Armor, part II

[Kuciwalker]

Yes, but we don't have to know that it's internally inconsistant, because we're not proving it.

[Jeremy Buloch]

Targon,

Yes your quite right. Yet There are some theories which cannot be broken by any mathmatical calculation.
-J.B.-

[Kuciwalker]

How many of our players are actually going to do the math and physics?

It's a game.

[Leland]

Aww forget it. This post edited away due to reading comprehension problems on my part.

[Kuciwalker]

Well, it can't be internally inconsistent if we don't explain it, right?

[Leland]

In a game, if something is inconsistent then the player will eventually bump into it. For example, if you have incredibly expensive space ships that take a long time to travel between stars, and on the other hand you have interstellar economy that manages to haul millions of tons of stuff between planets A and B each turn, then the player will eventually wonder "why can't I just put my troops in one of them trade ships?". Or if you have nanotechnical super-duper high tech replicators available at your planet, yet you have to import simple stuff like "food" or "alloys" from other systems. Most contradictions in science fiction aren't exactly rocket science.. uh... bad wording. But anyway, there's no question that even if the game world makes no sense to the player, he might still enjoy it as an abstract strategy game. It's just that the background feels less alive... for example, one of the great things about SMAC is that the world it depicts works to at least some degree and I can imagine that I'm actually colonizing a planet instead of just moving chess pieces across a table.

[Jeremy Buloch]

Yes, I agree with Leland.

I however would like the game to be closer to the "real" world with theoretical Ideas and some really neat non~theoretical Ideas. The theoretical Ideas would be the ones that are already thought about and considered by theoretical physicists and etc. The Non~Theorectical Ideas would be ones that were never thought up by someone or was ruled impossible. Which in the future might become possible. So therefore we can mix real and unreal in the story to make it seem realistic and at the same time making it sound different, unique and interesting.
Just my thoughts on the subject.
-J.B.-

[Blake]

Leland and JB are both talking sense. I think the best way to mix reality, sci-fi and magic is like this:

The base of the tech tree is "modern" technology. Fission, spaceflight, cell phones.
Guns that propel lead at lethal velocity.

The first third (or so) of the tech tree is near-future technology, a lot of this will be in R&D labs already. Stuff like Fusion power, quantum computers, nano-manafacturing, space elevators. We can pretty much say how it works, but civilisation on earth does not yet have the materials, energy sources, or processes to build such devices. Weapons will include military grade lasers, ion cannons, rail guns. Infantry will get powered armour enabling them to perform incredible feats of strength, agility and speed. We can say "how" such a suit would work, it auguments the humans muscles & senses, monitors health&condition, is tough enough to deflect small arms fire. It's just that here in the 21st century we do not yet have a portable power source that can power such a suit, and our material and robotics are a bit primative.

The middle third will introduce sci-fi stuff like hyperdrives and stargates, energy weapons, nanoreplication. We can give a "technobabble" explaination of how it works, if we wants. Mostly we limit ourself to describing what it does.

The end of the tech tree will involve supertech, we cant imagine how it works, and must content ourselves with imagining what it might do. Things like replicators that turn pure energy into stuff, like cars or steaks. Weapons that banish the enemy into an alternate universe, or cause stars to go nova.

[Kuciwalker]

I think the BEGINNING must include hyperdrive.

[Jeremy Buloch]

Yes Blake is exactly right. I go with that Idea.

Skywalker, Please explain to us why you think "Hyperdrives" should be in the begining of the game. Also Hyperdrives should be discussed in the "Engine/Propulsion" thread. So you may want to post there to have everything in one neat place.
-J.B.-

[Kuciwalker]

I think the beginning needs to include hyperdrive because it would be very difficult, in game terms, to make the HUGE transition that going from sublight to hyperdrive transit would represent. Travel time would go from years to weeks or days - maybe hours. If you've modeled the game time so that it fits with STL speeds, you can't have it fit with hyperdrive speeds.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by targon
…That's why "ball" warheads are so effective (even against kevlar). And unsimultaneity fears are completely irrelevant for "energy" beams. That kind of weapons may really benifit form beam patterns other than classic TEM_00, I may show you math if you have any doubts.

I think I'm confused by your translation again. "Military ball" ammunition is full metal jacket rounds defined by the Geneva Convention articles banning soft, mushrooming ammo. So far the only ammo effective against standard multilayer kevlar are small, hard, pointy rounds that pierce or heavy, large-calibre rounds that overwhelm by force.

There are "penetrator" rounds that have a pointy core of tungsten like the tip of a welding rod. The lead round stops against kevlar or armor but the rod keeps going with enough concentrated energy to pierce almost any kind of personal armor. Don't know if the newer linear kevlar is effective against penetrators. Penetrators violate GC, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't be in a game like this.

I'm also confused by "TEM_00." Gimme a hint, at least…

[Straybow]

I agree with Leland on inconsistencies like in MOO2 you could send a million citizens anywhere using 5 Freighters, but no military units on any number of Freighters. Very annoying. But there are other examples where the tactical and strategic scales create inconsistencies.

A classic example from Civ2 is Pikemen getting double defense value vs. mounted attackers. That makes some sense in a tactical game, but when the unit is defending inside City Walls how do they get both the City Walls bonus and the Pike bonus? Or in a forest, or on a river?

Sure, you can picture limited tactical cases where the defenders could use their pikes against a charge. With combat taking place any time during a turn months or years in length all tactical factors get submerged beneath the strategic factors. They might be besieged and starved out, never getting the chance to set their pikes against a charging enemy.

This and similar problems are inherent to the tactical-strategic divide. A strategic game of this scope needs to move away from the tactical aspects of units except where the tactical aspect makes the strategic impossible. In SMAC you could have energy weapon "artillery." How do you bombard over fortifications, or over the horizon, with a line-of-sight energy weapon?

How do you make a ground attack aircraft with a line-of-sight energy weapon but it can't attack from a standoff? Any surface vehicles/structures in sight should be dead meat, barring beam dissipation problems at long ranges. Even for air-to-air combat energy weapons change the rules. The USofA has an airborne laser testbed that can hit aircraft out to 300 miles. It has not been tested against ground targets, to my knowledge. (So far the expense and limited number of shots make it impractical.)

Making an aircraft targetting system for energy weapon small arms and light vehicle guns can't be that hard. Gyros to stabilize, electronics to sight and lock on. Once developed, AAA and SAM options in SMAC (for example) would be included in any energy weapon system at very little cost. Heavy surface weapons could be somewhat effective at strategic distances against targets at high altitude, making "artillery" attacks against air units possible in SMAC.

Getting back on topic, armor has limited effect on strategic defense unless it is 100% proof against the attack form. Maybe with "shields" you could claim that, but not with any physical armor that can't cover head-to-toe in invulnerable thicknesses. The only real defense is to deny the enemy opportunity to target you by suppressing fire or evasion or cover.

[targon]

Straybow, you're right, armor is't any good protection against specialized armor-piercing stuff, but tanks, in fact, were designed to withstand m-gun fire, and who questions they're good against it? Tank lives very short life (~15 min) in tank-to-tank battle, it's easy prey for aviation and so on. But all these armor layers are _perfect_ against splinters, bullets, various collateral damage, chemicals, napalm and so on.
Concerning strategic/tactical matters. Correct me if I'm wrong, but StP seems to solve this problem via two-level approach, namely strategic game/"RTS" battles. The battle engine may really use LOS, terrain features and other interesting things.

[Straybow]

I'm not so hot about the RTS battle thingy. That's the problem, really: trying to execute strategic combat with a tactical model. Warships inherently straddle the strategic-tactical divide. With infantry and tanks and aircraft that isn't so.

Rarely does a single tactical unit make a decisive difference in ground combat. Infantry units are seldom destroyed, but rather disrupted by losses from which they can be regrouped within the strategic time scale. While tanks are (as you said) short-lived in the heat of battle, the wreckage left behind is frequently scavenged for parts or even salvaged and refitted to fight again, within the strategic time scale.

The effect of air interdiction can't be modeled on an RTS battlefield, either. Your tanks don't move on the strategic scale if my aircraft find and destroy your fuel depot and pick off the supply trucks. Do you want to have to micromanage trucks to refuel your tanks on the battlefield? Supply your troops with food and ammo? Try to defend them against marauding air units?

Those things are more likely to define the outcome of a strategic engagement than whether my poofdas can bypass your snoffle-proof shields.

[Jeremy Buloch]

I think the beginning needs to include hyperdrive because it would be very difficult, in game terms, to make the HUGE transition that going from sublight to hyperdrive transit would represent. Travel time would go from years to weeks or days - maybe hours. If you've modeled the game time so that it fits with STL speeds, you can't have it fit with hyperdrive speeds.

Ok since this is an armor thread we discuss armor and sometimes a few off-topic things. This however is not about armor and needs to be discussed in a thread that is about propulsion which there is one.

We dont want this thread to be deleted cause of too many off-topic discussions so I ask you to please consider the consequences of your actions.

Best regards,
Jeremy Buloch