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It uses campaign persistent variables to store the ships used by the chosen races.
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That sounds cool. No, make that very cool.
I'm very curious to see how this can work.
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That's how I'd do it too. I doubt I'd call the missions simple though. :)
I assume you're using a mixture of campaign persistent string variables and the change-ship-class SEXP. How are you planning on handling team loadout though? That was and still is the major stumbling block for me in SoR.
I'm interested because I've been working on a multiplayer campaign that does somewhat similar things (It was actually maverick's idea in fact).
Feel free to PM if you'd rather discuss the technical aspects in private though :)
BTW (Respect for IP Andews as a FREDder)++ :D
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Originally posted by karajorma
How are you planning on handling team loadout though? That was and still is the major stumbling block for me in SoR.
I'll answer the question here because others will probably want to know the answer too. I've disabled the ship and weapon selection screens. You get assigned a pseudo random but appropriate ship at the start of the mission and you like it.
I couldn't think of a way to ensure the player got given an appropriate ship in the ship selection screen before the mission starts and the class change sexps kick in.
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Yep. That's exactly the problem I had. Goober is working on allowing numbers to be used from persistent variables though so there may be a way to use that once he's finished.
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Sounds like this campaign will be heaps of fun :yes:
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"X" in the campaign title stands for:
Insert the race you want and fight a war you generate...:nervous:
What races will be available?
EA, Narn, Centauri, Mimbari, Shadows
and Vorlons?i
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Something like that. Yes those races, the League, and the Raiders. Although they're technically not races as such I still thought it would be fun to play as them.
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And the Drakh?
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Them as well.
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Anyone got any ideas for mission types for this campaign. Currently I've got just 2.
Chance Engagement: Some enemy ships are detected nearby. Both sides meet for battle. Both sides get 1-2 fighter wings and maybe a cruiser.
Base assault: Player's team assaults an enemy base which may have capital ships and fighters nearby. Destroying the enemy base is the only objective.
I also have the following ideas for other missions:
Other missions I think I might do:
Base defence: The player must defend his base against an enemy assault. That is the only factor for success in the mission. Nothing else matters.
Homeworld assault: I think the defenders should get more ships than the attackers. The attackers should get a mix of planet killers (Novas, Secundus, VPK) and normal ships. Other than that it's a pretty basic "kill all enemy" mission. If the attacking side loses the momentum of the campaign will change hugely and give them a chance to make a comeback in the campaign.
Homeworld defence: As above but player on defensive.
Fleet escort: This is a wierd one for Babylon 5 since ships all have jump engines. So if an enemy attacks a ship is likely just to jump out. I could ignore that though and have the player protecting ships from waves of enemy fighters.
Fleet attack: As above but player on attack.
Can anyone come up with anything better?
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Convoy raids and convoy defense.
Escorting VIPs like a gerneral or a government member, who visits the troops.
Jumpgate blockade and breakthrough.
Covert operation like attacking a third race in the enemies fighters, to get that race to fight against your enemy.
Capturing enemy installations/ships to take hostages or aquire new prototype technologies of the enemy.
Scouting. You are alone in a fighter and have to find the enemy fleet/station in an asteriod field.
Or you fly a stealth fighter (PSI 'Furys come to mind) or enemy fighter and have to identify the enemy capital ships while evading detection.
Defending diplomatic meeting between the waring species. If the diplomats survive they negociate a peace treaty and you won.
The attackers could be raiders (they profit from war -> less ships available for police duty), rouge parts of one of the armys (who want to completely annihilate the enemy) or a third race.
In the last case you could make the former enemy into an ally and that third race, that attacked your diplomats, the new enemy.
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Originally posted by -Norbert-
Escorting VIPs like a gerneral or a government member, who visits the troops.
That one is going to seem rather odd when you play the Vorlons or Shadows though :D
Same goes for diplomacy too :)
The rest sound good though.
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That one is going to seem rather odd when you play the Vorlons or Shadows
Could be a case of shadows/vorlons attacking to stop races creating alliances
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how about saving captured soldiers or pilots. that meas you could have to search for a troop transport and disable it, then wait for a transport to dock etc.
or weapon/ship testing
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Escorting VIPs could change for the Shadows to be something like escorting telepaths or people for the CPUs.
Vorlons may be a bit harder....
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The problem with that is that you can't change the briefings according to race. The briefings must be the same for everyone. So if you're escorting a VIP it's a VIP. The way around that is to be really ambiguous. ie: You're escorting "important cargo". This is generally how the campaign will work. Don't expect a great deal of detail in the briefings because it ain't happening ;)
Some of the races don't have shuttles and freighters either. Which limits the kinds of missions I can add. Although I could use stand-ins (eg: Shadow Scout instead of the (non-existant) Shadow Shuttle) it still might look a bit wierd.
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Even the Vorlons and Shadows could escort important persons.
For the Vorlons that could be people like Lyta or Sebastian.
For the Shadows that would be people like Morden (Does anyone know his first name?) or Anna Sheridan.
And both Vorlons and Shadows surely had more agents than just those on B5.
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PLANETARY ASSAULT
Your fleet is orbiting an enemy planet where previously you won
a battle/destroyed or captured
space station and preparing for the deployment of troops to conquer the enemy globe...
You have to escort shuttles/freighters from base ships to a certain location in space...
And protect the base ships like Warlocks ar Novas...
Your other capships are patrolling the area in different sectors (like a modern carrier group or conwoy)...
And then you're surprised by a heavy enemy conterattack from various directions...
Capships and their fighters...
Or maybe even some surviving planetary fighters...:confused:
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PROTECTING DAMAGED SHIP/SHIPS
Idea similar to one presented
in EMW Demo mission 1 - Lexington and Yorktown...
Scan the ship, escort repair/medical crew and finally jump out with the repaired one
PATROL
You fly in the middle of nowhere scouting the outer perimeter for your forces (the
capships are too far away to help you out)
You encounter something...
-enemy convoy
-neutral forces attacked by raiders
-enemy fighters on patrol
-unknown enemy task force
-debris of one of your vessels
and the enemy still lurks out there
-lifepods with survivors
This mission would require to things happen quickly and surprisingly
( a small break beetween larger operations)
:nod:
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Dear IP Andrews, could you tell which of the mentioned mission types will be implemented in your campaign?
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Been busy actually. Haven't worked on BHX for about a week. I'm such a slacker. Of the suggestions I've heard so far I like the sound of convoy raiding, protecting damaged ships, fighter patrol engagements, and escort missions.
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Will there be a beta/alpha version available for download?
Even if it's only 2-3 missions long I'm sure it is worth downloading!
The possibility to play so many races is really exciting....
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Sounds good. :)
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Originally posted by aipz
Will there be a beta/alpha version available for download?
Even if it's only 2-3 missions long I'm sure it is worth downloading!
The possibility to play so many races is really exciting....
Bit of a hitch, my partner had to give her laptop computer back to her workplace. So home work on BHX has halted. That said, I'm sure I can release something that meets your basic criteria.
It is quite useful to have around just to see all those obscure TBP ships you never see used in a campaign in combat. Also I was really surprised how it changed the feel of TBP to play as a race like the Centauri or the Shadows.
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I look forward to playing this :yes:
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Ok I've been doing some work on this campaign and it has become obvious that it needs some variation in backgrounds. Currenlt all missions just get the box standard starfield.pof skybox and nothing else.
The reason for this is that I don't want all my missions to have the same background nebulae and currently there is no SEXP to change a nebulae bitmap. So I've left the nebulae bitmaps out.
Now. There is a change skybox bitmap. But as I said that is being used for the starfield background. Of course, if someone could make a collection of skyspheres which was textured both Cannondoffer's startfield background AND some nebulae at the same time? Well then I could have each mission pick a random background at startup and that would be rather nice.
Anyone fancy having a go at this? Know of anyone I could ask? Personally I do not know my way around any 2D art packages well enough and besides, I have no artistic talent at all.
and well, I need a favour off someone. I need a 3D/2D artist to procude me a collection of sky sphere backgrounds.
Spheres created in a 3d modelling package with a wrap-around background texture. The texture should be based on cannonfodder's excellent starfield background, with some of our nebulae stuck on it in a vaguely artistic fashion.
The reason I need this is because FRED has a change skybox pof sexp. So I can have my missions select a skybox at random when they start. Unfortunately there can only be one skybox so that single skybox must include the starts and any nebulae. Also there is no equivilent sexp for changing background nebulae in a mission. So the skybox method is the way to go.
The reason I'm asking someone else to do this? Well firstly my 2D art skills such quite badly. Secondly I don't know my way around any 2D art package well enough to do the job.
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Well... This is something you can add onto the existing TBP stuff, so possibly all the B5 races! Sounds fun IP!
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What the star/neb skyspheres? I doubt they'd be any use to anyone. They're only of use to me so I can use the skybox change sexp.
As for race support. BHX supports 10 factions/races. Some of them seem to crash the game though :(
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Which ones are they IP?
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The League of Non-Aligned worlds and The Shadows. :( I was especially sad to see issues with The Shadows. Wanting to fight a campaign against them was part of my motivation for bothering in the first place. Missions with either race tend to play for a while and then just CTD. The debug version of the game doesn't even give an error!
It's probably something to do with either AI goals or support ships. I suspect AI goals because I'm giving my ships orders in FRED and chen changing the ship model at the start of the mission. Possibly to something that isn't compatible with the AI goal. Although the changes are generally to ships of the same type. ie: fighter for a fighter, cruiser for a cruiser. Support ships have also caused problems in the past. Usually when a pof hasn't been set up exactly right for the ship to dock.
So far this is certainly proving to be one hell of an unstable campaign. I wouldn't recommend trying to build a campaign like this to anyone. Stick with linear ones they're much less hassle.
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Small update: Trivial Psychic sat down and tackled the mind numbingly boring job of ensuring all TBP small craft had correct docking paths. Now BHX no longer crashes and I can fly as The Shadows. BHX is back on :D
Currently working on an intermission mission. Which essentially is a big cutscene mission that's called after every mission is completed that sets up the next mission and reports various campaign statistics such as casualties, territorial advantage, and anything else I think of.
This is quite useful because it means I don't have to include all the campaign calculation and next mission selection sexps in every mission now. Just ensure the imtermission mission is called each time.
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glad bhx is back on hope you release it when you are finished! like the idea of cutscene missions after every mission will give a real feeling of involvement
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What to say more...
The BHX has the biggest potential of all campaigns as it can simulate almost every possible conflict:dizzy:
:ha: :yes: :ha:
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That's pretty much the same sort of thing I did with the Shop level on the multiplayer campaign I was working on that used the same sort of FRED tricks.
As always I'm interested in seeing how this works IP :)
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What determines how many ships a race brings to a battle? How many ships their race had to start with? How many they have lost during the campaign? How many pilots they have left? Those all seem pretty much a given. On the other hand should the current state of the war affect how many ships they have available? So for example if a race is currently losing the war and on the retreat, should that mean they tend to have fewer than normal ships available in a battle? Also what about big inbalances in the resources of two races. There are few Vorlons for example, but lots of Humans. So if the Vorlons and Humans met in battle on the front lines under normal conditions should the Humans have more ships in each battle than the Vorlons?
I'm just thinking out loud here really but if anyone wants to chip in with some ideas or opinions they would be much appreciated.
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The differences in the number of ships in the first battles should't be too big...
If the race is losing badly, yes they should have fewer ships available due to tremendous losses suffered, while the advancing race should have a normal number of craft available...
About the starting resources:
- each race should have many pilots available, but their numbers should replenish slowly
(it takes time to train a pilot)
-more technologically advanced races should have fewer capships in each battle due to their sheer firepower...
- also territory can affect the number of available craft to certain extent...
(large=normal number of ships
small/losing war=smaller quantinities of ships available)
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If the war takes quite a long time that would mean all fighting sides have fewer craft available... :)
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Originally posted by aipz
-more technologically advanced races should have fewer capships in each battle due to their sheer firepower...
You're suggesting this for gameplay reasons I suspect? Do you think this is a good idea? Penalising a race for being technologically advanced I mean? I am of the opinion that if you (as a player) choose to fight a war as the League of Non Aligned Worlds against the Vorlons you pretty much know you've set yourself a difficult challenge :)
On the other hand the really advanced races like the Vorlons, Shadows, and Drakh do have less ships and pilots than the younger races. So maybe they should have less ships on that basis alone. The difference is that a calculation based on available ships might change as the campaign progresses and one or both sides takes losses. For example in a war between the EA and the Vorlons the Vorlons might destroy many of the EA's ships, reducing their numerical advantage over time.
Originally posted by aipz - also territory can affect the number of available craft to certain extent... (large=normal number of ships small/losing war=smaller quantinities of ships available) [/B]
Well as you lose territory you'll lose ships and pilots. Which could reduce the size of your battle groups as discussed above. Would that be sufficient or do you believe that having a small territory specifically would mean a race fielding less ships per engagement? If so I'm interested in hearing more about that.
Thanks for the feedback.
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Originally posted by aipz
If the war takes quite a long time that would mean all fighting sides have fewer craft available... :)
Yes that's true. Battles will start off big and become gradually smaller. This also acts as a tie breaking mechanism. Since outright victories in battles (such as planetary assaults) are more likely if small numbers of ships are involved.
I actually believe FIFA should use this as a tiebreaking mechanism for football/soccer games where a result is required. Keep the "golden goal" rule but also take one player off each side every 5 minutes. I reckon if both sides are left with 1 player each on the pitch you're going to get a goal and a result ;)
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Well as you lose territory you'll lose ships and pilots. Which could reduce the size of your battle groups as discussed above. Would that be sufficient or do you believe that having a small territory specifically would mean a race fielding less ships per engagement? If so I'm interested in hearing more about that.
Smaller territory limits the number of several aspects:
1. military stations/bases
2. number of planets which have specialised orbital shipyards
( they can't build many ships at one time to increase their numbers or replenish losses)
3. if a race has only several vital planets which house all of the key infrastructure then that means "you lose if you lose them"
4. less resources to build spaceships like Quantium 40
So I think that races with smaller territory simply have smaller fleets because they can't afford to supply larger ones (or they would have to do that at the cost of their citizens - a similar concept appeared in an old game called Master of Orion 2: Battle at Antares:
you needed space stations and communications to provide command points which limited the maximum size of your fleet, also government type was important - democracy had less command points than an empire, you could always built more ships but that drained your cash )
ou're suggesting this for gameplay reasons I suspect? Do you think this is a good idea? Penalising a race for being technologically advanced I mean? I am of the opinion that if you (as a player) choose to fight a war as the League of Non Aligned Worlds against the Vorlons you pretty much know you've set yourself a difficult challenge
Well, generally speaking yes...
Such races have a really huge advantage so they are able to decimate the younger races without any difficulties ;)
Of course as you said the First Ones
aren't in such numbers as they were in the preevious eras, because mainly the Shadows and Vorlons stayed in the known galaxy...
So I would suggest to limitate their numbers for simple game balance like 1/2 or 1/3
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Don't reduce the ships of the FO races. I don't think they had less, if anything they had more. Remember, the Vorlons had three Planet Killers, that shows some pretty good industrial capacity.
EDIT/ Remember, the Vorlons had been gearing up for the annihilation of the Shadows for quite some time...
And the Shadows were rebuilding as well, uncovering old ships and creating new ones. /EDIT
Like you said, if you want to play the League taking on the Vorlons, then, well, you better be ready for some hard fighting.
Plus, what happens if you have the Vorlons taking on the Shadows? They wouldn't fight each other will small fleets...
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I don't mean to cut them down to just one Battlecrab with escorts :)
Simply they should have less ships for balance, that's all...
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Originally posted by Azrael15
Plus, what happens if you have the Vorlons taking on the Shadows? They wouldn't fight each other will small fleets...
In my current design one side has fewer ships in a battle if it has far more ships than the other side. The Vorlons and Shadows both being FO races will both have fewer ships. Being evenly matched neither would have it's battle group sizes reduced at the start.
I'm sticking with my theory that the FO races should have less ships though. I'm basing that on Lorien said about there being few first ones. It also helps balance a little bit. I say a little bit because I don't think it matters how many Brakiri Aviokis you throw at a Vorlon Cruiser, they're going to get minced.
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I'm sticking with my theory that the FO races should have less ships though. I'm basing that on Lorien said about there being few first ones. It also helps balance a little bit. I say a little bit because I don't think it matters how many Brakiri Aviokis you throw at a Vorlon Cruiser, they're going to get minced.
You got a point here IP!
Avioki's will get minced no matter what...
:lol:
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Anyone got any good ideas for some nice mathematical equations to calculate the number of ships, servicemen, and civilians lost by a race after a day of combat? Your inputs are a race has X, Y, Z ships, servicemen, and civilians at the start of the day.
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it should be varied...
I mean each day a little number of civilians can die (destroyed freighters, accidents etc.), but during a destruction of a space station or a planetary assault the losses could reach thousands of lives...
The losses of serviceman also should vary depending the size of battles fought...
EDIT found something
Calculation model (http://www.joma.org/mathDL/4/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=505&bodyId=737)
there is a link on the fourth page with an xls file...
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Is it ok, although it's more suitable for ground troops? :confused:
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(http://www.3dactionplanet.com/hlp/hosted/babylon/img/screenshots/bhx1.jpg)
Spot the typo, win a "Champion nitpicker!" badge ;7
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ATJ-J = ALT-J :D ?
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Did the Leiceshire model help a bit?
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Originally posted by aipz
Is it ok
I'm sure it's very good. A bit complicated for me to hack into FRED though unfortunately. In the end I settled upon a simple loss model as follows.
Ships are killed based on the number of ships in the opposing force * strength of ships in the attacking force / strength of ships in the defending force.
Pilots are lost based on the number of ships lost * some value (500 at the moment).
Civilians are lost based on how far into your territory the enemy has progressed. Some civilians are always lost each turn.
The momentum of the campaign changes based on how many ship kills you make compared to the enemy.
Territory changes based on campaign momentum.
I'll allow the player to influence the campaign by causing losses to his side or the enemy based on the outcome of his missions. How much influence I have yet to decide? Should a player who keeps winning missions be allowed to make the Raiders win against the Vorlons?
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I he's winning missions why not...
After all this is Babylonian History X....
Of course this shouldn't happen too quickly :)
EDIT: the influence scale should be based on the mission type, like
small skirmish little/ almost no influence
large battle much influence
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Is the number of pilots per ship fixed, or can you do different numbers depending of the race.
Both the Vorlons and Shadows have only one person in a ship, where the younger races have a lot of people in the big ships.
And from what I heard the Vorlons most likely don't have any pilots in their fighters.
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That's a good point. I'll have to make it race dependent. The pilot stats are just for show anyway. They don't influence the campaign any.
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Originally posted by IPAndrews
Should a player who keeps winning missions be allowed to make the Raiders win against the Vorlons?
I think they should be able but it should also be damn near impossible. Are you calculating ship numbers/regeneration on how much terretory that race has? because then the raiders for instance would start off with very little but could build up a huge army.
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Originally posted by Fabbro
I think they should be able but it should also be damn near impossible. Are you calculating ship numbers/regeneration on how much terretory that race has? because then the raiders for instance would start off with very little but could build up a huge army.
I disagree. In TBP you take on the role of a single pilot, and a single pilot, no matter how skilled would not be able to shift the tide of a war THAT much. Not to mention the fact that it's asanine to think that this pilot would be flying at every battle in the war so as to carry the entire war effort on his back. I think it would be neat if it were like the current Earth-Minbari War campaign. You feel swept along, only able to do the best you can.
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IMO, it should be technically possible, it's a dynamic campaign after all.
But the chances of winning will be zilch anyway ....have you ever attacked a Vorlon transport in a fighter ? (let alone in a crappy Zephyr)
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But if you first took out the leageu of non aligned worlds (which would be possible if extreamly hard) and then work your way up from there gaining more terroroy and therfore more people and ships you should eventually be able to beat the vorlons. Of course if you went straight for the vorlons then the whole earth menbari war thing would probably be true. Also I think a neat feature would be if you conqored a certain race you could use their fighter (and asign them to your wingmen) The amount of their fighters available and the speed in which they are rebuilt should be calculated on the size of the said race's terrotory before being conqored.
O and I hope that once a war gets started we will see some massive battles with like 20 or so cap ships on each side because that would be cool although I dont think it would be a good idea for most battles to be like this because it limits the players ability to affect the conflict greatly but it would be cool once in a while to see a huge fleet of narns go up against centauri.
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The pilot we're playing should affect the course of the war a bit... for example if you survive 10 missions and complete them all the war effort can slightly cahnge for your race's advantage... If you fail and get blown up it doesn't really matter, does it?!
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Originally posted by Fabbro
But if you first took out the leageu of non aligned worlds (which would be possible if extreamly hard) and then work your way up from there gaining more terroroy and therfore more people and ships you should eventually be able to beat the vorlons.
You won't be able to do anything like that. You get to pick one race, and fight one other race. That's it. End of. It's hard enough making FS do that simple thing without complicating it with multiple races and territories. I should also point out that territory is represented by a simple slider bar. Like in the screen above. If it moves to the left you're losing territory. All the way to the left and your homeworld is above to get invaded. Same for the enemy if it moves right.
Originally posted by Fabbro
I think a neat feature would be if you conqored a certain race you could use their fighter
I can think of lots of nice features but in a programming language where you don't have arrays or for loops or pointers, and worst of all the amount of instructions you're allowed to use is relatively small, that limits what can be achieved.
O and I hope that once a war gets started we will see some massive battles with like 20 or so cap ships on each side[/B]
I would like to see that too. That's what TBP is supposed to be all about. I'll push the engine as far as it'll let me in those respects for the "Mother of all Battles" mission.
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Originally posted by aipz
If you fail and get blown up it doesn't really matter, does it?!
Actually you can't get blown up and continue the campaign. Since when you die you only get the option to restart the mission. Game engine limitation. You can of course, run away :D
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I think that was his point.
If you get blown up, you certainly don't care anymore, how the war is going, because your dead and thus not really in a position to care about much ;)
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Oh yeah. There is that.
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Originally posted by IPAndrews
You get to pick one race, and fight one other race.
ahh ok, sorry about getting a bit carried away there :rolleyes: I just have no idea what the FS engine is actually capable of and how hard these things are to achive
Originally posted by IPAndrews
I would like to see that too. That's what TBP is supposed to be all about. I'll push the engine as far as it'll let me in those respects for the "Mother of all Battles" mission
exccellent, im glad to hear that. I am really looking forward to this campaign should be very good to fly all the other race ships and fight against them that I havnt done in any of the other missions or campaigns.
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Do you need any testers for this? I'm willing to give it a go. I'm very much looking forward to this. Seems like it'll bring a lot more replay value to TBP.
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Originally posted by Fabbro
ahh ok, sorry about getting a bit carried away there :rolleyes: I just have no idea what the FS engine is actually capable of and how hard these things are to achive
You could achieve that with the FS2 engine. It's just that BHX is already a nightmare of variables as it is. This would make it much harder to do most likely.
Then again I've written missions where something has looked like a witches brew of variables and then ended up doing something twice as complicated after getting some inspiration about how to do it more simply :)
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So maybe for the sequal....:ick:
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This looks interesting... Are there any updates? (I won't blame you if there aren't, making something like this must be hard work!)
*Hopes for an update*
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Sorry dude. I haven't got a PC at home and work has been ludicrously busy. I've been working through lunch breaks. So I haven't done anything to BHX in a while. I still have high hopes of completing it and it being a really fun campaign but real life is making things difficult for me at the moment. Maybe you could all nag Karajorma into giving me a hand with it ;)
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I would love to help you IP but I'm kind of snowed under myself. Plus I promised I'd try to have SoR complete by the end of the year and I'm pretty far behind where I should be if I want to do that.
Once I finish SoR I'll be looking at other jobs though :)
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You know I was kinda hoping to be finished by the end of the year too :). Oh well, any other slightly crazy mission designers out there want to give me a hand with this exciting and slightly mind boggling project?
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That would be no then.
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I can check over missions and help bat round ideas if you're wondering how to implement something (Although you seem to have a pretty good handle on that).
Nothing much more intensive than that though.
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I could help a bit with testing and maybe FREDing a bit, but my FREDing skills aren't too complex:
If you would like to see some of my work there are two of my missions available for download at TBP main site...
Secondly I have spare time only during weekend as I don't have a computer where I study...
If you would like me to help,
please PM me!
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Sincere thanks aipz but it would be better if someone with a bit more FRED experience and free time were to help.
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For anyone who is interested. This project remains dead for a while. It's end of semester and I've had the usual pile of marking dumped on me. Plus I lost the most recent versions of the missions. Didn't lose everything by any means but I lost a selection of really nice SEXPs for printing numbers on the screen in the B5 font using subtitle images. They were real nasty to write and will take me a while to rewrite at this rate. Things would be much easier if the SCP team would add font support to subtitmes and a number -> string conversion SEXP (hint hint). Anyway. I still have the inclination to do this thing if not the time. Plus, by the time I get round to it 3.3 will be out and there'll be even more ships to link into the campaign.
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Like I said before Ian, Babylonian History X sounds a great idea, after Summer 2006 when the Heat em up is done and dusted I would be more than happy to help out on this one.
Shaun
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Hey, I found the number writing SEXPs. Well that's something. More or less back to where I was now before I lost my work. Still not 100% happy with the basic framework. The thing that selects missions and handles displaying of casualties and such. Once I am 100% with that I can move onto creating missions proper. Which actually is the easy part. That's next year though :(.
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Merry christmas then all. How about someone offers to give me a hand with this campaign before I return next year?
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Damn it. I'd love to help you, but I've no modding experience whatsoever and only the most basic FREDDING skills :(
Anyway, merry Christmas to you and hope you'll have better luck from now on :)
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Ill give you a hand with it after the new year :yes:
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I can give at least one of my hand form time to time next year :yes:
my freding skills are more than basic and that's all I can do (no modelling or stuff like that)
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Ok back to the problem of calculating losses for each side in the war. I'm really struggling with this actually so I'm throwing it open to the general public to see if they can come up with any good equations. Remembering that FRED does not support fractions, only integer values. mmkay.
Here's what I have so far:
Raiders (Ship Str = 2, Ships = 500)
League (Ship Str = 3, Ships = 1500)
Narn (Ship Str = 5, Ships = 2000)
EA (Ship Str = 6, Ships = 2000)
Centauri (Ship Str = 8, Ships = 1500)
Minbari (Ship Str = 12, Ships = 1500)
Drakh (Ship Str = 14, Ships = 500)
Shadows (Ship Str = 16, Ships = 500)
Vorlons (Ship Str = 20, Ships = 500)
So I need to calculate the number of ship kills inflicted by team 1 on team 2 and vice-versa. I think the equation should take into account the following:
* The strength of the race's ships
* The number of the race's ships
* The strength of the enemy's ships
* The number of enemy ships
* The momentum of the campaign (varies: -10 to 10, -10 means team 1 in full retreat, 10 means team 2 in full retreat).
At the moment I have:
team1kills = (team1shipstr + momentum) * team1ships)
* 10
/ ((team2shipstr - momentum) * team2ships)
Which means on day 1 (campaign momentum 0) the Vorlons would destroy 133 raider ships. The Raiders would destroy 0.75 (rounded down to 0) enemy ships.
Assuming the raiders did really well and managed to obtain a campaign momentum of 10. They could potentially destroy (500 * (3 + 10)) * 10 / 500 * (20 - 10)) = 13 ships!
So I think, what I have at the moment is rubbish. Anyone got any opinions?
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Raiders (Ship Str = 2, Ships = 500)
League (Ship Str = 3, Ships = 1500)
Narn (Ship Str = 5, Ships = 2000)
EA (Ship Str = 6, Ships = 2000)
Centauri (Ship Str = 8, Ships = 1500)
Minbari (Ship Str = 12, Ships = 1500)
Drakh (Ship Str = 14, Ships = 500)
Shadows (Ship Str = 16, Ships = 500)
Vorlons (Ship Str = 20, Ships = 500)
make the ships strengh like this
RAIDERS: 0.2
LEAGUE: 0.3
NARN: 0.5
EA: 0.6
CENTAURI: 0.8
MINABARI: 1.2
DRAKH: 1.4
SHADOWS: 1.6
VORLONS: 2.0
and try to integrate them into the formula via multiplication not by simply adding them to the momentum.... maybe you could exchange the teamxships and the teamxshpistr in the formula:
team1kill/10.000=
((team1ships/100 + momentum) * team1shipstr)
/((Team2ships/100 + momentum) * team2shipstr)=team1kills
(((5+10)*0.2)/(5+10)*2=0.1/10000=1000
(Raiders vs. Vorlons @ momentum 10)
(I'm not very helpful I know - 6 points (just enough for passing) in maths all over the years...)
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No floats support is going to make that problematic.
Do you want a faction like the raiders to ever be able to destroy a vessel of a much more powerful race?
How about for each race you work out how many ships you would want it to take of each other race to destroy it, and how many losses they would suffer, and reverse engineer the calculations. Then use a momentum factor to alter the result.
How are you deciding how many forces are engaged in a battle? Are you assuming all the fleets go up against each other? Or a portion is engaged in any battle?
You could factor in to the calculations a percentage each side would commit to a single attack, and have the proportion related to momentum?
Just some ideas, I'll give it some though and see if I can think of anything solid.
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No floats support is going to make that problematic.
Yes the lack of floating point/fractions is going to sink Megadoomer's maths straight away I think. Still I'll have a good think about what he's put and see if there's anything I can take away from it before I comment fully on that.
Do you want a faction like the raiders to ever be able to destroy a vessel of a much more powerful race?
hmm... Possibly not. Perhaps the best they should be able to achieve is to last a few days.
How about for each race you work out how many ships you would want it to take of each other race to destroy it, and how many losses they would suffer, and reverse engineer the calculations. Then use a momentum factor to alter the result.
You mean calculate how many ships it would take to destroy one enemy ship. So we have:
shipstodestroy1enemy = enemyshipstr / friendlyshipstr
enemiesdestroyed = friendlyships / sihpstodestroy1enemy
So in the case of Raiders vs Vorlons. 20 / 3 = 6. 500 / 6 = 83. Meaning the Raiders would destroy 83 out of a fleet of 500 ships! With no momentum modification applied. I could tweak the ship strengths of course. I wouldn't have a clue how to factor in the momentum modifier though. Aside from that it's an interesting idea.
How are you deciding how many forces are engaged in a battle? Are you assuming all the fleets go up against each other? Or a portion is engaged in any battle?
Yes I'm still in two minds as to whether this is a good idea. I think my original formula assumes that 10% of either side is in combat (I believe that's what the spurious * 10 does) although in reality it wasn't designed that was as such. I just stuck an arbitrary number in there to make the resulting numbers a bit bigger :nervous:. There's no real elegance here I just want something that works.
I believe maybe only 25% of the forces on either side should be engaged at the start of a war. With the rest in reserve. There are issues:
1) As an army loses resources more and more of it needs to be engaged. ie: if an army is down to 50 ships against 2000 it doesn't make sense for the army with 50 to only commit 25% of it's force!
2) It I increase the amount of forces commited by an army because the enemy has more ships (as in the example above) that gives the army with less ships a slightly better than normal kill ratio against the other side because of those extra commited ships. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing really.
3) Assuming we allow an army with less ships to commit more to battle, how many more? I need another :sigh::
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I would stick to 10% of forces in battle, this is more feesable and realistic as well as either side suffering huge losses making the war last only a few missions. Like I explained in the pm i sent earlier some races loss ratio seems to work great but some other races don`t. Do you think it would be better to keep all races starting ships and loss ratio almost the same maybe with a slight varient of 0.3. This would still be fair as stronger races such as vorlons and Minbari will be quite hard to defeat during battle and would even the odds out of the variables for their losses. If you fight a hard race its the battle result which should primarily direct the course of the war, this reflects the players results in their battles and how the final outcome should be expected to flow. :)
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I would stick to 10% of forces in battle
Well that's all fine and dandy but what about the issues I mentioned above about limiting the number of ships engaged ;). Do you think a side with only 100 ships left facing 10,000 would still only commit 10% of it's ships. Also can non-commited ships be destroyed? If not then you're never going to be able to destroy all of a race's ships because you only ever get to kill 10% of them every day.
, this is more feesable and realistic as well as either side suffering huge losses making the war last only a few missions.
Well I think if a war between the raiders and the vorlons goes bad for the raiders it could conceivably be over in a few missions. Maybe 10 at the most.
Like I explained in the pm i sent earlier some races loss ratio seems to work great but some other races don`t. Do you think it would be better to keep all races starting ships and loss ratio almost the same maybe with a slight varient of 0.3.
No floating point numbers dude :). So Orpheus's idea of making all ship strengths fractions ain't going to fly. Also the other idea of working out how many ships are needed to destroy an enemy ship. That won't fly either. Reason? Well Vorlon ship = 20. Raider ship = 3. 20/3 = 6 (rounded down). So 6 raider ships to kill 1 vorlon. Works yes? No. EA ship = 6. Narn ship = 5. Number of Narn ships needed to kill 1 EA ship = 6/5 = 1 (rounded down). Number of EA ships required to kill one Narn ship = 5/6 = 0! (rounded down). Nightmare! :hopping:
If you fight a hard race its the battle result which should primarily direct the course of the war, this reflects the players results in their battles and how the final outcome should be expected to flow. :)
That's what the momentum concept is there for. The player should have a major say in the momentum of a war. Maybe between -5 to +5 depending on mission success.
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Looking at it I think the way your doing ship strengths is wrong.
Initially I suggested that you work out what you wanted a standard battle outcomes to be in terms of ship losses and work out the ship strengths from that. Raider 1 Vorlon 100 might be more realistic.
How about instead of faction ship strengths, you have a faction-faction ratio.
e.g. A really simple case EA - Narn have a 9:10 kill ratio. So if 100 Narns attack 100 EA Vessels all the narn die and 10 EA vessels survive.
Momentum could then improve the ratio so a fleet winning the war will lose less ships, and a fleet losing the war suffers heavy casualties, e.g. EA have +4 momentum lose only 50 ships to wipe out a 100 Narn or Narn have +5 momentum wipe out a 100 EA ships losing 55 ships.
I'll try and work out an integer based formula to do that for you.
Other ideas I've had are:
1) Divide faction strength and ship numbers into ship classes, so you have faction strength for each class.
e.g. The Vorlons and Raiders may both have 500 ships, but if thats 450 raider fighters, 40 light cruisers, and 10 cruisers, vs 1 planet killer, 99 Heavy cruisers, 150 transports and 350 fighters. Then 1 side already has a clear advantage. It might be reasonable for 20 raider fighters to kill 1 vorlon fighter, with about 16 losses, maybe 450 raider might kill a vorlon cruiser with maybe 1 or 2 survivors (possibly by all raming one point ;7), but the entire raider faction couldn't touch the planet killer.
2)With ship numbers, you could stick to a 10% ships in a battle, but have a 'battle of the line' cut off value, at which point all a factions ships are engaged so they can survive (100 ships maybe).
3)Alternate faction victory condition in which you capture/destroy a homeworld (gives the raiders and the league more chance as they haven't a central base).
4)Flee factor - a number of ships at which a faction attempts to flee a battle (assuming there not doing a battle of the line)
5)Getting really complicated by having a moral factor that affects how a faction responds to a losing was - being easier kill, committing more/less forces, running away, etc.
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e.g. A really simple case EA - Narn have a 9:10 kill ratio. So if 100 Narns attack 100 EA Vessels all the narn die and 10 EA vessels survive.
Wouldn't this require me hard coding 9*9 different kill ratios? Can we not calculate kill ratios from the existing strength values. The kill ratio and strength values are conceptually trying to represent the same thing afterall?
I'll try and work out an integer based formula to do that for you.
Yeah do. If you can come up with something that works you get a special mention when the campaign is done ;). Oops gotta go for now. My time is so limited these days. :(
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Wouldn't this require me hard coding 9*9 different kill ratios? Can we not calculate kill ratios from the existing strength values. The kill ratio and strength values are conceptually trying to represent the same thing afterall?
I don't think the existing strength values are correct at the moment.
In many way I'm suggesting each faction has a strength value compared to the other ones. If only because it seems reasonable that raiders would have a reasonable chance to damage EA ships, but at the same time theres almost no way raiders could hurt the vorlons, but the EA might have a chance.
Still hard coding in that many factors doesn't sound appealing.
Yeah do. If you can come up with something that works you get a special mention when the campaign is done ;).
Heres a formula (well several):
First decide Winning faction - faction with highest engagement score.
EngagementScore = (Ship Strength * Number of Ships)/Percentage of Fleet commited. [1]
Losing side loses set % of ships.
Total number of ships lost by loser = (No Of Ships Committed * Losers % Loses)/100
Total number of ships lost by winner = (No of Ships lost by Loser * Loser Ship Strength)/Winner Ship Strength.
So some examples using your current ship strengths (that could do with altering), 10% fleet usage, 10% of losers survive to flee and no momentum:
Raiders vs Vorlons:
Raiders Commit 10% of there ships.
Vorlons Commit 10% of there Ships
Raider Engagement Score =(500*2)/10 = 100
Vorlon Engagement Score =(500*20)/10 = 1000 Winner
Raiders loses = (50 * 90)/100 = 45 ships
Vorlons loses = (45 * 2)/20 = 4.5 = 4 ships
EA vs Vorlons
EA Commit 10% of there ships.
Vorlons Commit 10% of there Ships
Raider Engagement Score =(2000*6)/10 = 1200 Winner
Vorlon Engagement Score =(500*20)/10 = 1000
Vorlons loses = (50 * 90)/100 = 45 ships
EA loses = (45 * 20)/6 = 150 ships
Narn vs Centauri
Narn Commit 10% of there ships.
Centauri Commit 10% of there Ships
Narn Engagement Score =(2000*5)/10 = 1000
Centauri Engagement Score =(1500*8)/10 = 1200 Winner
Narn loses = (200 * 90)/100 = 180 ships
Centauri loses = (180 * 5)/8 = 112.5 = 112 ships
[1]This is where the momentum should be factored in - at best I'd think momentum should allow Narns to beat Centauri, but not allow Raiders to beat the Vorlons
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The main idea is a fair fight - LOL if you call raiders fighting the Vorlons fair LOL.
Any race should with a great deal of effort be able to win the war, even the raiders. If we make it so its impossible to win then whats the point in trying?
Like my survivor campaign :) LOL
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First decide Winning faction - faction with highest engagement score.
EngagementScore = (Ship Strength * Number of Ships)/Percentage of Fleet commited. [1]
Losing side loses set % of ships.
Total number of ships lost by loser = (No Of Ships Committed * Losers % Loses)/100
Total number of ships lost by winner = (No of Ships lost by Loser * Loser Ship Strength)/Winner Ship Strength
Couldn't we just set the momentum like Total number of ships lost by loser = (No Of Ships Committed * Losers % Loses)/100 * ((10 - momentum) (-9 through +9) /10)
So a momentum of +1 decreases loses by 10%, a momentum of -1 increases loses by 10%?
Example: Raiders with +3 momentum
Raiders vs Vorlons:
Raiders Commit 10% of there ships.
Vorlons Commit 10% of there Ships
Raider Engagement Score =(500*2)/10 = 100
Vorlon Engagement Score =(500*20)/10 = 1000 Winner
Raiders loses = (50 * 90)/100 * ((10 - 3) /10) = 31 (rounded down) ships
Vorlons loses = (45 * 2)/20 = 4.5 = 4 ships
or Narn with +7 momentum
Narn vs Centauri
Narn Commit 10% of there ships.
Centauri Commit 10% of there Ships
Narn Engagement Score =(2000*5)/10 = 1000
Centauri Engagement Score =(1500*8)/10 = 1200 Winner
Narn loses = (200 * 90)/100 *((10 - 7) /10) = 54 ships
Centauri loses = (180 * 5)/8 = 112.5 = 112 ships
Seems to work to me :nod:
This system WOULD make momentum a powerful thing, enough to even out a raider vs vorlon fight, if I understand correctly.
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I agree, with the momentum as a big factor this could help even things out a bit. 10% of forces in battle for all races is fine, but I suggest moving upto to 25% when the losing team has 20% of ships left (from start total).
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So a momentum of +1 decreases loses by 10%, a momentum of -1 increases loses by 10%?
The only problem there is that the momentum hasn't figured into the side that won. You would still want momentum to alter which side wins too. It would also make sense for only one side to have momentum at a time - or that negative momentum is just the same as saying the opponents have that amount of positive momentum.
I suppose you could change it so that the losing side has momentum*10% of their ships escape, i.e. if they had good momentum but they still lose it's like they got out of the fight before they got slaughtered.
And that the winner side suffers loses, reduced by a momentum*10%
So the formulas would be (assuming momentum goes from 0 to 10):
Total number of ships lost by loser = (No Of Ships Committed * 10 - (momentum))/10
Total number of ships lost by winner = (No of Ships lost by Loser * Loser Ship Strength*(10-momentum))/Winner Ship Strength*10
For example (again momentum still not factored into who wins or loses)
Narn with +7 momentum vs Centauri
Narn Commit 10% of there ships.
Centauri Commit 10% of there Ships
Narn Engagement Score =(2000*5)/10 = 1000
Centauri Engagement Score =(1500*8)/10 = 1200 Winner
Narn loses = (200 * (10-7))/10 = 60 ships
Centauri loses = (60 * 5*10)/8*10 = 37.5 = 37 ships
EA +4 vs Vorlons
EA Commit 10% of there ships.
Vorlons Commit 10% of there Ships
EA Engagement Score =(2000*6)/10 = 1200 Winner
Vorlon Engagement Score =(500*20)/10 = 1000
Vorlons loses = (50 * (10-0))/10 = 50 ships
EA loses = (50 * 20 * (10-4) )/6*10 = 100 ships
By having each faction having a momentum value, you could then potentially have things where you have a three way war, and thanks to victories against two sides vs a third, when those two side fight they both have postive momentum.
Other ideas this allows - scouting missions which if the player completes successfully, the players side know how many ships the enemy will commit, and so commits enough to win (more ships means higher engagement score).
*edit*
Thinking about momentum factoring in to the engagement score. You could either have it that momentum increase the effective tech level of ships in calculating the score, or makes a factions ships count for more:
eg:
EngagementScore = ((Ship Strength+momentum) * Number of Ships)/Percentage of Fleet commited
or
EngagementScore = (Ship Strength * (Number of Ships + (Number of Ships * momentum)/10))/Percentage of Fleet commited
e.g.
Narn with +7 momentum vs Centauri
Narn Engagement Score =(2000*(5+7))/10 = 2400 Winner
Centauri Engagement Score =(1500*8)/10 = 1200
or
Narn Engagement Score =((2000+(2000*7)/10)*5)/10 = 1700 Winner
Centauri Engagement Score =(1500*8)/10 = 1200
The Raiders still won't be able to win a battle with the vorlons even with a momentum of +10, but at least wouldn't ever lose any ships in the battle.
You could total up all the engagement scores to get an overall status of the campaign at each stage.
*/edit*
10% of forces in battle for all races is fine, but I suggest moving upto to 25% when the losing team has 20% of ships left (from start total).
I still like the idea of a battle of the line style affect, where when a faction is down to a % of their starting fleet they commit all their ships in a last ditch defence.
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Wow this is going to take me a little while to go through. It looks like you're having some success though. I'm going to have a go at implementing some of this stuff.
re: how much of their force a side should commit. Well in the interests of fairness if one side commits more forces the other side should do the same. Also I believe the amount commited should be related to territory. So if a race has their back against the wall they up the stakes. Until finally if their homeworld is under threat they throw the lot in.
I could do that using bands:
eg: (territory ranges -50 to 50 where -50 = players hw under threat & 50 = enemy hw under threat)
territory =< -10 or => 10 15% forces committed
territory =< -20 or => 20 20% forces committed
territory =< -30 or => 30 30% forces committed
territory =< -40 or => 40 40% forces committed
territory = -50 or 50 100% forces committed (homeworld defence)
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Think the banding system will be ideal for commiting forces :yes:
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The only problem there is that the momentum hasn't figured into the side that won. You would still want momentum to alter which side wins too. It would also make sense for only one side to have momentum at a time - or that negative momentum is just the same as saying the opponents have that amount of positive momentum.
That negative momentum is the same as the other sides positive momentum. I just stuck that on the loser's side because it made sense at the time.
I suppose you could change it so that the losing side has momentum*10% of their ships escape, i.e. if they had good momentum but they still lose it's like they got out of the fight before they got slaughtered.
And that the winner side suffers loses, reduced by a momentum*10%
That is what I had intended. Personally, I don't understand how being the winner really helps with losses (in the current equation it does, but to a small degree (of course I could be misinterpreting the formula)), and in the end, war is mostly about losses. So, having momentum only help 'win' the battle would make it almost useless. That is the simple beauty of factoring it in at the losses, it makes momentum a powerful thing. However, having momentum at both areas wouldn't boost power to much would it? I'll try that with both of our momentum at losses systems.
Basically, summed up before I go into math, the end result is that, IMO, the momentum system should be applied to losses the way I wrote, and to engagement score the way you* wrote.
Narn +7 vs Centauri
Narn Score: ((5+70)2000)/10=2400 winner
Centauri Score: ((8)1500)/10=1200
Narn Losses: (200 * 90)/100 *((10 - 7) /10) = 54 ships
Centauri Losses = (180 * 5)/8 = 112.5 = 112 ships
This seemed to work. The Narn's score was double that of the Centauri, so they lost half as many ships.
Let's try this in another situation.
EA +4 vs Vorlon
EA Score = ((6+4) * 2000)/10=2000 Winner
Vorlon Score = ((20)500)/10=1000
EA Losses = (63 * 20)/ 6 = 210
Vorlon Losses = (50 * 90)/100 * ((10 - (-4)) /10)= 63
This doesn't work. Or does it? The EA has 4 times the number of ships as the Vorlon, so divide the number of EA losses by 4 and you get... 52 rounded down. So the system works. The EA, while they had twice the Vorlon's score, lost 11% less ships per ship committed. So the engagement scores could still use some tweakings, though that could be written off as the EA performing twice as well as the Vorlon's but getting crippled by their technological inferiority. I'll think on it.
Now to try your system of losses. (Direct quote)
Narn with +7 momentum vs Centauri
Narn Commit 10% of there ships.
Centauri Commit 10% of there Ships
Narn Engagement Score =(2000*5)/10 = 1000
Centauri Engagement Score =(1500*8)/10 = 1200 Winner
Narn loses = (200 * (10-7))/10 = 60 ships
Centauri loses = (60 * 5*10)/8*10 = 37.5 = 37 ships
and
EA +4 vs Vorlons
EA Commit 10% of there ships.
Vorlons Commit 10% of there Ships
EA Engagement Score =(2000*6)/10 = 1200 Winner
Vorlon Engagement Score =(500*20)/10 = 1000
Vorlons loses = (50 * (10-0))/10 = 50 ships
EA loses = (50 * 20 * (10-4) )/6*10 = 100 ships
To the EA losses I then divide by 4 and get 20. This shows that they lost 30% less ships per ship deployed then the Vorlons. While momentum should be powerful, this is to powerful IMHO. While I don't watch B5, I know enough to know that the Vorlons pwn the EA, and 30% better losses with such a low momentum is a bit rediculous. However, I do applaud your work on the engagement scores, and the work on losses that I stole to make the base of my momentum system. I think that a merger between our two systems, my losses and your engagement score, would work best.
Also, as one last note, I think the joint system would hold true for the banding system proposed by IPAndrews as well, but I need to try it. I'll edit when I do.
*When I say you, I'm referring to Megadoomer
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EA +4 vs Vorlon
EA Score = ((6+4) * 2000)/10=2000 Winner
Vorlon Score = ((20)500)/10=1000
EA Losses = (63 * 20)/ 6 = 210
Vorlon Losses = (50 * 90)/100 * ((10 - (-4)) /10)= 63
This doesn't work. Or does it?
It doesn't work because both sides have managed to lose more ships that they committed. The problem arose because you applied a negative momentum to the vorlons.
Personally, I don't understand how being the winner really helps with losses (in the current equation it does, but to a small degree (of course I could be misinterpreting the formula)), and in the end, war is mostly about losses.
The basic principle behind my formula was this - trying to calculate losses for both sides independently is too complicated, especially when you start adding momentum in to both sides. As you've shown above trying to apply negative momentums messes up the calculation. So to simplify it I did the following:
- The losing side loses a fixed quantity of ships (which is a percentage of their commited ships). Momentum can help them win, or help them mitigate their loss accordingly. The base case is the worst case, they lose all their ships.
-The winning side them loses enough ships (based on the ratio of power levels) to have destroyed the number of ships the losing side lost. The better the momentum the less ship they lose achieving this.
To the EA losses I then divide by 4 and get 20. This shows that they lost 30% less ships per ship deployed then the Vorlons. While momentum should be powerful, this is to powerful IMHO. While I don't watch B5, I know enough to know that the Vorlons pwn the EA, and 30% better losses with such a low momentum is a bit rediculous.
I agree with you the losses aren't correct, but then again I don't think the faction power levels are right. The problem is balancing realism, with gameplay so that factions have a chance to win. The way to do it would be to play around with numbers using the formula, until you achieved a series of values that worked. I'd still be inclined to have values that compare specific races, only because you would have greater option for balancing things out. Of course it also depends at which point in the B5 story you want it to be. The newest EA ships are powerful.
Think the banding system will be ideal for commiting forces :yes:
So do I :yes:
Well in the interests of fairness if one side commits more forces the other side should do the same.
And simplicity I supect ;). Though it would still be cool to successfully complete a mission, and get your side the intel so they could attack an unexpecting enemy fleet with overwhelming forces.
Oh and you means yubyub
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You're right of course... :o
Let's see what happens if I switch where I originally used a negative to having momentum apply to the winner there (i.e. to the side with the positive momentum).
EA +4 vs Vorlon
EA Score = ((6+4) * 2000)/10=2000 Winner
Vorlon Score = ((20)500)/10=1000
EA Losses = (63 * 20)/6 * ((10 - 4)/10) = 126
Vorlon Losses = (50 * 90)/100 =45
Now divide by 4 and you get 31 (rounded down). Now it seems to work. Vorlons lost 45 of 50 committed, and EA loses 126 of 200 commited.
Another example of applying momentum to the side with momentum. (already shown)
Narn +7 vs Centauri
Narn Score: ((5+7)2000)/10=2400 winner
Centauri Score: ((8)1500)/10=1200
Narn Losses: (200 * 90)/100 *((10 - 7) /10) = 54 ships
Centauri Losses = (180 * 5)/8 = 112.5 = 112 ships
An another one trying to break my equation.
Shadows +6 vs Raiders
Shadows Engagement: (500 *(16+6))/10=1100 Winner
Raiders Engagement: (500*2)/10=100
Shadows Losses:(45*2)/16 * ((10 - 6)/10) = 2.25 rounded down to 2
Raiders Losses: (50*90)/100=45
Seems to work when it is always applied to the side who has the momentum. But I'll make the person with the momentum be the loser this time.
Raiders +6 vs Vorlons
Raiders Engagement: (500 * (2 + 6))/10 = 400
Vorlon Engagement: (500 * 20)/10 = 1000 WINNER! (big surprise)
Raider Losses: (50 *90)/100 * ((10-6)/10) = 18
Vorlon Losses: (18 * 2)/20 = 1 (rounded down)
Ok NOW it works I think. The ((10 - (momentum))/10) and the (score plus momentum) lines just need to be always added to the side with the positive momentum. Momentum would go from 0 through 10 (at zero both of those lines are dropped, as a value of zero would break the equation nicely). Is that possible to code? If not have momentum go from 1 to 10, and have no zero used. (IE If one side has +1 momentum and the other side takes the momentum, then the other side immediately goes to at least +1 momentum).
Does this formula-equation thingy work now? I must say, I've never had this much fun with math LOL. :lol:
edit: Above post shows why you should never do math in 3 equations on the same post on a forum while doing your math assignment. To many numbers = confusion = stupid mistakes
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EA +4 vs Vorlon
EA Score = ((6+4) * 2000)/10=2000 Winner
Vorlon Score = ((20)500)/10=1000
EA Losses = (63 * 20)/6 * ((10 - 4)/10) = 126
Vorlon Losses = (50 * 90)/100 =45
You forgot to update the EA losses formula they only have to destroy 45 ships, not 63.
Narn +7 vs Centauri
Narn Score: ((5+7)2000)/10=2400 winner
Centauri Score: ((8)1500)/10=1200
Narn Losses: (200 * 90)/100 *((10 - 7) /10) = 54 ships
Centauri Losses = (180 * 5)/8 = 112.5 = 112 ships
And here you don't narn losses from the number of ships destroyed but from the number they commit instead, which isn't the same as the above.
Having just checked the vorlon vs EA formula you used, yubyub, is actually identical to mine just rearranged:
winner losses = ((losser losses * loser strength)/winner strength) *((10-momentum)/10) = (losser losses * loser strength* (10-momentum))/(10*winner strength)
Except you are assuming a base of 10% of losing ships escape still, where I no longer do. It should be noted in the above a momentum of 10 results in no losses for which ever side has it, and a momentum of 0 doesn't cause a problem.
Er, sorry to point out your mistakes.
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After finishing reading your post, it seems our equations are identical now. :blah: Well its good to see we both came to the same conclusion in different ways, just reinforces that your way WAS correct all along.
the momentum system should be applied to losses the way I wrote
*foot in mouth* :o
Sorry for the trouble... The good news is that we know after all this testing that your way will work. Now the fun part will be for anyone lucky enough to beta this campaign, ingame balancing. :D
Last edit: So the end equations are:
- EngagementScore: ((Ship Strength+momentum) * Number of Ships)/Percentage of Fleet commited
- Losers Losses: (No Of Ships Committed * 10 - (momentum))/10
- Winners Losses: Losses = (loser losses * loser strength* (10-momentum))/(10*winner strength)
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True, but in all fairness my way did incorporate your momentum suggestion. Anyway now we just have to wait for IPAndrews to code it and see if he can make it work.
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True, but in all fairness my way did incorporate your momentum suggestion.
That is true, but my momentum suggestion was inspired by the way you set the 10% of ships engaging in battle. ;) Anyways, I'll stop spamming this thread. I can't wait to find out if IPAndrews can code this.
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I can certainly code it. Easy peasy. Lemon squeezy even.
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You know what guys, I think the framework is good enough now to start adding missions in (the easy part actually). Happy days my friends. Sincere thanks for everyone's help with the loss calculations.
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To prove to anyone that's interested that work is now progressing. Thanks mainly to Madaboutgames who is throwing together missions. Some random screenies. The first from a battle between a battlegroup full of Victory destroyers (the ISA are pretty lethal). The last two are from a battle between the Drakh and the League and show off the new Drakh destroyer.
(http://www.bhx.stargame.co.uk/screenshots/victoryinnumbers.jpg)
(http://www.bhx.stargame.co.uk/screenshots/drakhdestroyers.jpg)
(http://www.bhx.stargame.co.uk/screenshots/drakhfrydrazi.jpg)
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nice lightshow :)
i wonder what ships stand againnst that victorys except vorlon or shadow ones :)
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Some more pics because I was testing and the print screen key was there on the keyboard, just itching to be pressed! From a base assault on a JaDul using the Minbari.
(http://www.bhx.stargame.co.uk/screenshots/jadulassault1.jpg)
(http://www.bhx.stargame.co.uk/screenshots/jadulassault2.jpg)
(http://www.bhx.stargame.co.uk/screenshots/broadsiding.jpg)
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i wonder what ships stand againnst that victorys except vorlon or shadow ones :)
Against that many Victories? :eek2: How about a couple of Vorlon Dreadnaughts? (hint, hint Stithe) :)
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again, very cool shots!
jadul looks pretty cool, i havent seen the station ingame in close distance so far, thx for that!
it seems that your campaign is progressing well, good to see :)
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:yes: :yes: :yes:
Hope we see it all in action pretty soon!
although you should have been more invetive with names ;)
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I think we should go for the end of March as an eta realease, what do you think Ian?
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GREAT work on this, you two, and whoever else is involved. I can hardly wait for this one to release. If you need a tester, by the way, I'm there. madaboutgames can vouche for me. I did some testing for him on his Heat 'em Up, and I think he was fairly satisfied. Anyway, you guys have me hyped. As I said before, I think this will bring a great deal of replay value to TBP, which is the major thing I think it had been lacking in. I take off my hat to you.
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although you should have been more invetive with names ;)
Easier said than done. I don't even think you can change ship names using sexps. Even if you could it'd need one SEXP per name (say 50 to avoid excessive dejavu), per race (10), per ship in mission (up to 20). So that's 10,000 SEXPs. So generic names are one of the compomises we have had to make to get this work.
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I think we should go for the end of March as an eta realease, what do you think Ian?
If I had more time yeah that would be reasonable. Being as busy as I am, probably not. I reckon we can have the missions done by then but the voice acting will take some time to arrange. People can take weeks to return finished samples.
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Well, the Media Farm voice "bank" is ready and waiting ... ;)
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Thats a point, as all the ingame speech will be by voice actors this may take some time to get it all right. Well at least the trailer should be ready for next week :yes: So that should keep em going for a bit :)
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Sorry for this as I know you did the formula calculations on the last page, but what about taking into account fleet build-ups for things like base attacks, where it'd be more likely that the attacker would have put together a much larger attack force than normal. Although this could be offset by base defences, fixed emplacements and such.
Thats probably going into it too deeply and would add an impossible level of complexity by making it even harder for a losing side to regain the initiative.
Well, just a thought.
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Easier said than done. I don't even think you can change ship names using sexps. Even if you could it'd need one SEXP per name (say 50 to avoid excessive dejavu), per race (10), per ship in mission (up to 20). So that's 10,000 SEXPs. So generic names are one of the compomises we have had to make to get this work.
Unless we can get WMCoolmon to figure out a way to allow you to do something like that using scripting of course :)
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If theres an easier way to do it it will be worth it:)
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Did somebody say voice acting? :nod: :yes:
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Yep:) Lots of it
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Hadn't heard back cause you are mega busy. Am I officially signed up? (or do you need me to resend samples?)