When gunner "loads a gun" he draws a few cards from his ammo deck and puts one in the gun he's loading.
When the gun is full he shuffles the ammo in it and draws one, hands that + the gun to the commander, when commander fires the gun he puts the ammo in the other ship's inbound queue and returns the gun to the gunner so it can begin loading again.
Hmm, problem: I want to share ammo cards between all the guns, even if they're different types, ie. the ammo card shows only the properties of the ammo, the actual type is determined by the gun+ammo combination, but then I need a way to preserve that information as it hits another ship.
Context
Is this for writing a program
For playing a game with physical cards
For playing a card game on computers
For playing a computer game
For the military
(I categorise it as a board game though, when I say "card game" I mean either "using a standard playing card deck - for some particular well-known standard" or "trading card game", and this is neither.)
OK I can not help you but that added detail might help other people who can help you understand the context so that they can help you
They don't even play swat with me
@Zergling_man
It is common to use tokens in magic the gathering
So if there is something symbolicly erepresented with a card but you can not transfer the physical card to more than one place you could use tokens
But the problem is knowing which token goes with which card if there are more than one card & more than one token
Maybe you could have a colored card for the original and make photocopies that are black and white to represent duplicates
More over you could write notes on photocopies
Given that this is not a trading card game, I can just put all necessary cards in the box.
I am considering having a slimmed-down version of the gun card that the commander holds, when he fires he attaches that card to the ammo and returns the original (the only reason he has to hold the original in the first place is so the gunner cannot possibly begin loading it when it's already full).
But assuming the gunner can fully load the gun every turn (which, given how early I am in design, I have to assume), I'd need one slim card for every turn that the projectile can live; if it's something that can be fired at 10 spaces or whatever, thus potentially lasting 10 turns, I'd need 10 slim cards for that gun. That might actually be acceptable, but I don't want to plan around it.
I could potentially give guns a cooldown between firing and loading, particularly a 1-turn cooldown would just be "when the card is returned, it comes face-down, flip it face-up at the end of your turn", and that halves the number of slims needed; and it makes sense that longer-range guns would have such a cooldown vs little short-range dakka things, so it naturally balances. (Also I can just force bigger guns to not be loadable in 1 turn somehow. Like just have written on the gun "requires 10 ammo to fully load, can only add 3 ammo to the gun per turn".)
(And yeah, I'm wondering if I need to include sleeves. My current plan for tracking incoming shots is just one pile for each distance, every turn you reveal the 1-distance pile, resolve everything in it, then move the rest across*, if a shot is to be represented with multiple cards I might need to group them better than just "place the ammo type first then the gun info, and when resolving, separate the cards by their pairs first".
*Although I'm hoping that I can do it more like a ring where you just update the pointer, but that tends to imply either a maximum size or eventually running out of table space. It occurs to me that I could just set a maximum size for the "regular" max range, and then if I want to have a sniper-type weapon I can have it insert a card that says "when revealed, swap it with the actual hit card and return it face-down so it resolves 10 turns later" or whatever.)
Ah, I should probably clarify that every player is playing their turn simultaneously, doing their internal ship work, then when that ends, the ship captains all go to the middle with whatever actions their crew have prepared, and play stuff against each other, when that ends they return to their ships for the next internal turn. And this is about as much detail as I currently have for the game.
The way to dodge a bullet in real life is to not be where the gun is pointing when the trigger is pulled
That is you have to dodge before the shot is fired not after
If someone waits until the trigger is pulled they do not have enough time to dodge
When the gun is fired the hit should be instantaneous and not delayed, so you should not worry about where the bullet will be or where the target will move in future rounds but only where the target is when the triiger is pulled
But that's not true of missiles and such, which is a more accurate model of what's going on with spaceships shooting at each other.
It would depend on the distance the space ships are from each other and the missile speed and the missile speed compared to the speed of light and possibly sound in the medium they are traveling
Unless you can detect things faster than the distance divided by the speed of light due to fantasy or science fiction means
If you used lasers then they could not see before they are fired because the lasers travel at the speed of light
I do, in fact, intend for lasers to be instant, and for them to not be the only weapon type. (They wouldn't require loading either, but charging - maybe that's how I can distinguish the sub-types of gunner.)
I want the projectile queue to exist just for its own sake; I think it's neat to have this list of stuff that's coming for you and you only have some idea of what it is, and thus have to think about what to spend all your power dodging. I think it makes for good gameplay.
But if I can't resolve this problem satisfactorily maybe I will just remove it.
@Zergling_man
So if you fire lasers from really far away but you are moving towards the target they should be doppler shifted
Let's say you fire 1 laser beam every 1 second and you fire 5 times but you are moving at half the speed of light in that medium towards the target
Then the target if it is statiionary relative to the medium of propagation would be hit 5 times but each hit would be half a second apart
Missiles should not doppler shift but at that distance they could nit reach a target
I am not going to worry about light-speed concerns in this game.
Can ships have melee weapons like how the batmobile can turn into a jet or plane and then pull out a claw to grab someone's car and hang them over a lake while flying and threatening to drop them
Maybe like a buzzsaw or claw or giant net to catch other ships
Although a net could be a missile weapon if you launch it but a meled weapon if it is attached like a giant butterfly net
.Sure it would not work in real life but neither do space ships
You could make it a "energy" net
(I have said "all necessary cards in the box" but that's not quite correct: Each ship will be one box, so I can just add ships whenever and if you want to play it you go buy its box.
Also you pick a character of the role you want to perform and mix their cards in, so you should never run out of combinations to try. Characters will just be sold 8 per box, in whatever groups I complete them in.)
What would be the benefit of capturing a ship with a net versus destroying them with a missile?
What would be the benefit of using a buzzsaw to cut a ship vs using a missile?
What would be the benefit of using a missile vs using a laser?
funi
>What would be the benefit of using a buzzsaw to cut a ship vs using a missile?
funi
That ship is going to be a joke ship, probably, but I'll try to actually make it balanced. (I have decided that every game I make will have a botanist in it, so I'm already going to have a joke character for that purpose. Maybe I'll give that character some special interaction with this ship.)
>What would be the benefit of using a missile vs using a laser?
Good question. I'll have to think about it. Off-hand I'd say missiles deal more damage, maybe better at shield penetration (perhaps, shields could come in two forms, one that blocks everything, and one that's specifically for lasers that's easier to maintain - I'm not interested in justifying it, but I think it can be done, something about lack of mass).
Maybe cheaper to run (ships will be able to fabricate/manufacture ammo and there has to be some constraint to that, not sure what that constraint should be yet - maybe even just time, you only have x slots that can be producing ammo and each round takes y amount of time to produce).
I can easily say "most ships have a lot more projectile guns than lasers", but if lasers are better someone will rightfully ask "then why the fuck doesn't anyone in this universe just make a laser boat instead" and I wouldn't have an answer. Maybe I could say "lasers are hard to build, too expensive" but that's a cop-out and a half, the price of the ship is irrelevant.
Capturing a ship should provide some benefit because you can capture the crew without killing them or because you can capture the ship and either take it over and contro! it or at least harvest the parts
Either the saw can do more damage than a missile or alternatively be a way to invade a ship captured in a net or maybe cut enemy nets
A missile might do more damage than a laser or maybe have no recharge time between firing or some benefit other than price
If they do not know where a missile is until it hits them and a missile is slow then maybe they could fire multiple missiles one each turn and they get surprised by getting potentially hit multiple times
Where as since the laser hits right away they might know where the person who fired it is the moment they get hit which would prevent getting multiple surprise shots lined up in a row
In sone Mech warrior computer game missiles do not require heat sinks but have finite ammo and take longer to hit the target
Lasers have unlimited ammo and hit the target instantly but heat the mech up and require heat sinks
Small, Medium and Large lasers each have different benefits and side effects that do not involve price
If you fire the laser to often in those mech warrior computer games your mech shuts down if it gets to hot which does not happen with missiles but they can run out
