Improving Interstellar Standoffs
Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2003 6:46 pm
After firing off hundreds of Interstellar Standoffs and actually destroying a world with them I've got some suggestions on how to improve this feature. The IS is truly a fire-and-forget weapon, a strange oddity in this age of instant gratification.
First off the IS weapons take way too long to arrive at their targets. I had to wait about 3 years for even the closest shots to start appearing, and even longer for IS attacks across the galaxy. I would think that IS weapons would use jump drive tech so they shouldn't take near as long as they do now. I would like to see the time to arrive on target cut in half or a third.
Targetting needs to be fixed so that the city/world you select from the list is the city/world that actually gets attacked. Regardless of the city/world I chose the program always sent those IS weapons to the city/world that was at the top of the target list. Last night on a schedule of shooting off IS's every 14 months I was able to fill up the target queue for the default city/world and the program actually made the next world/alpha city the default target. Didn't play long enough to actually see if those shots actually hit that second world.
I'm not sure what the targetting problem was. I would set up production of 8 or 9 IS weapons that would all be finished at the same time, and with 2 worlds with double maximum shots I ended up with 10 or 11 IS shots per turn. I'm not sure if having multiple IS shots ready at the same time caused a problem but it shouldn't. If a player selects a certain city from the IS target list that should be the city the IS weapon attacks.
Another annoying thing was that when a city was destroyed by IS weapons any other IS weapons still in transit were automatically eliminated. Then if the city reappears a month later it no longer is a target for those prematurely and incorrectly eliminated IS weapons. Regardless of whether a city is destroyed or not the IS weapons should still fly and attack, even if they attack a blank spot on the world. They would still attract defensive fire and if the city reappears quickly they will once again have a viable target. I had this happen to me as I watched an IS destroy the alpha city and then before a month could pass the city reappeared again but all those IS weapons in transit still, probably close to 20, were history.
I really did enjoy watching the IS weapons make their attacks. At 10x speed with multiple IS weapons coming in from different directions it was fun to watch. A little boring watching the defenses shoot them down early but a lot of fun when they started overwhelming the defenses and actually penetrating to hit the cities and blow them away. This could be a really fun feature if it is fixed to work correctly and players can see the results of their attacks quicker.
Eric Larsen
First off the IS weapons take way too long to arrive at their targets. I had to wait about 3 years for even the closest shots to start appearing, and even longer for IS attacks across the galaxy. I would think that IS weapons would use jump drive tech so they shouldn't take near as long as they do now. I would like to see the time to arrive on target cut in half or a third.
Targetting needs to be fixed so that the city/world you select from the list is the city/world that actually gets attacked. Regardless of the city/world I chose the program always sent those IS weapons to the city/world that was at the top of the target list. Last night on a schedule of shooting off IS's every 14 months I was able to fill up the target queue for the default city/world and the program actually made the next world/alpha city the default target. Didn't play long enough to actually see if those shots actually hit that second world.
I'm not sure what the targetting problem was. I would set up production of 8 or 9 IS weapons that would all be finished at the same time, and with 2 worlds with double maximum shots I ended up with 10 or 11 IS shots per turn. I'm not sure if having multiple IS shots ready at the same time caused a problem but it shouldn't. If a player selects a certain city from the IS target list that should be the city the IS weapon attacks.
Another annoying thing was that when a city was destroyed by IS weapons any other IS weapons still in transit were automatically eliminated. Then if the city reappears a month later it no longer is a target for those prematurely and incorrectly eliminated IS weapons. Regardless of whether a city is destroyed or not the IS weapons should still fly and attack, even if they attack a blank spot on the world. They would still attract defensive fire and if the city reappears quickly they will once again have a viable target. I had this happen to me as I watched an IS destroy the alpha city and then before a month could pass the city reappeared again but all those IS weapons in transit still, probably close to 20, were history.
I really did enjoy watching the IS weapons make their attacks. At 10x speed with multiple IS weapons coming in from different directions it was fun to watch. A little boring watching the defenses shoot them down early but a lot of fun when they started overwhelming the defenses and actually penetrating to hit the cities and blow them away. This could be a really fun feature if it is fixed to work correctly and players can see the results of their attacks quicker.
Eric Larsen