Zane_Marlowe

Fleet Action has been updated and the names have been changed as you've requested. Prime Fleet's logo does not appear on the Fleet Action site anymore. I've changed my sig to reflect my absence from the fleet db. Because I've been moving this week it's been very difficult to work online since I do not have much time and no net connection at my home. Nonetheless, I've made the changes you stipulate so that Fleet Action is completly unofficial and unrelated to the official fleet structures here. *snip* BTW, Jamont's farewell was also about the future of ISS, so for what it's worth, I'm hoping this sidetrack is still somewhat in line with the thread under discussion. [ 09-06-2004, 02:23 PM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

For those of you who are interested, I've posted the rules and mission orders in a Guide. [ 09-05-2004, 01:05 AM: Message edited by: Remo Williams ]

This is a large enough community for everybody, and besides, Pirates don't ask permission for what they want, they take it. Carve out your own niche and take no prisoners--show the galaxy that you're ready to live up to your namesake.

quote:Originally posted by Remo Williams: Zane where is Jamont? I would like to hear from him that the ISS fleet is not operational for MP. Give him a ring, I'm trying to be an analyst here, not a policy maker. Also, if you want to look over the roster of ISS members who've been posting lately and check out the threads in our topic area to see how people's availability for MP has been, then you can draw your own conclusions, that's been my data. You know as well as anyone (and perhaps better than most) how I've been canvassing players trying to get people into MP. If you see the situation differently I'm all ears.

quote:Originally posted by Remo Williams: If you have members that aren't participating in the community and aren't participating or don't intend to participate in the near future in MP remove them from your fleet and the database. Why waste your time with players that are holding you back from functioning as a fleet in MP? Then will take it from there about MP. That's already been resolved, even though the fleet db isn't reflecting it yet. But this is off-point. ISS doesn't have sufficient members to operate an MP team for a variety of reasons (location, internet availability, RL commitments, etc.) and to this point no one's suggested that fleet membership hinges on MP availability. Are you suggesting this? Let's be plain, ISS isn't in a situation where we need maybe a substitute periodically, it's a situation where we need actual players, don't have them, and can't recruit more. When this opens up again, ISS may be able to put a team in the field, but until then we're stuck doing alliance matches or some variation on what Dreada's talking about as far as official fleet matches go. (as far as unofficial fleet matches go... )

I don't know. They did some good console stuff if you were a sports fan. They just got crushed by the juggernaut known as EA Games. I actually bought both versions of Burnout for the XBox and I remember enjoying NBA Jam for its cartoonish basketball--there was lots of smack talking going around when that game was on.

I think he's saying that we reserve Fleet Commander in our titles for the actual official fleet commanders. Check out the Fleets link from the homepage. You might then rename yourself to Commander Malice rather than Fleet Commander Malice.

I must somehow be ovesimplifying this, but I guess I'm just not understanding how I'm supposed to get our ISS team together when we can't recruit new members and we don't have enough people committed to playing this within our ranks right now. How is ISS going to participate Remo? If you can answer that, then I'll understand how Wraith, Orion, the TDH, and Bishamon (or was it Balor, only one of the Insurgent fleets had enough players for a full match last time I played) are going to solve that matter as well. Don't get me wrong, I think that your fleet tournament idea is good and I applaud the work you've put into testing and creating the scoring system, but I just don't see how we're going to do this with unmixed fleets. Do you know how really lucky you guys in Prime are to have such consistent membership and a large pool of recruits? I can't speak for the rest of us, but for my little area (CIOPS) I can only say that I'm building up one player at a time and it's slow going (especially while recruiting is frozen).

Voted

I agree with Dreada that unless and until the fleets even out their membership a little, it's going to be alliance tournaments rather than fleet tournaments. That said however, there's no reason why an alliance tournament wouldn't be just as good. It would also mean that the fleets would have to coordinate with one another more and you'd have more of a committee atmosphere when coordinating MP games (as these fleet MP discussion threads have thus far demonstrated).

Well, I have a question that's been bugging me a little and I want to hear your opinion. How would you suggest we deal with the fact that this is going to essentially be Prime vs. Balor/Bishamon for the foreseeable future? I can't see how you're going to create a genuine tournament if the fleets without large numbers (i.e., the other GALCOM fleets and the TDH, arguably even Balor and Bishamon since they're operating as a single Insurgent fleet currently) are not going to be able to get their membership to the point where they can play in tournaments unless something changes with regards to recruiting.

Well, raiders need something to raid, so I was thinking about possible supply convoy missions to replenish planetary resistance values. These could be the target of raider activity since raiders don't generally care about who's in power as long as their targets are rich in booty. At any rate, I've adjusted the Fleet Action site to show current site membership, recent mission orders (I put four mission orders up for an example), and tweaked the back end management a little. It's ready to play, so I have to get with Mordax and we need to test this stuff out.

By the way, I've been thinking over some rules for raiders and traders who might want to play. If the Devil's Hand or any independent players want to sign on as traders/raiders, PM me and we can brainstorm a little.

quote:Originally posted by Remo Williams: quote:(at this writing no scoring standard has officially been approved) Wrong! Scoring system was approved a couple of weeks ago. You just don't have all the details for it. All you've seen is the score sheet. The scoring system was used for our matches last week how else would anyone have received a Ranking, Ranking score, EP, Kills, Deaths and last known MP location without some way of applying the score? This is all reflected in the fleet database and will soon be posted for all players in one place at GalCom Online. My mistake then So then if it were to be the case that people wanted to use Fleet Action officially, we'd have to retool scenarios and scoring a little to match the adopted scoring standard. The existing scoring is based entirely around improving or degrading the fleet rating of player fleets within Fleet Action.

Well, we've got our wings in line, should we purge the database now? Some of our guys have problems being regulars, but there are many who don't show up at all. Given that we've had a couple roll calls since the reorganization, I propose we drop the following names from our roles unless they show up and let us know they still want to be involved by this time next week. Commander Sesshomaru (has not ever posted) Commander Stanly M. Archer (has not ever posted) Commander Guilherme (has not ever posted) Commander Patrick Smith (has not ever posted) Commander Brown (if this is the same as his forum name, he has never posted) Commander Jerold Ryan Keenan (hasn't posted since 2001) I personally emailed Stanly Archer and Sesshomaru some time ago to see if they were still active and never got a reply from the provided email in the fleet db. I've searched for all the above names in the Forum and you can see the results above. At any rate, I have no problem if these guys are lurking and want to get reactivated, but I suspect that's not the case. Also, I'd like to hear from Rip since I know he's busy but not entirely inactive. You out there man? Also, we need to find out what the current status of recruiting is since SC did post that he was curtailing fleet apps for the time being, but then posted later that he had left the application apparatus still up, and hadn't changed the server passwords yet. We have a new recruit who's got some real life experience with intel and crypto, and if there's a way we can get him onboard, then we're one step closer to having a first tier fleet and a fully prepared MP roster.

It should be in the program group on your start menu, installed in the same spot as the link to the game .exe

Something that's occurred to me relatively recently in the course of the project is that because the Fleet Action site is not supported by the official fleets here (which means that Fleet Action games have no bearing on official fleet matters as mentioned above) and because non-fleet players who want to participate may do so, then the fleets in Fleet Action will be "ad hoc" fleets (for lack of a better term) whose structure and membership will be generated by those who play Fleet Action. Currently, the following players have signed up at the Fleet Action site, and were they to represent their official fleets unofficially, then those at least might be present in Fleet Action in addition to any ad hoc fleets created by unaffiliated UC players. (The unaffiliated players listed below may have a name here that I don't know, but if this is so, please give me your correct identity in this thread for clarity if you are listed below and known here by another name.) Balor: Chavik, Dreadx, Bishamon: ShoHashi, Mordax Blyrr, Neograymatter, Prime: Papi, Mrxknown, Patrik Vanda Wraith: Dreada ISS: Zane Marlowe The Devil's Hand: Cc (Khan), Unaffiliated: Cartmanbeeps, GeDou, Rtoolooze, Edworld, Pete, Zothen, Coyote. That's everyone registered on my site at the time of this writing. For those unaffiliated players interested in playing this game in an ad hoc fleet, I would ask that you send me a PM or feedback through the Fleet Action site naming at least three commanders to represent the fleet along with the fleet name you would like to use. Moreover, because we officially have three official fleet leaders who have expressed interest in some capacity, then at their discretion they may use the Fleet Action site to coordinate their fleets in unscored matches against one another. Should it be the case at some point that players want Fleet Action game results to be reflected in the official fleet db, then as far as I can see, at least the following would have to happen in addition to whatever else SC might say: 1) scoring for Fleet Action matches would have to correspond to whatever the official standard is going to be (at this writing no scoring standard has officially been approved), 2) Fleet Action mission orders (the MP scenarios above) would have to be sufficiently tested and approved by the official fleets, and 3) SC would have to approve Fleet Action's official for player match statistics. However, I don't expect any of that unless Fleet Leaders want it, and there's no reason to wait around while the game is otherwise ready to go. [ 08-27-2004, 11:16 AM: Message edited by: Zane Marlowe ]

Okay, for those of you who have been asking, and for those of you who have not read lately what's new with Fleet Action, let me update everyone with the current development of the concept and implementation. For those that don't know, Fleet Action is an unofficial strategy game where participating players (fleet affiliated or not) can play in UC multiplayer scenarios oriented around gaining control of planetary regions in a dynamically drawn version of the UC single-player map. The Fleet Action website is located here, and its hosting and development investment is entirely mine. Because there was some initial confusion about this point, let me make it entirely clear that Fleet Action is NOT a product of the officially recognized fleet community here, nor is it supported in any way by 3000AD. If you encounter problems with Fleet Action of any kind, or have comments of any kind, they should NOT be directed to your normal fleet commander (unless he too is playing) nor should you send requests to SC to fix or change anything. Being an unofficial and entirely player created and supported project has the downside that none of the battles you fight in Fleet Action are recognized in the official fleets db here at 3000AD (i.e., you won't get experience in your fleet db entry), but the upside is that you don't have to be a part of an officially recognized fleet to participate. Now, to the brief overview of gameplay. Fleet Action games are ordered into a turn sequence where each participating fleet commander issues orders on their turn to move or issue mission orders to their fleet. When a fleet commander issues a mission order, his fleet is assigned an attacking role in a multiplayer mission with objectives and victory results that support or prove detrimental to the fleet and its objectives. Fleets in adjacent planetary regions take a defending role in the scenario and can likewise gain or lose ground for their fleets and objectives. At the beginning of the game, each fleet is randomly assigned a place in the turn order. Player fleets then issue orders on their turn in the sequence. Each fleet has a fleet rating that reflects the strength and readiness of that fleet. Fleet ratings change according to a fleetÔÇÖs success or failure in multiplayer games as defined by the mission order objectives being played. Raising a fleetÔÇÖs rating means either successfully completing a mission order or experiencing an entire turn sequence (all fleets issuing move orders or mission orders at least once) without participating in a mission order. If a fleet experiences a complete turn sequence without participating in a mission order as attacker or defender, it gains 5 points to its fleet rating. Fleets have a maximum fleet rating of 100, past which a fleetÔÇÖs rating cannot be increased. If a fleet ever loses its entire rating (by losing missions) then it has been eliminated from the game. Fleets begin the game with a rating of 60 in order to represent a fleet which is at full strength, but which is still unblooded in combat. When fleet commanders issue orders, they are of two types. A movement order repositions a fleet in an undefended planetary region adjacent to the one they currently occupy. Systems are considered defended if they contain a star station which can oppose a fleetÔÇÖs passage. Fleet commanders can alternately issue mission orders that assign tasks for their fleet to undertake. The following mission orders are available. (Click the links to download the specific mission order document, or click here to get all of them with a slightly edited version of the gameplay explanation in this post.) ÔÇó Blitzkrieg ÔÇó Breakthrough ÔÇó CIOPS/SpecOps: Infiltration ÔÇó CIOPS: Intelligence Gathering ÔÇó Planetfall ÔÇó Resupply ÔÇó SpecOps: Raid ÔÇó SpecOps: Sabotage ÔÇó Star Station Assault ÔÇó System Supremacy Planetfall and Blitzkrieg missions include provisions for capturing planets. Planets have a resistance value that describes the defense level of a planet to attack. This value is subject to attrition according to the cargo values of player-piloted transports carrying ÔÇ£troopsÔÇØ represented by the total cargo capacity of the transport. This resistance value can be reduced by the value of the cargo capacity of every attacking transport that makes planetfall on the contested planet. Some missions represent special intelligence or special operations opportunities whose advantages to the attacking fleet can tip the balance of future engagements. However, these missions require that the attacking fleet first infiltrate operatives using the CIOPS/SpecOps: Infiltration mission in order to be available to the attacking fleet commander. Once the infiltration mission is accomplished, the following missions from the above list become available to the attacking fleet on the planet that has been infiltrated. ÔÇó CIOPS: Intelligence Gathering ÔÇó SpecOps: Raid ÔÇó SpecOps: Sabotage All mission orders contain special rules for setting up the specific mission they describe, but all missions share the common characteristics for multiplayer gameplay as described below. ÔÇó Missiles, FCÔÇÖs, SCÔÇÖs, and Atmospheric entry are at present restricted per recommendations from members of the 3000AD beta test community. ÔÇó The Respawn rule allows players to reenter the game after being destroyed as many times as they can until the match ends. Respawning is assumed to be from the home station unless otherwise stated. ÔÇó The Identify rule requires defending fleets to identify infiltrators by closing to a distance of 20km and targeting the infiltrating vessel prior to firing on it. This rule never applies to military vessels, only to transports. This rule can be waived attacking fleet vessels are spotted within 50km of the infiltrating transport, or if the transport is within 100km of its designated infiltration target. ÔÇó Achieving planetfall is possible (and sufficient for mission orders) if the landing ship is within 100km of the target planet. ÔÇó Every fleet has a ÔÇ£homeÔÇØ station that they deploy from. Unless otherwise stated in the mission order, the home station for each fleet is as follows. -Terran fleets: Procon / Paladian -Insurgent fleets: Gaulan / Resilient -Raider fleets: Castrin / Freeport -Gammulan fleets: Palean / Wolpax ÔÇó Every planet is assumed to have a defense value the value in transport cargo units required to take the planet. This value for normally defended planets is 100,000. The value for planets whose defenses are broken (blockade, orbital bombardment, etc.) or unprepared is half normal, i.e., 50,000. These values are superceded as mission orders may stipulate. Now, to current developments. Mordax Blyrr has been promoted to European XO for Fleet Action, and has been tasked with testing these scenarios with the large number of European players who have signed up on the Fleet Action website already. He will be communicating closely with me on matters of game balance, server issues, etc. If this idea interests you and you haven't signed up at the Fleet Action site as yet, please do so to indicate your interest and when scenario testing is finished we'll begin our battles in earnest. ***EDIT: I've added the complete scenario rules for use of Respawn, Planetfall, Ship Identification, and Home Station assignments, and added links to the the mission order documents listed above.*** [ 08-27-2004, 01:29 AM: Message edited by: Zane Marlowe ]

I'm running on a laptop and had a problem like this until I found the right graphics drivers. You might want to check the threads here that discuss GeForce graphics issues and driver versions. I'm actually running on a notebook without a pixel shader and it runs (for the most part) pretty well. The occasional CTD I have is when I'm trying to load a lot of models (spawn a planetary base or two in one of the planet zones when I get in range of them for instance), but even this I could probably get around by pre-loading the models when I launch the game. So my advice (for what it's worth), check your gfx driver version and read the appropriate thread, and then see if you can check the "preload models" option and see if that helps too.

You know, SC posted a link to an interesting article in this thread which I thought made a good point. Namely, that players of these kinds of games didn't start playing super-complex sim type games. During their heyday, many sims were somewhat arcadish (relative to later sims in the nineties) and people who learned to play the simpler stuff got interested in the increasingly complex and realistic stuff. I've always been an on again off again flight simmer, so when I saw the complexity of this game it didn't put me off, but I will say that the experience of playing has been more of a puzzle than a sandbox. The fun I'm having is predominantly organized around trying to accomplish simple things. Of course, I'm still relatively new to the whole thing, so perhaps my interests will graduate at some point. I'm not sure it's a failure of imagination however. Kids are still bursting with that, which accounts for the flourishing of independent modifications, skins, artwork, etc. for the games those kids really love to play. If I had to put my finger on the real difference between UC and other games in terms of how it captures a demographic, I'd just say that UC seems to capture the thinking man's game that requires careful planning to accomplish a goal (whatever goal you choose) instead of split-second reflexes, sound, noise, and explosive action (not saying UC lacks these, but it does make you pay for them after the action, which is not a feature of the former kind of game).

Good article. I think he's right on with most points, but I'm not sure the pricepoint thing would work the way he hopes. If he wants to get new gamers in, he's not going to draw them with an increased price point when the features that price pays for are intended for the niche audience that the developers can't afford to support themselves on. I think he's right on with the realism vs. arcade-ish learning curve stuff needing to be scalable because he's absolutely right when he says that the advanced simmers didn't learn on sims with the current complexity, they built up to that on less complex sims. New gamers are going to need a similar "ramp."

PM me here, that way I can verify that you're you, and can PM you back (here) your account information.

I have to say DreadX was literally less than thirty seconds ahead of me. I've actually been studying the fluxlines in the MP map, and I'm wondering if it's possible to get from NZone to Gaulan in as little time as it takes to do the reverse. No sour grapes mind you, I had a blast, but I know DreadX and I both started at the same time and were unopposed on our way to the opposing position. It's got me thinking about what might happen if the commanders for GALCOM started from Palean (as Gammulans in order to have access to the station position) since fluxlines one and two both have equally advantageous outlets from there. Something to try perhaps, have a look at the map and see what you think.

[rp] Intelligence work is a delicate mix of misdirection and careful planning. Virtually none of it is James Bond kind of stuff. The best agents are those whose successes are unknown because their enemies must never know they lost the battlefield because they lost the war in the shadows. "Has the Galaxius left the area?" "Yes sir, they're headed for the station." "Any surprises left behind?" "No sir, we're operating under complete systems baffling and there are no active signals in-system except for the internal comms leakage from the Deathstrike." "What's our cloak status?" "We've got two and a half minutes and medibay is prepping for a complete radiation scrub, we've got thirty seconds sir." "Good, let's get it done." The Deathstrike listed in space, leaking reactor fuel and oxygen. Internal crews raced to stabilize the craft. Their numbers had suffered tremendous attrition, and theirs was an uphill battle over the shimmering mass of the fluxfield. Five ships launched from a point in the void. Four elite fighter craft took up flanking positions around the Deathstrike, and the mark one shuttle took up a towing position. The tractor beam gained a solid lock, and the Deathstrike slowly began to take on the shuttle's velocity. "Go," came the order from the invisible carrier's bridge, and five ships engaged jump engines to points unknown. "Their navigation sensors are down?" "Confirmed sir, they're blind. If they have anyone over there who can navigate on constellations, star charts, and a migraine's worth of math, then they might figure it out, but we're blacking their viewports and sensor systems just to be sure." Commander Marlowe's preparations had paid off. The raiders had attempted to make their raids appear random, striking seemingly without pattern or premeditation. They would have succeeded too if Marlowe hadn't taken a special interest in the raider situation and turned pattern-matching algorithms on the raider attacks and run them through CIOPS' encryption-breaking computers. The results had paid off, to within forty-three seconds. "Bet they're still wondering how those GALCOM warships landed on them with no warning and a ninety second reaction time from the first distress call," Marlowe's second in command was enthusiastic and sharper than anyone he had ever seen. Could do tensor equations in his head and could beat the navigation computer at chess--on a good day. "No time to gloat," came Marlowe's terse reply, "let's do business." The Deathstrike and her escort listed in the sensor shadow of the fluxfield. The GCV-Saratoga had dropped cloak and her crews had secured her for battlestations. The Megaron-class cruiser's second mark one shuttle launched with four aboard and came to rest in the launch bay of the crippled pirate ship. "Here goes nothing," said the man in commander's bars. The bulkhead opened and he and his three attendents stepped into the belly of the beast. "Take me to Shingen," he said to the wall of bedraggled marines who were not too banged up to hold the four CIOPS men firm in their ZSU sights. [/rp] [ 08-31-2004, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: Shingen ]

The low-tech solution is going to go into use shortly, I've created a CIOPS Classified Documents topic for ISS site registered members to take advantage of. The upside is that you can post links to the site in your own forums and your users can go there at any time and see secure information. The downside is that every user who wants to see this information is going to have to get cleared for classified access. (This basically consists of getting a Wraith FC to PM me an account creation request and then I email the GALCOM member with their account.) So Reed, PM me with the account name, password, and email address you'd like to use on our site, and I'll create the account and we can continue to discuss classified matters in our own secure area (away from the prying eyes of the terrifyingly effective insurgents, most certainly impolite raiders, and politically-opinionated-but-essentially-pacifistic gammulans).