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Thursday, August 07, 2008

Game Development: An ESG proposal

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

One recent proposal for a direct-fire option for the ESG in Star Fleet Battles serves as an example of unforeseen problems with rules interactions.

The general concept was that the normal rules for ESGs would operate except as modified by the ability to use the system in direct-fire mode.

This sounds simple enough, but here are a few issues that would have to be resolved (if the decision was made to allow this).

What happens if two ESG ships fire their ESGs at a single target on the same impulse? The normal rules for ESG fields would say that the two ship's systems interfere with and (to the extent they are equal) cancel each other out without damaging the target. But what if the ESGs in direct fire mode are hitting different shields, or even coming from directly opposite sides of the target?

You might say "Well obviously the Lyran player would have to not fire one ship's ESGs on that impulse, it is just a coordination problem", but it is not. Lyrans fight Civil Wars, and it is possible (even without the appearance of an LDR ship, or a WYN or Orion ship with an ESG in its option mounts) to appear in three way battle where no one is allied. So the question would have to be answered.

Then there is the "what if the ship is the target of an ESG in direct-fire mode and a Hydran Hellbore on the same impulse?"

What if the line of fire of a ESG ship A crosses the line of fire of ESG ship B? This could happen as both ESG ships might be trying to exploit down facing shields on different targets (Ship A fires its ESG through its #2 shield at Target B, while ship C is firing its ESG through its #6 shield at target D). The same essential question has to be answered for a hellbore being fired on the same impulse that happens to cross the line of fire of the ESG pulse.

This is all in part because the proposal is to allow the ESG to operate normally (hit every target in the hexes it is fired across up to its maximum range of three hexes subject to whether or not enough damage points remain after striking closer targets to affect the more distant ones), which means that it is a "barrier" to other things that it normally interacts with.

It was the designer's intent that this would just be "a rule", thus requiring no changes to the existing SSDs. In that, he was partly right as such a change to how ESGs operate, even if only a new "option" would actually cause one change to the SSDs: It would increase the ship's BPVs.

The problem is that allowing targeted use of the ESG would make the Lyran ships far more powerful, particularly because many of the defenses normally available to a ship, and particularly squadrons and fleets, fighting a Lyran force with such a capability would be gone. (Hard to launch shuttles or roll mines out of the hatch to reduce the damage if you do not know the ESG is going to be burst at you). And the more focused salvos would result in greater damage to individual ships. (A weapon that "does not miss" that cannot even be countered by electronic warfare. Sure, he has to get to range three to hit you with a burst at all, but there are seldom circumstances where ships are moving every impulse, and that makes it possible for two or three different Lyran ships to pound one specific target ship over several impulses with a guaranteed 15 points of damage per ESG as the proposal does not reduce the damage the ESG does at any given range. That forces the defender to stack his ships to avoid them being crushed by this effect.)

It is not just a matter of having ideas, the operational and tactical considerations as well as the rules interactions have to be worked out.