Transition to RTS Mode

I was thinking that once a player reaches a stage where they can go into Strategy mode, and evolution slows down because the timeframe becomes much slower and time passes slower, the traits your organism had before should affect your units. Improved eyes would result in an increased LoS for your units, or an extended range of fire for ranged units. Having a fast organism would in turn increase the speed of all of your units. Improved health and constitution would mean more HP for your units. Ideas?

NickTheNick wrote:

I was thinking that once a player reaches a stage where they can go into Strategy mode, and evolution slows down because the timeframe becomes much slower and time passes slower, the traits your organism had before should affect your units. Improved eyes would result in an increased LoS for your units, or an extended range of fire for ranged units. Having a fast organism would in turn increase the speed of all of your units. Improved health and constitution would mean more HP for your units. Ideas?

All the stuff like evo stop, Think about it, your creature eveolves while on Civ mode?
It's a smaller time scale.

NickTheNick wrote:

I was thinking that once a player reaches a stage where they can go into Strategy mode, and evolution slows down because the timeframe becomes much slower and time passes slower, the traits your organism had before should affect your units. Improved eyes would result in an increased LoS for your units, or an extended range of fire for ranged units. Having a fast organism would in turn increase the speed of all of your units. Improved health and constitution would mean more HP for your units. Ideas?

This hasn't already been discussed?

This would definitely be more realistic, and help gameplay, doing this goes without saying (which isn't good for development, so thanks for bringing it up ). The organisms stats should be the base stats that relevant researches/technologies add to.

But firstly, we need a list of the possible 'abilities', or 'stats' of an organism (Things like senses, with variable strength; speed; diet; etc, if I'm not mistaken). I don't think we have one yet, although we generally have a good idea of what they'll be. Once we have that list, we can work out how they will affect Strategy Mode.

ido66667 wrote:

NickTheNick wrote:

I was thinking that once a player reaches a stage where they can go into Strategy mode, and evolution slows down because the timeframe becomes much slower and time passes slower, the traits your organism had before should affect your units. Improved eyes would result in an increased LoS for your units, or an extended range of fire for ranged units. Having a fast organism would in turn increase the speed of all of your units. Improved health and constitution would mean more HP for your units. Ideas?

All the stuff like evo stop, Think about it, your creature eveolves while on Civ mode?
It's a smaller time scale.

He's saying stuff like if your organism has a natural shell it will defend better naturally, not that you evolve.

PTFace wrote:

ido66667 wrote:

NickTheNick wrote:

I was thinking that once a player reaches a stage where they can go into Strategy mode, and evolution slows down because the timeframe becomes much slower and time passes slower, the traits your organism had before should affect your units. Improved eyes would result in an increased LoS for your units, or an extended range of fire for ranged units. Having a fast organism would in turn increase the speed of all of your units. Improved health and constitution would mean more HP for your units. Ideas?

All the stuff like evo stop, Think about it, your creature eveolves while on Civ mode?
It's a smaller time scale.

He's saying stuff like if your organism has a natural shell it will defend better naturally, not that you evolve.

Oh, then ignore that post.

Ok so I am currently working on a list of values for units in post-sentience gameplay, but in the meantime guys please offer any suggestions for traits in organism mode that would translate into variable effects on your units after sentience. Another idea I got is that all types of attack by slightly increased for races with larger muscles in their grasping limbs.

Speed is something that would be absolutely important for early society stage, as most troops are on foot until you domesticate something to ride on. It would be fairly simple to extrapolate the traits in multicellular and aware stage (which I think ought to be merged, but that doesn't belong here) over to society and industrial for these purposes. In fact, a lot of these would be present and helpful in said stages.

Speed
LoS
Attack Strength
Health
Agility/Ability to Dodge


My few ideas. This is great work, guys. Thanks for holding the fort in my absence. I'd say that i'm coming back in a fuller capacity soon, but with things the way they are on my end i can't make any promises.

For attack strength, are we going to split it into different types of attack, like a basic number of types. I was thinking if we did it would be something like shock, pierce, energy, and maybe a few more.

Not sure if you've already said about this, but prehaps when your creature has larger muscles it's attack strength is higher, when it does a combo so lets say if it does 3 attacks in a row the final one is the strongest blow, and for smaller muscles it could depend on the inteligence of the creature, it could outsmart a different creature and by hitting it in it's weak spot it causes higher damage.

Well, obviously muscle size affects strength. I do not think there will be an attack system with "combos". Defining weak spots on units in strategy mode is impossible, unless... no it is impossible. In any RTS game units are based off of health and attack power. Dynamic attack systems have only been implemented in games such as Jedi Knight and Mount & Blade, both of which were 3rd person.

However, I would like to ask again, does anyone think that we should split attack power into different types of attack? Like shock, pierce, energy, etc.

i have an idea how about they make it like men of war. in this rts theres diferent comands like positions (siting prone and standing) and others like fire at will, hold fire ect. but my point is in men of war you can also directly control units. so lets have a 3rd person/ rts gameplay for civ. stage! because obiously i want to try the devious wepons o create with my evil genius of a mind! Rocket launcher revolver here i come!!!! ALL SHALL PERISH UNDER MY MIGHT!!!!!!:twisted:

wepon ideas. these are only effects your wepon dose, and it affects the animation as well. so don't worry you can make your own super revolver nuke missile launcher mounted to a battleship with tank tracks.:D

mele: lance, sword, knife, battle axe, war axe, war hammer, mele spear, mace.

balistics:

good ol throwing wepons and old timing stuff!: spears bows, crossbows, spear launcher....yeah

shotgun: scatters many bullets per shot/poor range

Rifle/musket: single shot per button tap very acurate at range depending on the tech/not so good if you need a quick to draw wepon in a saloon..

Assault wepons: like a machine gun but....less rounds/more accurate than a machine gun

Machine guns:just a normal rapid fire wepon...but if a gantling it has to be cranked and is not self propelled..

grennade: do i relly have to explain this one?

tank main gun: armor peircing or high explosive rounds fired by this magnificent wepon!

Artillery: a long ranged wepon for shelling the enemy lines with high explosives, or a anti armor wepon.

rapid burst wepons: basicly anti air at its finest, high explosive shells with a rapid firerate

apc cannon: weaker than a tank but 3-5 shots instead of 1 before reloading

cannons: ........yup

missiles: includes similar wepons like the rpg, anti armor launcher, mobile sam vehiles, sam turrent, jet missiles, even nucular missiles....the only wepon i think is overpowered...:evil:

energy:

plasma:.....umm fire, and nucular fission and fusion would fall into this category i guess (geez i hate nucular fission....)

Electricity:.......THORRRSSS HAMMMER MOTHER ###!!

Light: lazers are one of the light waves that can be used

Black holes?: idk if this could be a superwepon thing?

Biological wepons!!!!!

Chemical: any gas and vapor

Acid: nuff said

Virus/and/bacterial:.......this is a disturbing one

Parasite: a acceptable living thing, since i like all animals/life equaly to a certain degree...i will never hate a speices..... only a certain populations in ours that believes that sucicide bombing girls shcools is a ''moral'' thing to do.. and other messed up stuff we dream up..

NickTheNick wrote:

However, I would like to ask again, does anyone think that we should split attack power into different types of attack? Like shock, pierce, energy, etc.

Yup.

Although, with the large amounts of possible attack types trying to find suitable protection while taking all of them into account would be nearly impossible. We could use all of the attack types to produce a general defence ranking for materials/armour which would give an impression of how useful it is in battle.
When in earlier stages, things like protection from energy attacks should be left out of this ranking, to stop the player from finding it necessary to add rubber insulation into their armour or something. In fact, to begin with, only a few physical attack types which would be possible in multicellular stage would be considered, and as the relevant technologies are encountered/gained their attack type will be added as a factor.


And now, for some maths!

Variables:
Attack value (1-10 for general lethality)
Price (Maybe mean of every civilisation's)
Encountered (a count of how many battles this attack type has been used in)
Protection (against an attack type, 1-100)

(Attack value÷Price)×Encountered=Threat (a higher price means less chance of use, so lower threat, but higher encounter rate is direct evidence for more threat. Attack value just allows different attack types to pose more of a threat than others)

Protection×Threat=Usefulness (A higher threat makes protection from it more useful)

Then the global usefulness is:
(sum of Usefulness against every attack type)÷(sum of all attack types with Encountered>0)


And thus we have a global defence ranking!

Yes, that's a good idea. So new attack types and defenses for those attack types do not appear until it has been encountered at least once. Even if you haven't researched you might encounter others who have.

I like your model of weapon usefulness. It is concise and simple, yet I would suggest that we greatly increase the lethality range, to help distinguish between the lethality of a slingshot versus a nuclear missile.

So I was thinking the types of damage are:

Pierce: Stabs, Projectiles
Shock: Slashes, Clubbing
Poison: Toxic gas, toxic acid
Energy: Beams/lasers
Ballistic: Explosive projectiles

Any suggestions for more? We need to keep the list as concise as possible, so try to group similar weapon/damage types together.

I agree there should be more lethality levels, the difference between levels should also be exponentially bigger as the level rises, since a difference between two nuclear missiles of about one or two sword slashes worth of lethality is hardly noteworthy, while it definitely would be important in a sword fight.


Suggestions:
Energy: Electricity, electromagnetic pulse* (A.K.A. light) (effectiveness variable, basically blinds the opponent), sonic burst (A.K.A. sound) (same idea as light, but with sound, deafens the enemy, effectiveness variable)
Poison (maybe): Viruses, bacteria (or just ‘biological weapons’, though there is a difference between them)
Cybernetic: Computer virus, scrambler, electromagnetic pulse*
Ballistic/shock: (Blunt) projectiles (e.g. stones, cannonballs, maybe asteroids/comets/meteors on space-ships) (Probably)

*Two completely different uses of an electromagnetic pulse, and so would fall under different categories. I'm pretty sure they would use different wavelengths, too, to suit their use. However, they are the same 'type' of attack. Should we distinguish between them?


Well, the cybernetic category seems like it won't work nicely with my equation, since by default you have complete immunity and you can become more vulnerable to it… If fact, I haven't taken into account variances in how vulnerable your organism is.

Variables:
Lethality (1-100 for general lethality)
Vulnerability (1-100 based on some complicated stuff to do with your organism's properties, and any mechanical parts which have become a integral part of the organism…)

Attack value = Lethality × vulnerability

Fixed… Sort of.

Yes, I think exponential would be good.

Ahh, cybernetic, hadn't thought of that. So the list so far is:

Pierce: Stabs, Sharp Projectiles
Shock: Slashes, Clubbing
Poison: Toxic gas, toxic acid
Energy: Beams/lasers
Ballistic: Explosive projectiles
Cybernetic: Electronic scrambling/attack

So, if I understood you correctly, the first electromagnetic pulse would be like a gamma ray or neutron ray/beam being fired at an opponent, whereas the second is a pulse that disables all electronic equipment in a certain area, like EMP in CoD?

NickTheNick wrote:

Yes, I think exponential would be good.

Ahh, cybernetic, hadn't thought of that. So the list so far is:

Pierce: Stabs, Sharp Projectiles
Shock: Slashes, Clubbing
Poison: Toxic gas, toxic acid
Energy: Beams/lasers
Ballistic: Explosive projectiles
Cybernetic: Electronic scrambling/attack

So, if I understood you correctly, the first electromagnetic pulse would be like a gamma ray or neutron ray/beam being fired at an opponent, whereas the second is a pulse that disables all electronic equipment in a certain area, like EMP in CoD?

The first EMP is intended to blind the opponent (or just make them unseeing), so this would be done with visible light (this is the sort of thing). A gamma/neutron ray/beam sounds more like your suggestion for this category, in my opinion.
As for the second, I know very little about CoD, so I'll just say probably. The effect is basically what you said, as Wikipedia puts it: ‘The resulting rapidly-changing electric fields and magnetic fields may couple with electrical/electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges.’.


You seem to have missed the majority of my suggestions from the list so far…

Well, if it is a non-lethal attack, I don't think it would fall under an attack type category. Stuns, flashes, and disorientation cannot be simulated very well if they are categorized as attack types, IMO. What I meant by the EMP is exactly what you quoted.

However, I was thinking that cybernetic attacks, such as malware and viruses, do not fall under attack types either. Cybernetic attacks, as far as I know, do not do physical damage. I think they would need separate treatment, like disorientation/LTL weapons.

I'm sorry if it seemed like I ignored your suggestions, it is just many of them I had already listed, so I thought you were agreeing with them and then the extra ones were your suggestions. My opinions on the matter are the ballistic and shock be kept separate. I was thinking ballistic just covers any explosive/combustible projectile, and shock be separate as slashing/blunt and hacking attacks. I also really like your equation, I don't see any flaws!

NickTheNick wrote:

Well, if it is a non-lethal attack, I don't think it would fall under an attack type category. Stuns, flashes, and disorientation cannot be simulated very well if they are categorized as attack types, IMO.

Good point. However, electricity can hurt, and kill, just like any other type of attack. Light and sound can permanently blind and deafen, though is probably handled differently from regular attacks.

Quote :

What I meant by the EMP is exactly what you quoted.

I thought so, it was just for general clarification, since disable can also mean deactivate.

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However, I was thinking that cybernetic attacks, such as malware and viruses, do not fall under attack types either. Cybernetic attacks, as far as I know, do not do physical damage. I think they would need separate treatment, like disorientation/LTL weapons.

For the cybernetic attacks, I was thinking mainly about species which have integrated technology into their bodies, for enhanced communication and calculation, to whom having their electronic equipment disabled would be almost as much as a loss as having a limb or part of their brains removed. Nevertheless, you do have a good point.

Quote :

I'm sorry if it seemed like I ignored your suggestions, it is just many of them I had already listed, so I thought you were agreeing with them and then the extra ones were your suggestions. My opinions on the matter are the ballistic and shock be kept separate. I was thinking ballistic just covers any explosive/combustible projectile, and shock be separate as slashing/blunt and hacking attacks.

Alright, I just found it hard to tell how they were organised from what you listed; I was a bit confused, as ballistic is defined as ‘relating to projectiles or their flight’.
In that case, I would suggest making an entry for ignited projectiles under ballistic.
(i.e. projectiles with ignited tips; igniting the whole thing would just be silly!)

Also, you did miss biological weapons (G.E. microbes), and I thought they were a pretty good idea!

Quote :

I also really like your equation, I don't see any flaws!

For centuries people didn't see flaws in the geocentric system, but thanks anyway.

Ahh right, electrical attacks. Under energy then?

For ballistics, even though the actual definition is just any flying projectile, I was thinking we have it refer to explosive/flammable (just like you suggested) projectiles only. Non explosive/flammable projectiles would fall under pierce, like arrows and slingshots and javelins.

Biological weapons, right, I forgot. I think we could even put poison in with biological.

So here is the list:

Attack Types
Pierce: Stabs, Sharp Projectiles
Shock: Slashes, Clubbing
Energy: Beams/lasers/electricity
Ballistic: Explosive/Flammable projectiles
Biological: Toxic gas/acid, microbes

Non-Physical
Visual: Light waves
Sonic: Sound waves
Cybernetic: Electronic scrambling/attack