Targetting during Tactics Mode

[Knightcrawler]

Okay, I am sorry for making 2 topics right in a row, but you have to admit that this place is a little vacant anyway. Hehe. Besides, I need a new poll. http://www.geocities.com/knightcrawler2/Non-Website/TactInCl1.gif

 

If that doesn't work, try this:

http://www.geocities.com/knightcrawler2/Non-Website/

then this:

http://www.geocities.com/knightcrawler2/Non-Website/TactInCl1.gif

 

Okay, here's an explaination for this. I made this because I thought of a new aspect to Rebellion that might be pretty cool. Everything in the game should be able to target multiple objects, if you ask me. Squadrons are individually organized enough to break up and attack different targets, and every capitol starship in the game has either multiple weapons or none. Even a single ship with one canno can alternate targets. It's kind of stupid to see a squadron flying around a Star Destroyer with a Corellian Corvette, but it is only shooting at one or the other.

 

It is with that in mind that I propose the following idea. There should be a pie chart at the bottom that symbolizes designated targets. Perhaps there could even be a button to flip the bottom section between Targets and Maneuvers. All of the battle commands and information could be on a single bar by simply making it more efficient with space. In any case, the pie chart can be influenced by increasing and decreasing the percentage of firepower aimed at certain types of targets. Red and Blue are specific targets. That is, these are things you REALLY want to kill, just like in Rebellion 1. However, as you can see in the image, there are three targets: Two CC-9600s and the Y-Wing Gold group. The Star Destroyer will attempt to get within optimal firing range of all three (unless you command otherwise under commands) and will fire on them with appropriate weapons (lasers for fighters and turbolasers for capitol ships, unless there is no target that requires one type, in which case those guns will be used also). Of course, if you make a CC-9600 take up 95% of the firing, most of the Laser Canons will fire at that instead of the Y-Wing group regardless of the fact that they are less effectual. That's what the chart and percentages are for. The Yellow and Green are defensive firing. You tell the computer how much fire to return to ships targetting it. For instance, if you made a ship focus 90% of its firepower on Yellow, it would use all of its Ion Canons and Turbolasers and most of its Laser Canons on attacking capitol starships. Blue is for attacking fighter groups. Completely taking away some of these colors will make combat more like in Rebellion 1. If Red were to completely fill the pie chart and it weren't divided (it is divided amongst 2 CC-9600s in the picture), this ship would act exactly like in Rebellion 1. Likewise, in the picture, the ship is targeting one fighter group, but it can target many. I didn't put buttons or anything to change the values, but I will soon. I was thinking it would be better to click-drag the pie chart, though, especially if you can divide amongst colors. You will also note that nearest where the colors would typically be, I placed a small light and the percentage of firepower aimed at that type of target. Most of the time you would worry about any trivialities of single percentages. To change targets and divisions amongst groups, simply right click on that potion of the pie chart or hold CTRL + Right Click an enemy. Anyway, what do you think? [/img]

[ElvisMiggell]

Hmm, wouldn't this make it a little complicated. Actually, i think it's a good idea, although we should still be able to just assign one target as well for simplicity. Thing is, if you have a group of 20 star destroyers, do you really have time to go through setting all the values to whatever you deem appropriate, and you can't just set it for a group, because people in a different part of a formation need to have different priorities. I think it's a great idea, just hard to implement as you build up your numerical values.

[Knightcrawler]

I came up with a slightly different idea now. Of course you can still assign enemy ships quickly, but your big ships like SSDs or your mixed-gun ships like Nebulon-B Frigates, you might find it best to put a little extra time into their targeting. Simply right-clicking on an enemy after selecting your ship(s) or group will default it(them) to attack that ship with 100% of their firepower, just like in the original Rebellion. However, selecting one of the ship's(s') or group's pie pieces and then targeting the enemy (possibly while holding CTRL to avoid mistakes), will cause the ship to split its targets. Also, assigning blue or yellow defensive postures is a very easy thing to do in my new design, leaving only green and red targetting with any real effort. Defense against capitol ships or fighters automatically distributes fire amongst all attackers.

 

http://www.geocities.com/knightcrawler2/Non-Website/TactInCl2.gif

 

If that doesn't work, try:

http://www.geocities.com/knightcrawler2/Non-Website/

then:

http://www.geocities.com/knightcrawler2/Non-Website/TactInCl2.gif

 

As you can see, the interface is very different this time. It is simpler and I believe much better in general. This time, fire can only be divided into 8 equal sections, instead of capable of firing in single percents. Each piece of the chart has a series of buttons, each with a different color: Red, Green, Yellow, or Blue. Clicking this color will change targeting types of that section to that color. The blue thing in the center is not a button. The Purple button is used to combine pieces of the chart, which would happen automatically if you selected the same craft or starfighter wing two or more times. Pressing a colored button resets the pie piece. For instance, let's say the person in the picture wanted to concentrate firepower on CC-9600 Tough Cookie. To do that, the easiest way would be to click on the Red button in the pie piece that contains CC-9600 Reverant (which would reset the pie piece to red without a target), then click the purple button between the two pieces. That will make them share the same target, which is Tough Cookie in this case. As you can see, the ship in this example has already done that with X-Wing Red Group.

 

If there are extra enemies in the defending pie pieces (yellow or blue), a scroll button will appear beside each one and let you scroll between everything that is targetting your ship.

 

The big buttons under the %s are special in that they let you set 100% of the fire for that type of target quickly. If you wish to retain the same target, simply select the pie piece that you want to retain and then click the big button of the corresponding color. The icons beside the green and blue buttons are simply to take up room and remind newbies that the top colors (Green and Red) are attacking and the bottom colors (Blue and Yellow) are defending colors.

 

Once again, you can target a craft with a specific piece (or group of pieces) by either clicking it, then right clicking the enemy on the battlefield (while pressing CTRL, probably), or by right-clicking on the piece and selecting the enemy from a menu of some kind.

 

This chart is for capitol ships only, and starfighters should probably have their chart divided into 6 (2 fighters per section). Oh, and I still forgot to add the maneuvers button over on the left. I'll change that in a while.

 

 

 

Anyway, I believe this design is easier. But is it easy enough for all the people out there? Hehe. Speak up, people. [/img]

[Guest JediIgor]

Yes, but you need to make another picture with all the little buttons subtitled, so that it can be interpreted easier

[Zag Fel]

Sounds great. Unfortunately, I can't see the pictures so I can't render judgement.

[Knightcrawler]

Did you do the whole "If it doesn't work, try this, then this?" Yahoo! sucks like that. See, you gotta put in the base directory, then the actual name to see it usually. After that, it may stay in your cache so you can view it in the post.

[Knightcrawler]

http://www.geocities.com/knightcrawler2/Non-Website/TactInCl3.gif

 

http://www.geocities.com/knightcrawler2/Non-Website/

 

http://www.geocities.com/knightcrawler2/Non-Website/TactInCl3.gif

 

A description pic like that? Hehe.

Edited November 10, 2002 by Knightcrawler

[Zag Fel]

I did see that. I got hidious red x's for all of those URLs.

[ricepr2001]

i got it and i like it, my idea is that when you come into battle it is automatically set for a set of rules you set at the beginning of the game and you can change it if you want to, i think that would be the most efficient and you could just change the primaries then and the secondaries would stay the same

[Guest JediIgor]

http://www.geocities.com/knightcrawler2/Non-Website/TactInCl3.gif

 

http://www.geocities.com/knightcrawler2/Non-Website/

 

http://www.geocities.com/knightcrawler2/Non-Website/TactInCl3.gif

 

A description pic like that? Hehe.

 

I like that! You should color code the text on the bottom left though; what you have now is too hard on the eyes

[ElvisMiggell]

Yeah, that looks a lot better now. Go with it, does anyone know if Greg has seen this?

[Knightcrawler]

LOL Yeah, I guess that wasn't rhetorical, was it? No, I haven't shown him personally and don't know if he has seen it.

[ElvisMiggell]

Ok, well the next person that sees or hears from Greg ought to let him know, this ideas got a lot of potential, if there is some way it can be used then i think it should be given due consideration.

[vakundok]

I think we should have a basic picture about how a ship will work in battle (eg. How many fire arcs there will be? 4, 6 (front,rear,left,right,top,bottom) or even more. Whether the different weapon systems can be set to hold fire or not.) before creating interfaces. The pictures look interesting but too complicated for me ...

[ElvisMiggell]

Yeh, i mean, in RebEd you can edit the values of the ships weapons, fore aft port starboard, but you can only engage one ship at a time, so what are the aft lasers doing when the ship is killing something in front of it? When you select the engage fighters or engage ships buttons, the 'spare' guns should continue engaging targets of opportunity, and remember to do so after they have destroyed a target you have designated.

 

Also i'd like to see the individual guns firing, so if a ship has 70 turbolasers on its bow and it engages something in front of it, i want to see 70 lasers firing and hitting the ship, not one beam.

[Knightcrawler]

Well setting the ships to target multiple objects means that more guns can be shooting at once. The ships would automatically optimize which guns are being used on what (Laser Canons for starfighters and Turbolasers for capitol ships)(If you're targeting a squadron and a capitol ship and the squadron is behind you, the forward laser canons temporarily shoot at the capitol ship until the fighters come into their arc), and you would determine the proportions of laser fire and targets by 1/8ths.

[ricepr2001]

the thing with having so many lasers would be a lot of work for your computer and harder to make the models since you would have to somehow define the lasers orgin

[Knightcrawler]

Well, we'd calculate one value for the ship for each fighter. So let's say one fighter is 2 from the ship (let's say 2 is top). Each gun has some certain values. If they have a clear line of sight to the back of the ship, they get that value. If they also have a clear line of sight to the side or bottom, they could get those values too. If one of those values is 2, the gun could fire at that target. It might be better to use many more values than 6 for directions if the computer can handle it.

[ElvisMiggell]

Hmm, sounds like it might be a bit of a drain on the computers resources.....

[Knightcrawler]

Or we could do it like in Rebellion: With the 2D lasers coming from the center of the ship.

[ElvisMiggell]

Yeah, it doesn't need to be too fancy.

[Knightcrawler]

Well I think it would be nice to have some impressive battles for once.

[ricepr2001]

i think we should have multiple lasers but it should come from the center of the model because it would not matter the shape of the model or any of that stuff

[the_mask]

But with all these 'parts' of the guns firering you could be dividing too much of your firepower on too many targets. Think of an ISD trying to paint a fighter group, three corvettes, a MonCal, ...

 

Eventually the targets would have very little damage and the ISD would be blown to atoms.

 

Just my thoughts on this.

[ElvisMiggell]

Yeah, but if the ISD is inbetween the corvettes and the cruiser, it can target both at once, if the cruiser was above it, and the corvettes below, it would be dumb not to shoot at both.