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2024-05-09 Fleets, Starforce, C4 Doors, Shield Types - Haxus - 05-09-2024
Fleets
I don't always know what I'm going to work on next. Sometimes the current sweeps me away. This past two weeks I found myself unexpectedly delving into fleet formations of spacecraft. Here is the result.
A ship can be designated as a flagship of a fleet. Any number of ships can be joined to that flagship's fleet. An empire can have more than one flagship thus more than one fleet.
A new Fleet order was added to the Mission Orders list. Using a Fleet order, you can order a ship to become a flagship, to join a flagship, or to depart from their fleet. Ordering a fleet ship to become a flagship promotes it to the flagship and the previous flagship is demoted. Ordering a flagship to exit the fleet dissolves the fleet.
A new Fleet page was added to the Spacecraft window tabs. There are some fleet management controls to designate the ship as a flagship, to join a fleet, and to exit a fleet. Fleet ships check in with the flagship periodically. The flagship lists those ships in a table with information about them on the Fleet page. Right click them to manage them.
One handy action that is not obvious is that you can select multiple ships in your fleet and right click on the one that will be the new flagship. Then select the Make Fleet menu option and they will split off into a separate fleet with the new flagship.
The Fleet page also has a combo box to select the fleet formation. This determines where the ships in the fleet belong relative to the flagship. Formation changes happen instantly; locked ships immediately change positions rather than have a gaggle of ships trying to rearrange themselves.
At the helm, you see a box indicating your ship's position in the fleet when it is not locked into position. Once you are close enough to that spot, you can use a helm button to lock your ship into its formation position. At that point, your ship is slaved to the flagship and it will move in sync with the flagship until it is unlocked, which the pilot (or the flagship) can do at any time.
NPC pilots of fleet ships always try to reach their formation position so they can lock in to the fleet. They are more successful when the flagship is not moving. Some formations, such as column formation, make it easier for the ships to get locked into their positions.
I tried having NPCs fly in formation and I tried it myself. That was a fools errand with ships that accelerate or decelerate at hundreds of meters per second constantly and that lack the ability to achieve that fine of control. Airplanes and navy ships can easily move at the same speed as each other, making formations a bit easier. Not so with spacecraft trying to go the speed of light as fast as possible all the time.
The locking mechanism proved to be the answer. It might not be super realistic but it gets the job done and it looks pretty good. It also keeps the fleet together very well through wormholes and at warp speed. The NPC pilot of the flagship considers the radius of the entire fleet when avoiding obstacles.
The fleet ship checkin information shown in the Fleet table is used to limit the maximum warp and maximum acceleration of the fleet to the slowest ships. If anybody can't warp the flagship will not go to warp. Likewise, if anybody can't wormhole the flagship will not go through wormholes.
When flying to a space station, the flagship moves the fleet next to the station as if it were one huge ship. All the locked ships in the fleet are considered to be in range of the station for trade purposes.
Fleet ships are free to have their own individual missions. They just can't move if they are locked. There are a few mission orders that become the current order for the entire fleet when they are the current order for the flagship. They are: Attack, Plunder, Hide, and Stand Down.
I haven't tested every possible situation with fleets. Beware of "Land" orders. I'm not sure how that would go. If you have trouble with fleets, avoid using them until the next update. I'm sure there will be improvements between now and then.
Starforce
The addition of fleets introduced a nomenclature problem. Previously all government owned spacecraft were called fleet ships. Privately owned vessels are called company ships.
I struggle with this one. I almost went with Navy but that is just too nautical. Space Force? Not a chance. Space Fleet? Space Navy? Ho hum. Star Fleet? :/
Searching did not turn up any existing trademark on the term Starforce. There was a video game called Star Force, two words, but I figure that's no more of a problem than saying star fleet, instead of starfleet™. If anybody knows of a conflict please tell me and I will consider changing it.
I did in fact change the term Star Fleet Academy to Starforce Academy.
There is now a Starforce comm channel and a Fleet comm channel. The Starforce channel talks to all ships in your empire that are not fleet vessels under a flagship. In other words, only the flagships and ships not in fleets will answer on the Starforce channel. Of course, only ships with an officer will answer hails.
The Fleet channel communicates with other ships in the same fleet.
C4 Doors
Someone commented that explosives like C4 and dynamite do not open the doors of spacecraft.
The code for explosives required them to be very close to the door switch, not the door. I fixed that. This works well now. You can stick a bomb onto a door anywhere and it should blow open.
Incidentally, a door that is blown open becomes jammed open. A jammed door will not close itself and it cannot be closed with a remote door switch. It requires someone to physically touch the door to close it.
Shield Types
There are three kinds of energy shields but they all do the exact same thing.
This is finally done. Here is the result.
Cloaking shield was renamed to Stealth shield. The name is more indicative of what it does. Unlike the cloaking shield of popular scifi which acts more like an invisibility cloak.
- Kinetic Shield - Provides full protection against kinetic damage. Provides 20% less protection against energy damage.
- Energy Shield - Provides full protection against energy damage. Provides 20% less protection against kinetic damage.
- Stealth Shield - Provides 20% less protection against kinetic and energy damage. Reduces sensor detection range based on shield module quality. If sensor can't detect your ship, weapons cannot lock onto it.
RE: 2024-05-09 Fleets, Starforce, C4 Doors, Shield Types - Haxus - 05-09-2024
Quote:which the pilot (or the flagship) can do at any time.
This is a bit of a misstatement. The flagship cannot unlock a ship from its position. It can only dismiss the ship from the fleet, which unlocks the ship.
RE: 2024-05-09 Fleets, Starforce, C4 Doors, Shield Types - Haxus - 05-09-2024
Fleet Formations
Here is the list of the fleet formations that I came up with. I'm open to suggestions if you have one you'd like me to add.
Formations are described relative to the flagship. Fleet ships are arranged starting with the largest down to the smallest. No formation places a fleet ship directly in front of the flagship.
- Column - Fleet ships are placed in a straight line out behind the flagship.
- Echelon Left - Fleet ships are placed in a line to the left angled 30 degrees back.
- Echelon Right - Fleet ships are placed in a line to the right angled 30 degrees back.
- Rank - Fleet ships are placed alternating in straight lines to the right and to the left.
- Rank Left - Fleet ships are placed in a line to the left.
- Rank Right - Fleet ships are placed in a line to the right.
- Shells - Inspired by electron shells. The flagship is at the center. The first 2 fleet ships are placed to the left and right of the flagship. The next 8 fleet ships form a box at the next larger shell radius. The next 28 ships form a sphere at the next larger radius.
- Shield - Fleet ships form concentric rings of 8 ships a short distance in front of the flagship. Many rings would look like a target with the flagship peering out of the bullseye.
- Sphere - Fleet ships form a sphere centered on the flagship. At 8 ships, a box is formed. At 12 ships, the positions match the vertices of an icosahedron. Additional ships form concentric icosahedrons at increasing radii out from the flagship.
- Vee - Fleet ships are placed alternating in straight lines to the right and to the left, angled 30 degrees forward.
- Wedge- Fleet ships are placed alternating in straight lines to the right and to the left, angled 30 degrees back.
RE: 2024-05-09 Fleets, Starforce, C4 Doors, Shield Types - Haxus - 05-09-2024
I will likely spend the next week fixing bugs.
Then it's back to the NPC emperors.
RE: 2024-05-09 Fleets, Starforce, C4 Doors, Shield Types - Deantwo - 05-09-2024
(05-09-2024, 10:14 PM)Haxus Wrote: Fleets
Starforce
Sounds like a really nice feature. I will need to actually make a fleet of ships in my save-game now so I can test this.
I hope you will make pirate use it, so they can more easily swarm us with big fleets of their little peashooter ships.
(05-09-2024, 10:14 PM)Haxus Wrote: C4 Doors
Happy to have this fixed. Finally I have something to use that bomb in my grav-pack for.
(05-09-2024, 10:14 PM)Haxus Wrote: Shield Types
There are three kinds of energy shields but they all do the exact same thing.
- Kinetic Shield - Provides full protection against kinetic damage. Provides 20% less protection against energy damage.
- Energy Shield - Provides full protection against energy damage. Provides 20% less protection against kinetic damage.
- Stealth Shield - Provides 20% less protection against kinetic and energy damage. Reduces sensor detection range based on shield module quality. If sensor can't detect your ship, weapons cannot lock onto it.
If you want another idea to add to this list. It has been suggested a few times that we get a shield type focused on protecting against hostile environments. For example it could make the ship immune to the corrosive damage from Corrosive and Insidious atmosphere types, at the cost of the 20% less protection similar to the stealth shield. Or the penalty could be higher, to really make it seem like a non-combat shield.
RE: 2024-05-09 Fleets, Starforce, C4 Doors, Shield Types - Haxus - 05-09-2024
Corrosion Shield? I'll do it.
RE: 2024-05-09 Fleets, Starforce, C4 Doors, Shield Types - Haxus - 05-09-2024
I considered forming the pirates into fleets. I decided pirates aren't that organized or trained in formation flying and that they are too independent minded to do that. For whatever reason, they don't do it.
However NPC empires will definitely form their ships into fleets.
RE: 2024-05-09 Fleets, Starforce, C4 Doors, Shield Types - Deantwo - 05-09-2024
(05-09-2024, 11:12 PM)Haxus Wrote: Corrosion Shield? I'll do it.
I'd probably call it "Atmospheric Shield", "Environmental Shield" or "Hazard Shield".
Leaning mostly towards "Hazard Shield", since it is more generic and clear in its use.
Could possibly add some sort of space-based hazards in the future. Like nebula storms or whatever else they are always flying through in StarTrek.
RE: 2024-05-09 Fleets, Starforce, C4 Doors, Shield Types - Haxus - 05-10-2024
Corrosion Shield Module is done. It will be in the next update.
RE: 2024-05-09 Fleets, Starforce, C4 Doors, Shield Types - Celarious - 05-10-2024
As far as I know, Starforce used to be the name of a very aggressive game DRM from the mid 2000s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarForce
By the way, did kinetic shields previously not protect against kinetic damage? I thought they did