Space Opera - Test Games

[GrumpyMel]

Turn 23 sent on.

It looks like the war has widened and the fragile peace among the Great Houses is spiraling out of control.

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

NExt turn t Casus Belli...

[GrumpyMel]

Turn 24 sent on to Lunaticus

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

And turn sent on to Casus_Belli.
Two things I noticed:
1. I think the impassable terrain around the map is set to be a "sea" hex. This makes it possible for ships to be retreated in battle onto it which effectively puts them out of reach. I think if it were land then ships cannot be retreated on it and it is possible to make it impossible for land units to enter, too.
2. Maybe you could give a quick overview on the special strengths of the units which can be bought by research upgrades? What does the Psi-Corps do (except looking menacingly)? 

[GrumpyMel]

1) Good Catch, I'll fix that on my next update.

2) PSI Corps, I'll check the description to see if it doesn't include enough detail. They function a little bit like mortars. Rear area units with strong attacks. However, their attacks have an insanely low kill % (I think I made it 1%) so they hardly ever directly kill an enemy unit just trash it's readiness. They are also effective against all types of units (since the armor of a tank won't do much to protect the crews minds). However, they are very expensive to build and are very fragile themselves if attacked in combat.

[GrumpyMel]

Turn 25 sent on to House Romanov

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

And on to Casus-Belli.

[GrumpyMel]

On to Lunaticus.

The Galaxy appears to be quickly spiraling into the chaos of a general war, as House Sian-Chi unprokedly and visciously attacks a lightly armed Cadwall scout ship.

[Casus_Belli]

A crime of the high seas, against sovereignty, for sure!

[Casus_Belli]

This scenario is impressing me more and more , especially since I finally figured out the transport system.

After this one is over, I'd love to have another game.

GrumpyMel: did you get my message?

[GrumpyMel]

Casus,

Glad you are liking the game so far. The last version I put up should be even better. Did not get your message but you can send it to sd.grumpymel@gmail.com if you want...I should get it at that address.

Speaking of the game.... Turn 27 sent on to perfidious House Romanov... who has engaged in an unprovoked attack against my space forces. Fortunately Cadwall forces did not suffer serious losses and gave slightly better then they have gotten so far. Time to crank up the propag... er "fair and balanced" House Cadwall news sources.[:D]

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

Turn 27 to Casus. I have to speak out against the propaganda from House Cadwall. It was my peaceful forces who have been attacked without provocation.

[sapper32]

Turn 27 sent on,Very impresive game very enjoyable i too had problems at first with the transport system it seemed my transport fleet wouldnt enter the orbit point which it does now so i was unloading my units off the jump transport into the orbit point then i had to transfer the lander into the orbit point to paradrop the units onto the planet now i can just sail my transport fleets into the orbit points and paradrop units off no problems??? not sure what happened maybe it was just me anyway great game.

Ian

[GrumpyMel]

Sapper,

Orbit Points act as both ports & air-bases in the regular game (same for Starbases as well). So if you don't control them, your ships and planes can't enter them. Once you "capture" them by off-loading a ground troop... your ships are free to enter them (even if the ground troop leaves).... and your Landers are free to base out of them.

One of the limitations of the engine, unfortunately. The scenerio has a few quirks like that in order to make the space/ground thing work with the AT engine.

[GrumpyMel]

Turn 28 sent on to House Romanov.

The games starting to get interesting now as the war between the Houses is going into full bloom.

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

Turn 29 sent to Casus_Belli

[GrumpyMel]

Turn 30 on to Lunaticus

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

Really nice scenario. Now that there are multiple wars occuring I think the intensity is much enhanced. Will be interesting to see what is going to happen.

One comment on balance: I think the space missiles are too expensive to be worth it. I did a quick estimation of loss and expense ratios and think they would hurt me more than any opponent if I were to use them. But am open to different views of course.

[GrumpyMel]

Lunaticus,

Too expensive in terms of resources, production points or both? The interesting thing about missles is that they are ground produced, but clearly the bottle-neck is not in starbase production but in resources.

I've been toying with the idea of making missles, landers and fighters/bombers use mineral resources instead. Thus the only things that would use Isotopes would be jump capable space-craft. If I did that, I might want to increase the production/resource costs of them the missles/fighters/bombers though...so you wouldn't be overly swamped with them.

Any thoughts about that approach?

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

I think in the current game we are playing Isotopes are the most critical resources so having missiles consume minerals would help. On the other hand you said that you did some changes to resources so need to see how this works.

Currently my reasoning is as follows:
Did a simulation with 10 missiles bombarding a fleet of 4 frigates, 2 destroyers, 1 cruiser (which is fairly common I think). Everything set to 0 xp and normal morale although in a real game the missiles are further handicapped since they will never earn morale and their XP are limited.
In the simulation the 10 missiles were all lost killing on average 0.85 frigates, 0.16 destroyers and 0.04 cruisers. Of course additional damage from readiness loss comes along, too, but the 10 missiles are a cost of 600 Isotopes and  whereas the fleet damage is worth 175,5 isotopes on average which is way too low....
I am assuming things are similar with prodpoints but currently isotopes rule everything.