Archive through September 10, 2005
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: Player Campaigns:
Campaign support software:
Archive through September 10, 2005
so what would everyone want in a compaign support program?
for legal reasons I am thinking that the result is going to end up being server based so that ADB can allow it. it will probably also end up having some sort of fee attached to it (don't worry about the fee structure for now, lets instead try to figure out what we want)
what we are talking about here is not F&E and it's not 'the official ADB campaign system'
we are talking about producing an infrastructure that will allow different campaigns to use different rules. the system needs to be able to accomodate the more complicated rule options, but also have options to simplify the rules.
the user interface can be e-mail, web browser, or custom software. the need is to allow people with different types of systems to play against each other.
most of the game specific logic should be implemented on the server to avoid the need to re-implement it for several different platforms.
For security reasons the server should implement all random number generation and should not send anything to a client program that that player should not know (if the data isn't sent there then the payer can't hack the client to find it out)
so after laying down the ground rules let's talk about what options we would want to have avilable.
1. Sequence of play
I can't see any reasonable way to both turn based movement (i.e. F&E) and phased movement. As such I think the system should use phased movement.
within this structure I think we should be able to support different sequences of play.
if we can figure out how to have the same engine handle both turn types then this could also become the official F&E online (the existing F&E online has lots of flexibility, but the sequense of play is deeply embedded in the software)
2. galaxy maps
options should include
fixed and randomly generated (several options of each)
planets should include size/type, population (current and max), ecology, mineral rateing, status (devestated/recovering/etc)
hidden movement should be supported (and therefor custom maps for each player)
3. ships
F&E factors, SFB SSD (note the SSD cannot be included in the game due to ADB limits), custom movement rates, crew experiance, legendary officers
4. supply
none, limited range, explicit resuppply of expendables, explicit supply for ships (allowing for different ships needing different amounts of supplies)
5. maintinance
none, per ship, based on ship activities
6. ship construction
outright purchase, purchse over time, scheduled by the senerio.
construction limits
A. explicit
B. construction docs
C. slipways
availability
A. senerio specific
B. techblock
C. YIS
7. economics.
fixed
based on territory
based on # of planets
many custom types (I won't try to come up with names for all of them 
)
8. exploration.
none
fixed
many custom types
9. detection range
unlimited
variable (several varieties of options)
so let's hear suggestions from everyone else.
if the idea can be trivially simulated useing one of the existing proposals then we should have it covered.
as an example of the more complicated end of things is the ruleset I have been thinking of. you can find it at http://lang.hm/SFB/sfb.txt
DL; I think if you just omit references to the games and licensed fiction you'll be OK. I would think making it server based would be a massive headache for anyone who'd want to use it. Who knows how many mano-a-mano games this could help?
I think a program that kept track of units, and could auto-colored captured regions of space would be the bare minimum. For our campaign we're using the honor system for economies, but I'd imagine for other campaigns it may be needed.
I don't have too much more to add than that.
George, a system like you describe can do the simple things, but if we want the system to be able to know things like ship costs, crews, etc it must be able to use ADB material.
also as a campaign system I would expect that this is usually not used during a game session (other then to lookup/update info) but in accessed by the different players at different times so that when you can get togeather face to face (or arrange to be online at the same time for SFBOL) you spend the time playing SFB, not managing the campaign overhead.
F&E has a number of things in it's sequence of play that makes this really hard to do (the movement/reaction rules are a nightmare), SFB has a few as well, but the SFB by mail rule modifications are minor and make it manageable.
also even for a campaign like you are describing, the electronic version can help avoid lost paperwork problems (although I realize this is at the expense of being dependant on the server)
also the existing F&E online software could be used as you are describing (you would have to ignore a lot of the stuff in it, but you could use it) contact me by e-mail with some idea of what the map looks like if you are interested.
DL; I guess what I'm suggesting is that ship cost, name, types and all that stuff could fed into the program.
In my personal opinion I think you want to steer clear of is the "do-it-all" syndrome that so many programmers (namely game programmers) fall into, when trying to translate a war game to computer. There's just some stuff that people need to do themselves. Again, just my two bits
Anyway, Jeremy's the one talk to.
DL,
Your formulas show you will have an averge maximum colony size of 1.1 or 1.
I calculated all the possiblilities, see the chart below for the percentages.
Max Pop Count Percent
1 2410 75.31%
2 342 10.69%
3 142 4.44%
4 122 3.81%
5 66 2.06%
6 46 1.44%
7 9 0.28%
8 27 0.84%
9 9 0.28%
10 27 0.84%
Total 3200 Planets
For the hexes you will end up with:
Clear Hexes % 25.06%
Planet Hexes % 49.98%
Terrain Hexes 24.96%
Average number of planets per planet hex 1.
I would think you would want a higher total number of planets (i.e. more of a bell curve) to your maximum colony size.
Ken
Ken, thanks for the correction. I figure that the details will need to be tinkered with as I go to actually use it. I just edited the file on the site to roughly double the size of the colonies (and to make a bunch of them have a max population of 0)
yes there will be a lot of planets around, but most of them will be useless for settlement (wrong ecology type). the idea was to have a good amount of detail, but not have all of it be directly useful to a given race (two races that have significantly different ecologies, COULD choose to share space. also sensor ranges are fairly short so there need to be pleanty of places to plant sensors
George, don't get me wrong, I don't want to make this program do everything, especially not right away, but I do want to design an infrastructure that allows me to just create modules for it when a new idea is implemented rather then needing to re-write the entire thing. So I'm trying to anticipate the type of data that I may need to deal with someday so that I make room to store it now, even if I don't make any use of it other then to echo it back to the player.
with F&E online I have gone through several revisions (most of them fairly invisible to the players) as I have migrated from my initial 'quick and dirty' approach to the current situation (which still has some crud left in the corners, but at this point it could easily be used for F&E omega by just feeding in the right data)
the reason for opening this topic wasn't as much to specificly cover the campaign rules I have been working on, but more so to think about what other people would want to do for a campaign so that if/when I try to support that in the future I don't find that I have to make major changes.
now if I had infinate resources I would want to have the program enforce all the rules and include an AI to play against at odd hours but since I don't I'll settle for something that just keeps track of the info it is fed and does the counting/calculating that is so time consuming and error-prone for people to do (and I do realize that that second part is a trap if I'm not careful)
DL,
How about supplying the link for the F&E on-line so people can have a look.
Ken
DL. Speaking as a campaign designer and moderator, the most important aspect of any such system, IMO, would be a way to handle secret and simultaneous movement and detection.
1. Map Definition
- method of defining a map, perhaps with some templates (hex map) and allow custom, abstract maps (like my Admiral's Game-like pyramid).
- for custom maps, likely have to name each "sector" and define which other sectors it is adjacent to
2. Unit Definition
- unit identifier
- detection radius (at what range is what level gained)
- ID gained from unit at different levels
- default to D17.0 S1-S5 levels, though allow user-defined levels
- allow for modifiers to BE detected (cloak, etc.) with basic calculations (1 shift, 2 shift, etc.)
3. Movement plotting
- allow definition of movement segments per movement phase. # Segments = max # hexes/areas moved by a unit per phase
- For each unit, allow entry of hex/area unit is in in each segment of movement
4. Detection
- Programmatically, each segment, determines what sees what and what information is gained.
- allow option to stop after each segment (only if new information gained) or to continue through end of phase, reporting fully at end of phase what was seen.
5. Data Storage
- ability to maintain/save campaign map, unit defs, unit locations
6. Reporting
- on screen/printable reports of status/detection results
- e-mail generation is a nice to have
IMO, the players can handle construction, crew quality, etc. themselves - its the plotting of movement and detection that is the headache. With this tool, a moderator would not be needed to run a campaign, assuming no "NPC driven" events/units.
SFBOnline currently has rudimentary campaign support. Some of what you have listed I have already requested. it would be nice to see it fully developed to the point where we could pick and choose certain options for campaigns as we need them without interferring with other campaign methods.
There will probably need to be two types of campaign rooms. FnE, non FnE.
Then several option under each umbrella. I suggest emailing Paul Franz to see what is or isn't possible, although Campaign support may have to stay back burner for a while.
Ken, the link is http://feonline.lang.hm/SFB/FE/login.cgi
Andy, good list, it included a few things I hadn't thought of.
F&E online already does #1, #2 (to F&E detail), #5 and some of #6. it allows movement (#3), but not advance plotting, but it doesn't handle detection (#4) at all yet.
Les, if Paul is willing to implement this in SFBOl then there won't be a need for a seperate program, but one of the options that I was thinking of (but didn't list above) is the ability to use different types of combat, some campaigns will use SFB combat, some F&E, and it should be possible to use others.
given everything else that SFBOL is trying to do I would definantly expect their campaign support to take a LONg time to get to the point I am thinking of. I'm thinking that for some players the campaign level will be where they are interested inplaying, and the combat may be of less interest.
the problem with supporting F&E and non F&E campaigns is the drasicly different sequence of play
I like details. I would like to see all of the consumables have to be moved to the ship.
I would like to see an automated system or a very detailed look.
Ken
Crew Quality
1) Data Base Update & Reports
a) Ships
b) Fighters
c) Supply / Consumables
d) System / Worlds
2) Game set up menus
a) Game parameters
i) Supply detail level
ii) Exhaustion levels
iii) Shipyard detail level
b) Player’s Information
c) Map
i) Determine the map type
Set Up Items
A) Territory
1) Strategic Area
a) Historical Setting
b) F&E Map
(a) F&E Map – Early Years Y 60
(b) F&E Map – Early Years Y 75
(c) F&E Map – Early Years Y 92
(d) F&E Map – Early Years Y102
(e) F&E Map – Early Years Y126
(f) F&E Map – As Per Game
c) Pseudo-Random Map (Cdh)
d) Omega Map
(a) Omega 1
(b) Omega 4
e) Empires Map
(a) With Races
(b) Without Races
f) Random Map Sizes
g) Hex Shaped Map (Page 7 Cdh)
h) Warp Points
i) "Hex" Shapes For Map
1) Hex Shaped "Hexes"
2) Square Shaped "Hexes"
3) Octagonal Shaped "Hexes"
j) Coordinate Systems
1) Hexes
2) x - y
3) 2d Cartesian Coordinates
4) 3d Cartesian Coordinates
2) Terrain Generation
a) Cdh Page 10 Terrain Occurrence
(a) Area Terrain
(b) Star Systems
b) A detailed system from another game
3) Exploration
a) Short Range Scans
b) Long-Range Scans
c) Ship Scans
d) Passive Scans
4) Surveying
a) Determining Value
b) Activating Production
c) Terraforming
d) Repairing World Damage
e) Starting Colonies
f) Finding Enemy Forces
g) Finding Warp Points
5) Conquest
a) Simply Passing Through
b) Must Be In “Hex” For “X” Turns
c) Must Establish Colony
d) Must Establish A Base
6) Monsters & Random Events
B) Ship Speeds
1) Set Speed For All Ships
a) In Friendly Territory
b) In Neutral Zone
c) In Enemy Territory
2) Warp Engines Divided By “X”
3) By Type
a) Battleships
b) Dreadnoughts
c) Cruisers
d) Frigates
e) Pol’s
4) Sub-Light Ship Speeds
5) Pf’s
6) Fighters
7) Monitors
8) X-Ship Bonus
C) Economics
1) Simple Economics
2) Simple Economics With Provincial Income
3) Combined Resource Economy
4) Trading Economy
5) Population-Based Economy
6) Prospecting Economy
7) Economic Bonuses
D) Logistics
1) Economic Logistics
a) No Effort
b) Shipping By Freighter
c) Automatic Shipping Network
d) Shipping Lanes
e) Shipping For Hire
f) Combinations
2) Raiding Supply Lines
3) Storage Of Excess Resources
4) Supply Logistics
a) Automatic Resupply
b) Resupply By Range
c) Resupply From Bases
d) Resupply From Ships
5) Cost Of Supplies
a) Fuel
b) Food
c) Shuttles & Fighters
d) T-Bombs & Mines
e) Drones
f) Crew & Boarding Parties
g) Pseudo-Plasma Torpedoes
h) Other Items
6) Ship Maintenance
7) Mothballed Ships
E) Shipyards & Construction Facilities
1) Nature Of Construction
a) Automatic Deployment
b) Fixed Purchase Menu
c) Purchase From Elsewhere
d) Assembly Line Production
e) Actual Building
2) Construction Logistics
a) Assembly Lines
3) Construction Costs
a) EPV / BPV
b) Prototypes
c) Other Item Costs
(a) Fighters
(b) Pfs
(c) Minefields
(d) Other Items
4) Construction Time
a) Quick Completion
b) Staggered Completion
c) Random Completion
d) Experienced Completion
e) Construction Time For Bases
f) Other Items
5) Construction Facilities
a) Facilities
b) Facilities For Other Items
(a) Small Ground Bases & Defsats
(b) Base Modules
(c) Commander’s Option Items
(d) Fighters And Pfs
(e) Bases
c) Naval Construction Docks
d) Construction Rates
e) Building Construction Docks
f) Shipyard Specialization
g) Ships In Drydock
h) Warp Gates
(a) Ships Appearing During Scenarios
F) Bases
G) Scenarios
1) Setting Up
a) Number Of Players
b) Terrain
c) Initial Setup
d) Range Of Encounter
e) Known Information
f) Cloak Status
2) Reactionary Forces
3) Types Of Scenarios
a) Open Space Encounter
b) In-System Encounter
c) Attacking A Base
d) Convoy Raids
e) Ambushes
f) Ground Assaults
g) Ships Undergoing Repairs Or Refits
h) Warp Point Defenses
4) Some Rules Notes
a) Weapon Status
b) Floating Or Fixed Map
c) World Fortifications
d) Fighter & Pf Strikes
e) Off-Map Drone Bombardment
H) Command Limits
1) Sfb Command Limit Rule (R8.0)
2) Reducing The Command Rating
3) Keeping Fleets Balanced
a) Method 1
b) Method 2
c) Method 3
d) Method 4
e) Method 5
f) Method 6
g) Flexible Command System
4) Exceeding The Command Limit
a) Stacking Limits
b) Cleanup Squadrons
c) Unlimited Fleet Sizes
d) Joining A Battle In Progress
5) Reduction Of The Command Rating (During A Battle)
6) Multi-Player Forces
a) Method 1
b) Method 2
c) Method 3
(a) No Fleet Integration
(b) No Private Chats
(c) No EW Support
(d) No Friendly Boarding Parties
(e) No Revealing Secret Information
(f) No Tractor Help
(g) No Direct Aid
(h) Allowed Actions
I) Technology
1) Choosing A Starting Year
2) Historical Technology Advancement
3) Buying Years
4) Techblock Technology System
5) Research Points
6) Research Point Production
a) Per Planet
b) Based On Population
c) Based On Facilities
d) Available For Purchase
e) Combinations
7) Trading/Stealing Techblocks or technology
J) Races
1) Race Selections
K) Other Campaign Considerations
1) Repairs
2) Refits & Upgrades
3) Strategic Sequence Of Play
a) Income First
b) Construction First
c) Movement First
d) Subdividing Movement
(a) As Early As Possible
(b) When The Player Chooses
(c) Impulse Chart
e) Simultaneous
f) Other Actions To Be Sequenced
(a) Combat
(b) Repairs
(c) Refits & Upgrades
(d) Scans & Surveying
(e) Placing Bases
(f) Laying Minefields
(g) Population Growth
(h) Other
4) Legendary Officers
a) Buying Legendary Officers
b) Legendary Officer Points
(a) Earned Per-Turn
(b) Random Rolls (Cdh Page 76)
(c) Purchasing With Ep’s
c) Battle Points
d) Ep’s With Limits
e) No Purchasing
f) Limits
5) Starship Crews
a) Experience Points
b) Crew Losses
c) Outstanding Crews
d) Low Crew Penalties
6) Espionage & Sabotage
a) Creating Spies
b) Delivery Of Spies
c) Spy Missions On Worlds
(a) Gathering Information
(b) Sabotaging Facilities
(c) Killing Population
(d) Subverting World Leadership
(e) Counterespionage
d) Spies On Ships
(a) Gathering Information
(b) Sabotage
(c) Assassinations
(d) Counterespionage
7) Minor Ship Improvements
L) Background
M) Victory Conditions
This is the stuff right out of the Campaign Designer's Handbook. I would like to see the campaign software be able to have modules for each of these items. Steve P. put a bunch of time together to gather up all the inputs to make the CDH and I think that is a good place to start.
Ken
One other thing it would be nice if you could do your turn off-line and then submit it.
I am normally out of the country for work on a regualar basis and the phone connections in the rest of the world are not always the best. Being able to do everything off-line and then go on-line and send my turn would be great.
Ken
Ken, I also started from the CDH, but there are some things in there that I think are incompatable with each other on a fundamental level
Warp point movement is something I had missed, it should be possible
ship supplies should allow for different types of supplies to be needed
for the map it would be good to have the ability to have a hex of hexes to be able to zoom down through different levels of detail (this will require additional location data)
I can see doing hexes and free movement (2D coordinates), and possibly square shaped 'hexes' (coordinates rounded off) but I don't want to have to do to many different types of coordinate systems octagon shaped 'hexes' and 3D coordinates are to drasticly different to cover with the same basic engine.
I had missed listing monsters (and other random game events) we should support them
I hadn't listed spies, but they will be come significant with hidden movement (don't forget the option of having the spy report get delayed and be imprecise so you know where ships were, not nessasrily where they currently are )
how much flexibility can get get in the sequence of play? I had been thinking that we would pick something and build around that, but if we make that flexible as well we may be able to do the F&E game as well.
basicly everything else you list should be possible (although not all of it right away )
offline planning should definantly be allowed, not all clients will support it, but the structure should allow for a client that will support it (e-mail, or other)
Well if you are programming it, then think seriously about doing it in java or make it portable to java so it can be plugged into sfbol in the end.
SFBOL puts all of the intellagence in the clients, the server is mearly a message relay.
to avoid potential cheating I want to put a lot more stuff in the server (especially for things like hidden movement).
Also SFBOL uses ICQ for the communications transport. this is blocked by many firewalls and so I want to provide for a communications protocol that will be able to go through firewalls.
Also SFBOL requires that all players be online at the same time, for this campaign engine we want to not only allow players to submit turn data whenever convienient for them, we also want to support things like e-mail turn submission.
Well , hey , help paul make it better. Sounds like you got ideas.
Less, I've spoken with Paul about this and we have extremely different opinions on the basic architecture. changing it from the client-centric view to a server centric view would require a complete redesign.
while I disagree with the design it is a valid choice and I can't say that it is wrong, just that it doesn't meet some of the things I am hopeing to have in place eventually.
DL; sounds good.
I only suggested the things that I did because it might be helpful to make your program open ended to suit different campaigns. Example; it may be useful for some other wargame completely unrelated to SFB. It was just a thought. Good luck with it.
George, if we make things flexible enough you should be able to load in different 'ships' and use the same basic engine.
for development reasons if nothing else there will need to be modules that allow the player to manipulate the data without the system enforcing any rules so a campaign useing these modules (or dummy modules that skip even asking the questions) should allow for the simple version you suggested
this is the type of thing I am meaning by designing for the complicated campaign and let the simple campaigns just fall out for close to free
the thought occures to me that if we make the SOP be a datastructure that includes refrences to the module to use for that step then we may be able to support vastly different SOPs.
two thoughts I have on this are
1. use XML
pros
buzzword complient
many tools understand it
very flexible
cons
limited info on the structure is available (how many impulses for example)
complicated parsing software to implement it.
also creating the XML is going to be complicated becouse not all modules will be compatable with each other (F&E economics with SFB based BPV build system)
which leads to the second option.
2. have the SOP be a unique module to represent each set of SOPs and only allow flexability within a small set of allowed modules for each SOP
pros
easy to encode all nessasary logic as youa re working with a real programming language.
cons
may not always allow all reasonable options.
requires more expertise to create a new SOP.
since the SOP contains code executed directly on the server the code will need to pass a security review before being deployed so it can't be slapped togeather by just anyone.
thoughts or additional ideas?
also for the record I have absolutly no objection to having a client written in Java for this. I don't have the expertise to do this and I doubt that I will get the time to learn Java anytime soon. if there are people who are interested in this keep reading and as we start to hash out the communications protocols you can start to write to them
I have a program that does fractal mapping (NBOS Fractal Mapper v5.0). This will do planets, so it stands to reason that it will do galaxies, which should help with part of the job. Check out the lastest version at http://www.nbos.com/products/mapper/mapper.htm
Here's a good one. It is a downloadable, free program called Celestia. It, basically, is a 3D graphics program showing celestial objects (planets, stars, asteroids, etc.). it has Windows, and Mac versions. It is an 11MB download which can be found here
Celestia
It aslo has the ability to add nebulas, and new (ficticious) stars and planets. The instructions, and downloads for this can be found here
Celestia add-ons
I hope this helps. I would like to see this project get done, as I feel it would create a whole new aspect for SFB in a big way.
<EDIT>
Just found out it works in LINUX as well. Looks like this program has all the OS bases covered.
DL; how's your project coming along?