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
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
Missiles tend to travel faster than bullets I assume so unless they are very far away there still would not be time to dodge missiles for the same reason you can not dodge bullets
And if they are far enough away there will be a delay before you even see them fired because of a finite light speed
And the ship might not even be where you thought it was because it moved before the light emitted from you reached it
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?
What if we make a potato boat with a cat cannon?
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
>Small, Medium and Large lasers each have different benefits and side effects that do not involve price
Yeah. It's easy enough to do, I just have to decide what an appropriate level is.
I am not necessarily saying you should copy mech warrior heat mechanics that is just a possibility
Other possibilities might be missiles do more damage than lasers
Missiles can block lasers and keep on going but lasers can not destroy missiles
You have to wait longer between firing lasers compared to missiles
If you choose you can launch all your missiles in one turn but then you will run out if there is a finite supply
There are all these optional possibilities & more
And you do not necessarily need to give missiles finite ammo that is just a possibility
Also if missiles move at a slow spped then you need to decide if lasers can destroy missiles and if another missile can destroy a missile
And if missiles and or lasers pass through one another or block one another
I've already said that you'll be able to produce ammo. There is no resupply dock or anything in this game so ships will have to be entirely self-sufficient; everything that can be done can be undone. Maybe I will change my stance on that in some particular ways, but not yet.
>Also if missiles move at a slow spped then you need to decide if lasers can destroy missiles and if another missile can destroy a missile
An interesting idea, point-defence lasers could be a thing: You'd probably have to reveal the incoming shot (which would happen at a smaller range than it can be fired, usually), and then you can see how well-defended it is and try to pop it. Gives big ships a chance to deal with light nukers, since dodging would basically be out of the question for them.
>And if missiles and or lasers pass through one another or block one another
I'm hoping to avoid adding a map to the game. Even ship-ship collision is not yet confirmed (but if I'm going to have a grappler ship I guess I'll have to).
One thing I've already decided is that some cards given to the commander will expire if not used. (Though I've decided they'll last 2 turns: At the end of the commander's phase you leave your perishable cards on the table, then at the end of the next turn you take them back and discard them, and leave new perishable cards there. So you can play them the turn you get them, or the next turn, and that's it.)
All lasers will definitely fall in this category: They can't hold charge. You either charge and use them, or you let them dissipate. (I want to say "or they explode" but I won't actually allow that to be an option, just because I don't want to have to handle it. Although if "your laser explodes" ends up being a possibility as a result of damage dealt by enemies, I'll immediately change my stance on that.
I'm still toying with a lot of ideas for damage.)
eg. morph in Magic never really worked properly: Because the mechanic exists, you can take any card and play it as a morph creature, and as long as you never try to morph it out (and no opponent flips it up or kills it), they'll never be able to prove that it's an illegal play, so technnically you can have as many 2/2s as you want in any deck.
(Obviously in a tournament setting if someone suspects you're bullshitting they can call a judge and the judge can inspect the cards, but designing something that only works properly with a judge is bad design.
Looking at you, YGO.)
Similarly, I want to put stealth ships in, but I'm not sure if it's possible. At best it'll probably be something like "people can't acquire locks on you".
So if you move towards a target while firing missiles the missiles should move faster and thus not get doppler shifted
But because the velocity of light is not dependent on the speed of it's source it would not move faster as you go towards the target thus making the distance between each shit smaller resulting in doppler shifting
>The way to dodge a bullet in real life is to not be where the gun is pointing when the trigger is pulled
https://mangadex.org/title/8e74e420-b05e-4975-9844-676c7156bd63/
When I read this
"If you shoot a 3-range gun at 6-range, how do you know it fizzles after 3 turns"
I already assumed you had a map and a projectile moved at 1 tile per turn and that a 3 range gun can move 3 tiles and then it fizzles out because it ran out of range
You were talking about whether or not you included a map but I assumed that you already planned one by that cimment
Since it's an approximation, it may end up that you can create impossible situations, like you and another ship both have each other in front tiles, but you both have a third ship in your left tiles, at different distances, or whatever. I basically don't care if this happens.
So then when you fire a missile you'll just add it to a queue of incoming attacks on that player, and that queue will have a slot for each distance value, so you just put it in the appropriate slot, they turn it once each turn, resolve whatever's under the pointer.
Problem: How do I also encode direction information? A missile coming at you from the front and one coming at you from the rear would adjust differently if you move forward. I don't want to make it that you have to go through and figure this out.
Maybe instead of having a queue with distance slots, instead you place the attacks around the ship according to the direction it's coming from, and have a bunch of divider cards to separate the attacks by their distance; because every card in a single direction will be impacted the same by a movement, so for each stack, you apply the same operation to every card in it, no matter what you do, the operation only differs by stack.
And then each turn you remove one divider card and resolve anything above the last divider.
Problem: If you currently have a bunch of attacks at 1, 2 and 3 distance and I want to attack you at 6 distance, you now have to insert 3 dividers underneath the stack and then my new attack. And then someone decides to attack you at 4 distance... Now you have to fiddle with the right place in the deck to insert things.
I think I can solve this problem more easily than I can solve the problem with the other system though.
There are three rotational directions and three translational ( moving in a straight line ) directions in standard Euclidean geometry based on real world stuff
Will there be rotation where you change what direction the ship is facing but keep it in the same coordinates
Do you want to limit yourself to only 2 dimensional space with 2 directions of translation and 1 direction of rotation
Or 1 dimension
I am counting the a direction and it's pposite as one direction
Depends on the ship.
Well, maybe I'll give ships momentum; when you make them move they continue moving for several turns based on their size.
That way any ship can rotate in place with a rotation card if it's not moving.
>Do you want to limit yourself to only 2 dimensional space with 2 directions of translation and 1 direction of rotation
Oh yeah it's going to be too annoying to handle a third axis. If I can get away with it, I'll have it simulate 3d space but from your ship's perspective everything is 2d.
I don't think I can get away with that; if someone gets above you and fires a shot, it is necessarily coming from above, afterall.
>There are three rotational directions and three translational ( moving in a straight line ) directions in standard Euclidean geometry based on real world stuff
But how many rotational directions in a 4-dimensional space?
If it is just a card game like magic the gathering you could have no movement or distance but missiles get resolved on the next turn and lasers get resolved on the same turn
Missiles getting resolved on the next turn would be symbolic of them being slower
This might remove melee unless you can summon units
>If it is just a card game like magic the gathering
I said earlier that I categorise it as a board game for exactly this reason.
In magic the gathering I assume it is like melee combat when one summoned unit fights another but your spells are kind of like missiles or lasers or ranged weapons because they can hit any target and can not be blocked by anither unit from hitting a target
Some spells are slower than others like lasers vs missiles because they act on different phases of the turn
I'm not sure I like that yet, maybe bigger ships have different damage decks for different types and directions of attack.
In battle buddies card game there are sort of 2 dimensions and it is kind of like a card game but kind of like a board game
Since the two players are facing each other it sort of creates another dimension
Basicly there are 6 spots for units ( except maybe advanced exceptions like the chaos flag? )
Left right or center is one dimension
& near the player or near the enemy is the other dimension
Battle buddies card game had maybe one or two TV series
I probablt meant buddyfight when I said battle buddies
I never played the game but I watched the TV series
I believe they no longer sell cards
I think the battle buddies link you sent me is different than
future card buddy fight
I meant buddy fight
So if the ship can rotate and stay in the same place than do all the other ships stay the same distance from it but change coordinates or do they maintain the same coordinates
I think using relative coordinates for each ship is much more complicated than putting the ships physically on a chess or checker board or graph paper using absolute coordinates so that people do not have to do math calculations on relative coordinates every turn
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.