it would amuse me if the Marza when using 'Raze' said "Nuke em from orbit, its the only way to be sure."

./cough, author = books -- all of those are TV and movies, and based in TV / movies.

That said, as Vandenburg pointed out, most of those tales which concern themselves with that level of detail are hard sci-fi. Just happens that I read a lot of hard sci-fi -- in fact, military sci-fi.

While I agree most authors don't bother with space suits some of the best still do.
"Have Space Suit - Will Travel" and "Starship Troopers" by Robert A. Heinlein revolve around them (in a way) for instance.

Eh, I don't think the Mobile Infantry's armor really counts -- even though it could double as a spacesuit. As far as Have Space Suit -- Will Travel goes... eh, you could make a case.

Perhaps, but IT'S COOL!   I really missed it in the movie.

Ron- the term author is not exclusive to novels. Not by a long shot. It isn't even exlusive to text, though it most often is textual fo robvious reasons. Oh and guess what? Movies have scripts which are textual and thereby authored even though that requirement is vague and unnesecary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Author
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/author.html
http://www.yourdictionary.com/author


I'm a biiiig SST fan (novel woot) oddly enough I didn't miss them in the movie, as the movie was too busy raping every idea about government SST presented to us in the novel. The director didn't even read the book, so why should I want him to go and screw up power armor too?


My bug collection

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a104/Gauntlet05/Starship%20Troopers%20-%20Pics%20by%20Laura%20Gifford/

ah, apparently you did not get my point, which is a matter of fact the same as yours. in order for people to even notice it will have to have a gameplay effect, because one or two ships defecting will probably just be overlooked. and truth be told, I wouldnt want such a feature merely for visual or scenerary impact.



I did also mention that battles in my view already have a nice level of complexity for the type of game sins is supposed to be and should be. you could slow battles or the general speed down to allow for more time to analyse and adjust things, but I wouldnt really want that. for most purposes the fast game is better suited for mp (although I might well select normal or slow for sp to have more time to think of tactics and strategies).

concerning the counters: first of all, we have to agree on what conditions and situations can influence morale. in M:TW flanking could do such a thing and its ok, because that took some planing, had a few risks, but effectively enlarged the range of choices a player could take and should take of. if then morale rise or fall is the result of a clever strategy or tactic, then it would be ok, as it rewards planing, maybe taking risks or something ( think of a sneak attack on an enemy's homeworld as lowering overall morale of the empire. believable and invloves risk, such as how to get the fleet out again if the way back is plastered with defenses). it should not however be the result of simple supremacy of numbers as this doesnt always imply a superior strategy or planing.

and if you regard morale as a function of such actions, then countering it consists of protecting certain targets, denying the enemy the possiblity to exploit those opportunites and using proper reconnaissance, so as not to be taken by surprise. and all those things are also strategic decisions and not just an additional layer of complexity in a single battle. as you might see I have a larger picture morale system in mind than rather a single battle where destruction of capship, bombing of a planet, attack on buildings or other stuff have an effect. I think that would lean too much towards micro, but the general idea is not a bad one and maybe we can find a way to make it work and add to the gameplay as a whole.

Oops Yeah, after re-reading I see that you were trying to say the same thing I was.



I know For most of that I was agreeing with you, and just expanding on comments, not countering what you were trying to say.

Now, for the rest

Let's go with your example of flanking. In theory it's a cool concept, and in some ways it would be interesting, I think, for Sins to have some kind of flanking bonus. But if flanking is going to influence morale, what would the effect of that influence be? Would your ships do less damage? Would they try to retreat? Would, say, shield recharge rates drop because the crew is in 'shock' that they got jumped? The effect has to be something tangible.. what would it be in your example?

Other than that, Sins is sort of unique in how battles are fought. If morale was influenced by flanking, when would it be influenced? Is it when an enemy fleet jumps in behind the rear line of your fleet, and you have a one time sudden 'drop' in morale for some kind of effect? Or is it a constant penalty to something for as long as the fleet is engaged in battle? Would it trigger any time a ship gets shot from the rear?

The idea is interesting, but I would say a much simpler and similarly effective way to reward planning strategically to flank your opponent's fleet would be to increase the damage ships take when they get shot at from behind, but then we know that's not going to happen

But as far as flanking and morale, what your example is lacking is: a) What exactly is the effect when a fleet gets flanked, and b) How and when is that effect applied?

thats why we write, to expand on each others' comments.

anyways, I actually tried to draw inspiration from the TW example, I did not imply flanking to be one of those triggers. I was arguing for weaker side and rear hulls a while ago, when someone drew an analogy that modern day subs do not have such biased armour strenghs so from a realism point of view it would not be sensible to have it either. doesn't mean it wouldn't be a nice gameplay addition though as realism should be second to gameplay.

also, my examples lack the clearer definitions, because I didn't intend them be examples, but rather abstract outlines of the kind of system I could image would work. I actually wanted some more inspiration on the exact points you mentioned: how is it triggered? what exactly is the effect? from that it gets a bit clearer what can be done to counter the effects.

effectively, I will have to do some more thinking into possible conditions, effects and so on. I would say a slowly declining one time effect would be nice from a dramatic point of view, but would be too complicated to keep track of. depending on counter measures, a stable effect that is valid as long the condition is present/ nothing is done against it, would probably best.

also, no one need to say morale effects need to be military only. a tax bonus due to good morale is also thinkable, if you take a planet, or push back an enemy invasion fleet, or something development-related like redesignating as capital, reaching maximum logistics, population, tactics limit, making peace with enemies, defeating an enemy. isn't there already a culture spread bonus caused by capships? that indirectly also leads to higher tax income, so no reason why not include more factors that play into this modify culture values ( I think instead of culture, you should something like influence, satisfaction, morale or some other thing. would make more sense).

Indeed



For that notion, one of the simplest effects could just be some small penalty for the fleet that got caught off guard. Perhaps, ships only do 90/95% damage, explained by the crew being unfocused/unprepared for the battle. But with that effect, the permanent penalty wouldn't make much sense. They get caught by surprise, but it shouldn't take very long to regain posture and focus on the task. Likewise, if the condition is triggered by an enemy fleet being 'behind', then it doesn't take long for ships to turn around, and the same effect should no longer trigger afterwards. And as far as counters for this, other than "know which way they're coming from", there probably wouldn't be any?



This is actually probably the best train of thought so far. It's a lot easier to do non-military applications of morale without worrying of making battles unfun for one side or the other. To correct you on a small point, as far as I know capital ships only slow the spread of enemy influence, not increase the spread of yours. But influence currently can be thought of as morale, in a way. It could be interesting to have little things like that, though. Designating a new capital could increase resource income and production rates for sometime on that planet. Upgrading infrastructure could increase resource income for a short time, as the population would be happy that they're able to reproduce (to put it bluntly ) more. Perhaps maxing tactical upgrades would instill a sense of readiness and knowing that whatever comes the defenses are as prepared as they're ever going to get, giving a small rate of fire/rate of repair bonus to planetary defenses.

It wouldn't exactly be what people generally think of when they hear morale, since that's usually specific to battles (and usually implemented in games for battle purposes), but nonetheless it would probably be a lot easier to deal with than creating a battle-specific morale system that's noticeable but not overwhelming at the same time, which is a fairly overwhelming task in its own right

ah, silly me. I did think of those two examples, but then I forgot to incorporate them into my post. I agree, a temporal effect would make more sense in that situation. with the rest I agree, its along the lines of what I had in thought myself.

and again correct, counters would be a bit hard. one counter imaginable is, if a scout saw the whole or part of the fleet amassing in another grav well. then, the attack would not come as a surprise, but the fleet would be prepared. but the again, when defending you have psidar most of the time which give fleets a warning of incoming fleets thus mitigating the moral effect of any such effect. consequently, that example at least would be far more valid when applied to a neutral or enemy grav well.

hm, in retrospection I think I got the civic moral idea from the simple fact that in imperium galactica they had a happniness factor called morale that would limit the tax rate you could demand from your citizens. I also think that approach would be more workable, it would be really nice to have it linked to the military side of things, i.e. take developments and outcomes in the war into consideration as well as those civilian things happenening. (trade ports could also give a little extra bonus for the "we love our exotic goods" effect).

to follow up on that other notion, even though thats really off topic: if you actually do have a system influencing well influence/ culture, also some permanent ones, then you could include a variable tax rate. no, wait makes no sense the way things are now, increasing the taxe rate increases taxes, but lowers influence, so no effect. hm, gotta think of that too.

on the miliary side: you could also include specialised ships or abilities that improve morale or rather that eliminate bad morale if it is encountered. I don't particularly like it myself though. not sure I mentioned it, capships could also play that role, as they are literally the command centres and backbone of fleets. would make them even stronger than they are now though.

conditions: destruction or fleeing of a capship could have a morale impact. then again, you have the problem with making an already strong player even stronger and the loss of a capship is even dearer than it currently is. maybe destruction of a capship belonging to the larger fleet or better belonging to an attacking fleet could give a larger bonus to morale ( think of "hey, we took one o'em down, maybe we do stand a chance"). its possible to do that even when you're quite outnumbered.

lastly, there is yet another route to take on morale, which could be goverment or fleet organisation. basically what it comes down to is, that you have the possibility to choose among a few doctrines on what type of military you want to have, more professional, draft, how strict hierarchy would be. depending on the type you get different bonuses. in an extremely tight regime, you could have less morale effects and no desertations, as everyone who does get shot down by his own ( thinking of starship troopers here). on the downside, there might be negative effects on tax income or production rates. I don't think we will see something like this, too massive for the time remaining and I heard goverments would not be an issue. but it would be a trade where you accept the possibility of negative tactical modifiers in exchange for some benefit or another.

But author strongly implies the writing of "textual" finished products. While they may -- technically -- merit the term "author", if you pay attention those who write scripts for TVs / movies are almost invariably referred to as writers, instead.