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After a game a few more questions on client for FC Online

 
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Hudson
Ensign


Joined: 28 May 2013
Posts: 8
Location: Chicago

PostPosted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 6:58 pm    Post subject: After a game a few more questions on client for FC Online Reply with quote

Are shuttles bugged? I noticed after I launched one my opponent could not see my shuttle even when I moved it. Also his shuttle was not seen to me


Is there a way the GAME can tell you if you have fired a weapon that turn other than the Weapon Chart tab? Just to make sure nothing is fired twice

How do you repair shields in the Energy Allocation phase?


I know someone has to know this stuff because campaigns are run using the online client so any help would be appreciated (using a 3 month trial)
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Andromedan
Lieutenant Commander


Joined: 17 Nov 2006
Posts: 247

PostPosted: Mon Jul 08, 2013 10:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have not heard of this issue with Shuttles. I will look into this.

When it comes to weapons fire there is two others ways to know if it is fired before:

1) Is to do a search in the chat window. To do this you need to click on the "Pause" checkbox. Then you can enter the text that you want to search.

2) If the logging of activity is enabled you can look through the log in the "Log" tab.

To repair shield in Energy Allocation, you need to enter the energy as part the EA form and after it is submitted and everything is revealed you need to edit the ship and repair the shield that you planned on repairing.

So for the delay in responding. I need to check the forum more often.
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DNordeen
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Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 564

PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 2:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Been thinking about playing FC online, but my understanding of this post just turned me off.

This "solution" for repairing shields just sounds like a clunky fix that's trying real hard to slam a square peg into the round hole.

So you have to allocate the energy and then do some "editing" of your ship. I'm translating editing to some sort of "cheat" function. Is that off-base?
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storeylf
Fleet Captain


Joined: 24 Jul 2008
Posts: 1897

PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 8:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not really cheating, editing is the same as using your dry wipe marker to cross out boxes or a tissue to wipe them off.

The online client tries not to assume to much about what you want to do, which has its good points and bad points, in many ways it plays as though you were around the table doing all the SSD bits yourself but the table is a world wide one where you can't actually see the other guy. You do get much faster damage allocation, and a fair degree of energy tracking (it deducts energy as you do stuff). For things like shield repair though it leaves you to be the one who decides which shields to repair by how much.

The client is definately clunky, and could do with some more user friendly aspects. Some hint as to weapons that have fired this turn being one of them, or at the very least preventing you actually commiting the fire (yes if the your opponent doesn't notice you can fire more than you are supposed to, just like a face to face game). The client is clunky enough that expecting to be able to keep on top of stuff becomes pretty hard work. I often found that if I was the one controlling the turn and checking whether the other guy was ready to move on then I missed stuff that I other wise wanted to do. No problem in casual or teaching games, but not good in a tourney game.

That being said, if you accept it is bit raw it is not too bad and does allow you to play people you other wise wouldn't. The biggest issue is finding players though. After subscribing for quite a while, and always being quick to jump in and offer to play anyone (often new players) looking for a game on this forum I stopped subscribing as I found it hard to justify the cost given how often I played. Of course my time zone puts me a disadvantage, so your milegae may vary there.


I do wonder at times at trying to arrange a simplish FC campaign online, I'd love to get more games in online.
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Andromedan
Lieutenant Commander


Joined: 17 Nov 2006
Posts: 247

PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 9:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Editting" the ship is how you repair the ship. If you want me to, I can rename it "Repair" if it makes you feel more comfortable.

When you say "I often found that if I was the one controlling the turn and checking whether the other guy was ready to move on then I missed stuff". Can you give a specific example? I am not sure what the client can do if you forgot to fire your weapons or forgot to launch a shuttle at the proper time. But the client definitely checks to make sure that everybody has moved before you move to the next sub-pulse or segment.

When it comes to shield repair, I am not sure what workflow that you are expecting. Are you expecting to allocate the shield repair (I am assuming that you are talking about shield repair and not shifting shield damage) and then after you click "Commit" a popup window to come up and ask where do you want to apply the damage?
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storeylf
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Joined: 24 Jul 2008
Posts: 1897

PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 10:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

No, I wasn't meaning that the client failed to tell me to move a ship.

More that because I find I have to concentrate so much on the admin of managing a game that I am not able to concentrate on 'playing' the game to the same degree. Between talking to the other guy to check he is ready to move on, clicking buttons, having to flip tabs to check things and move my ships as well etc, I'd forget I wanted to HET, or accel or what ever. I certainly always found it far easier when the other guy was dealing with running the game than me.

There is nothing the client can do directly to address that. Though I'm sure if it was more user friendly in some areas that the 'admin' overhead would require less concentration, and make the running the game less of a straw on the camels back type of thing.

To take the OPs point, whilst not specific to being the one running the game, it would make things less onerous if I could rely on the client to stop someone firing a weapon twice, rather than me having a feeling it has fired already and then have to flip to tabs or search chat logs. This is not down to thinking the other guy is cheating or anything, it often happens that people forget over a long turn what fired. The tabs should use FC impulses not SFB impulses (8 per turn not 32).

Having the default behaviour for turns being to obey the turn mode would be another useful feature - if you are not HET then no turn if not fulfilled.

There are areas where it seemed to have issues with energy in the past so you end up keeping tabs on that when doing some things, which I shouldn't be doing on a computer version, some of those may have been fixed by now. Again you may have fixed it by now, but I seem to remember at one point if you forgot to uncheck the HET box (not hard to do when you are focused on other things) you would lose 5 energy per move and maybe not realise for several impulses. I've also seen cases where it allows you to do things that take your ships to negative power, again default behaviour should prevent that.


They may seem small things, but they all increase the ease of play and provide better user experience. I understand wanting to be very flexible to allow special scenario rules etc. But they are the exception rather than the rule, so they should be things that require extra work by a user and not the standard rules.

Like I say though my main reason for not being subscribed is not the state of client, but the lack of players, but gven I have played a good number of different people who have come on the forums asking for a game and then not seen them again after a game or 2 I do wonder whether the effort to play on the client is a factor in lack of online players, either that or I am very unpopular and you need a better embassador, which may be true Smile
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Andromedan
Lieutenant Commander


Joined: 17 Nov 2006
Posts: 247

PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 5:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have fixed most if not all the issues with energy. The only issue that I just thought of was HETting with not enough energy could put you into the negative.

I could enforce the one time only firing but then I would need to add the ability to undo that action if you accidentally fired a weapon out of arc.

I am not sure what you mean by "The tabs should use FC impulses not SFB impulses (8 per turn not 32)." Could you clarify?

BTW, I understand the issue with not enough players for Fed Com. I wish I could think of a way to increase the number of players. If they are expecting an experience like World of Warcraft. They are going to be disappointed because I don't have the money to pay for that. (Note: WoW takes millions of dollars to create)

The one thing that I think people are looking for an I will be working on is a Robot/AI player. So that they can play by themselves. I am at the moment work on defining the support in the client that would be need to codify the Robot player rules.
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storeylf
Fleet Captain


Joined: 24 Jul 2008
Posts: 1897

PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 5:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Andromedan wrote:
I have fixed most if not all the issues with energy. The only issue that I just thought of was HETting with not enough energy could put you into the negative.

I could enforce the one time only firing but then I would need to add the ability to undo that action if you accidentally fired a weapon out of arc.

I am not sure what you mean by "The tabs should use FC impulses not SFB impulses (8 per turn not 32)." Could you clarify?


Again though default behaviour should prevent out of arc weapons firing, instead of an undo it should prevent you getting in that position in the first place for standard games. Anything that means I don't have to double check things is good and makes it a better experience.

It's been a few months since I last played online, but things like weapon status tabs used to say last fired 2.16, when it really meant turn 2 impulse 4 (16 being the SFB impulses, not FC). Maybe you fixed that as well?

Robot AI Smile I still have the code I was writing for that a few years back (crikey time flies) I ought to have a look at how far I got again, I think it was a fair way.
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Andromedan
Lieutenant Commander


Joined: 17 Nov 2006
Posts: 247

PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 6:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lee,
I am pretty sure you committed all of your code to the repository. (At least I hope you did) I have not look at the code for awhile.

When it comes to the undo. It would still be needed for the "Ooops!! I meant to fire only 1 phaser at that drone"

When it comes to the weapons fire, that is probably still wrong because I have not gotten a bug report about it.
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DNordeen
Commander


Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 564

PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 12:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thx for the explanation on "editing" No need to change to a different term, I just didn't grasp it right off.
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