markb50k

ok i will look at that, but remember if you just specify FERRET and PROWLER but dont put a NO TARGET afterward, it will then just look at every enemy if it doesnt find any FERRETs or PROWLERs. And of course, the NO TARGET would have to cover ALL weapons. so if you set it up like this Any FERRET Any PROWLER NO TARGET (all weapons) and it still chases cap ships, let me know as soon as it happens, and I will try to figure out whats wrong, because that would be a bug.

Lot of good ideas. I have much to think about. On the surface the idea on non-selectable members of a squadron sounds neat, but it would preclude the ability to set individual targets for each member. Also, the squadron would have to be reinforced at times after losses. Overall, people would lose alot of flexibility to give orders to individual units, but it would neaten up things. Other things I think about.. I dont see any need to specify a flagship for the fleet, I mean no real code reason to do so. What happens when you tell a squadron to dock and not all the ships can dock, some are in some are out. Basically anytime that the members of a squadron cant be doing the same thing will be a code nightmare. I like the thoughts no doubt, but like any programmer, I have to look past the theoretical coolness of an enhancement down to all the difficulties inherent in adding such a big change to the code base.

Hey Leonidas! Long time no see, good to see you around.

generally i would have to rip out the guts of how I do orders by adding IF logic, which by the way I have never seen in a game put out by billion dollar corporations, but I can look at it. As for Idle's question. SET WEAPONS FREE/HOLD is just used to make a ship never fire on another. You use it so that in no-fire zones, like over planets, you dont have to worry about shooting at eachother. The NO TARGET priority means that as your ship is going down its target priorities, if it reaches a NO TARGET (which can be specified down to the weapon type) it wont engage any enemy. So for instance, you are on a DEFEND order, and you see a particular ship you want to kill, you can specify your #1 priority as that particular ship, then put #2 a NO TARGET priority. Your ship will then run out and engage that particular ship, but once that ship is out of the defense range or destroyed it will return back to the defend position. So SET WEAPONS HOLD is really a catch-all to make sure you dont attack anything, and allows you to go into places where you dont want to shoot at other people, without having to clear your priority target list.

- remember, out of fuel fighters can still JUMP, so... JUMP them right on top of your cap ship. I dont understand all the consternation... And it seems like no one noticed that I put in FUEL break levels that automatically will break you out of your orders And it seems no one noticed i put in a REFUEL order (and a REPAIR order) that will keep your ship onboard until it completes what you want it to complete. So, really, I have completely automated a launch/attack/return/refuel sortie. Does anyone notice this? The fuel usage may be harsh but I think there is ample way around it now, dont you think?

New ZIP Update. MANDATORY DOWNLOAD. Download at http://galsim.nickersonm.com/galsim.zip New Features Popups: - Now when you login, save, and some other instances, you will get popups with messages so you dont have to search around to see if the save went fine. Onboard Concept Change: - Transparent to you, but now when a ship is onboard, it wont always say berthed for status, it may say In for Repairs or Fueling/Arming. Amazingly that little change required a mandatory download, oh well. Sorry about that.

as you mentioned ATTACK with a radius is a DEFEND, but i would like to know which functionality is not there? I dont see any, so I wont do a RADIUS on ATTACK Z damage sustained - i just added that yesterday by setting your HULL BREAK LEVEL it will break out of ATTACK orders (and many others) when it gets to a certain hull damage level V fuel - same thing as damage, just added yesterday W warhead - I suppose I could add that too Y time has passed? hmm not sure on that one, what would be the tactical reason for that? Please detail further... until X is destroyed? well you can currently have it not attack targets unless its a given unit, and then put a NO TARGET after that in your priority list. But perhaps if I added something like a NO TARGET, like say a BREAK priority target, where if it runs out of priorities and reaches a BREAK, then it breaks out of its current combat mission (ATTACK, DEFEND, PATROL, BOMBARD). what do you think?

That is something I can think about. I would recommend just changing your password once you login for the first time to something easy for you to remember. Thanks for the feedback.

I just want to give people an idea of what to do when they first join the game. I am assuming that you have succesfully logged in for the first time before you read this. FIND YOUR SHIPS when you first join the game you are looking at the center of the galaxy and probably cant see your ships on the map. To quickly find your ships (you probably only have one), go to the left side of the screen and hit the FLEETS link. This will list all units you have. Any ships you start off with will probably be under the UNASSIGNED UNITS link. Click that. Then click whatever ships are under there, and a Unit Display will show up on the left, showing the ship's name, its position, its status. A useful think to do is hit the ZOOM TO UNIT link which will zoom down to the tactical level. PLAY AROUND WITH THE MAP The map has two modes, strategic and tactical. You get to tactical by double clicking on a sector from the strategic map. You get to the strategic by double RIGHT clicking on the tactical map. You can drag the map with the right mouse button, you can center the map on a location by clicking the middle mouse button, and you can zoom by using the mouse wheel or the Z and shiftZ keys CHECK ON YOUR EDIT TIME any thing you do, like change orders, has to be saved to the server using the SAVE button on the main menu. BUT, you must save any changes you make BEFORE the current turn ends. IF you dont save your changes and the turn changes, all your changes will be lost. That may seem harsh, but if you saw the code and issues I would have trying to merge your new data with changed data from the game engine it would make your head spin, so I dont like it, but its a necessary evil. So, always check the Main Menu, each time you look it shows how much time is left in the current turn. If you dont have enough time to do the stuff you need to do, you should wait until the new turn begins, hit REFRESH until you see the new turn come up, THEN do your orders. CHANGE YOUR PERSONAL INFO There is a link on the main menu to change your password. You can also edit your TITLE. Titles are just for your own sake right now, no one else can see your title. You can also change your username at any time as well. You can never change your Login ID, and you will always use that to log in to the GUI. CHECK FOR ANY REPORTS FROM THE GAME ENGINE You will probably already have a report waiting for you after you login. You can find the report file in the REPORTS directory in the directory you are running GALSIM out of. Most likely you wont have anything important on your first order, except for it telling you how much money you have to spend on units. ORDER NEW UNITS From the main menu you can specify which ships you want to buy. I would recommend going to the UNIT SPECS link first and seeing all the ships and their prices. Once you decide on what you want to buy you click the ORDER UNITS FROM GM link on the main menu, and simply type in the # and name of the ship you want, like 10 XWING. After you order them, hit SAVE (hopefully b4 the turn ends) then when the next turn happens you will have those ships waiting there in your home sector GIVE ORDERS TO YOUR UNITS Once you have some ships, play around with the different orders you can give. You can order your ships to JUMP to another location, either within the same tactical sector or to another sector altogether. MAKE SURE to check the JUMP order after you give it to make sure you arent going to far (it will give you an estimate of how many seconds it will take the ship to get there). The game runs 10 cycles every 45 minutes of real world time, so obviously 1000s of seconds is NOT A GOOD THING. If so, just cancel the order or change the destination to something closer. TRY out an escort mission. GET YOUR FEET WET IN BATTLE This phase of the game is intended to test the battle code and the user interface, so when you feel up for it, give your ships orders to JUMP to 50100,50100 and see what happens. The game will get alot more crazy once you enter the battle zone but you will learn quick.

I will post up some initial steps for newcomers to look at once they log in. In the meantime, look over the units you can buy and figure out what you want to order.

I want to open up a discussion on formations. Currently the only way to get ships to behave in formation is via the ESCORT command, but there are limitations, like if the flagship gets killed or docks, all the escort ships lose their orders. So, I have been thinking of a way of doing a formation and this is what I am starting to come up with. Since we have FLEETS already, I can add formation functionality to the FLEET object. You would be able to give order to the actual FLEET unit, like MOVE. I would try to keep it very simplistic where you just tell the FLEET where to move, and any ships within it that have NO ORDERS would go where the FLEET is going. There is alot of code just to do that, but I think I can handle that. The questions starts coming up in my head of what happens when you assign a FLEET to move but no ships below it are free of orders, does the FLEET object virtually move and whenever the ships orders end, they try to catch up? That could get very confusing for you guys to follow. Also, what kind of actions could you assign to a fleet. You cant really assign a formation/Fleet to attack. Maybe a fleet of cap ships that dont have to maneuver on stuff, but it wouldnt make sense for a Fleet of fighters to have to stay in formation during combat. I think I really want to know what you users would use the formation/fleet for, and I can tailor what I allow it to do based on what you ask. So I am anxious to hear your thoughts. I think i could make some very simplistic code to just allow FLEETS to be used to move ships around easily, to keep you from having to do individual orders. I also see me creating a FORM UP order that a ship can call that will move the FLEET position to wherever the ship is, and the rest of the ships would form up on it. I think that would be necessary if all the ships in the FLEET dock, say, or are destroyed.

New ZIP Update. MANDATORY DOWNLOAD. Download at http://galsim.nickersonm.com/galsim.zip Bug Fix There was a small error with the weapons loadout and how it was displayed on the GUI. I tried to fix as much as I could on the back end, but if you suspect there is a problem (it will show a zero for the weapons loadout), just resubmit a SET WARHEAD LOADOUT order for another type of warhead then another one back to the one you want and it will be refreshed. If you havent messed with warhead loadouts dont worry about it but you will still have to get the new GUI. Sorry for the inconvenience.

New ZIP Update. Download at http://galsim.nickersonm.com/galsim.zip New Features Repair Onboard Order: - Eh, screw it, created it anyway. Use it if you want. Like Refuel/Rearm, this will only work if it is already docked. It will hold the ship in this order until its hull strength is fully repaired.

Im interested in the opinions on this. Couple of tidbits for all of your info -the reason i have CMs and PTs hitting hull is because if they didnt, there would be no way you could knock out a Shield Generator on a ship without first bringing down the shields first (kinda worthless). CM/PTs since they hit hull all the time have a chance at a critical hit. -even in the real game I plan on having SOME fuel/warhead production at a ship level, but I think it will be drastically reduced. I want to make warheads still a logistical problem you will have to figure out.

New ZIP Update. Download at http://galsim.nickersonm.com/galsim.zip New Features New Refuel/Rearm Order - this order will only work if it is put right after a DOCK order - what it will do is hold until a fighter is fully fueled and fully loaded with missiles As I was writing the last update I thought of this enhancement, SO... you can stack alot of orders and put them on repeat and just let them go JUMP to battle sector ATTACK DOCK on mothership in other sector, same sector, etc REFUEL/REARM with all set on repeat and with you using HULL BREAK / FUEL BREAK levels, you should be able to have this run fully automated I am thinking of adding a REPAIR ONBOARD order where a ship would wait until it fully repaired. How useful would that be, being it may take a while. Is it useful? I probably wouldnt combine it like REFUEL and REPAIR because of the large time difference.

New ZIP Update. Download at http://galsim.nickersonm.com/galsim.zip New Features More automated ability with damage and fuel status: - I have added two new orders, SET FUEL BREAK LEVEL and SET HULL BREAK LEVEL, you set these to a number between 1 and 100. It is a percentage that at which a ship will break from certain orders. - The ship will break from MOVE, ATTACK, DEFEND, PATROL, ESCORT, BUILD UNIT, BOMBARD, ENTER/EXIT ATMOSPHERE orders - The ship will then try to execute the next order down the list SO, you can now put a ship in an ATTACK order, then add in a DOCK or JUMP order right after it, and when your ship reaches the fuel level or hull damage level specified it will break from the ATTACK order and do the next order down the line. Have fun!

I did notice that BWINGs were doing a nice job against TDs as well (at certain parts of the battle) but the battlefield was so full of stuff it was hard to make supportable conclusions.

nah, dont worry about it, i didnt take it as snippy. I took it as a guy interested in this game who wants to make it 'feel right' in terms of realism, etc. Thats the exact kind of feedback I am looking for. Appreciate it.

No I dont think you are missing anything. For sure, I dont want MC40 dying from 6 PTs like in X-Wing but 1500 PTs, yeah that could be a bit much. So, what do you propose to be the right amount to kill a ship with nearly NINETY THOUSAND hit points? These questions and the answers to them are what this whole phase of the game is about. Make a recommendation with some reasoning behind it, or open it for discussion, and lets see what people agree to. I dont want warheads to become the wildcard in the game. I want them to be a good way of changing the tactical picture, but not a war-changing thing themselves, so lets see what we can come up with. Right now they are set at 150 damage, with the random factor meaning they average to around 75 pts per hit. What would you recommend?

New ZIP Update. Download at http://galsim.nickersonm.com/galsim.zip New Features Fighter fuel usage: - Now, only when fighters are in "Maneuvering to Engage" enemies will they burn the 0.5 fuel/cycle. When they are doing any other status they will use up 0.25/cycle (this is not including what I mentioned yesterday: 0.1 for WAIT and IDLE, 0 for JUMP and ONBOARD). So fighter on patrol with no enemies will burn at half the speed they did before. Damage Tweaks: - warhead now not affected by the 10% multiplier I use for energy based weapons. so they pack a much better wallop this time (which i wanted because they are a finite resource). - the fighter vs capship penalties i put in some time ago (armor factor) only affects hits against hulls Attack Hit Tweaks: - when calculating dodge factors for ships, the guy getting fired on AT MOST lost 50% of his dodge factor to randomness while the attacker could lose any random percentage. Now I evened it out. And the BIG CHANGE. Weapon loadouts! - fighter craft now have the ability to load any missile type using the SET WARHEAD LOADOUT order. When given this order, the next time the fighter docks (and from then on until changed again) it will load the chosen warhead type. So XJWINGs can now use CMs and TDs can now use PTs etc, etc. (This is only implemented for craft, not capital ships). Have fun! PS. i have been doing some side testing and the CM was a big factor in the TDs dominance over a XJWING. The XJWING was actually very good at hitting a TD but the PTs werent as good as the CMs. I think with these tweaks we will have at least a couple of fighters able to standup to the TD

The GalSim GUI runs on Java, so you will need the Java Runtime Environment. The current version is Java 6, but Galsim will run with Java 5 (at least version 1.5.0_08). Goto http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp to get the latest version. Select JAVA RUNTIME ENVIRONMENT 6 (currently at update 6). Follow the install instructions. Its pretty simple Get the Java GUI code. You can download it by going to http://galsim.nickersonm.com/galsim.zip Find the galsim.bat file in the directory you downloaded and double click it. A MSDOS window will pop up and then the GUI should come up soon after If you haven't already, contact me at the email address below to join. I will reply back and send you your login ID and password when you are added in to the game database. After you login successfully for the first time, you can establish your own username and password (NOTE: you will ALWAYS use the original login ID to login, NOT your username. your username is an in-game name that others will see you as). I will start you with one ship, a small shuttle for your in-game persona. This shuttle, a LDR class ship, is VERY IMPORTANT. Keep it out of harms way, or else you lose alot of abilities in the game (not as much in this version, but definitely in the full version of the game). Then you order ships, move them around, and blow stuff up. Let me know if you have any questions

Welcome. Yeah, I am running that from my house, so I will probably be moving all that stuff to the nickerson site. Thanks for the heads up. THank goodness, tho, that the forum here is where you will get almost 100% of the info you need.

Hmm.. yup that would seem what the code would do. I cannot think of a nice neat way of preventing that, since a ship only has one parent at a time, and it keeps no history of who its old parent was. So until/if i can think of a way around that, sorry for that inconvenience.

Oh BTW, fighters running at full burn, i.e. no jumps, no wait time, will be able to go 200 cycles (20 turns) without needing fuel. That is NOT severely limiting, IMO.

one thing I am looking at: I really ratcheted down damage to make ships last longer, BUT that applies to warheads too. Which is a big disadvantage since warheads are a limited supply, so I think I will raise the damage of warheads so that they are not totally worthless at their current state. Thanks for the analysis on the fighters, I'm taking all of this down so I can see if there is something we can do about the TDs superiority. No matter what I do, of course, they are still going to be good, but I want to make fighters that are supposed to be near-equal or equals fare better.