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Topic: Star Control: Behind Enemy Lines v1.1 (Read 14329 times)
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Lukipela
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The Ancient One
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Star Control: Behind Enemy Lines is a small forum game set during before SC II, when the war was still fully on between the Hierarchy and the Alliance. In this game you and your friends play a small group of Corridor 9 infiltrators, sent out on special missions against the Hierarchy. We've played one mission so far, and it went quite well. Now it's time for a second one. I've reworked the rules a bit to make it clearer, based on our experiences during the last game. This will be the main thread for discussing rules and game stuff. I will open a secondary mission thread for our devout warriors, once they present themselves. The stuff after the line is going to be long and filled with the rules and requirements. If you followed the last game, not much has changed but you might want to refresh your memory. If you haven't, then by all means read through it and decide if you have the spare time required for an endeavour such as this.
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Welcome to Starcontrol: Behind Enemy Lines
During the Great War between the Hierarchy and the Alliance, countless battles were fought. The general public is only aware of the heroic fleet battles in which we time and time again routed the heinous aggressors. But a war is not won on brawn alone. We needed every edge we could get, which is where Corridor 9 came in. Working closely with other alliance intelligence agencies, Corridor 9 performed many daring acts of espionage and counter-espionage during the conflict. Hierarchy plans were intercepted, supply lines disrupted and dignitaries assassinated. In order to perform these missions heroes were needed. These brave men, women and creatures penetrated deep behind enemy lines, fighting a shadow war against unspeakable opponents. This is their story.
We’re going to be playing a turn based game here. I’ll fill the role as dungeon master and move the enemies around, and work all the mechanics whilst you have all the fun. The game has not been tried before, so I’ll do my best to iron out any balance or other kinks as we go along. All questions and comments are welcome in this thread, if you think something could be done better, don’t hesitate to suggest. If something is unclear, ask.
Playing the game
The game is a mix of a turn based combat game and a free form exploration game. When no enemies are present, players may perform all kind of actions without doing things in turn. However, when an enemy is spotted the game morphs into turn based combat where movement points and action points are a matter of life and death. the points expended to encounter this creature will be counted, so it is wise to think hard about rounding corners/opening doors.
During combat, each player will post their movements and actions for a given turn, and I will execute them on a first post first served basis. If something unexpected happens, such as an enemy encounter or discovery of a new area, the turn will be paused and players will be allowed to use whatever action points they have left to adapt to the situation. Pausing the turn means that you will once again be in a first post first served situation. The player whose turn has been interrupted is not entitled to continue first. All enemy turns will be executed after the players have moved, and end turn results will be posted after this. This continues until all visible enemies have been destroyed.
In special circumstances specified by the game organizer, the turn system may prevail even though no enemy is visible.
The Map
A simulation map will be provided upon which the general environment and units will be shown. I will update this as you progress. Graphics have been created by Dabir, with some ugly fill ins done by me.
Action points
During combat, action points are what make the game go round. Each player starts a new round with two action points. They can be used for several different things. These are as follow.
Moving
When not in combat, you are free to move wherever you want. If an enemy is encountered during the movement phase, the current movement of the player discovering him will be taken into account. Any players within 5*5 squares of the player who discovers an enemy may opt to sacrifice one action point to move anywhere within this grid. Once combat has ensued, each player can move a set amount of squares each combat turn. Moving the full amount will consume both your action points. Moving half of the amount will consume one action point. If you use your action point for other things, you may no longer move.
Example: If your movement range is 4, moving 1 square will leave you with two action points, moving 2 or three squares will leave you with one and moving 4 squares will leave you with none. However, if you start your turn by opening a door, this uses one action point and you can now only move 2 squares.
Using items
Using an item during combat (such as a medikit, grenade or other) will consume one action point. The same goes for opening doors, switching from one weapon to another and picking something up/looting a corpse.
Example: If your movement range is six and you are standing in front of a door, opening it will consume one action point. This way you have halved your movement range to three. You may now move another three steps or use an item/perform an attack with your remaining point.
Giving
You can give items to your teammates or NPCs. Giving requires an AP during combat, but receiving something does not consume action points.
Combat
Each attack you perform (ranged or close combat) will consume one action point. Defensive action is automatic and does not consume points. One attack is divided into several different strikes, and every strike can potentially cause 1 HP of damage. The amount of strikes your attack produces depends on your weapon and its modifiers. Defensive action is divided into parries. Each parry has the potential to negate one strike. The amount of parries you have depend on your level, armour and other modifiers.
The successfulness of a strike or parry will be determined by rolling a six sided dice, as is described below. You may only attack in straight lines, not diagonally.
Strike: Each strike is determined by a thrown die. The die has two hits (1-2), two misses (3-4), one friendly fire (5) and one bullseye (6). Friendly fire counts as a miss if no friendly unit is in the line of fire. Bullseye is a non-defensible hit. Only players have bullseyes, as the enemy is not equally well trained. For enemy units, bullseye is counted as a regular hit.
Parry: Each parry is determined by a thrown die. The die has two successes (1-2), three fail (3-5) and one stun (6). Stun does not cost HP but means that the player loses one action point during the next turn. Stuns are not cumulative; a second stun will count as a hit. Parries are only rolled after a hit, misses do not need to be parried.
Each successful hit (strike + failed parry) causes a loss of 1 HP
Example: Your movement range is 4, and you begin your turn in front of a door. Using one action point you open the door. This leaves you with one action point and thus your movement range has been halved. Opening the door reveals an enemy inside. If you choose, you can move one step and still have one action point remaining. Or you can use the action point directly. This action point can be used for an attack. Since your weapon entitles you to three strikes, you roll three strike dice and score two hits and a miss. Your opponent is entitled to only one parry die, and scores success. This means that he blocks one of your attacks, but the other one penetrates and gives him -1 HP you have now used up your action points for this turn.
Ranged combat specialities
In ranged combat every weapon has its own range. Some weapons reach as far as you can see, whilst others only affect the immediate surroundings. Ranged weapons consume ammunition, but how depends on weapon type. A ranged automatic weapon will typically consume one bullet per strike dice, while some close combat area weapons will consume one bullet per attack (all strikes). This is specified for every weapon. If an enemy is in contact with you, your ranged strike dice will be affected in a weapon specific way.
You can carry two ranged weapons but only use one at a time. Switching between ranged weapons consumes one action point.
Melee combat specialities
Switching from ranged to melee weapon and back does not consume action points. Moving out of melee range will give your enemy one free strike against which you can’t parry against.
Mobbing
Both you and the enemy can mob opponents. This is done by having several players attacking a single target during one turn. As each player only has a set number of parry dice, increasing the amount of strike dice means you'll have more chances to hit him. In melee combat this can only be done by surrounding the target, but for ranged combat you can opt to fire at a target that is behind one of your team mates. You then run the risk of causing "friendly fire", which will inflict -1HP on your ally.
Using Powers
Powers are psychic attacks which some units are capable of. Using a power normally consumes it for an entire scenario, so use it wisely. Using a power will consume one action point. Attack powers normally require line of sight, but other powers may not. This is outlined separately for each power.
Experience
Experience points are gained by killing enemies and solving tasks. Each kill is worth 1 XP, and tasks are worth a varying amount of XP. Depending on your level, a set number of XP points will bring you to a new level, which gives you a choice of a General, Aggressive or Defensive upgrade. these can then affect your stats, give you new abilities, or something else. It will also heal you
Miscellaneous
Vision
Your characters have a limited range of vision, which is demonstrated by the image below. Inside this field of vision you can see all characters and objects. Outside it, areas are either unexplored or covered by fog of war.
Fog of War
When a room or area that has been previously explored is no longer in your field of vision, the room turns grey. This indicates that you cannot see any movement inside this area until you've once again got it in your field of vision. If you discover enemy units or NPC:s in a area, and then withdraw, the map will show the place they had when fog of war fell. If they move under the fog of war, you will not discover this before you return to the area to inspect it again.
Moving large objects
There are many large objects in the game, such as chests and tables. These objects can't be picked up, but they can be moved. They are generally heavy and require cooperation. Once you are standing by an object, you can move in any direction, both pushing, pulling and moving sideways is all right. You'll only need to rotate things to get them in through doors. Objects that are larger than two squares can only be moved by their short ends or the middle of their long side.
If several units are carrying an object together, they must all touch the base of the object. Carrying items like this carries no defence or offence penalties or bonuses.
An objects grid size is used to determine the movement penalties added while a character is moving it (should this be done while action points are in use). If the object covers a single square, the movement penalty is -1 MOV. If the object spans two squares, the unit loses half of it's MOV (rounded up). Thus a 4 MOV character can only move two squares if it is carrying such an object. If the object is 3 squares, the units movement is reduced to 1. If something is bigger than this, a single unit cannot shift it.
Rotating objects
An object can be rotated by any unit whose base touches the objects base. Rotating an object consumes 1 AP, irregardless of object size. In order to perform a rotation maneuver, the area through which the object is rotated must be clear of other objects or units. The necessary cleared area consists of all squares with which the object makes contact while being rotated. Thus rotating a 1 square object requires that all squares adjacent ot he unit rotating is empty. Long objects can also be rotated by their wide side.
Working together
Several units can work together to move larger objects. The penalties for moving large objects are then reduced to the largest possible penalty. If two units are moving a 2 square object, they can move a maximum of the slower units MOV reduced by one, as each is carrying a square. If they are moving a 3 square object, they can move a maximum of the slower units halved movement range as the slower unit is then counted as carrying two squares.
Destroying objects
Many objects can be destroyed by setting them or fire or hacking them to bits. This is not recommended for a squad of sneaking commandos.
Mission one
For our first game there were four units available, Human, Syreen, Arilou and Shofixti, but Dabir got dibs on Arilou for providing me with graphics. The game went rather well and can be found here.
Mission two
In this game, the available units are M:bot, Arilou, Human and Shofixti. As befits level 2 you are no longer rookies but get to pick one upgrade as well, general, offensive or defensive. This time around, Draxas gets to be the M:bot for providing me with a lot of unit help. Dabir has opted to not play. Ideally I’d like four players, but I’ll settle for a minimum of three persons, with someone controlling two units. To begin with I’ll hold the spots open for people who haven’t played the first mission, but if no interest is shown in 3 days I’ll accept old hands as well.
You are free to make up your own name and back story if you like, otherwise I’ll use your forum names or some derivation thereof. Once everyone has picked their character and upgrade, I’ll post your stats and equipment in this thread and open a new thread for actually playing the game.
Disqualifications
Playing a turn based game on a forum is going to be a real challenge. I will endeavour to update the turns at least twice during the week and once during the weekend, and let you know if there are any slowdowns. I will expect the players to post their new turns within 2-3 days from my update. If a player does not update his status during an entire week (7 days), another player will be given control over his character. If a player wants to, he can transfer control to another player temporarily. If the turn based system can be tweaked don’t hesitate to suggest things, I will also do my best to adapt it to real circumstances.
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« Last Edit: February 04, 2010, 05:39:43 pm by Lukipela »
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What's up doc?
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Draxas
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Is our fourth an Arilou or Syreen? Your posts are contradicting each other.
I'll start with an offensive upgrade. I'll post up a character profile when I have some time to think it over.
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Son_of_Antares
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Arioch, I summon thee...
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All right, finally some action!  Dibs on the Arilou this time with a defensive upgrade. I'll provide some background story a bit later ^^
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« Last Edit: February 05, 2010, 07:40:07 am by Son_of_Antares »
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Cedric6014
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I dont want to play or anything, but wouldn it be nice to offer any race option to any prospecting players?
I'm sure Dabir could whp up the rquisit sprite for, say, a chenjesu, or a female human
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SuddenDeath
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from Sunstrike's image pack
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Perhaps we can have a Chenjesu and Yehat in the next installment 
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Draxas
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I'm sure Luki has his reasons for disallowing Syreen and Yehat in this mission. However, our current designs for the Chenjesu will feature them only as NPCs, sorry to anyone who wanted to play as a crystalline pacifist in a combat strategy game. 
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Lukipela
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The Ancient One
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All right, finally some action! Dibs on the Arilou this time with a defensive upgrade. I'll provide some background story a bit later ^^
Hey Son! unfortunately you missed one thing above. In order to give new people a chance, I'm not accepting old players before Sunday. If the roster isn't full by then, you'll be super-welcome to play. But in fairness to those who hasn't I'm holding spaces for them for the first three days.
I dont want to play or anything, but wouldn it be nice to offer any race option to any prospecting players?
First off, don't worry about being a player or not. This thread is for anyone who wants to comment. I love getting feedback and opinions, it always helps me find new angles. As for your question, there are a few reasons. In-game wise, M:bot and Yehat are going to be a lot rarer than the others. M:bots are a finite resource, and combat M:bots are even rarer. When the mission starts it'll be clear why one has tagged along. As for Yehat, they are big birds. Any mission which features tight quarters is going to be pretty hard for them, as they'll just waddle forward and drg their wings miserably across the floor as the enemy shoots them full of holes. There will be Yehats in the game, but only at a later stage.
Looking for the game from the outside, there are other reasosn for this. The units all have different specialities. If everyone gets to choose I could potentially end up with 4 Arilou or 4 Shofixti, which might make the game impossible or pretty boring at this stage. The whole idea is to work as a group, using each other's strengths and shielding each other from harm. Think of any game such as this. There's a reason the barbarian usually has an archer or a mage in his group.
I'm sure Dabir could whp up the rquisit sprite for, say, a chenjesu, or a female human
Dabir has done some great work on this. But he has a life of his own and is quite busy. If I wait until we have all the possible sprites done and all the graphics for all the missions done, it'll be a long wait. It already took a year between the first two missions. And you if anyone should know exactly how much work it is to recruit art talent for fan purposes.
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What's up doc?
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Dabir
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As it happens, there IS a female human. Personally, I think it looks better than the male.
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Son_of_Antares
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Arioch, I summon thee...
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@Luki: Oh, I did miss that part; my bad then  I was just so super excited when I saw SC: BEL 1.1 topic this morning before going out that I didn't even get to read the OP properly, I just had to sign in...but playing or spectating, whichever it will be, I'm going to enjoy it very much!
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Koosemose
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I'd love to get in on this, this time around, though I don't often post I'm usually stop by here once every day or two, and participating in something such as this I will actually have a good reason to post. I'm not really sure what I want to play, so consider me a floater and give me whatever unit is left over. Though now that I think of it I'd prefer to avoid human female, as I'm a fairly heavy roleplayer, and roleplaying the opposite gender usually gets a bit strange.
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Angelfish
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I'm usually a fairly agressive player, so if you could pass a shofixti with an offensive upgrade to me, that'd be swell .
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