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Author Topic: Airship Combat: Rocket man.  (Read 73192 times)

Dariush

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #210 on: July 21, 2013, 02:45:29 am »

Aww, no fourth-wall-breaking minmaxing. I am disappoint.

Vowel: demote this sack of uselessless straight down the stairs and tell him to get to work. Also turn left aka west and slow down to 2.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2013, 02:48:22 am by Dariush »
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #211 on: July 21, 2013, 07:16:55 am »

Which team are you on, again?
BLU.
You can jump two, three tiles. Maybe more. Just give it a shot.

Oh, idea for the next game: Rifles. And maybe small, man-portable artillery like mortars or something.
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Thearpox

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #212 on: July 21, 2013, 07:21:20 am »

Which team are you on, again?
BLU.
You can jump two, three tiles. Maybe more. Just give it a shot.
...
...
...???
...
Rule Of Cool. (Also RTD Physics)
Leaping to one thats adjacent is already kind of Rule of Cool, leaping any farther isn't gonna happen. Least not till we get the steam jet packs or Spring-heeled Jack boots in... But yeah, if you had two guys on two decks they could totally leap across to the opposite deck, slashing at each other mid-flight and then turn and shoot at each other the moment after they land. Thats a thing that can happen.
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Why are 100% of my posts in ER? I already have another account. Created this one specifically for playing.

Not online every Friday evening till Saturday night. If I am listed as online, I am still not online, as my computer has an annoying habit of waking up to the tiniest distraction and then going off to sleep again.


List of links to charts and graphs here. Work in progress. Check it out?

GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #213 on: July 21, 2013, 07:22:35 am »

Why do you think I asked for Dan's team?
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Thearpox

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #214 on: July 21, 2013, 07:26:06 am »

There's a subtle difference between subtly encouraging bad decisions and blatantly contradicting the words of our GM. Unless you were trying to be funny. In which case I suppose I just have a different sense of humor.
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Why are 100% of my posts in ER? I already have another account. Created this one specifically for playing.

Not online every Friday evening till Saturday night. If I am listed as online, I am still not online, as my computer has an annoying habit of waking up to the tiniest distraction and then going off to sleep again.


List of links to charts and graphs here. Work in progress. Check it out?

GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #215 on: July 21, 2013, 07:33:23 am »

I was hoping that making it clear that this advice was given to him because he was a member of the opposing team, and encouraging him to do it, would clue him in.

And once you get the joke set up...you kinda want to complete it. Darn biological need for sleep...
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Thearpox

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #216 on: July 21, 2013, 07:40:09 am »

It was less of me worrying that you would fool Dansmithers, and more of me worrying whether you had at all read the previous page. And it also might have deluded somebody three months from now, who would be looking to join in and was skimming the threads. And then we'd have to explain to him that it was a joke. From three months ago. That we have all but forgotten about.

Generally, in my book, it is best to avoid jokes that have a potential to delude players about game mechanics. Unless you're playing Mao. But yeah, might have been funnier if Piecewise hadn't replied.
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Why are 100% of my posts in ER? I already have another account. Created this one specifically for playing.

Not online every Friday evening till Saturday night. If I am listed as online, I am still not online, as my computer has an annoying habit of waking up to the tiniest distraction and then going off to sleep again.


List of links to charts and graphs here. Work in progress. Check it out?

Dariush

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #217 on: July 21, 2013, 07:46:56 am »

BTW, is several teams (or several ships per two teams) a possibility for the future game? I'd definitely like to see that.

GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #218 on: July 21, 2013, 07:49:31 am »

It was less of me worrying that you would fool Dansmithers, and more of me worrying whether you had at all read the previous page.
Not only had I, I had guessed the answer last night.

Quote
And it also might have deluded somebody three months from now, who would be looking to join in and was skimming the threads. And then we'd have to explain to him that it was a joke. From three months ago. That we have all but forgotten about.
That seems an improbable situation for several reasons, such as "who would rely on this information," "this might well be addressed better in the new system," and "the GM told us the real answer already".

BTW, is several teams (or several ships per two teams) a possibility for the future game? I'd definitely like to see that.
Indeed. I'm considering starting something like that.
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piecewise

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #219 on: July 21, 2013, 11:12:52 am »

Quote
Larger teams, more ships?
Possible. 5 vs 5 crew, one on one ship will probably be the standard, however once everything is worked out I'll probably create the templates for larger ships that will hold larger crews, as well as multi-ship battles. Also possible are battles with only 5 people on each side but with NPC ships to fill out the ranks. I'm Cautious of including too many active players, just so I don't get overwhelmed by having to track 30 people over the maps.

In fact, it might be a good time to tell you guys what I'm thinking of for the finished product here.

Quote
A rough Idea of the finished game

I don't know if any of you have heard of the game "Hammerfight"; it's a game about helicopters fighting with swords and maces. It's as awesome as it sounds and I suggest you look into it if you haven't; but the reason I'm bringing it up is that it had an arena mode. You would fight opponents in various locales, earn money, buy new weapons and rise amongst the ranks until you're a glorious champion draped in flowing banners, heralds and the skulls of your opponents.

Thats pretty much what I want to do here.

It basically works out like this: When players create a character they're placed into the world with a set amount of money (the exact number is determined randomly, but there are upper and lower limits). From there they can do pretty much whatever they want. They can gamble on the airships, set up a surfa-scav shop and sell to other players, work for npc's or players, run an assassin's guild, etc. The big draw, however, would probably be to crew an airship.

To do this, players will form teams. These teams are like professional sports teams. They're more then just the five man crew of the ship; they're little corporations  that can include the crew, backup crews, maintenance men, non-fighting financial backers, etc. Player created teams can, with time, rise from a 5 man crew cobbling together a junker in one of the underhang slum hangers to a professional organization with several ships, living the good life in the cloudline estates.

What I'm trying to do is create a world and then allow the players to live in it and to try to advance and make their living however they like. Mechanically, this means that a good deal of the game will actually be without rolls, or with few rolls. The actual arena combat will be the most mechanically intensive part of the game, while a seperate thread will deal with life outside the arena. This way I can have, theoretically, pretty much as many players as want to join, but still not overwhelm myself with mechanical minutiae.






Speaking of Mechanical Minutiae, I've been thinking about the way we're gonna handle melee in this game. The idea goes like this.

There are three types of weapons, Strength based, Speed based, and Dex based. They have a sort of rock paper scissors relationship, where strength beats dex, dex beats speed and speed beats strength. Actually, beats is a bad word, "has an advantage over" is more accurate; a man with a dex weapon can still beat a str weapon if he's skilled, it's just harder.

When you actually get in a fight, it's handled like this; you chose a stance and then you take your dice pool and divide it into two, an attack pool and a defense pool. These pools can be divided in any way you want (pool of 9, 5 in attack, 4 in defense, 3 in attack, 6 in defense, etc) and simulate how you want to fight, the level of aggressiveness you want to bring. How it works is that both players roll their attack dice, and whoever gets the most successes gains an opportunity to strike. The number of successes that won that opportunity then becomes the target number for the attacked player's defense roll.  In this way, it becomes a tactical decision; more attack dice means a better chance to hit, but if they beat you, it leaves you with less to defend yourself.  And if you're taking on two people at a time, you have to split your dice between them, so fighting any more then one on one is very tricky; just like in real life.

I'm taking today off -as I do every sunday- to continue working on the game; so if you have any questions or ideas, feel free to throw them out. Best time to bring things up is when I'm actively working on the system, after all.

Dariush

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #220 on: July 21, 2013, 12:17:39 pm »

What I'd like to see:
- a greater diversity of roles beyond piloting, shooting and boarding. For example, some sort of single-person 'fighter' boats that separate from the main ship and harass the enemy.
- a sort of crafting system for the engineers - they take resources (both material and magical) from the supply hold and create situational improvements, such as anti-boarding spikes, improved sights for the pistols or whatever they decide to.
- a wind and sails system (sails can be put in one of the four directions - parallel to the ship length, perpendicular and two diagonals) and depending on their position they transfer a different portion of the wind speed to the ship (so if a sail is perpendicular to wind, it pushes the ship additional two tiles in the corresponding direction, if it's at 45 degrees, one tile, if it's parallel or folded, no effect).
- a limit on weapon range and/or a penalty to the roll depending on the speed of both ships (because it's harder to shoot a moving target, and doubly harder to shoot a moving target from a moving ship).
- more skills, several of which affect different aspects of the same occupation. For example, a separate ballistics skill that reduces the above moving penalty, aiming skill that generally improves accuracy and maybe some magic to steer the cannonball while in flight.
- more personalization. That means perks (bonuses to rolls in specific conditions, optionally with tradeoffs (example: mathematician: when firing cannons, improves accuracy, but lowers firing rate)), equipment, wounds and so on.
- more different weapons. Floating mine balloons, slow-moving torpedoes, sniping rifles, fireballs, what have you.
- optionally, fog: crew can only see, let's say, five tiles away. To see any further, you need a separate mechanism that fires laser beams and detects what they reflect off. However, turning it is slow and the enemies can see where the laser came from and calculate the position. Also floating debris that may cause a false positive.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2013, 12:20:40 pm by Dariush »
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piecewise

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #221 on: July 21, 2013, 01:30:07 pm »

What I'd like to see:
- a greater diversity of roles beyond piloting, shooting and boarding. For example, some sort of single-person 'fighter' boats that separate from the main ship and harass the enemy.
- a sort of crafting system for the engineers - they take resources (both material and magical) from the supply hold and create situational improvements, such as anti-boarding spikes, improved sights for the pistols or whatever they decide to.
- a wind and sails system (sails can be put in one of the four directions - parallel to the ship length, perpendicular and two diagonals) and depending on their position they transfer a different portion of the wind speed to the ship (so if a sail is perpendicular to wind, it pushes the ship additional two tiles in the corresponding direction, if it's at 45 degrees, one tile, if it's parallel or folded, no effect).
- a limit on weapon range and/or a penalty to the roll depending on the speed of both ships (because it's harder to shoot a moving target, and doubly harder to shoot a moving target from a moving ship).
- more skills, several of which affect different aspects of the same occupation. For example, a separate ballistics skill that reduces the above moving penalty, aiming skill that generally improves accuracy and maybe some magic to steer the cannonball while in flight.
- more personalization. That means perks (bonuses to rolls in specific conditions, optionally with tradeoffs (example: mathematician: when firing cannons, improves accuracy, but lowers firing rate)), equipment, wounds and so on.
- more different weapons. Floating mine balloons, slow-moving torpedoes, sniping rifles, fireballs, what have you.
- optionally, fog: crew can only see, let's say, five tiles away. To see any further, you need a separate mechanism that fires laser beams and detects what they reflect off. However, turning it is slow and the enemies can see where the laser came from and calculate the position. Also floating debris that may cause a false positive.

-Yeah, don't worry about that. This really simple stat system you see now is only a place holder. The system that ends up being used will allow for more variety. Also single person fighters of two types are already in. As is a boarding skiff.

-Crafting is pretty much already planned for as well. You'll have to go buy the parts (magic probably won't play a part in this, at least not magic in the way you're thinking) specifically, but you can craft pretty much whatever you want. Though that will probably be before you get out on the Ship. And there will be limits. I can't have people just buy some shitty engine and then roll engineering at it till it's top of the line. At least not without significant investments of money and time.

-I've thought about wind and sails and...well they don't make sense in the world. Sails make more sense for balloon  like craft. I mean, the ships are already hovering for god sake, I would hope that they could scrape together a propeller. Wind might play a roll for some things, but not sails.

-Weapon range is pretty much limited already, simply by the limits of character ability. I will, however, probably throw some hard limits in there and aggressively mess around with the difficulty of rolls for distances with different weapons. Sniper rifles have to have longer ranges and easier shots then pistols. Movement penalties would be fairly simple too; for instance, just add one more needed success for every speed unit difference between the shooter and target. two ships going 3, passing each other at high speed, gets a +6 to the difficulty. Two ships, same direction, one at 3 the other at two, +1 to the target. etc.

-What I'll probably do is a branching skill system, where you take the basic skill first and then can specialize into other ones. It's not going to be as in depth as your example (god forbid I have to keep track of 10 different skills for doing different aspects of a single action slightly better) but it will offer specialization none the less.

-Of course there's gonna be more personalization. Not really a fan of perks and bonuses, if only because they become annoying to track and are often either unbalanced and lead to minmaxing and metagaming or are mostly useless. However things like personal equipment and possessions, wounds, tattoos, fame and influence, are all things I'd very much like to do and will do.

-Got plenty of different weapons so far. Mines are one I still need to make up, we'd probably be using rockets instead of torpedoes (sky ships and all) but yeah, I'm adding as many weapons, ship systems, and player items as I can think of or have suggested to me.

-Laser beams are a bit out of place in the setting, but I get your point. Don't worry, things like clouds and thunderstorms as well as floating debris and towers and other environmental hazards will play a part. A part that will probably entail separate, private maps, at least for the hiding in fog/clouds sections.

Dariush

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #222 on: July 21, 2013, 01:45:17 pm »

I like the way you're thinking. :D

-I've thought about wind and sails and...well they don't make sense in the world. Sails make more sense for balloon  like craft. I mean, the ships are already hovering for god sake, I would hope that they could scrape together a propeller. Wind might play a roll for some things, but not sails.
But can't you modify the way the world works a liiittle bit to add a bit of depth to the navigation? So that, for example, lodestones serve to actually hover the ship (destroying one means less stability and lower attitude (thus more difficult aiming rolls and easier shots by the enemy), destroying two is a crash), engines propel it (or turn, if they're situated at correct angles to the hull) and the sails turn?
« Last Edit: July 21, 2013, 01:47:14 pm by Dariush »
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #223 on: July 21, 2013, 10:54:46 pm »

Aren't the lodestones turners? And even if not, the engines could turn at rates like what we've got now.

For turning, I think "parachutes" would be a better way to think of it than "sails," although they may look more like the latter, and it hardly seems like it would be effective enough to be the main steering method.
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Dariush

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Re: Airship Combat: Now with More, probably hard to follow, Tutorials
« Reply #224 on: July 22, 2013, 03:45:10 am »

Hm, then maybe only use sails as an auxiliary propellent (in addition to the engine), as I originally suggested?
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