Archive through June 28, 2013
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Federation & Empire: F&E COMPUTER PROJECTS:
F&E Computer Development:
Archive through June 28, 2013
Scott,
I try to always take things as if they were asked sincerely. I might be quipish in my answer at times though ;)
Neither tool allows me to do a Delta to Omega war, Eric's tool does. I don't have a lot of time to devote when on-line. I like to be able to determine my turn (while sitting on a plane traveling), get it all set up and then submit it.
With Eric's tool I was able to generate units and place them on a non-standard map very easily.
Cyberboard and Vassel both have unit limits. I have a beefy machine (2.8 Ghz, i7 with 20G of RAM) that should easily handle a game with over 1000 units on the board. I loaded up Eric's tool and was able to display and move around the map without a issue.
Most of all, Eric was the only one who was actively working on a project. I would test something for him, let him know if there was a problem and move on to the next incremental release. I have not seen any updates to F&E On-Line.
Eric,
I can assure you that my interest has not waned one bit...I just had several deaths in the family.
Any system you can come up with that makes F&E quicker to play (and has a way to implement my Operational rules, like the tool you made for me), has my unconditional support.
I was on the SFUOL call tonight and we did talk almost entirely about the state of the project. We even died down into some boring technical issues, but I think there was a lot of good information on the call if you download the podcast.
As I did try to evaluate over the last week what the state of the world was, I did find a lot of minor glitches, but the big bugs that I thought existed (mainly memory problems) did not surface. Really, we need to release this so everyone can start creating the bug reports to fix the glitches. There are two issues that we would like to deal with beforehand that we discussed in the call.
I am going to find a way to demo this and invite others to the demo in the next few days before 6/7. I am leaving for a big vacation from 6/7 - 6/17, but will be able to start spending a lot of time on this after that date.
Lawrence,
Most of the totaling stuff is there and it is all possible because it is all known. I know everyone might have a different idea on exactly how "best force" is calculated, but as long as it is known what it is doing, the exception to the rule can probably be dealt with. There is also an issue as to how to convey all of this information in an intelligent manner. I do have the adhoc query tool that I think most of you have seen, but it does not do summaries at this point just lists. I did discover a bug with command rating tonight that I have to fix with regard to that.
I definitely like the way Eric thinks about these problems. I know he made his decisions similar to the way I made them with regards to breaking down the SIT and making the map be very data driven.
Scott, not to rain on the parade, but one thing I thought of was accounting for something where you have a 2 "half" carriers with 7 fighter factors total as opposed to the standard 6. Does the program take into account the fact that you can, under (302.334), leave out up to one half of a carrier's fighter factors to meet the limits of the total of 3 full attrition squadrons under (302.332)?
As of now, I am not attempting to enforce that particular rule. When you have combat, there is a combat adjustment that you can enter manually to deal with that rule and not use the auto calculated value for the force.
I hadn't done combat yet, but in this case I'd simply track the max # of fighters you can have based on carriers, and let you put those in the force. Anything over carrier capacity is treated as independent squadrons. So, you can do battles where no fighters are involved, even if the fleet is nothing but carriers, or, you can just allocate 6 fighters with 2 half carriers and the rest simply aren't placed in the battleforce.
However, this is one of those issues where the rules don't take into account every situation, such as carriers voluntarily leaving fighters in the hanger bays.
But you don't have just fighters either, you have:
Heavy Fighters
Standard Fighters
Base Fighters
Federation Special Fighters
Federation F14
Federation F15
Bombers
Mega-Fighter packs
Stinger-X
FCR for regular fighters
FCR for heavy fighters
Base Depot FCR fighters
and everything I'm forgetting
Plus all the special rules where some fighters can't operate independently, or must have its parent in the force, and so forth.
So its far more complicated to deal with fighters than it would initially seem once you introduce all the rules.
After the first round where there are enough fighter losses this gets real tricky too since fighter factors are fungible; see (501.61). It would then be entirely possible for a carrier then to field less than half of a squadron.
It would probably work best to have a fighter capacity pool and "load" fighters onto the carriers from the pool during the battle force determination phase. You could also have a fighter capacity check process bases on the carriers and independent squadrons present in the battle force. This would require another database entry field for most carriers and multiple fields for carriers like the Fed CVA, Klingon 77th and Kzinti 23rd. It might also involve have to create a special "null carrier" that "hosts" an independent fighter squadron of up to six fighter factors and eats a command slot.
My big vacation is out of the way. July and August will receive a push for me on this project.
I do wish to work with anyone that wants to be a part of this. This would include collaboration with other developers like Eric, continual bouncing of ideas off of everyone here, and playtesters. I know Mike Curtis sent out an email earlier to some of you. I also want to have a brief discussion with Paul to try to make this easier on anyone who wants to participate.
In response to Lawrence's message, I am creating a customized summary page that will allow you to use the ad-hoc query mechanism that is built in to FE Online. Most of you who were at Origins in 2010 would have seen this.
Features it will have
1) Ability to have multiple active queries showing in the floating page.
2) Ability to use any attribute of a piece. For instance, a query such as total and list all Coalition ships that have not moved this phase and have a command rating > 8 is possible.
3) Manual refresh capability
Features it may have in the future
1) Ability to save queries for later reuse.
2) Auto refresh
3) A distance function to either a hex or another ship. This is a little tricky because of the way I designed the ad-hoc query and needing the extra parameter.
Additional comments on the fighter issue. If we developed a "pool" system for the fighters, there needs to be a reasonable way for the fighters to get back to the carrier. What I have completed is carrier replenishing and I tried to do this in way that would handle the supply rules (although currently requires a manual setting of the ship as out of supply). If fighters are in a hex where some of the carriers may not get auto-replenished, it will be important to make sure those are distributed to where the player wants them in a reasonable manner. As I type this, though, I think I have an idea of being able to bring up a dialog box during combat of all carriers and fighter totals and let transfers to occur. We just need to make this easy to use.
The null carrier idea for independent squadrons is exactly what I thought of and can be implemented now.
Yeah, I'd like to help if I can.
Use a pool of the half a dozen or so fighter types per *fleet*, not per unit/side/hex. When you re-allocate a fleet, do fighters too. Each fleet has a max capacity of fighter types, based on units within it. If a unit is moved from 1 fleet to another, and capacity of the originating fleet exceeded, excess is moved to the new fleet.
But you gotta track all the kinds of fighters, not just "fighters".
During each supply phase, each ship in each fleet has its fighters maxed out again if in supply.
For independent fighters, it really doesn't matter supply wise, it is simply a 6 point fighter unit or whatever that is a stand alone unit. The fleet that sent them loses those fighters.
At the end of a turn, simply allow excess fighters to be sent to adjacent hexes...
Ideas, I gots them ;)
Can someone list the various types of F&E fighter factors that are tracked independently in F&E so that Scott knows what needs to be tracked.
For example...
Hydran:
Standard fighters
Heavy fighters
X-fighters
Some of these could be treated the same, but this is what comes to mind:
Standard (PDU)
Standard (Base)
Standard (Carrier)
Standard (Hybrid)
Standard (Auxiliary)
Standard (FCR)
Standard (Fighter Depot)
Standard (Fed Escort Replacements)
Heavy Fighter (Standard)
Heavy Fighter (F101)
Heavy Fighter (A20)
Heavy Fighter (Auxiliary)
Heavy Fighter (FCR)
Special Fighter (F111)
Special Fighter (F14)
Special Fighter (F15)
Special Fighter (F111 FCR)
Hydran Stinger-X
Hydran Stinger-X FCR
Hydran Fighter Conveyor
Plus, all of those if sent from an adjacent hex. Swarm, Fi-Con flotillas, the PDUs in space, and probably others could be considered as well. I'm sure I'm forgetting something too 
Also, don't use an integer, use a single/double/decimal, as you can have half squadrons.
Also Romulan/Gorn/Klingon-Lyran/Kzinti/Hydran non Stinger-X/ISC/Tholian/Orion are all different (and are different than the ones listed above).
LDR and Seltorian would be the same as Klingon/Lyran.
Vudar would be different from all the rest.
All the generic stuff listed above is divided by empire as well.
The fighters on police carriers are also a type. Not sure about the Hydran Pol.
Eric - is this the kind of query the SIT could do?
Of course Ken. I actually have columns for the type, and size, of each fighter squadron. So a fed SCS has something like 7/A10, 8/F14, 9/A20.
I also have a column for ships that can send their fighters forward.
This brings up yet another point. You can't track just fighter factors, you should track squadron sizes as well. No point in moving 3 F14 to 1 ship, and 5 to another.
F&E is a monster
I will be on the Talkshoe call tonight.
http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/17702 9:30 EDT.
If you wish to discuss anything about FE Online, I invite you to join the call.
I have had people contact me since yesterday and I will get back with you this evening. Thanks.
Paul has canceled the normal Talk Shoe Show tonight as he is out of town. Since I mentioned that I would have F&E updates tonight, I would like to have it. If we cannot make that work, I have created a one-time substitute call for tonight only (9:30 EDT)
1) If I am running the call, I would like to limit the call to F&E Online.
2) Until futher notice, the substitute call will have to be used.
3) Bear with me, as I have never been the host of a talkshoe call before.
Instructions are the same except the call Id is 129015.
== Copied instructions ==
(URL: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/129015)
If you want to call in, just call 724-444-7444 and enter the Talkshoe ID.
It is also downloadable as a Podcast for those that can not make it. Also, if you can't make it but would like to have a particular subject discussed Email me before hand and I will see what I can do.
If you have problem with the Talk Shoe website go to:
http://www.talkshoe.com
and if there is still a problem refresh. Then do a search for call 129015
Okay - I am going to be able to run this under the normal TalkShoe ID. ID 17702 will be the call.
Reminder: Talk Shoe Show is on for Tonight at 9:30pm EDT
Star Fleet Universe On Call (Talk Shoe ID: 17702) between 9:30pm and 10:30pm Eastern Time
(URL: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/17702)
If you want to call in, just call 724-444-7444 and enter the Talkshoe ID.
It is also downloadable as a Podcast for those that can not make it. Also, if you can't make it but would like to have a particular subject discussed Email me before hand and I will see what I can do.
If you have problem with the Talk Shoe website go to:
http://www.talkshoe.com
and if there is still a problem refresh. Then do a search for call 17702
First Topic of the night: Federation and Empire Online
Note: Topic are subject to change without prior notice. :-)
Sorry I couldn't make it, was at a 10 day out for scout camp meeting for my son's scout troop.
I would encourage anyone who would like to know more about what is happening with this development to listen to the podcast available at the Url above.