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Topic: Additional abilites for ships

WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2019-04-16, 20:35

GunChleoc wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

GunChleoc wrote:

Attacking enemy ports has been on our wishlist for a long long time. We will first need to implement garrisons into warehouses.

Why that first?

Because ports are warehouses, and the defender should be able to garrison a defense force there When they become attackable. I think they will be too vulnerable otherwise.

At the other hand, you can put a huge army into the port which will defend it automatically, so I'm wondering if ports will not be to hard to take down.

Adding a scouting ability to all ships should be fairly easy - we would need to do 2 things:

  1. Add a button to turn it into a scout ship so it won't suddenly decide to pick up wares instead, and turn it back into a normal ship
  2. Disable/hide the "build portspace" button.

Actually scouting mode could also be a thing for expedition ships, so the button doesn't have to be hidden, probably.

But expedition ships already automatically have scouting possibility, so there is nothing to do here.

But no automatically scouting like a scout does

This gives me an ida though: Ports could have 2 "start expedition" buttons, one for colonizing, and one that can only scout without colonizing. The player would need 1 port though.

I don't see why a port has to be necessary for scouting ships...


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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2019-04-16, 21:18

But no automatically scouting like a scout does

Hm.. can you clarify what scouting of ships means? Navigate randomly around?


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2019-04-16, 21:27

kaputtnik wrote:

But no automatically scouting like a scout does

Hm.. can you clarify what scouting of ships means? Navigate randomly around?

As I told, the ship could move like a scout, but without time limit. Maybe it shouldn't target military buildings like the scout does now, though.


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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2019-04-17, 07:26

We could man a ship with some soldiers instead of the usual port building expedition and have it as a scout. The player would decide how many soldiers to put on board.

There would have to be a maximum capacity of course, just like there would be for the port garrisons.

We could have a "keep scouting" button where the ship will keep circumventing an island and not stop once it's finished. We already have the pathfinder for that.

Edited: 2019-04-17, 07:26

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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2019-04-17, 08:50

WorldSavior wrote:

kaputtnik wrote:

But no automatically scouting like a scout does

Hm.. can you clarify what scouting of ships means? Navigate randomly around?

As I told, the ship could move like a scout, but without time limit. Maybe it shouldn't target military buildings like the scout does now, though.

Can you give an example when this will be useful and not covered by a normal scout?

In my opinion ships in scouting mode should not be costless.

I can imagine having an additional message for expedition ships: 'Enemy found'. So one can ship along the coast trying to find a free port space. Or/and it should be possible to stop navigating. So one can stop an expedition ship at an important place, e.g. to see the enemies action.


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2019-04-18, 01:33

kaputtnik wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

kaputtnik wrote:

But no automatically scouting like a scout does

Hm.. can you clarify what scouting of ships means? Navigate randomly around?

As I told, the ship could move like a scout, but without time limit. Maybe it shouldn't target military buildings like the scout does now, though.

Can you give an example when this will be useful and not covered by a normal scout?

Yes: When there is water. If you have a ship this is always the case, and scouts cannot swim - as far as I know face-wink.png

In my opinion ships in scouting mode should not be costless.

Ships are already expensive, and if you have an expedition, navigating the ships doesn't coast any resources. So my humble opinion is that the mode could be costless.

I can imagine having an additional message for expedition ships: 'Enemy found'. So one can ship along the coast trying to find a free port space. Or/and it should be possible to stop navigating. So one can stop an expedition ship at an important place, e.g. to see the enemies action.

All of that is possible

Edited: 2019-04-18, 01:33

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JanO
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Posted at: 2019-04-18, 08:31

Perhaps do it like for earthbound scouts. Let scouting ships consume food. The more soldiers go onto the ship, the more food is consumed. Once the amount of food on the ship is down to zero, the ship stops scouting automatically and goes back to either the nearest friendly port or the port where it was send out to scout from.


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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2019-04-19, 20:03

The ability to have an expedition ship sailing around already is like a scouting mode, I don´t see the need to have more. Having to build a port and set aside the wares for the expedition before being able to scout with the ship is not asking too much IMHO.

+1 for a "scouting mode" button that toggles whether the ship stops at port spaces.

In my opinion, it is pointless to consider implementation details for attack-by-sea from the point of view of how to use ships as scouts…


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teppo

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Posted at: 2019-04-20, 10:50

WorldSavior wrote:

As I told, the ship could move like a scout, but without time limit. Maybe it shouldn't target military buildings like the scout does now, though.

This would be nice indeed:

  • If there are any unexplored waters left, the ship visits those (just like scout)
  • Once all sea-area is known, the ship re-crawls shorelines that are out of vision, to discover possible enemy presence. This is approximately like scout: The scout also revisits out-of-vision areas. In case of ships, only shoreline(s) should be considered. This would need some new coding: The scout just picks a random point and walks there. It would make more sense if the ship scouting in "secondary mode" would pick an island, then sail around it, then go to next one.

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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2019-04-20, 13:11

The AI has some ship scouting code that could be used as a starting point for this.


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