[REQ] TurnBased Combat

[McDougle]

Hi guys!

FTL is epic, I gotta say! I saw it as a KS and gotta admit, that I wasn´t flashed... but now I gave it a try... and it has me hyped ever since!

There is but one thing that I don´t like about the game though:
Whenever I´m in combat I feel overwhelmed. When I have to look out where to strike the enemies ship all the time and at the same time micromanage my own ship(fires, enemies aboard etc.) the game makes my head spin... and all too often a crewmember died only because I didn´t hit SPACE fast enough...

I´m a fan of turnbased combat(planning my turns like chess I dig the new Xcom(and am waiting for the new Shadowrun´s & Wasteland2 next year )) and would LOVE to be able battle my FTL combats turnbased.

I know it would take quite some time, but I think it is worth it.

Things that would need to be modded for it to work(afaik):
- automatic SPACE (the length of a "combat turn" would have to be tested out)
- charging/reloading speeds of weapons and drones would have to be measured in turns
- FTL powering, repair, melee etc. would all have to be accounted to turns, too
- what did I miss?

Thanks for reading. Maybe someone is dedicated and skilled enough to pull this one off!

[Whale Cancer]

Hi guys!

FTL is epic, I gotta say! I saw it as a KS and gotta admit, that I wasn´t flashed... but now I gave it a try... and it has me hyped ever since!

There is but one thing that I don´t like about the game though:
Whenever I´m in combat I feel overwhelmed. When I have to look out where to strike the enemies ship all the time and at the same time micromanage my own ship(fires, enemies aboard etc.) the game makes my head spin... and all too often a crewmember died only because I didn´t hit SPACE fast enough...

I´m a fan of turnbased combat(planning my turns like chess I dig the new Xcom(and am waiting for the new Shadowrun´s & Wasteland2 next year )) and would LOVE to be able battle my FTL combats turnbased.

I know it would take quite some time, but I think it is worth it.

Things that would need to be modded for it to work(afaik):
- automatic SPACE (the length of a "combat turn" would have to be tested out)
- charging/reloading speeds of weapons and drones would have to be measured in turns
- FTL powering, repair, melee etc. would all have to be accounted to turns, too
- what did I miss?

Thanks for reading. Maybe someone is dedicated and skilled enough to pull this one off!

Would require a re-write of the game.

[alextfish]

(In other words, wouldn't be possible as a mod. It'd need the developers to do this, not us modders.)

[McDougle]

That´s too bad. Lost another crewmen due to fire(after a fight) in my last game... ah well...

[shark]

Things that would need to be modded for it to work(afaik):
- automatic SPACE (the length of a "combat turn" would have to be tested out)
- charging/reloading speeds of weapons and drones would have to be measured in turns
- FTL powering, repair, melee etc. would all have to be accounted to turns, too

if you know exactly what needs to be done, why not give it a shot yourself?

[McDougle]

Because:
1. I´m not good enough at actual modding(I can get stuff done if I find tutorials, but I´m no coder/programer).
2. I don´t have enough free time for this kind of project(it´d also need an experienced modder with enough passion to pull through).

Which doesn´t stop me from liking the idea and tossing it out here.

[shark]

Because:
1. I´m not good enough at actual modding(I can get stuff done if I find tutorials, but I´m no coder/programer).
2. I don´t have enough free time for this kind of project(it´d also need an experienced modder with enough passion to pull through).

Which doesn´t stop me from liking the idea and tossing it out here.

Then please do not insult coders/programmers that have time by throwing your ideas around.

It took me exactly one night to go from "i just picked this game up two days ago and it's awesome" to making shark wars mod. Learning how to mod this game is easy, and there should be no "i'm not a coder, i'm a cook" excuses.

It's like this: you present yourself as a guy that has a grasp on what needs to change, pitches the idea as a plausible one and makes a snide remark "that would only need changing A, B, and C". Statements like these are even more insulting than the misleading book titles saying "learn C++ in 21 days" - if it really were this easy then saying "i'm no coder/programmer" wouldn't make any difference because it's just changing A, B and C right? If you could really learn C++ in 21 days then years and years of experience wouldn't matter much because a coder is a human tool right?

Wrong. We're not here to code for you. If you want to get somewhere, you will have to do just one thing - tell us what all you have tried, and what failed. Then and only then can we try and guide you to your solution. Things like "I want this made, it should be pretty easy, sounds just like A B and C where balancing A and B will be the toughest" are really insulting because they tell me that you totally abstracted making the mod and are already thinging about it in it's release-candidate state and how will we keep weapon X balanced with all these changes...

Pick up a few mods, open em up (.FTL files are just ZIP files) and use notepad to learn. A few passes thru original blueprints.xml and looking at a few blueprints.xml.append will get you started on your basic mods. Then you will learn how to add images. And then you'll just make new stuff by seeing what else you can change and grow your mod accordingly.

It's easy to say "i don't have time/skills" for this; it's giving up. none of us did. So either grow some balls and pick up the work, or stop flinging such "easily implementable ideas" around because it just sounds like "airplanes should be able to go on highways because they can keep up with the speed limit". Just tell that excuse to yourself first before posting that awesome idea instead of doing it the other way - you know, posting, getting support and excusing yourself.

This is all the modding passion you need, to have the idea and to have the internal drive to make that idea happen. To imagine the smile on your face when you see that you've done it - or maybe to imagine the smiles on other people's faces when they see someone did exactly what they were looking for

[McDougle]

Wow. That reads like you *wanted* to be insulted- I didn´t intend that.

There were several threads with REQ`s so I didn´t think I would be jumped by a shark for presenting an idea(you can´t possibly tell me that sharing an idea actually hurts or insults).

And guessing which parts of the game(an assumption is all it was) would probably need to be changed doesn´t mean that I´ll be able to locate all of them(and understand *how* exactly to change them). I didn´t have high hopes that someone would take this idea on, but I just didn´t want to put 10+ hours of work into a mod that´d be left lying around after those 10 hours, never to be finished(I love FTL, but won´t play it for months).

If you don´t want an open and diverse forum with lots of ideas thats fine- scare other new members away by throwing walls of "i´m insulted by your post" in their direction.

[Kieve]

"In Soviet forum, shark jumps you"?

Don't mind him, McDougle, no else is getting insulted or bent out of shape by some harmless [REQ] ideas.
The unfortunate fact of the matter is, a lot of the ideas that do get tossed around are either beyond the scope of the game, or beyond our ability to mod. FTL wasn't exactly designed to be modder-friendly and there's a very significant chunk of stuff we'd love to change if only it weren't hardcoded in.

To the topic at hand, Turn-based fighting... Whale Cancer pretty much nailed it already when he said it'd require a rewrite of game code. You could barely simulate turn-based stuff by adjusting the cooldown on various weapons and restricting yourself to autofire, but it all breaks down the moment you start taking hits and losing system power.
There's no way to force a pause, or to change actions from "seconds" to "turns" (a minor distinction that only works if you could auto-pause anyway).

If you're worried about wasting time and not seeing things come to fruition, my best suggestion would be to learn real coding, and see what help you could offer to FTL:Overdrive. You might find that the skills you pick up there serve you much better down the line, regardless of the project's outcome.

[shark]

"In Soviet forum, shark jumps you"?

Close enough I'm only "insulted" (as in motivated to write walls of text) by statements in which one declares himself both an expert and a noob on a subject. Your line "i can't mod but here's a short list of what needs to be changed" fits that template. I may have overlooked that it was in best intentions. To me it came like "hey, why not do all this bullshit for me and we see if it turns out playable or not". Even you aren't sure that it will be good, much less great. Because that's what I'm used to people doing. People do it alot. Some people's problem solving skills boil down to just/only asking for a working solution. Sometimes they don't even bother that much to make it seem "worth it" helping them.

If you're worried about wasting time and not seeing things come to fruition, my best suggestion would be to learn real coding, and see what help you could offer to FTL:Overdrive. You might find that the skills you pick up there serve you much better down the line, regardless of the project's outcome.

The project needs scripters too. Every little bit helps, even if it's just proofreading the tutorials and keeping the documentation tidy.

But yea, games are the best way to learn, besides communication.