Archive through September 07, 2015
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: Star Fleet Battles Online:
SFB Online Client:
Programming Priorities (Bug Fixes & Enhancements):
Archive through September 07, 2015
I did and responded. The text style change is certainly a very handy thing to know about, and something I'll use, but I don't know that it would have helped in this particular instance, where if the shuttle had been immediately put on top of the counter stack in the hex (i.e. something like any time a new counter appears in a hex, it is automatically on the top of the stack), I certainly would have seen it.
Similar, but different, request from me. When I pop a scatter pack (as I may be wont to do), it puts out the drones, then sets the speed of the shuttle they were on to 0, which as best as I can tell pushes it up in the stack. The end result is that my drones are now hidden under some shuttle out there somewhere.
In tournament, it's not much of an issue as there's one shuttle out there most of the time. In my ongoing wars online, I have a tendency to have somewhere between 10-15 shuttles out at a time, and figuring out which one just popped is annoying. Even if it is apparent, it's an additional set of key clicks (pick the hex, right-click show stack, highlight everything but the shuttle, bring to top) to get to the point where I can fairly easily move the drones that just got launched.
Mike,
The place in the stack has nothing to do with changing speeds.
The toughest thing to do in the client is to define the order of the pieces in a stack. But I will see what I can do.
Ah, ok. That being the case, probably don't worry about it too much then :-)
Is there a way to have a "Battle Hex" that you can zoom to and see all the units in an exploded type view?
BUG - Seeking weapon launches are not being recorded in the "weapons" tab (turn.imp of launch).
Feature request - It would be very helpful if the log tab recorded damage to the enemy ship in the same way it records damage to your ship. It currently shows internals to the enemy ship but not damage/reinforcement/etc like it does for your ship.
BUG: Refits for 3rd Gen SSDs not being offerred.
Load user-defined ship (for local testing) and no refits offerred. When clicked through, SSD shows top-most (i.e. furthest down the list) refit boxes for any given location. See emails, dated 14DEC and 25NOV, sent to gmail acct.
Brett,
Bug noted and fixed. It is just waiting for me to post the latest update.
I will look into your request.
Matt,
The problem with refits has been fixed and is waiting for me to post an update. I need to look into the issue with the DAC and DamCon/Sensor/Scanner damage.
Paul - great!
BTW, repeating a feature request I made before:
Feature Request - Additional Tab that shows a end of turn summary of the board (record when 2nd ship starts next turn EAF). Display ship name, race, type, location/facing, shields strength, internal damage (total, weapon, generated power), speed plot, turn mode & slip counter. Display seeking weapon ID and hex/facing.
Example:
Turn 1
PEA (ISC TCC) 1211A, Turn: 1109, Slip: 1111
Shields: 30/30/0/24/24/24, 10 total int, 1 weap int, 2 pow int
Speed Plot: 1.1-1.16:31;1.17-1.32:17
Seeking Weapons: Plasma C.1.20(40) 1502A
Is it possible for base rotation to be announced as part of movement on the impulses its called for?
Paul can we get a way to randomize drn launches from both ships and shuttles (fighters too?)
A good starting point would be the TD7 which needs a way to launch its type VI's randomly so the opponent is not always just knowing the drn launched from the add is always the last one, thanks!
When you launch drones uncheck the box that says show launcher and it will not identify the rack the drone came from.
There is no way to randomize the numbering, but you can make the client number them the way you want by the order you check the drone racks you want to fire. By "Check" I mean the box to the far left of the drone launch table.
If you check Drone 1, ADD, Drone 2 in that order they come out numbered with the Type VI drone being D002 assuming its your first launch of the game.
You can also just edit the names the client picks for the drones.
Feature request for 3G SSDs:
On the 2nd gen SSDs, it's relatively easy to tell at a glance how much damage your ship has sustained overall, by simply eyeballing how much red is on it vs. how much white. With the 3rd gen SSDs, there is no way to tell this. I'd like to request a "health bar" across the top of the SSD which shows the total damage taken relative to the total systems on the ship (excluding tracks, shields, and armor). This doesn't have to be a "health bar." A simple X / Y (total damage / total systems) printout would be sufficient as well.
William,
Like a progress bar? If so, which direction do you think would make the most sense? That is show the amount of damage or show the amount of boxes left? I am thinking of amount of boxes left. Start with the bar to be full (like a full tank of gas) and reduce it as it takes damage.
I guess I would say I think it should be consistent with the way individual systems are damaged. Starting all white, with red filling in as damage happens.
The only thing is, if the total systems and damage are available as numbers as well as a graphical display, it makes determination of crippled status much easier. So that would be nice.
Well you could put a box marked crippled that would turn red when any of the criteria for being crippled occurs. Not sure how hard that would be to compute into the SSD,s however.
Another feature request (for non-tournament only obviously): "Float the Map" option.
Upon selecting the option the opponent would get a chance to approve or deny, as they do with tractor beams or player mode. If approved, the player requesting a map float gets to choose a direction and distance. *All* counters, including all units, terrain, turn & slip indicators, etc. would then simply move that many hexes in the specified direction. This would not update unit move status, moves toward turn mode, etc. The position just changes without touching any other game state.
Sneaky ulterior motive: This is closely related to an improvement for the situation when ships are linked by tractor beams. As it is, whenever ship A and B are linked, if ship A moves, it also counts as a move for ship B (for everything except move status) - counting for its turn mode, sideslip, etc. This can get confusing. If unit floating is implemented, ship B's change in position resulting from ship A's movement could be treated as a float, not a move, and its sideslip and turn mode counters would then work correctly.
More enhancement ideas!
1) Sabot for plasma-Ds. Right now, there is no way to launch a pl-D sabot, and you can't change them to speed 40 manually. Same for pl-K.
2) XP-refits for ships! When adding a ship to the map, have a checkbox that allows you to select that it is an XP-ship. An XP-ship would gain:
A) Double APR power*
B) Ability to fire the next size up of plasma torpedo from each launcher (S->M, G->S, F->L)
C) Ability to fire phaser-1 and phaser-2 as two shot ph-3s (similar to ph-G, but with only two shots)
D) Phaser-2 and phaser-3** gain the ability to fire as a phaser-1, including the double shot ability of C.
E) Drone racks and ADDs treated as GX-racks.
F) Two PPTs.
G) Batteries and phaser capacitors hold extra power. However, I believe the client currently allows you to stuff more power into batteries and phasers than they can actually hold. So there may not be anything to do here.
H) There are many other possible XP-upgrades, but none of them should impact the client, I think.
A ship designated as an X-ship would receive abilities C and F, but none of the others (although it would, of course, probably already have those abilities on its SSD). This might require a change to the SSD, but since we have to redo all the SSDs anyway, it's a good time to do it.
In principle, an XP-ship is not required to make all upgrades. In practice, they probably don't. I, for instance, tend to forego the ph-3 to ph-1 upgrade because it makes the ship more susceptible to damage. Or you just might not be able to afford them all. However, in all cases, the XP-upgraded systems are a superset of the standard systems. It is, however, much easier for a player to simply not use the improved capabilities of a missing XP-upgrade, than it is to try to muddle through capabilities that should be there but aren't.
* This might not be worth doing, because the player with an XP-refit can just edit the power generated on his EA. If the APR upgrade is not installed, the player will have to edit his power generated. On top of all that, it's possible to upgrade some APRs, but not others. No matter what, somebody's editing their EA.
** XP-ships can upgrade pairs of ph-3s to ph-1s. The ship is not required to do this, but if done, the player can simply mark one ph-3 of the pair destroyed, and allow the other one to operate as a ph-1.
William,
Are you talking supporting partial XP refits for ships? If so, It is something I have been avoiding since most players don't use it and it complicates things a lot.
Hard to use a feature that doesn't exist! 
Anyway, I don't think it's necessarily all that complicated. It is, pretty much, making an on-the-fly edit to the ship definition according to a fairly simple set of rules (convert weapon type A to type B). And adding a few extra firing modes.
Double APR power is probably more trouble than it's worth (since players can just make the edits), and two PPTs for X-ships is a thing that should be there anyway.
The only thing in the list that's really complicated at all is the paired phaser-3 to phaser-1 upgrade. But even that can be tolerated since a player that turns on XP mode can probably be expected to know what he is doing (i.e. remember to mark one of the pair destroyed).
Granted, there has been relatively little play with X-ships in general, including XP-ships, but if we do the ISC campaign, we will see significant numbers of these ships. I am already facing some of the X-issues (mostly the double PPT and type-D sabot, since it's possible to work around the plasma launcher being the wrong type).
I thought I'd already posted this? Hmm.. must have not taken.
Please consider changing the way a manned shuttle reveals its target as "Target is you". I think "No target" is much more clear. I understand the phrase is meant to be humorous, but I don't always remember the interpretation when playing at 3am.
I think the phrase is a holdover from the old 2.x SFBOL, where targeting was all manual/text based and "You" was a sensible default.
This doesn't matter to me at all one way or another, as a manned shuttle has no target so pretty much anything it can say is irrelevant.
William, the issue is that the rules require only whether the shuttle has a target, not if it is manned. People can and do the reveal only without clarifying "Remember, 'target is you' means that the shuttle is not seeking, even though it says it has a target." Also, it may not be clear if the player could type in this phrase. In a ftf game revealing an index card with "target is you" could reasonably argued was shorthand for you=your ship.
I wonder if the Jindarian Med bomber,s can be added to the cleint? Damg and weapons are the same for each med bomber speed is the only difference so would just need 1 as is the heavy bombers. The other fighters would be nice as well.