I have another question..

[Rathar]

Ok, cloaking..

I just had the absolutely lovely experience of having 58 dreadnaughts and baseships (fully cloaked) come into a system of mine and end their turn upon a planet of mine (well defended, but not that well..)

Here comes the question.

I had and have multiple level 4 scanners in system so I can full on see them.

Why hasn't my planet shot at them?

Even wierder... Last turn I had the good fortune of having an 8 baseship cloaked fleet of his warp in and move to another planet of mine in a system which also had type 4 scanners in operation. This planet also did not fire upon the fleet (did I mention that both planets suffered the blockade effect so they definitely knew the ships were there..) but as their very very first action the next turn attacked and blew the smithereens out of said fleet indicating that it really really did see it.

I guess what I am asking is why is it that if the planet can plainly see the fleet it didn't blow it up the turn it arrived above it?

Am I missing something reallllly basic like "Cloaked ships can neither attack nor be attacked(but still exert blockade abilities in which case send one cloaked ship to each opponent planet, game over..)" and thus he decloaked and I was able to attack or some freaky timing thing?

Hmm really odd idea.. Fleets with 0 movement points will still engage in a combat if one is possible even though they cost 1 move (right? Has been my experience I think.. err or is it that they cost no actual MP's but you will be able to conduct as many attacks on your target as you have remaining movements? [ie, have 8 mv's, use 5 to get to combat, do three attacks if necessary]) but planets will only engage if the fleet they oppose has 1?

Either way, I thought it would have worked out that my planet this turn would be a glowing ball of glass now and that last turns planet would have blown the invaders out of the Oort clouds the instant they appeared..

Please to enlighten me, the future may depend upon it..!

P,S, Totally unrelated but uhmm for some reason I get a large amt of random error messages before I open most any game (my superstitious theory is that it's due to folks having ship sets I don't bother to load) but I can get neither combat replays nor movement logs to go ever..

P,S,S... Umm Ok, "Simultaneous" movement occurs in order of player sign up for game yes? Does this mean that player one moves all of its units all of their movement and then player two so on and so on or does it mean that Player one (if they have the fastest moving ship etc etc, lets assume all ships everywhere move 10 per turn) moves all of their ships 1 space then player two one space etc? Big difference!

Blather Blather..

Grrrr, I swear the first 5 views of this aren't me editing this.. really.. but..

At what point in a turn does a planet or a ship launch stuff (mines, sats, fighters, etc)?

Rathar

Edited to be rude to Alarik

/rude!

[douglas]

Rathar said:
Ok, cloaking..

I just had the absolutely lovely experience of having 58 dreadnaughts and baseships (fully cloaked) come into a system of mine and end their turn upon a planet of mine (well defended, but not that well..)

Here comes the question.

I had and have multiple level 4 scanners in system so I can full on see them.

Why hasn't my planet shot at them?

Even wierder... Last turn I had the good fortune of having an 8 baseship cloaked fleet of his warp in and move to another planet of mine in a system which also had type 4 scanners in operation. This planet also did not fire upon the fleet (did I mention that both planets suffered the blockade effect so they definitely knew the ships were there..) but as their very very first action the next turn attacked and blew the smithereens out of said fleet indicating that it really really did see it.

I guess what I am asking is why is it that if the planet can plainly see the fleet it didn't blow it up the turn it arrived above it?

Am I missing something reallllly basic like "Cloaked ships can neither attack nor be attacked(but still exert blockade abilities in which case send one cloaked ship to each opponent planet, game over..)" and thus he decloaked and I was able to attack or some freaky timing thing?

Hmm really odd idea.. Fleets with 0 movement points will still engage in a combat if one is possible even though they cost 1 move (right? Has been my experience I think.. err or is it that they cost no actual MP's but you will be able to conduct as many attacks on your target as you have remaining movements? [ie, have 8 mv's, use 5 to get to combat, do three attacks if necessary]) but planets will only engage if the fleet they oppose has 1?

Either way, I thought it would have worked out that my planet this turn would be a glowing ball of glass now and that last turns planet would have blown the invaders out of the Oort clouds the instant they appeared..

Please to enlighten me, the future may depend upon it..!

A planet by itself cannot initiate combat with a cloaked fleet, even one it can see. However, anything at all in space around the planet, even an empty satellite, will do the trick. The planet blowing the fleet to smithereens on the second turn most likely happened because the fleet decloaked that turn.

Rathar said:
P,S, Totally unrelated but uhmm for some reason I get a large amt of random error messages before I open most any game (my superstitious theory is that it's due to folks having ship sets I don't bother to load) but I can get neither combat replays nor movement logs to go ever..

The errors when opening games are probably due to some of the shipsets you have not having AI files updated for Gold. To fix them, either delete the AI files for the shipsets in question or copy&paste the required lines from another shipset that has them. Note that the first option will force any AI's using those shipsets in single-player games to fall back on the generic AI files, which will likely reduce the AI's intelligence and certainly won't make use of any racial techs that race has.

Rathar said:
P,S,S... Umm Ok, "Simultaneous" movement occurs in order of player sign up for game yes? Does this mean that player one moves all of its units all of their movement and then player two so on and so on or does it mean that Player one (if they have the fastest moving ship etc etc, lets assume all ships everywhere move 10 per turn) moves all of their ships 1 space then player two one space etc? Big difference!

"Simultaneous" means simultaneous. Simultaneous movement happens over a period of 30 "days" in the month that one turn represents. Ships get to move once every 30/speed days. A ship with 6 speed, for example, will move on days 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30. I'm not sure how the game handles rounding. All ship movement on any given day happens all at once and combat only happens after all the movement for the day is done. Note that "seek after" orders will seek after the location of the target at the start of the day. This makes it much easier to flee from an enemy fleet if you happen to be moving at exactly the same speed as your pursuer, and makes it possible for two fleets with the same speed to constantly "pass in the night", switching places all turn long while both seeking after each other.

Rathar said:
Blather Blather..

Grrrr, I swear the first 5 views of this aren't me editing this.. really.. but..

At what point in a turn does a planet or a ship launch stuff (mines, sats, fighters, etc)?

Planet launching happens on day 1. I'm not sure at exactly what point ships launch in the interval between the moves before and after the launch, though I am certain they launch by the time they could have moved out of the sector, even if their orders are to stay there after launch.

[AMF]

!!!!!!

Hey Ratharklinger!!!

Look at this thread, we have a confluence of interests of sorts:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

[AMF]

RE:

Rathar said:
I just had the absolutely lovely experience of having 58 dreadnaughts and baseships (fully cloaked) come into a system of mine and end their turn upon a planet of mine (well defended, but not that well..)

Good to know.

I had and have multiple level 4 scanners in system so I can full on see them.

Why hasn't my planet shot at them?

Really bad training? I mean, they are Zigfreedians, after all. Have you ever played bacci ball with them? Couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. They probably want to surrender to me.

Please to enlighten me, the future may depend upon it..!

Well...I already turned in my orders....

P,S,S... Umm Ok, "Simultaneous" movement occurs in order of player sign up for game yes? Does this mean that player one moves all of its units all of their movement and then player two so on and so on or does it mean that Player one (if they have the fastest moving ship etc etc, lets assume all ships everywhere move 10 per turn) moves all of their ships 1 space then player two one space etc? Big difference!

That's a good question. Except Zigfreedians always move last.

Edited to be rude to Alarik

/rude!

Of course!

[AMF]

Rathar said:
Even wierder... Last turn I had the good fortune of having an 8 baseship cloaked fleet of his warp in and move to another planet of mine in a system which also had type 4 scanners in operation. This planet also did not fire upon the fleet (did I mention that both planets suffered the blockade effect so they definitely knew the ships were there..) but as their very very first action the next turn attacked and blew the smithereens out of said fleet indicating that it really really did see it.

I can confirm that the first action of this fleet was to decloak. And probably attack as well. Maybe the latter matters more than the former...

Alarik

[Rathar]

Well there we have it then!

Hmm gonna be a bit of a pain to put a unit in space on each planet due to the games 1000 unit in space max setup though..

Ahh well, I will still kill you!

[Grandpa Kim]

"Simultaneous" means simultaneous. Simultaneous movement happens over a period of 30 "days" in the month that one turn represents. Ships get to move once every 30/speed days. A ship with 6 speed, for example, will move on days 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30. I'm not sure how the game handles rounding. All ship movement on any given day happens all at once and combat only happens after all the movement for the day is done. Note that "seek after" orders will seek after the location of the target at the start of the day. This makes it much easier to flee from an enemy fleet if you happen to be moving at exactly the same speed as your pursuer, and makes it possible for two fleets with the same speed to constantly "pass in the night", switching places all turn long while both seeking after each other.

Not quite right concerning the seek order. If player one is seeking player two, he is sunk. He will move onto player two's fleet and then player two's fleet moves away. If player two is seeking player one, then player one will move and player two will move onto him (assuming he is still in an adjacent sector). In theory all players move simultaneously. In fact, the program handles everything one at a time. Welcome to the digital world.

[douglas]

Grandpa Kim said:

Not quite right concerning the seek order. If player one is seeking player two, he is sunk. He will move onto player two's fleet and then player two's fleet moves away. If player two is seeking player one, then player one will move and player two will move onto him (assuming he is still in an adjacent sector). In theory all players move simultaneously. In fact, the program handles everything one at a time. Welcome to the digital world.

I have seen the mechanism I outlined regarding seeking in action several times. I assure you it is correct. In test games and one actual single player game, I have observed fleets with the same speed and orders to seek after each other exchange places without combat each time they got to move. In a current PBW game I am in, a fleet I sent on a riot run was able to evade all pursuing forces with ease simply because all ships involved moved at speed 10, and every time the pursuing fleet moved to attack my fleet, my fleet moved out of the sector at the same time and no combat occurred. Note that I am player 11 of 11 in that game, and many times the sector I was moving to was also adjacent to the starting position of the pursuing fleet.

Edit: That's strange. I just tested it, and it worked as you described, but I remember very clearly seeing two fleets behave as I described in a single player game. Maybe it only works like that if the AI is controlling one fleet.

Edit2: After further testing, I have established that which player can flee with impunity is determined not by player number, but by order of construction of the ships involved. The player whose earliest-built ship in the fleet was built last gets to move second. Actually, it depends on the internal ID number of the ship, but as long as no ships have been destroyed it makes no difference - not that that situation is likely to last in a real game.

[Grandpa Kim]

I have not done a proper test, I am just working from experience. I find your test enlightening and the results actually a good thing. Since it's pretty hard to tell who has the oldest ship, this will eliminate a rather cheesy exploit.

Good work Douglas! [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon41.gif[/img]

[Rathar]

Some awesome testing here!

Ok, so it turned out wierd..

Due to there being a 1000 units in space rule the planet being blockaded by 53 baseships and dreadnaughts was unable to launch both its mines and fighters. ( you are so lucky... 4 sweeping components is not enough for a fleet..)

First apparent action by said planet was to launch all the fighters it could.

This initiated combat with the pile of ships overhead.

In this combat the only things slain were a couple of his ships and all my fighters... (wow my fighters rock if 70 of them can kill 2 ships versus 51..)

Question 1. why didnt my planet fight? Yes, I am still having the no combat review problem so I cant actually tell you what happened..

The reason I ask becomes more apparent now..

After a few other messages of things that happen at the start of the "month" I get my various ship caused combat messages.

One of the first if not the very first announced was the combat between his now 51 ships versus my planet in which he lost approx 6 ships and I my planet.

Again, why didn't my planet fight in the first battle? I am not complaining that it got annihilated, heck, I am complaining that it didn't!

I would really love to get combat reruns and look at what happened but I loaded his ship set (only other one besides my stock one in system) and still no dice.

I understand that this is the nit pickiest of nitpicking but..

At least I discovered that 11 of my baseships versus 51 of his ends in the death of 6 of his and all of mine.

He is certain to die with those odds! (wait till I get say, oh, 30 ships together!)

/cough, I.E. in the first system galactic south right now...

Pretend edited to be rude to Alarik

/rude