Off Topic: You would only need *two* radar stations to triangulate a units position. The unit forms the third point in the triangle.

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
Off Topic: You would only need *two* radar stations to triangulate a units position. The unit forms the third point in the triangle.

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I was talking about signals being detected by comms stations. Most likely, you would not be able to get accurate directional information from such a station, so you''d need to measure the difference in the times the signal is recieved. To extract a position from this you need at least three stations.

An actual radar would have directional and positional data, so you''d only need one. But then, radars don''t work too well of things at ground level.

I''ve come into this a bit late, but it seems to me that there are a few serious flaws in the original idea of this thread.
For example, what if a scout unit encounters an enemy unit, and survives long enough to get back within comms range. If I understand the original idea correctly, the player will only find out about the enemy unit at the time the scout regains comms contact, right? So how is that information displayed to the player? Do you see the enemy''s last known position? That would be flawed because the enemy may have been following your scout when contact was lost, wheras what you really want to know is how the other player has his forces deployed so you can try to guess what he is planning. For that you must know where the enemy unit was, and what it was doing, when it was first encountered. But how do you show that? And how do you indicate how long ago the contact was made? That is also important information, particularly if your scout was on a long patrol route.

Consider this situation: If, just after leaving comms range, one of your scout planes overflies a massive enemy force approaching your base. It is entirely possible that the enemy will arrive before your scout plane completes it''s patrol and returns to base. And that is assuming the plane even survives the contact with the enemy, which it probably won''t. Either way, you don''t find out about the attack until it is too late. As a scout, the plane has not done it''s job.

It was said earlier that there would still be a point to sending out planes to patrol beyond comms range, but I dispute that. A patroling unit may well do some damage while it is out there, but chances are, neither player will ever know about that.
Consider the case of two opposing units meeting each other in the middle of nowhere. What are the possible outcomes?
1: There is a ferocious firefight, and neither unit survives. Both players have lost a unit, and neither player is any the wiser for it.
2: Both units ignore or flee each other. Both units survive to relay news of the contact, but since it happened a while ago, and the very fact of contact affected the behaviour of both units, the news is completely worthless to both players.
3: One unit defeats the other. The player that lost a unit will never know how, or even where, the unit was lost, and therefore has no new information about the enemy''s deployment. The player that kept their unit will receive a full report regarding an enemy unit that has already been vanquished. Again, this is useless information.

Any units sent beyond comms range will either be destroyed and not give you any information at all, or will return and give you hopelessly out-of-date information. Faced with this situation, most players will quickly learn to keep their units close, and not waste them by sending them into the badlands. It will, as someone pointed out earlier, degenerate into a slow expansion of bases until both players are on each other''s doorstep. How''s that for a game dynamic? Is it what you intended?

It''s great that you want to explore new ways of doing things, particularly in a genre that has not seen much innovation in quite a while, but I think that this particular idea needs a lot of work.

on needing a lot of work, that''s part of the point of trying it in the first place. I''d like to see the gaming dynamic that emerges from it. The other point is the fun I imagine it being. If I find out I''m wrong, that''s ok.

Maybe it will just be a slow expansion, but if there are no patrols to hamper expansion (like a hunting patrol to take out builders trying to put up another radar tower), the expansion wouldn''t be so slow for the side not hampered by them.

When I get something that can be tried out, there should be a lot of things to discover.

On the point of getting out of date information, I could display the path a unit was taking as the scouting unit went in and out of range of it. No, it won''t show you what that unit is up to or where it is now, but both sides have that same handicap.

Question: Do game designers need to know what the emerging behavior of the game dynamic is going to be BEFORE they try to code a working example? We can theorize what it''s going to be like, and I can''t say I totally disagree with any of the conclusions so far. But I''m also looking forward to the interesting combinations of how two opponents with equal handicaps handle the limitations.

My point was that sending out scouts involves greater risk than is justified by the potential reward, and that players will quickly learn not to do it. Saying that both sides suffer the same handicap does not change that fact.

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Question: Do game designers need to know what the emerging behavior of the game dynamic is going to be BEFORE they try to code a working example? We can theorize what it''s going to be like, and I can''t say I totally disagree with any of the conclusions so far. But I''m also looking forward to the interesting combinations of how two opponents with equal handicaps handle the limitations.

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I think that it is important to try to discern, perhaps through mathematical or statistical means, what the optimal strategies will be given the proposed rules of the game. Ideally (at least in most designer''s opinions), there should not be a single optimal strategy, as such a game just degenerates into a micromanagement race. Now, it is true that there are always some aspects of gameplay that are not apparent until you play a demo, but some things are obvious long before then. In your proposal, it seems clear to me that the optimal strategy is to keep all your units in range at all times so that A: you will always see what they see, and B: you can always react instantly to what they see. If you lose any units in this situation, they are not completely wasted, because you at least got to see what killed them, and therefore have a chance to adjust your strategy/deployment accordingly. Let''s also not forget that in order to personally command an attack on the enemy base you will need an unbroken line of units from your base to his, and this line will need to be defended. With this in mind, the optimal stategy is to simply keep expanding your base in the direction of his base, until you are right on his doorstep. If the chain is any weaker than that, the enemy''s optimal strategy will be to simply cut it during your attack, leaving your unit AI in charge. You will never know how well your units did after you lose contact, unless by some miracle they win the game for you, which to me sounds like a pretty unsatisfying way to win. Oh, and how do you know which direction to expand your base? If your send out scouts to locate the enemy base, what happens if they find it? Chances are that they will blunder right into the middle of it and get cut to pieces, and you will never know where it happened. So, not knowing where the enemy is, you must expand your base in all directions at once. This all sounds to me like an excercise in frustration, not a fun, exciting strategy game.

Coding a demo will indeed show you some things that haven''t been thought of, but you can''t reasonably expect it to reveal miracle cures to design flaws that you can clearly see on paper. It might do just that, but it would be foolish to pin all your hopes on it. Only when it looks really good on paper should you sit down to code it.

I''m not exactly looking for miracle cures, but my itch to see it happen will persist until I try it out for myself, or work harder on the design.

It will be a worthwhile exercise I think, whether or not it blossoms into a full fledged game. I know this type of research strategy wouldn''t work well at a professional game development company, but at least after the work is done I can either lay it to rest or continue on. I''m certainly no experienced game designer by any means. I expect I''ll be learning a lot.

I appreciate your input.

My optimal strategy is to find the other person''s base first and attack while it is still weak and to avoid being found out, which would mean sending out well-armed sorties in all directions - both to find the enemy and to disguise the location of my base.

Even growing bases until they meet isn''t bad unless they both cover a very large portion of the map. It''s just that once they meet you have to be a little smarter in going around and finding a good direction to attack from.

Actually, having entire fronts to work with has been the nature of most wars anyway - just don''t let them build trenches and it won''t be a problem(that''s a World War I reference). At that point it becomes a test of building forces behind the lines, coordinating their offensives and trying to probe the enemy''s lines. That could be fun, it would give players the opportunity to build many many squads of the expensive super-mega-ultra-behemoth tank.

You could start by churning out many scouts, then start pairing them up with slower escorts when they start disappearing, and finally building the really big assault units when you find the base.

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
My optimal strategy is to find the other person''s base first and attack while it is still weak and to avoid being found out, which would mean sending out well-armed sorties in all directions - both to find the enemy and to disguise the location of my base.

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But since your early attacking force is likely to find the enemy base while it is out of comms contact, either they get wiped out without your knowledge, or the AI wins the game for you, out of sight. Is that really an approach you would take game after game?

I had an idea which may resolve many of the issues I''ve mentioned. If one of your units is destroyed, it sends a single powerful transmission which has the same effect as reporting back normally, i.e. it informs you of the enemy activity it has seen recently, maybe in the last five seconds or so. This transmission is so powerful that it can be picked up at a much greater range than usual. This way, you at least know where the unit was destroyed, and what by.

Sending out a signal strong enough to give you a hint of activity would be easy enough to implement.

I''m expecting that when/if a beta is posted and tried out, the suggestions are going to come flying from all directions from all the different player types.

Hopefully the additions suggested will be easy enough to add, assuming I code it right.