So, I'm making a spaceship-combat game. Now, weapons ranges impose some typical engagement range where you can hit the enemy while still having some freedom to maneuver. Detector ranges give you a typical first-detection distance where you become aware of the presence of enemy ships, though you won't be able to hit them until they come a bit closer and you can get a good firing solution. The question is, what should be the relation of these ranges? If detection ranges are much shorter than engagement ranges, you might as well not have a weapon range at all, so that's out. If they're of the same order, that is "if you can see it, you can hit it effectively" then ambushes become possible with good scouting; on the other hand, if detection ranges are much greater than engagement ranges, you have more time to maneuver before the main clash. Which of these two last models do you think is more entertaining?

You could implement all 3 if you feel daring, using them as representations of the amount of power you have diverted to Sensors or Weapons (shields?). Most RTS games balance this issue by making really powerful units have a short view range (thus needing spotters), average ships being able to blast whatever they see right away, and weak scouts that have a much longer range (and can thus avoid getting blown to hell and scout for more powerful units).

If the player has only 1 kind of ship with a static detection range, other than straight hit what you see (and the afore mentioned use of all 3 options), i'd probably lean towards Sensor range being 25% greater than the max weapons range, gives the player a little heads up to run/avoid, but if he wants to shoot he doesn't have to wait long.

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Original post by King of Men If detection ranges are much shorter than engagement ranges, you might as well not have a weapon range at all, so that's out.

I'd disagree with this. Having longer weapon ranges for some units can make things a bit more interesting. In SC, seige tanks in seige mode can shoot further than they can see, requiring the use of a comsat or another unit to act as a spotter to get the maximum use out of them. In TA, many of the static guns can shoot far, far further than they can see, making scouting and spotting operations essential for getting the real benefit out of them - unless you want to try firing blind, which is quite often a useful tactic as well.

Good points, Sandman, but that would require targeting information to be shared between ships. One thing is what the player can see, another is what the ships can target. In the vastness of space, you need fairly exact location information to lock on, not just a general direction.

Now, sharing of information between ships is not impossible, though more difficult to code, I think, than just having each ship keep its own list of targets and detection levels. But I don't want it to be shared across the entire fleet as default. Instead, I'd like ships to be organised into squadrons which share targeting information; this allows a ship to fire even though its detectors are knocked out.

I'm trying to separate, to some extent, existence and targeting information. The existence of enemy ships is shared across the fleet; the player and AI make decisions on this basis. Specific targeting information is only shared between a few ships; weapons platforms' hit probabilities depend on this info. Does this make sense?

I think you could include and balance a wide array of different sensor and weapon types. You could have your short-range combat/collision sensors, which show the precise location of anything within, say, 2000km of the ship. Then, you could have long range navigation sensors, which can be focussed in a narrow cone to plot courses.

The long range sensors could be the equivalent of a comsat station, giving you a small glimpse at a specific area. If you generally know where the bad guy is, you might be able to paint him with the sensor sweep, but you won't have the power/radius/whatever to be scanning the whole sector.

Weapons could be similar. You have all manner of short-range (say 5000km) phasers and blasters and missiles and torpedoes, and a handful of long-range weapons as well. With precise coordinates, you could target far-distant space stations or well-designated capital ships with a warp beam or something. Maybe some kind of hunter-killer drone would be available, so your weapon and your scout are one and the same.

Don't forget also that detection ranges can be lowered by cloaking devices.

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Original post by King of Men Now, sharing of information between ships is not impossible, though more difficult to code, I think, than just having each ship keep its own list of targets and detection levels. But I don't want it to be shared across the entire fleet as default. Instead, I'd like ships to be organised into squadrons which share targeting information; this allows a ship to fire even though its detectors are knocked out.

Random thought which may or may not be interesting:

Are you familiar with the principle of interferometry?

You could consider each ship as part of a sensor array. The wider the array, the further you can see due to the improved resolution of the larger baseline. This could be done on a per squad basis, or perhaps even over your entire fleet.

Spreading your units out might give you a far superior detection range, but might limit your ability to concentrate firepower on a particular point on the map. There could also be some other incentive to cluster them, for example, perhaps closely grouped ships overlap shields, and thus improve overall protection. The player then makes a tradeoff between improved detection and improved protection.

I know something about interferometry, yes, but usually leave it for astrophysicists und andere Schweinhunde. (Being a particle physicist myself, I'm required by guild rules to look down on other branches of physics.)

Interesting thought; I'm trying to minimise ship-ship interactions, though, in an effort to Keep It Simple. However, I did have a thought this morning that each ship could have several detectors, and when two or more detect an enemy ship, instead of getting the maximum detection as your detection level, you could get the maximum plus half the sum of the rest. (I'm considering detection as a double rather than a boolean : It is calculated as detector power, times crew skill, times target cross-section, divided by square of the range. The cross-section is in turn a function of energy use and stealthing.) This gives an advantage to having more than one detector covering the same arc, but not too much of an advantage.

You may also want to consider some form of passive vs active detection methods, where the active detection method gives you much greater range, but also makes YOU far more visible by even passive detection methods.

Passive detection methods would by default allow you to see a shorter distance than most of your weapons are usable at (with the exception of detecting ships using active detection).

Different ships could have different passive and active detection ranges as well. Low signature ships would be useful for scouting and recon, but due to design and size have only fundamental defensive and offensive abilities. The fighter and bomber class ships would have larger signatures, making them easier to spot.

What about along the player to choose whether or not ships will run radio silent or not. A ship running radio will not communicate with other ships thus preventing form sending or receiving targeting data from friendly vessels. When not running radio silent ships will communicate and exchange information between one another, it also makes a ship easier to detect.

That way its the players choice and they can design accordingly, do they want the advantage stealth and surpise or making weapons with range greater then detection range useless. Or do they want the advantage of being able to use long range weapons and coordinated attacks? They both have their advantages and disadvantages and allowing the player changes options mid battle allows them to use those features more strategically. Such as moving your scount ships in radio silent mode until they are in detection range of enemy vessels then going radio live let the long range missle ships bombard away.