X-Verse Fleet Fest I

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

I think assigning points to weapons as well just overcomplicates things considerably. Let weapons be free so people can pick and choose whatever loadout they like.

[Triaxx2]

Not a good idea, or you'll have people filling cargo space with weapons so the AI will change it, and then the coders will hunt you down and... decompile you.

[Olterin]

Not a good idea, or you'll have people filling cargo space with weapons so the AI will change it, and then the coders will hunt you down and... decompile you.

How about no points needed to equip the ship but set a hard limit? Simply say that the max. number of weapons a ship is allowed to carry is the number of weapons it can mount at once. This still leaves us with the tiny problem of missiles, but hey... I'm sure we can figure something out for that one

[Cpt.Jericho]

As far as I've seen so far the AI doesn't switch weapons. Anyway, I'm not so much for a point based system. Too complicated in my eyes.

[BeidAmmikon]

The madame is served... Download this latest version and choose your pick Go using the Squadron Builder right away.

Note to all:
I intend to renounce to the "main window" - the one that opens up the program, and leave the Squadron Builder be The program.
Is that okay with you, folks?

Edit (boy, is it late in the night or what...): Nevermind. I've done it regardless The program has been changed - no interface besides the Squadron Builder, whose functionality has been enriched now with that of the window that opened up at program start. Option to mount free weapons included, but only when you use the points-based system = cheat mode ON! Perhaps you should reconsider this, and let us pay for everything, either in credits or points? Details are in its thread.

I'm waiting for your definitive lists of points for ships and weapons.

[Aro]

If BeidAmmikon can have the fleet builder use the completed fleet a person has made and spit out the actual director xml then multiple weapons will be a non-issue. Not tried it yet, can people save their fleets to later load and change if wanted?

[Cpt.Jericho]

Maybe another "layer" of details would suffice. First step was getting the prices right, second was getting the right stuff on the right ship - third step would could be getting the right stuff at the right place and export it to XML or whatever is needed for the fleet spawner - however, even now it'll make things easier for XFF2
Unless the rules change too much, I have the prototype design for a fleet for that but testing would be better if I only had to copy and paste the data

[Aro]

And a future XFF round could be blind, who knows what fleets the enemies are using.

Something extra to spice it up would be fun. Maybe a third enemy with a single M2 is in the middle of the battle and can mess up plans...

Ooh, an unknown enemy fleet must be destroyed. Multiple wining categories: Fastest, Style, etc.

[BeidAmmikon]

First step was getting the prices right (check), second was getting the right stuff on the right ship (check) - third step would could be getting the right stuff at the right place and export it to XML or whatever is needed for the fleet spawner (see below).

Collosus
3 x 2GJ, 8 x HEPT, 4 x PPC, 4 x Incendiary Bomb Launcher, 4 x FAA, 15 x Hornet missile, FC I + II, Triplex scanner, Carrier command software:

Code: Select all

<create_ship group="xenonGroup" race="xenon" typename="SS_SH_A_M1" warp="1"> 
<ware typename="SS_SHIELD_F" exact="3"/> 
<ware typename="SS_LASER_HEPT" exact="8"/> 
<ware typename="SS_LASER_PPC" exact="4"/> 
<ware typename="SS_LASER_IBL" exact="4"/> 
<ware typename="SS_LASER_SS_LASER_FLAK_ALPHA" exact="4"/> 
<ware typename="SS_MISSILE_E" exact="15"/> 
<ware typename="SS_WARE_SW_FIGHT_1" exact="1"/> 
<ware typename="SS_WARE_SW_FIGHT_2" exact="1"/> 
<ware typename="SS_WARE_SCANNER3" exact="1"/> 
<ware typename="SS_WARE_SW_CARRIER_1" exact="1"/>

I need to know the actual names of the ships and equipment associated with their scripting IDs, for example SS_WARE_SCANNER3 = Triplex scanner, SS_LASER_PPC = PPC (or Photon Pulse Cannon), etc.
Also, how do you know that "SS_SH_A_M1" will spawn a Colossus?
It would be very nice if someone would send me the list in the form of pairs (ID, name), like this:

{
{"SS_WARE_SCANNER3", "Triplex"} , {"SS_LASER_PPC", "PPC" }, ...
}

I cannot do all of this by myself (well, in the case of these IDs I cannot do anything), sorry, so a bit of help will do.
I need also the structure of this XML script file from start to finish - root element and all.

And that's how this will become a collaborative effort

Helping out with that list would be mucho appreciado, I'm only that much of a one-man army


EDIT: Pretty much completed the list of weapons and wares, with info gathered from here.

Now I need the IDs and names of missiles and ships.

[BeidAmmikon]

Surprise!...

As you can see, the IDs of (ship class and race) will not be saved, nor the IDs of missiles.
So, give me the list of missiles and ships IDs and names, as per above post ^

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Not a good idea, or you'll have people filling cargo space with weapons so the AI will change it, and then the coders will hunt you down and... decompile you.

How about no points needed to equip the ship but set a hard limit? Simply say that the max. number of weapons a ship is allowed to carry is the number of weapons it can mount at once. This still leaves us with the tiny problem of missiles, but hey... I'm sure we can figure something out for that one

What Olterin said. Pick a gun for each slot on the ship and an optional missile. Nice and simple, no need to get complicated trying to calculate what your weapons points add up to as well because if you start doing that you'll introduce a 'cash' style limit which is what caused problems the first time with the Solanos being so cost-effective.

[BeidAmmikon]

Pick a gun for each slot on the ship and an optional missile.

Quite frankly, I don't fancy browsing again through x3tc.ru to see how many weapon slots are on each and every ship (they only specify the turret number in the list of ships), so if anyone will help me out with this list, and the other two (see above) I'll implement it.

I've started to do it, anyway...
Will it be the number of MAIN weapon slots, or of ALL slots (+ turrets)?

[Deadbeat_Spinn]

I know there's a code list for Missiles/Weapons/Shields/Software and one for the ships, the first resides as a link in the XFF Tech thread in the S&M forum and the second (a XFF version) resides within the XFF Tech thread itself.

I also made a non XFF version of the Ship List that can be found in the S&M Forum.

[BeidAmmikon]

OK guys, last call:

I'm working on the max-weapon-slots (Main+Turrets) model proposed by NUKLEAR-SLUG. In parallel with this one, there are active:
- the credits-based model, in which everything costs money
- the points-based model, in which only ships and weapons cost points

Please, decide which one of these will be. I cannot really change the program only to find there's yet another, and another model to implement. Hope you understand
Once I'll finish up with the weapon slots model, I'll invite you to download the program again. It should take 3 hours from now, at most.

As of now, when you want to save the fleet for XFF scripting, there are being used only the IDs of Argon ships, and the IDs of weapons, software and shields.

[BeidAmmikon]

Please download the latest version and see if you are comfortable with what it does.

Now, all ships and items that I've found their IDs are in there, ready for saving in an XML that you can use for the Director or what's its name.

I'm still waiting for you to decide on the expenditure model.
I, for one, am for the Credits-based system + maximum weapon slots.


I advise you to download the previous versions as well and keep them close by, in case something goes wrong with this particular version:
xfcalc_20100723.zip
xfcalc_2forms.zip
xfcalc_pricelimit.zip

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

So as to save a lot of effort may I suggest holding off on the codemonkeying for a few days until everyones had a chance to argue the toss and TJ's made a final decision.

Just to outline what I was proposing tho in more detail then . The current problem is the cost versus effectiveness raised using a cash based system as capitals are not efficient enough on a cost per unit basis to withstand the screaming horde of smaller ships. Additionally, and let's be honest here, TJ may have a good machine but TC doesn't like huge numbers of ships and it just plain can't cope.. It shuts down the AI turret combat scripts which makes it even more miserable for anyone who decided not to take the zerg route.

A solution to this is to introduce an arbitrary points based system to alter the weighting. For example:

M2 = 30
M1 = 20
M7 = 10
M6 = 5
M8 = 3
M3 = 3
M4 = 2
M5 = 1

Imposing a limit of say 100 points. This make it nice and easy for everyone to work out how much their fleet would cost and at an absolute extreme example you're only ever going to have 200 ships per battle. Generally speaking your going to have much less.

Capitals are now much more cost-effective. Yes, you can spam 33 M3's if you want to, but now they may be facing off against 3 M2 and it becomes an 11-1 ratio rather than the 30-1 or so that it was previously.

Shields are assumed as nobody is likely to want to send in anything undershielded and weapons would be free for the same reasons as the cash problem previously. If you start attaching a price to weapons those that can field more weapons suffer.

This way weapon selection becomes a much simpler choice as well, you just pick what you want in what turret. You don't have to worry about cost so you just need to decide what you want to field. Do you field a heavy anti-capital fleet and risk being chewed up by lighter ships that are hard to hit? Do you build for anti-fighter and risk coming up against something packing an ungodly amount of PPC or try and balance the two?

[Triaxx2]

Sweet, 50 Solano's, or 20 Springies. Now I can just press the I win button.

All ships are not created equal, so unless you're banning certain ships...

[X2-Eliah]

Nuklear, with your point balance, can you give any single reason why not to go the 10 M7 route? It will decimate everything, and it is really the single obvious cheese tactic. Really, if I have to choose between 3 M3s, 1 M7 or 1/3 of an M2, what am I going to pick, knowing than an M7 is 90% as good as an M2 and as good as 10 to 40 fighters. Or, actually, where is the reason to use any fighter at all and not spam capitals here?


Cash-based system would be the best, because every ship would have it's own weighted value, and not an arbitrary number among all of it's class, making a, say, Mamba Raider cost as much as an LX or Eclipse, with them having 5x the shield difference. Therefore any system where all ships of class x are priced/pointed equally is not going to cut it, because among a single class, you have too much variation and too much of a clear cut best -> worst division.

For the most part, cash values of the game are good representatives of the ship's power, with a few notable exceptions (solano, springblossom) - and these exceptions ought to be outlawed for all they are worth.


So yes, I'd like to remain at a cash system + overpowered ships re-priced + limit on ship numbers of a class (max 1 M2, 2 M1, 2 M7, 5 M6, 5 M3, 10 M4, 15 M5, 0 M7M and 2 M8)..

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Sweet, 50 Solano's, or 20 Springies. Now I can just press the I win button.

All ships are not created equal, so unless you're banning certain ships...

True, they're not all equal, if they were it would make things much easier if a little boring. The trouble with banning the most overpowered ship tho is the next most overpowered simply steps into its shoes. It's a no win situation.

Nuklear, with your point balance, can you give any single reason why not to go the 10 M7 route? It will decimate everything, and it is really the single obvious cheese tactic. Really, if I have to choose between 3 M3s, 1 M7 or 1/3 of an M2, what am I going to pick, knowing than an M7 is 90% as good as an M2 and as good as 10 to 40 fighters. Or, actually, where is the reason to use any fighter at all and not spam capitals here?

They were just example numbers I picked in about the same time it took to type them, feel free to argue any of them up/down as you feel suits, that is after all the idea here. Maybe M7 should be more of a 15-20? As for fighters, why would you not want to use some? They make a useful distraction. If the enemy capitals are trying to hit your fast moving fighters they're not shooting at your capitals.

So yes, I'd like to remain at a cash system + overpowered ships re-priced + limit on ship numbers of a class (max 1 M2, 2 M1, 2 M7, 5 M6, 5 M3, 10 M4, 15 M5, 0 M7M and 2 M8)..

The goal we're both going for here is to reduce the ship spam and that would also work, but it's a lot more restrictive than a points pool. There's no option with that for someone say to try for a capital heavy fleet, they'd have to follow that template exactly.

[X2-Eliah]

Not really, my main goal is to keep the downside of picking a stronger ship of class X versus a weaker ship of class X, instead of everything in one class being same-cost.