A2/FO Gameplay Ideas

[Rifraf]

Hi all. I wanted to get some opinions/ideas on possible game play changes for mods. Now I know people say do what you want since it's your mod and I get that and I've read threads here and over at FO and FF with similar posts about mod balancing and game play ideas and such, but I guess I don't know what I want to add/change so was looking for more ideas.
Sorry for the wall of text and if anyone has the inclination to read it all I'd really like to hear your thoughts/ideas etc.

I guess for instance special weapons. I don't care for them so I usually limit them in my personal mod. It does take away a lot from play though so that's not always the best option (Though Major Payne had very few in his Borg Incursion mods and I loved them.) There weren't any "special weapons" really in the shows with what could be a few exceptions (jamming sensors, disruptingshields etc..) so you have to get creative.

Or take research. In stock A2 or FO for that matter you start with a couple small ships and have to research to move up to bigger/better stuff or just building a better shipyard or research station gets you access to better ships (as in stock A2.) Well, unless your mod spans multiple eras then why would you have to research a better ship that's in the same era as the ships you already have just to have access to it? Again, game play come into effect here, but I'm trying to think of ideas around this. Like you would have access to all ships at the start and only their resource cost would prevent you from building them right from the start so you build some smaller ships for basic defence/raiding until you get more resources to build the bigger ships.

I can see not having access to the Defiant, Prometheus or Sovereign Classes until later, but if you're in the TNG-Voyager era then you pretty much have access to everything else already. I'm not trying to make the game hyper realistic, butperhaps a little less fantastical.

For instance I set the Borg up to have 2 additional levels of adaptation if you will. After you research X you can build a Sphere or Cube or whatever that take say 25%-50% less damage from all weapons then the next level takes even less damage. Gives the impression of them adapting like they did in the shows. The downside of this is you need multiple shipyards to accommodate all the different levels of ships you can build. Then you give other races the ability to modify their weapons so the Borg can't adapt as easily. I know tons of odf's, but gives the desired effect.

I've always wanted to to implement game play where the Dominion beam weapons go through the shields of the Fed and Rom ships/stations early on, but not the Klingons just like the show. Then after you research X their beam weapons no longer have that advantage. Need to find a way to counter though as you can't research too early due to costs which leaves the Feds and Roms too weak against the Dominion.

I never liked the idea of only being able to counter certain ships with other specific ships, but I don't necessarirly want to just throw in tons of closely matched ships and say play. This whole idea is based on AI play so the AI would never be as cunning as a real player had harder to implement. Therefore it still has to be fun, but find other ways to make it interesting.

I've been toying with the idea of basing it off Supreme Commander in that you have different tiers of ships/stations/weapon emplacements and such and you have to move up tiers. That's not really realistic either, but may be interesting to play it this way?

 

[Majestic]

I read the wall of text yay!

You've clearly put some thought into this. I have done the same with both my original ideas for AGC and for YY and TCW. Some ideas I am actually using in YY like the tier system you mentioned at the end of the post. Having played a lot of Empire Earth and Age of Empires I think that is where that idea originated from for me. More on that in a YY post sometime down the track.

I see where you're coming from with the idea that you shouldn't need to research up to larger ships. But on the other side of the coin, did Starfleet get the Galaxy after they built the Nebula? No they needed to design the bugger, prototype it, put it on trial runs for a year or two. The same with every other ship even in the earlier years like TOS and TMP. Those ships may use the same components and tech but the individual ships need to be designed, prototype built and tested. This is why to me at least it makes sense to have to research ships and level up. I am doing this with YY. You need to research individual ships, YY will be heavy in the research department.

You know my thoughts on special weapons so no need to cover that here.

Interesting idea on the borg. In FO you could use a replace weapon that once you research a particular pod it auto executes/activates and the shipyard transforms into a higher shipyard that can only build the newer higher adapted units. The same with the ships, an auto weapon that transforms them to the higher adapted ship version. That way the Borg are adapting and all units would be like they have been given the info from the collective. This would only be achievable in FO however. It would need an auto trigger, while I am not the most up to date on FO code, hence my recent issue in YY, I do believe it's achievable. However as far as taking less damage, you might just have to beef up their hull and shields instead. I am not really sure if you could make their units be able to take less damage.

I like the idea of the Dominion weapons as well. If this is possible in FO I have no idea. I suppose it could again be done with an auto weapon however it would need to work off the Dominion ships so their updated ships weapons don't bypass shields using the ignoreshields command that I think exists. So it wouldn't really matter what the Federation and Romulans do it would be like taking an advantage away from the Dominion as they progress through the research chain to trick the Dominion player into thinking the enemy has upgraded. Someone else may have a better idea here than me. Time to step up @CABAL and @Dominus_Noctis .

Hope this all helps.

 

[CABAL]

I was going to post here, but I forgot about it until Maj tagged me.

I think that part of the problem is that we're still thinking in terms of how A1 and A2 play and working off of that as a base for our mods. There's nothing wrong with that, and FO is a great example of that style being done well, but we're not opening our eyes much to alternative systems.

The Armada style has three size classes with each higher size class being fundamentally better than the ones before it with relatively few downsides to balance. This led to the Defiant being one of the weakest and least seen ships in A1/2 due to being in the 'small' size category despite being one of the more powerful ships in the shows. The FO team fudged the rules to account for this discrepancy and made it a 'large' ship despite its appearance, which has its own problems. Additionally, each class has a special weapon that is unique to that class and, in some cases, is the only reason to build it. In A2, a fleet of Akiras was better than a fleet of Intrepids simply because of the chain reaction pulsar. The only type of ship that breaks these molds is the science ship, and even then it is limited. All science ships are below average 'medium' ships that make up for their reduced firepower with additional special weapons. If we're going to continue operating in this system then we need to make it our own rather than just Armada+. Make a 'large' science ship, or a heavy 'light' ship. Hell, make a light 'large' ship and see what happens. You don't have to stick to the destroyer, cruiser, battleship, science ship paradigm.

Rifraf brings up hard counters, which I also detest. I do not believe that units of Class A's entire purpose in terms of gameplay mechanics or design should boil down to 'destroy units of Class B.' Instead, I think that units should have specific pros and cons that mesh together to create a balanced force. For instance, Ship A may have great firepower and be fairly sturdy, but have a very limited field of fire and be slow to turn. A group of these would be sitting ducks against anything moderately quick, but pair it with something fast and agile like Ship B or something with 360 degrees of fire like Ship C and you have an effective team.

The project I'm currently working on has five basic ship types with particular roles. Corvettes are light and fast to serve as scouts, but gain bonuses when near starbases so that they can also function as base defense. Frigates are generalist ships primarily loaded with direct-fire weapons that can slot in anywhere, but aren't particularly powerful. Destroyers have next to no firepower, but shoot down incoming missiles and fighters. Cruisers have high DPS and AOE weapons, but they primarily use missiles, which can be shot down. Carriers have fighters which provide line-of-sight and harass the enemy, but need to work with other ships to do serious damage. Battle is all about building a balanced fleet and knowing how to prioritize targets to most efficiently dismantle the enemy's fleet.

We can also look at other games, and even other genres, for inspiration. There is no reason that your ship classes can't be analogues of traditional RPG classes. We know how to make the AI prefer a particular target and, combined with weapon ranges, that helps with making a tank, AOE and high DPS make an easy wizard/nuker, buffs and the Fed repair team make a cleric, etc.

 

[Majestic]

Great ideas Cabal. Some food for thought indeed.

 

[Rifraf]

Very good ideas both of you. We always have to mod within the limitations of the engine first of all so that doesn't always let us make the game play how we want. I always hated how the ships come into range and then just stop and fire all their weapons. But, what can you do. I also never liked the idea of artillery in Star Trek. However, you have to keep some general RTS game play/ideas in mind for a game like this instead of being able to play like Bridge Commander or Legacy.

I remember a little guide Freyr did years ago talking about each race and each ship and breaking each one down and how every race really only had 1 (usually the battleship) at most 2 ships even worth building on a cost/performance basis plus the designated science ship Cabal pointed out due to its specials. Everything should be able to be used throughout the game to some extent and not just because it's a hard counter like Cabal stated or has a special weapon equipped.

I like the idea of a scout, but hate the way A2 implemented it. Why a tiny scout has vastly superior sensor range than other ships is beyond me, but from a game play stand point like other RTS's makes sense. Destroyers should be able to be viable even in late game. It's just hard to set up the game to be what we saw in the shows. You can't feasibly have 50 Galaxies all the time, but a Sabre or Intrepid should be able to handle themselves at least for more than 10 seconds. But without specials then what would make you want to build that ship? That's what I'm trying to think of and implement and see what others come up with.

Another thing that bothered me was how every weapon had basically the same hit chance on every ship. If you're going to use fighters or even scouts then larger ships should have quite a bit less of a chance to hit them. That's more realistic.

I always wanted to give every ship a special like the Vorcha Poleron Torpedo. My thinking was that to imitate how in the shows even in battle the shields protected you for the most part there was always a chance that a system would go down and the crew would have to work to get it back up while fighting on. Every ship fires this special that looks just like their standard torpedo and has maybe a 5%-10% chance or something to disable a system. That makes it tad more realistic as well just like the shows. Perhaps bump up the repair time so the crew can have a chance at repairing it back to normal on the fly so it's not always a crippling blow.

 

[Majestic]

The funny thing is I have been working on the YY balancing of late and trying to find new ways to make things less stocky. I don't know if I have succeed at this point but your thread is a good way for all of us to combined ideas and share them.

I am thinking in the same lines as you in terms of the scout, I am actually thinking of dumping the scout from Yesteryears and merging it's ability with the frigate. As for models, the Oberth can become a map unit and the Klingon scout can become a destroyer.

The advantages of having higher sensor ranges on the smaller and weaker units means that they have and added use in late game as a spotter in fleets. For example I am making it that larger units have low sensor ranges and destroyers have higher ones. I even for the Federation have the Abbe AWACs sensor variant with an increased sensor range to allow destroyers to have an additional use in late game. I find the fact that even in FO destroyers become obsolete in late game a real shame as in real world navies you still see destroyers the US Navy isn't a fleet of carriers. That is something I like to see represented in mods.

As for specials in FO there are many passive specials and it's something I am hoping to use heavily in YY. Very few if any clickable specials as I am planning on having most of them as passives that the player won't see but will benefit them.

I am also setting it up that larger units will have a higher miss chance on smaller units and some smaller units will not be able to do much damage to larger units thus meaning you need to have a varied fleet. A small ship only has so much power generation and so can't produce the same power as a larger unit to their weapons. That's my thinking anyway.

 

[Rifraf]

I think my problem is that I just have such a block against doing some things with modding the game. I don't know like maybe Star Trek is sacred or something and because I didn't see it in the show then I can't put it in the game?

I'm certainly not criticizing your ideas or anything, but like you stated above about having larger ships with smaller sensor ranges and a destroyer with larger sensor range. It's like I can't accept that for whatever reason? I don't know why I just can't be open to some ideas? I guess in my mind I have to try to adhere to some kind of basic fundamental Star Trek design that I've accepted for myself or something? To me all the ships would have generally similar sensor ranges, but that also risks keeping the game bland. I know it's just a game and has to play fun and fair and all that, but I always get hung up on some ideas.

Another one is weapon damages. I was reading through the FO guide again earlier on passives and weapons and such and it just seems silly that I can't accept how they do some things. A torpedo would have the same explosive force whether it hits a brick wall, a ships hull, a stations shield or whatever due to the amount of explosive in the warhead however, people set up their mods to only do this much damage to a small ship, but more damage to a larger ship. It's the same explosive force so am I missing something? If your ship employs a different kind of shield array and has a larger warp core to power it then I guess maybe that answers my question? Is that the thinking?

Compare with me for a minute the Defiant and the Intrepid. The Defiant is small, agile, fast, tough with ablative armor, packs a punch with quantums and 4 pulse weapons. The Intrepid is larger yes, but has more advanced bio-neural circuitry so is more maneuverable and faster than an average cruiser (or so the theory goes.) It's phaser arrays cover way more area than the Defiant and though it carries standard torps it has more of them.

Sounds reasonably closely match in my opinion, but others may see it vastly different. So in game you have these two ships that are let's say reasonably equally matched. Too boring? Why build one over the other? Maybe I'm just waiting for that aha moment to see the light?

It's always been hard for me to accept some arbitrary artificial boundary or limit or exception placed on something in a game just for the sake of the game. But then I guess that is how every game is designed and I usually don't think about it this much.

 

[Majestic]

I can appreciate your views on thoughts on this @Rifraf you're approaching it from a more canon view yes? There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Many modders do this and their mods do work out to be fun and playable. Using your example of the same weapon doing the same damage no matter what ship it's on, did you ever play or mod Armada 1? In stock A1 all ship health was the same, it was just the weapon strengths that were different if memory serves. This however usually made it more feasible to spam destroyers and cruisers. Nothing wrong with that just a different style of gameplay.

The one thing that makes us different I think is you approach it from the on-screen/in-universe canon view while I do it from a gameplay/developer view. Moving into that field you can understand that my main focus is to make it fun (as no doubt is yours) while game mechanics are my main focus over canon on screen evidence hence the different sensor ranges on different units. My overall aim doing things like that is to make units useful, to make sure a destroyer in late game still has advantages over the larger more powerful units and still useful enough for a player to want to build some rather than doing the classic battleship rush that is so famous in the Armada games. After all I'd hate to think I made and textured all those models just for them to end up only being used for a few minutes.

Really it's just different approaches, and to be honest if we all did it my way or your way what is the point of making a mod?

With your torpedo example, have you considered that the torpedoes might have different yields? If memory serves me, in Trek there were different types of phaser arrays and torpedoes, like Mark 10 for example. Especially with phasers a smaller ship would have a smaller warp core or at least one that generates less power. At least that is my understanding and view so a smaller ship would no doubt have a weaker power output and thus not have as many powerful weapons. I remember in DS9 they were saying the Defiant was overpowered for a ship it's size which backs up my views on the subject a little. Now this would effect torpedoes as much being a projectile weapon. But perhaps torpedoes are armed using the ships reserves, I know Voyager had to do this being lost without support for 7 years. If this is the case perhaps smaller ships use a smaller mixture which would make it a lower yield torpedo. Some food for thought perhaps.

As for a torpedo doing more damage to a larger ship, I don't do that I make it do the same regardless of class. I just have a higher miss chance on smaller ships when it comes to torpedoes as a smaller ship is a smaller target and a faster one too.

I will continue to throw ideas your way in this thread, just to help build it and it might give others some inspiration when they do their own mods. It doesn't bother me in the least if they aren't used or someone disagrees with them.

 

[CABAL]

In stock A1 all ship health was the same, it was just the weapon strengths that were different if memory serves.

It's the other way around; each ship had its own health value, but they used the same weapons with the only differences being sprites and sounds, with a small handful of exceptions.

On weapons doing different amounts of damage do different things, I think it's a good idea to bring up the armor types found in other RTSs. For instance, in Command & Conquer, infantry and buildings take extra damage from fire while armored vehicles, like tanks, take reduced damage. In real life, Olympic-class liners (if their budgets hadn't been cut) would have been nearly unsinkable by natural hazards, but a torpedo or two probably could have taken them out anyway. In Trek, it's possible that due to the way the ship's armor and shields are configured, torpedoes or phasers may not be very effective against it while the other is.

 

[Majestic]

It's the other way around; each ship had its own health value, but they used the same weapons with the only differences being sprites and sounds, with a small handful of exceptions.

I knew it was one way or the other, I just couldn't remember which. Been a long time since I even played A1 much less looked at it's odf files.