Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 3:17 am Post subject: Intelligence
I'd like to add a bit of leakiness to the intel system, rather than the all or nothing system that currently exists. I'm just looking for some ideas in terms of mechanics.
For example I was thinking of a system where you'd sum the total attack and defense points and then divide by the attack points to get a basic success percentage. For example, Race A has 30,000 IPs and Race B has 20,000 IPs - so Race A would have a 60% success rate. I would also probably modify this percentage a bit based on the type of intel attack being attempted, so more costly ones would decrease the success rate etc.
sounds good. I don't know how it works now, though. Any chance the "to hit" is always fairly high, but the "effect" is the random part?
I figure an agent can always do SOMETHING... just not always very much. There is a fine line between Genius and Insanity. I am firmly on one side of that line! Back to top
Right now if the attack points are greater than the defense points, then the project is successful.
With the addition of extra modifiers in my proposed system above, low cost projects would probably have a positive modifier so they would exceed more often than you'd expect but high cost projects would be more difficult. Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod Back to top
So your suggestion is to asign varaiable after a success, taht thens gives another ciance of success of not depending on the type of mission.
thats one way to go, another is to have it then asign random % number, to this success, cross the % number with a table of effects, low level types having the more 5 range of being the outcome and the top effects a small 5 chance of being the outcome, that way you get a chance of any outcome, but probaly are going to get a low effect result, you could do the maths to have a bouns to the % roll for effect if the A over D intelpoints is a 50%, 100% (effect % roll +10, 15 or whatever) to give massive attack over defense intel points an increased chance to get the more juicy effects, in fact you could make the top range outside the permaters of a normal succesful attack, and allow only the top range of effects to be reached by haveing multiples of 50% and 100% over the defending intel point.
have i explained that well enough?, its just another way of doing what you propose, it just seems more elegent to me! Back to top
I devised a simple system that might work out nicely:
Success % = Attack IPs / (Attack IPs + Defense IPs + Project Cost)
Assuming equal attack and defense points, the success rate for a single project will be 33%. With multiple projects, the success rate will vary. For example with 10,000 attack IPs, 10,000 defense IPs and two projects of 5,000 cost each, you would have a 16% chance of both projects succeeding, 48% that one will, and 36% that both will be blocked. So overall, it's a bit easier for smaller projects to get through versus big projects.
Note that intel in SE:V doesn't carry over project points. So an Empire with 20,000 IPs can't wait 5 turns to execute a Planet Rebellion project that costs 100,000 IPs. You'll have to push a lot of points into attack against a particular empire in order to launch such an ambitious project. Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod Back to top
i had a quick look, settings text lists 120 bonus for intel defense, from this i gather there is a 20% defense bonus to the acumalated IP a faction has acumalated, once this number is over matched, a chance of success is moved onto.
So if you want a lot less intel in the game, raise the defense bonus to a higher number and intel becomes avery hard thing to prosecute against a defending faction, especialy if you provide home world start file with a couple of intel centres.
Anyone can do this text editing of existing files without hardly any effort. Back to top
Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 1:02 pm Post subject: Intel
A way of creating "leaky" Intel is by modifying the combat system used in such games as the Axis and Allies miniatures series.
In their system, each weapon rolls a set number of dice, and must pass a threshold number of successes on those rolls to penetrate the target defense and damage or destroy it.
As an example, say the target has a defense threshold of three.
The offensive weapon has an attack value of four. The attacker rolls four dice (six sided in this case) and must score three or more successes to do damage to the target.
A weapon only scores a success on a die result of four or five, and two successes on a roll of six.
A roll of (4,4,3,1) would score two successes, and not be enough to damage the target.
A roll of (5,1,6,2) would score three successes, and pass the threshold to damage the target.
One way to adapt the system is by first generating the Intel defense threshold by allocating "X" number of die rolls for the Intel points allocated to counter-intelligence. Then convert the offensive Intel points into attack die, and see if the rolls generate enough points to pass the defense threshold.
As an example, allow 500 points of Intel to generate one (d6) die roll.
If the defender has 30,000 points of Intel in counter intelligence this turn, then roll 60 die for their threshold value. On the average, that generates a little over a 30 threshold.
Each attacker then divides their offensive points by 500, and rolls that many die, trying to score more than 30 successes.
On a side note, I'd like this adapted for use in the SEV combat system. It gives the same effect as armor in the real world does.
When dreadnaughts fire at each other, they don't pound on each other with the big guns till all the armor on the target goes away and only then start damaging internal systems. No, for the most part, ships have practically as much armor when they sink as when they started the fight.
What happens is each attacking shell must individually defeat one small point of the armor to do any damage. The probability of a different shell going thru the gap created by a prior shell is very small.
Plus the defense threshold on the battleship simply does not allow very small guns to ever get through. If your defense is five, there is no way a 2d6 attack will ever generate enough points to penetrate. The most you can get are four successes, and that only with double sixes.
Back to top
Using d6 is a feature of board games limitations, they have to use whats commerical viable, that measns they dont use percentile dice, they ship with d6, and adjsut the mechanism of using them as best they can.
Computers are even better than % dice for creating formula, so what works well in a board game, because of the limits of what a d6 can provide, may not transfer to a puter in a very usful manner if you just copy it over.
Of course its all a matter of persepctive.
Kwok, ive only been playing for a month or so, so have yet to see the expensive intel options, am i right in thinking then that all [points used for intel defense are acumalted, then over time an intel project is initiated, when its points value overmatches the defense intel spending+20%, a chance exists of suceess, how m,any chances are generated though?, ive only picked a sabatage option with 20% expenditure, and then later on seen the reports of one or more ops coming off in any one turn, nothing about failed ops of course, but no way of knowing how many were initiated.
are you proposing every single intel option has an acumalated IP value and chance of sucess?, if so this is rather different from what i thought was happening, however my understanding of whats happenning at present is very limited. I can forsee that each project will cost a fourtune to put into effect if that is the case, as it will be measured against a single total of intel asigned to defence, right?.
can you link me to any threads of the mechanics of existing intel mechanics, by any chance?, or expalin the system in some depth?. Back to top
The actual script uses a built-in function to return the points modifiers - so I'm assuming it includes all the available ones in the game.
Next, a looping script selects a project in the current focus area. If the project's cost is less than the attack points, then the script checks to see if it's blocked by the defense. The cost to block for the defending player is half the project's cost. If the project isn't blocked, then the script executes the project. The points are then subtracted from the attacking and defending players. The loop is exited when there are no attack points left to spend.
In order for a project to be executed, the attacking player must have more attack points available then the projects cost. There is no turn-to-turn carry over for an expensive project as there was in SE:IV.
Thank you for the explanation, so that explains how to understand the number of ops being carried out, and including afailure report would help show how many attempts were being made at the present cost invested in doing them.
Does the defense count as 0 ( ie no intel facilitys built) or is there a base number that is set somewhere for factions defense value?.
If attack values are on a turn by turn value, are defense values acumalated or on a turn by turn value?.
In your proposed change, might not making the attack overmach the defense by an order of magnitude, say +25% to Project Cost rather than simply surpase it be better?. Would help cut down late game intel ops more than early game ones of course.
What is your feeling about placing a single intel facility on each homeworld as an initialy built, and others being built being dependednt on procurement of the requisite technology investment?, to simulate Empire internal security.
I can think of many plus points, in doing so, but not many negative. Back to top
There are no base intel points for defense. However, in my proposed system, even with no defense the project is only at most going to be 50% successful.
The research cost for level 1 in Intelligence Services is very small and provides Intel Centers. The main problem with having them available at the start is no intel games etc. Currently lacking is a way to effective control this through the data or script files. Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod Back to top
There are no base intel points for defense. However, in my proposed system, even with no defense the project is only at most going to be 50% successful.
intresting, so how does the present system know how many ops to conduct?, if defense is 0 and attck is a % of even a single intel facility, how many attacking projects are generated?. your system at least allows me to logicaly see the process working, but i canty see how the existing system functions as yet.
i think your on the right track, and certainly an improvement.
Quote:
The research cost for level 1 in Intelligence Services is very small and provides Intel Centers. The main problem with having them available at the start is no intel games etc. Currently lacking is a way to effective control this through the data or script files.
Well yes, no intel games would require a different file to be used from start up facilitys on planet, thats doable i think. I should also mention for my own personal taste, ive halved the facility space, so i get twice as many facilitys in game than you do in BM, so a loss of 250 space is not a problem for the AI or palyer who will get around to replacing it, just persoanl preference as i want more things on planet system. Back to top
Your system looks great. It's frustrating to spend loads of intel points for something like ten turns and see nothing get through.
Could you please remove the limit of 5 intel attacks per turn?
Also, is there a way to be able to choose a particular attack? For instance if I would like only to steal Research. There could be a chance of the attack not completely suceeding, and instead destroying the defending empire research points, or some other effect, but the main effect would still get chosen most of the time.
Quote:
The cost to block for the defending player is half the project's cost.
Oh? But that makes the intel as it is now almost completely useless! Are you sure about that? No wonder then my intel attacks never get through... Back to top
Hmm... is it possible to change the Intel focus areas? e.g. split the "Sabotage - Empire Wide" into 2 categories so that Research projects and Resource projects are separated? [Edit: Ok, so that got answered]
Quote:
I devised a simple system that might work out nicely:
Success % = Attack IPs / (Attack IPs + Defense IPs + Project Cost)
Assuming equal attack and defense points, the success rate for a single project will be 33%. With multiple projects, the success rate will vary. For example with 10,000 attack IPs, 10,000 defense IPs and two projects of 5,000 cost each, you would have a 16% chance of both projects succeeding, 48% that one will, and 36% that both will be blocked. So overall, it's a bit easier for smaller projects to get through versus big projects.
It's a good formula, and leaky Intel is much better than all-or-nothing. The one question I have is: what happens when there's more than 1 attacker?
Also, what determines whether a successful Intel op's perpetrator is revealed or not to the failed defenders? Back to top
If you're focus area is "Cooperative Intelligence" then your attack points will be added to your allies. I do not know if they are divided equally amongst them or if your full attack points are added to each ally.
In the script, there is a 25% chance that suspect text will be added. I might switch this to become a percentage based on the difference in attacking and defending points.
One con to making projects individually selectable is that you're empire will only be able to run that project type... so you might spend 10,000 points on 10 ship bombs etc. Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod Back to top
I'm not crazy about all of the changes, if I'm devoting 100k intel points towards a defenseless empire, I'd expect a greater than 50% success rate for a single operation per turn.
I'd actually have to stop and think of a different way to implement, but I'd be willing to try out the system of favoring defense just to see how it works I suppose. Back to top
If you have 100,000 IPs for attack and your enemy 0 for defense and the project cost is 10,000 - you have a success rate of 91%.
Sorry for the question, but IŽd like to understand your system better:
In this case (100K Intel points spent, project cost = 10K), will the game attempt ten 10K intel projects with a 91% chance of success each?
...
In any case, and having in mind the overall game style (with critical hit/failure chances), I think that there shouldnŽt be "automatic hits" in intel projects. I like the new intel system proposed here. Back to top
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You can download files in this forum
All logos and trademarks used on this site, all comments and stories posted for reading, all files hosted for download, and all art work hosted for viewing are property of their respective owners; all the rest copyright 2003-2007 Nolan Kelly.
Syndicate news: - Syndicate forums:
Page Generation: 0.53 Seconds
Files & Links
SEnet Content
User Content
SE.net Info
- Syndicate forums: