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Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 2:18 pm
by DWMagus
croxis wrote:One way to balance the use of super weapons is to have it be "illegal." Where the use of weapons of mass destruction makes all the civilizations very unhappy at you. Even research or production of such weapons could be enough to have all your neighbors go to war at you (See: World vs Iran). This is where the information spreading aspects can come into play.
Criminals don't exactly play by the rules. I'd like to see the military stop a fleet of my warships equipped with super weapons jumping into a system that has them outlawed. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 3:22 pm
by Lanfranc
DWMagus wrote:Criminals don't exactly play by the rules. I'd like to see the military stop a fleet of my warships equipped with super weapons jumping into a system that has them outlawed. :lol: :lol: :lol:
"Criminals" is such a crass term. I prefer to think of it as "whoever has the biggest fleet gets to make the laws".

Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 5:46 pm
by Dadalos
Lanfranc wrote: "whoever has the biggest fleet gets to make the laws".
zerg vs protoss argument here. biggest dose not always mean superior. the superior fleet makes the laws. :D and if space is akin to an ocean theres always a 'bigger fish' out there XD.

Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 4:31 am
by Gazz
croxis wrote:One way to balance the use of super weapons is to have it be "illegal." Where the use of weapons of mass destruction makes all the civilizations very unhappy at you. Even research or production of such weapons could be enough to have all your neighbors go to war at you (See: World vs Iran). This is where the information spreading aspects can come into play.
Pointless restriction when the intent is to use those super weapons to go to war with your neighbors and those being super weapons, expect to win the war.

The Empire didn't build the Death Star(s) because they had peace and freedom in mind. Even the first test run casually annihilated an inhabited world.

Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 7:48 am
by NikoDG
Gazz wrote:
croxis wrote:One way to balance the use of super weapons is to have it be "illegal." Where the use of weapons of mass destruction makes all the civilizations very unhappy at you. Even research or production of such weapons could be enough to have all your neighbors go to war at you (See: World vs Iran). This is where the information spreading aspects can come into play.
Pointless restriction when the intent is to use those super weapons to go to war with your neighbors and those being super weapons, expect to win the war.

The Empire didn't build the Death Star(s) because they had peace and freedom in mind. Even the first test run casually annihilated an inhabited world.
Yes, but if just starting construction on, or even researching, a WMD causes everyone to become hostile you may never get a chance to implement it. If you think of it as a strategy game, whenever you start into building something that will give you a significant advantage or "INSTA-WIN" you automatically draw a lot of aggression, so while it might give you a major advantage in the long-term, it is very difficult to facilitate in the short-term. Some examples would be a Wonder in AOE, or the TEC cannon in Sins, possibly the space ship modules in Civilization, your super-weapons in C&C.

So while you say it's pointless because you'll probably wage war on your neighbours anyways, I disagree. Optimally, you would want to go to war after the weapon was built, in which case you'd have it's advantage from the get go. If the other factions attack you preemptively you won't have that advantage at the beginning, meaning you'll really have to earn it.

Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 8:27 am
by Hardenberg
Yes, but if just starting construction on, or even researching, a WMD causes everyone to become hostile you may never get a chance to implement it.
Sounds like fun, really. Why even waste development time on implementing this if you obviously don't want it to be used? But see below, the root of the problem is a different one...
Some examples would be a Wonder in AOE, or the TEC cannon in Sins, possibly the space ship modules in Civilization, your super-weapons in C&C.
I think I see where the problem stems from.
This isn't to be a 4X game. It's an elite clone / space shooter with added RTS elements to make fleet management feasible, as opposed to the messy excuse of an interface the X series had to offer. And to be honest, I'm not even sure if Josh should implement research, as I see little gain for a lot of extra effort, but instead several cans of worms being opened, among them balancing and reducing the need for exploration in the first place.

In those 4X games you mention, the stuff you describe are game-enders. Once they're built, you either win, or are pretty close to winning. In a sandbox space exploration/trading game, these "win conditions" don't exist, as such the "super weapons" can't be game enders. Instead, they're what it says on the tin - weapons, with a large possibility of making the game unfun or the challenges trivial (depends on which side of the barrel you end up, really).

And now let's ask ourselves again: Why would we want/need those? What would they add to the game, how would they make it more "fun"?
Because, at the end of the day, this is what games should be about: fun. Not the implementation of features that make little to no sense either "because you can" or "because game X had it".

Also remember that this is a one-man show. Resources and time are limited, and while the budget has shaped up rather nicely in comparison to what was planned, Josh is still operating on a shoe-string budget compared to a large commercial production. As such, he shouldn't waste time of stuff that's a hassle to implement and adds little to nothing to the game experience.

Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 8:34 am
by NikoDG
Hardenberg wrote:
Yes, but if just starting construction on, or even researching, a WMD causes everyone to become hostile you may never get a chance to implement it.
Sounds like fun, really. Why even waste development time on implementing this if you obviously don't want it to be used?
Personally, I don't want WMD's in the game, I think they'll end up being a pain in the ass more than anything, lol. I'd much rather see Josh spend his time implementing more in the way of ships and ship construction, like carrier bays for example.

Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 9:26 am
by Gazz
But what happens if you somehow manage to "earn it"?
Then you have it. It doesn't go away. It removes the challenge of the entire rest of the game because you can always use the Super Weapon™ to cover the construction of more of them.

It's a game over event - and not just for your enemies.
The space ship modules in CIV, for example, make sense. They are a victory condition in a the game that is intended to be won.
You don't win a sandbox game, much less one in an infinite galaxy.

Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 12:03 pm
by Dadalos
Having most factions (not all just most) automatically turn hostile to you for developing or having WMD might be the way to go on this. for somone like me this would never be an issue because i dont plan on going the combat focused road. but for somone who dose and feels that they can take on the universe...why not let them do it as kind of a challenge to themselves? ok they have a large well armed well prepared fleet. they own a system or 2 develop the WMD other factions dont like it then the player gets to do what he wants from day one more combat. and if he survives the inevitable war he could go out and take over more systems using his new toys. is it risky oh you better believe it. but its another option that the players able to make.

Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 10:34 pm
by Flendon
Eric0965 wrote:Maybe some kind of "smart super-torpedo"? It would have it's own shield and also have the capability to evade incoming defensive fire. It would also carry a very large payload that could probably cripple a captial ship with only 1 or 2 of them.
Sounds like a Kamikaze bomber.
DWMagus wrote:Just have a tick mark in the seed of the planet 'enable superweapons'. I know most RTS games had this button back in the days of C&C and RA (hey, I haven't played an RTS in a decade so I dunno if they're still there).
That might work, but I think people would use them and then complain that their sandbox was empty.
croxis wrote:One way to balance the use of super weapons is to have it be "illegal." Where the use of weapons of mass destruction makes all the civilizations very unhappy at you. Even research or production of such weapons could be enough to have all your neighbors go to war at you (See: World vs Iran). This is where the information spreading aspects can come into play.
Josh has already said that if you get too powerful the other factions will all team up on you. Lets take a combined fleet against the death star before it is finished!

The problem is that you have three options with super weapons.
1. You kill everyone, in a sandbox that sucks.
2. You get your ass handed to you every single time you try to build one, and that is no fun.
3. You beat almost everyone, play in a boring empty universe for a while and then find out they have returned with a massive fleet from the other side of the galaxy to shoot a missile down your exhaust vent. Suddenly you're wiped out and have to start over with 100 credits and a derelict ship.

I prefer a siege style weapons for taking on stations and capital ships. A trebuchet will take out a fortress eventually, but it is far from an instant win.

Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:59 am
by HyperionXL
Specialized weaponry (ex: the trebuchet to knockout a large, stationary object as stated in the earlier post) should be the way to go. I guess, in a sense, like Eve Online.

However, I think it'll really come down to the NPCs ability to deploy appropriette fleets gathered through intelligence, news, spying, scouting, or however Josh plans to implement that. The AI should know what it needs to counter if you send in a hostile fleet.

Seeing as every ship/npc you encounter and that is generated in the world is able to do its own tasks, whos to say that if you invade and start shooting with a super weapon, that those you are attacking flee, and later down the road, could be several real life hours or real life days, come back with new allies and their own super weapons. What if they have allies that already have said super weapons, which deploy a fleet within minutes of hearing of your hostile movements.

So long as every action has a reaction of some sort, I'm okay with the use of "super weapons" so long as it isn't an exclusivity to the player. I know it'd be tough to simulate a player, characteristics, and tactics that come with being a player, but I think Josh can figure out a good way to do it.

Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 2:13 pm
by Grumblesaur
Flendon wrote:I prefer a siege style weapons for taking on stations and capital ships. A trebuchet will take out a fortress eventually, but it is far from an instant win.
The Discovery Mod for Freelancer has implemented a weapon called the Mortar for heavy capital assault. It basically launches a big ball of energy, has a slow projectile speed, and does several hundred thousand points of damage. It's also handy for attacking the mod's player bases (which are permanently destructible).

Discovery also has EMP weapons (available to all classes of ships) that do a large amount of damage to shields and sap energy from the power core, but don't actually hurt the body of the ship very much.

These ideas aren't "super weapons" by any stretch of the imagination, but they'd add to the variety of weapons in the game and provide for ships with more specialized loadouts.

Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 12:17 am
by striker50450
I think there should be a Massive rail gun (or some other Super weapon) in the game but takes ammo (Expensive ammo and limited ammo/holds like 3 shots), be Really expensive, Very hard to come by, have a specialty ship for it that has limited defense, and only get one at a time per game world thus making you want to you to use it as a last ditch effort in a loosing battle. but these are idea's i'm spitting out. i personally wouldn't mind having one or not.

Re: Super Weapons?

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 12:15 pm
by The Hedge Knight
Some sort of super weapons that larger factions can end up getting would be neat, if you charge an empires capital planet it would be interesting to have to go up against this giant ship they developed. Just making it some doom game ending gun would be silly though, just give it weaknesses like it being extremely slow and not able to turn quickly.