Simultaneous ending

[brucethebruce]

I started my umpteenth new character for the weekend and was almost immediatley beseeched by pirates. I tried to fight them off but it wasn't looking good. As they took out my engines, I fired a final shot blowing a hole into their hull. Battle over! The pirates hull was at 0. My engines were at 0. Guess what happened? The pirates borded my ship, stole my rations and demoralized my crew.

[cowabductor]

Sounds like they had a really good mechanic that did a very emergency repair. Sucks about your crew and engines tho. I remember one of my captains (Hicks III or IV) that boarded an enemy with 1 engine and they rammed me as a final maneuver.Needless to say, it was final for someone. :-)

[blackgauntlet]

Well, at least you didn't die from it!

[brucethebruce]

True. I didn't die. I really though it was funny more than anything else. Just one of those "I got robbed!" moments. ;D

[bansh33]

Had one of those today where I took out his hull AND his engines while he took out my own engines. He still looted me and flew away presumably with the contents of my entire hold in an escape pod.

[blackgauntlet]

Tied onto the pod's bonnet, no doubt.

[cowabductor]

These pirates are good. Maybe if we knew what the mercenary upgrade did we could do the same stuff.

[slayernz]

This was an issue that was identified a while ago - Cory was looking into the victory conditions. I'm guessing that it still could do with some tweaking I agree that if you have zero engines/hull at the same time as they get zero engines/hull, it should not default to your defeat.

Two alternatives:
1) Invoke the "Draw" state, where both of you limp off to lick your wounds. Once you get to zero engines/hull, you tend to worry about things other than the enemy ship. Life support, venting atmosphere, propulsion, etc all become a little more top-of-mind.

Cory has already got a "draw" option available if you go beyond 1000 rounds in combat, so utilizing this code *could* be possible (so says a non-code-monkey)

2) You get the win. This is a little bit like the 3rd umpire giving you the benefit of the doubt. Yes, both of you are likely dead, but since it was too close to call, I'm having to side with you over that enemy Steel Song ship. Hmmm actually, if you are a Steel Song ship yourself, you automatically lose any of these photo-finishes.


Me ... I'd like to see #1 implemented down the track, but others of you might have different ideas

[Slide87]

Draw is a interesting feature,if enabled with some restrictions(obviously,'cause we'd use it too easily and it'd lower battle system)....it's sure that actually in some situations could save our captains from death....but How to decide when can it be used?? my mind doesn't give useful clues,at the moment..

[slayernz]

My envisaging of the use of draw is that it only occurs when one of two events occur:
1) Ship combat takes more than 1,000 rounds*
2) Ship combat results in both your ship and the enemy ship getting either zero hull or zero engines in the same round

In any other circumstance, standard rules apply. It's pretty rare to get both your ship and the enemy ship banged up enough that you both get zero in either engine or hull at the same time, so it would be a very risky exploit to try and achieve.


* This 1,000 round limit could be too long - in previous threads it was proposed that if there are 200 turns of neither ship getting/causing damage, then the encounter ends in a draw.

[blackgauntlet]

I'd have fallen asleep by the 50th...

[alienfodder]

Hull collapse is more serious than engine failure.
The system I'd propose is if both ships hit zero hull same round then call it a draw, but if one ship hits zero hull and the other ship hits zero engines then zero hull ship loses.

[brucethebruce]

Yeah, I don't know that I could last 1,000 rounds. Might have to put in "Save" feature after 100 so I could come back and finish the battle later.

[slayernz]

In later stages of the game in harder difficulties, draws become more common as both you and the enemy captain have such high stats that you can't hit or be hit, can't retreat or advance. It really does suck.

I thought about a hull collapse being worse than engines, but I see them as similar in severity because I assume that any ship worth its weight will have seal-able sections and contingency plans surrounding hull breaches. Sure your hull is zero in a combat sense, but so long as the engines are still functioning, you still have the capability of life-support, propulsion, and weapons. Would you be worried about the enemy? No, you'd be worried about patching the biggest holes and trying to pilot the swiss-cheese that is your ship to the nearest port.

Conversely - if you lose your engines, you lose all power/lifesupport/weapons/propulsion. You might be alive, but you can't do anything except hope that you freeze to death before you run out of breathable air. Oh you say - what about emergency generators? Sure, but if they kicked in, you would be solely focused on getting the engines back online and as such, wouldn't be doing much to defeat the enemy.

[blackgauntlet]

Unless you have a escape pod and you couldn't care any less about your crew and your ship. ;D