Space / Tactical Fleet Combat Game / AI Progressing

[2ndACR]

Now what I would like to see is being able to do some space battles set in the Battletech genre. That would be awesome. Course they have fighters, drop ships along with destroyers, cruisers and all that good stuff. I was huge into it 20 years ago, and still feel the pull to want to play it some more. Really wish some would make a true open air campaign along those lines. Build a unit, watch it grow, recruit, equip, fight, raid, planetary assaults.

Curious if you game play out the warships from that genre?

[CarlVon]

Hi 2ndACR,

Unfortunately I never got to play the RPG. I played some good Battletech stuff on the computer during the years. Basically this is a hard core space combat simulation, fleets can get VERY large at this point. Once thing I loved about Battletech was science was much more hard than others out there. Think of this as Harpoon in space, but based on solid multiplayer (turn based) platform.

Send me a link of the Battletech stuff you liked if you have one.

[2ndACR]

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page

That is a quick one, I got hard copy books with all the rules and such. If you check the warship section, it lists all the warship class, weight, safe and max thrust etc. You can click on weapons systems and get a feel for their size and power.

I was big in the good old book days, back in the 1988 range, we had a group of 20-30 of us that played all the time. I over the years built a unit that was several Mech regiments strong with regiments of armor and infantry, had my own planet as a home world. I was the head cheese of my unit, each battle group had it's own real life human commander, one of our last game sessions lasted 3 days, played at a house me and one of my friends rented, was a multi planet defense against the Clans. Each battle was fought in a different room, so FOW was as maximum as we could make it. I watched my hard work in building and running my unit destroyed over those 3 days. IIRC, I started the campaign with a force of 4 Mech regiments, 6 armor regiments and 8 infantry regiments, 5 Aerospace wings of fighters and around 35 jumpships and over 100 dropships. Clans had warships and they decimated my force.

My dream has always been a computer game that took a bunch of the paperwork out of the game, but allowed me to pick a start year, slowly build my unit up, recruit my troops, do the payroll, upgrades, and fight the battle in a strategic format with random events and such. I don't need the FPS version of Mechwarrior even though I played them and enjoyed them. But to be able to fight in a strategic manner and maybe limited tactical would be my dream. Especially now that the genre has seen the re-birth of warships and such that just makes me itch for my dream.

[Plodder]

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

My dream has always been a computer game that took a bunch of the paperwork out of the game, but allowed me to pick a start year, slowly build my unit up, recruit my troops, do the payroll, upgrades, and fight the battle in a strategic format with random events and such. I don't need the FPS version of Mechwarrior even though I played them and enjoyed them. But to be able to fight in a strategic manner and maybe limited tactical would be my dream. Especially now that the genre has seen the re-birth of warships and such that just makes me itch for my dream.

You can pretty much do that now. Check out MegaMek for the java version of Battletech and MekHQ, which is an integrated campaign manager for MegaMek.

[CarlVon]

Very cool, I'm going to keep the link .

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Riga_%28WarShip%29

Here's what I like about it.

1. Heat is an issue
2. Lasers are the primary weapon
3. Armor is the primary defense - not "shields"

These ships are bigger than mine, although I have railguns and missiles for various secondary purposes. Most of our current ships are 1.5G thrust range, so same type of performance.

The frigates are around 150m by 12m beam, the battlships are around 400m by 20m beam. Lasers are in the single digit gigawatt range. I can send you some spec sheets if you want. Crew on a frigate is around 50, battleship around 250.

Ya, so far my game has is scratching an itch I have had for 20 years, it has some very deep strategy and tactics that I didn't expect.

[2ndACR]

No problem on keeping the link. Ah you are fine on the spec sheets. I will prob mess with your game at some point. Once you finish her that is. I was just curious if it could simulate those ships too.

[2ndACR]

Been messing with the MekHQ and such and it leaves much to be desired. I enjoy it, but the "bots" are pretty brain dead and dang sure cannot handle any real fights. Plus the fact that you have to break down units to have them handle different contracts is a major pain in the ass. No way to have a single training battalion to cover the needs of a multi regiment sized unit without breaking them down into training companies and assigning them to each sub unit.

Yes, I am a number cruncher who enjoys farming my guys from 18 years old and spend 2-3 years or more training them up before sending them to the line units as replacements.

Still going to wish for my dynamic campaign game.

[2ndACR]

Okay downloaded the version that is not listed as stable, that one is much better but will throw this out to everyone here................don't have any techs at all under Regular assigned to care for anything........while traveling to Great Gorge, I had 4 green techs assigned and by the time I arrived (almost a year) they had destroyed the 4 Mechs assigned to them. Suckers were listed as salvage from brand new. My thoughts are they better be Vets or Elite and I aint taking no chances anymore.

[flap]

Hello !

That game of yours seems interresting. I have question though : one feature I absolutely loved with "Begin" was that you could only give one command per turn (either to your ship, or giving general instructions to groups of other ships). Is it the same in your game ?

Or you can give unlimited commands per turn ?

[CarlVon]

Hi Flap,

Merry Christmas to all.

I loved Begin, a very fine game. The game turn scale is not fixed like begin, it's varible, based in seconds as the smallest unit. Some turns are 5 minutes, others are 2 seconds. Also, it doesn't have many abstract elements (like RPG), it is real time / turn based.

For example, there is a mapping system where you can ask it, hey.. where will we all be in 5 minutes, and it will show the exact positons of your ships, and the estimates on the enemy (assuming they don't think).

It's closer to the orginal Mech Warrior (Where time advanced and would break when events happen). Users vote on the next turn timescale, lowest always wins. It worked out much better than I thought. I will send a screenshot to illustrate.

- The purple ring is a range circle
- The white is the direction the ship is facing
- The blue is the flight path (based on 2 minutes timescale currently)
- The green is the direction the ships will be facing in 2 minutes

So I can see in 2 minutes Courageous is going to meet my lasers in the side if nothing changes, but he as to face that was to protect from Lepanto, I on the other hand will need to deal with Decoy, who by the way... Is his left flank decoy .

Don't think you know everything the enemy is going in space either, some of the ships can accelerate very fast and change the whole game in 1 minute.

Hope that give you some clarity.

[CarlVon]

Hey 2ndACR,

Can't promise any fighters -- unless they start at 5000 metric tons. But I can say there is much Glory to be had in this game so far. And pain as well when I loose . I even have some French ships for you! hehe.

The RPG you played one apon a time sounds fantastic!

[2ndACR]

Not French, American all the way.......my avatar is my old unit crest from the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

Been playing with the MegaMek.........has much potential. But so far no space battles unless you hunt down some humans. Oh well, not to the Clan invasion or warships yet. Got 1 campaign up to 3035 from a 2990 start date. Took my unit from a company up to a reinforced battalion. Lost my RPG commander to a head shot 4 years into the campaign. Had to generate a "son" to take over the unit when he gets of age, currently only 18 and just entering service (simulated this by generating a trooper with a age of 1 and letting him sit and age in game, will use the GM powers to remove all accumulated skill points so he is just like a normal rookie).

Toying with starting another campaign with a even earlier start date but need to refresh my memories on when most Star League era tech was lost.

[HeinzHarald]

I've been dreaming of a game like this but 3D for many years, given that the UI issue is somehow solved. But it looks pretty awesome in 2D as well.

Does it have anything to help formation forming mid combat? I'm thinking something like the battle computer telling you how long it would take to form up in a given way in a given location with selected ships, and then executing that movement order for all the ships at once.

[Scott_WAR]

Played something similar yeas ago.................its still around

http://fleetcombat.com/

[CarlVon]

ORIGINAL: HeinzHarald

I've been dreaming of a game like this but 3D for many years, given that the UI issue is somehow solved. But it looks pretty awesome in 2D as well.

Does it have anything to help formation forming mid combat? I'm thinking something like the battle computer telling you how long it would take to form up in a given way in a given location with selected ships, and then executing that movement order for all the ships at once.

Me as well Heinz, the engine is full 3D, but ya... Once you do a fleet battle you will understand .

Yes, there is a full system like that for time / space. Basically you can look at the entire map @ a specific time. It works very well, but your enemy can change that quickly.

It allows you to do some great planning. But then some jerk pushes his 2TW Fusion drive to full power on a Rapier Frigate -- accelerating to 4KMs and you need to re-adjust

This screenshot is from our large last battle, to the left are two of my Battleships, North my cruiser and frigate force, the Red are the Evil Meanfcker force, my attempt was to force him to face my battleships and then hit him on the sides with my northern force. But the battle was halted due to changes that needed to be done with the missile system. More specifically the CIWS (anti) missile system, it was too clunky, confusing and umm, boring. Ships can now turn it on automated.

Included is a picture at 60 seconds:
- White Lines = Facing Direction
- Blue Lines = Flight Path
- Green Lines = Future Facing Direction
- Purple = Hud Overlay Items

[CarlVon]

Hi Everyone,

The lobby is almost completed and we are just finishing up a few more rounds of testing. I was wondering if anyone would like to Play the game in the next few months. If so, please let me know. The lobby allows creation of your own battle spaces etc.

[boeduur]

looking great man, very excited about this game.

keep the updates coming!

[CarlVon]

Thanks for the kind words Boeduur, should be ready for online play in the near future.

[domitorastra]

I would love to help play-test this game, it sounds really cool
I got into the lost fleet series some time ago, and have been looking for a game to replicate that kind of combat, and this sounds like it. especially with the different weapons.
in the books they use kinetic weapons and missiles at long range and energy based weapons close up.
also something taken into account in the books is the time it takes commands to reach your fleet because at some points the fleet can be spread as far as 30 light-minuets apart from end to end.
if i it would be ok for me to play test this please contact me.

[domitorastra]

i would love a chance to play test this game,
if that would be possible please let me know