#Pilot Net megagame testing

5271 messages · Page 6 of 6 (latest)

spare bay
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are you talking about the undefended one or the one with the Engineer?

floral patio
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Eh, I didn't, but I specified I meant the group of 3 people, I believe in Peri's ability to read.

wicked plover
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AL13 has "Condor 1 Base" as the unit on it

spare bay
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It doesn't really make a difference bc the SAM has a pretty big intercept range

wicked plover
spare bay
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oh, those labels aren't present in the screenshot for some reason

wicked plover
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Intercept doesn't mess with my hyper deplpy, I think?

spare bay
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I'm not sure, actually

wicked plover
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It hits air units

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Imma go for it

spare bay
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it's A, so it goes before R, which means it might cancel the intercept order

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but if a condor is patrolling, I think they will still catch you

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Hm, also I'm not sure what stance you'll be in if you get bounced back

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but if you're still in A stance, then it's basically fine either way

spare bay
# wicked plover undefended

It would be better to drop on the airfield with the SAM and Engineer because Suki is also planning to assault there, and you'll destroy more air units if you succeed. We should already have someone dropping on the undefended air base, and your firepower is wasted there since there's nothing to shoot.

wicked plover
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Ah, a little late, sorry sadcowboy

spare bay
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it's just a couple minutes after, Peri won't notice

wicked plover
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(I already submitted one set of orders)

spare bay
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assuming the game continues after this turn (or we play another map), Peri just takes the most recent order submitted.

icy linden
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Crap

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Blah

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Oops

wicked plover
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Admiral fall down go splat?

spare bay
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Holding isn't the worst thing in the world in our situation lol

slow copper
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Holding is pretty good for anyone who doesn't need to repair, yeah. Most people are in a decent location defensively

slow copper
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I feel like verisimilitude wise both rebase and flying units, or at least their drop ships, should be vulnerable to AA. But that's a personal preference thing

floral patio
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I think I'd just say that units can't deploy via those functions to anywhere with active anti air

spare bay
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the stuff about air intercept is for the default [R] Fly from something like All Theater Movement Suite

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it's unclear to what extent it applies to the special A* Fly order that Airmobile gets

slow copper
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Oh, I missed that whoops

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I would interpret that as applying to Airmobile as well. That's harsher than I expected. Maybe

spare bay
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yeah, like, the timing might allow you to cancel ground-based air interception before the order goes out, but I think air units get free reign

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which makes some amount of sense

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only issue being that Flying infantry can't be escorted the same way air units can be, so it's pretty hard to protect them from air-based interception

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(unless they actually can and I'm wrong about that?)

wind yacht
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I have not started running the round and probably won't until tomorrow, sorry

spare bay
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gl everyone

livid geyser
spare bay
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oh sorry, forgot

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I don't have any other copium emotes

blazing basalt
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It'll all depend on how well we hold this turn

floral patio
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I mean we could win this turn

willow ferry
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i think we should take this turn to win and drop on some cities, if atleast three troops drop onto another city or somewhere else we could call this a early win, while the rest of the drop troops help out the capitol

spare bay
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I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed

slow copper
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Yeah

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The turn ended, Peri just hasn't had time to run the turn

wind yacht
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Round 4 air intercepts

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<@&1310264693650362378> round 4 complete. I'm inclined to call it here; this has been a useful test of the system, and also I'll be on the road for a few weeks (already am, in fact)

AIR COMBAT

Archon scores 1 hit on the Beaver. Viper scores 2 his, on Condor (2) and Fulcrum (2). Archon takes 1 hit in return from Fulcrum (1).

Helicon Lance suppresses the rocket artillery in AJ11. Fulcrum (1) fails to suppress Smokeshow.

Thundermaw bombards AL10, hits only fortifications.
Wingman scores 1 airsrike hit on Breacher (1).
Beaver (1) and Breacher (1) bombard AK09. 3 Hits, 1 each to Defenses, Shovel TMC and Mehen’s Jackals.

The Mobile SAM (2) fails to score any hits on Whitefish Squadron.

MOVEMENT

The Hunter-Killers are intercepted by a Scout hidden in AN11.
Vanguard (3) skirmishes with the spaceport, interrupting Hell Feet’s sortie.
The Designator engineers pin two Breacher in AL10.
The Hammer falls on Ypsilanti. The Anvil also falls on Ypsilanti but that’s not as cool to say.
Adamant Sky’s drop platforms chase off Condor (1)’s mechanics and capture their equipment.

COMBAT

AN11: 2 hits from each side. Scout (3) retreats after 1 round.
Ypsilanti: Round 1 5-4, Round 2 3-2. The Sentinel survives, but is forced out of the city.
AL10: Designator fails to damage the armored companies, but escapes return damage. Breacher (3) is prevented from attacking AK09.
AK09: Round 1 2-0, round 2 0-4. Union defenders are driven off the tile.
AK08: Round 1 4-2. Vanguard (3) damages Smokeshow’s artillery but are then wiped out in a crossfire from Hell Feet and Flock Omen.

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I'm a little bit running out of steam and it seems the players are too; I think I was missing 6 orders for round 4

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Overall notes before my laptop runs out of battery:
-Combat is often disappointing. Solution: increase overall HP to reduce variance?
-Equipment and perks often not useful, especially air equipment.
-Need to reduce impact of drop pods.

worthy pelican
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Drop pods: maybe the target space needs to be in friendly vision?

slow copper
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I would prefer bringing other equipment up to the drop level. But that level is mobility is really strong

dim spade
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I did it

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i hit a thing

worthy pelican
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Combat does seem oddly swingy

slow copper
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Having to spend a turn to replace spent drop pods would also make sense. Or having it only work once

worthy pelican
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More than I expected it to be, tbh

spare bay
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drop pods seem pretty OP and basically remove the positioning/maneuvering aspects of the game

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by that same token though, I think NPC Scouts are equally game-warping

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They're basically the same thing for each side

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a unit that can turn up anywhere on the map without warning

slow copper
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As cool as it is, coming in at A* is very strong

spare bay
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When it comes to equipment not feeling useful, I think, more than just equipment, whenever you have orders that will end up with you only rolling one or two dice, that's not gonna feel very impactful, especially with success being only 5+

slow copper
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Also, movement otherwise is extremely slow for most units. It would take like 5 turns for units to safely get from Saginaw to Ypsilanti. So more movement (particularly along roads) would probably help reduce the power of drop pods

spare bay
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reposition along roads is pretty fast, just not safe

slow copper
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I also feel like the medium support needs some help: the combat engineer is a lot better and probably why no medium supports were taken

worthy pelican
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I wonder if attack dice should be more deterministic? 1 hit on 5+ and 0.5 hits on 4- or something?

spare bay
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Also, I don't think either side built a single road. Not sure when it would be feasible to do so during a game.

floral patio
lyric harbor
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Would take far too long in rounds tbh

floral patio
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The system is designed for much slower fights over time I think

slow copper
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Roads just aren't that useful in this scenario

vocal scarab
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Determinism is pretty neat

slow copper
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a) all the cities are connected and b) we start in the middle, there is no front line

floral patio
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Like, the system we're taking from expects it to take LOTS of turns to grind slowly forward.

worthy pelican
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I think part of why there was limited construction of all kinds was just that we ended up in a scrambly melee immediately

lyric harbor
wind yacht
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More points
-Hidden NPC units are strong with little opportunity for PC counterplay. Solution: strike Hidden units from the game entirely
-Cities and bases are easy to flip, and no fun to garrison. Solution: introduce passive garrison mechanic
-Blacksky Wings only getting to play every other turn is very limiting. Would appreciate @livid geyser 's thoughts on how it plays in practice.

lyric harbor
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Which is less a shot at this game and more at like, most games this big

slow copper
floral patio
worthy pelican
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Building stuff makes a lot of sense in a turn or two before forces meet, but not in the middle of combat.

floral patio
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Also "Slower" objectives and tiered objectives

spare bay
floral patio
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IIRC the original game had the PCs fighting a swarm of bugs or something along those lines.

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So there were a lot of worse enemies

slow copper
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Yeah, a supply mechanic would help a lot in terms of making units stronger (and drop pods more risky)

lyric harbor
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If you wanna go lancer style and reduce the badfeel of getting oneshot, you can give pc units structure or cohesion

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Some kind of secondary hp mechanic

floral patio
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Enemies being basically the same strength as us makes it much more scary to do anything

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If enemies are only 1-2 hp

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Having 5 dice at 5+ to hit

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Feels a lot better

slow copper
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Having players be tougher than NPCs (but not necessarily better in combat) I think would be good in terms of feeling powerful without being killed easily

floral patio
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Personally I'd prefer a system with like, lots of medium-bad NPC allies and medium-bad NPC enemies.

wind yacht
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A supply layer with dedicated logistics players is something I considered

floral patio
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Lets us give the NPCs the boring jobs

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And lets us feel good about fighting lots of enemies

spare bay
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NPC allies would just mean the GM playing against themselves though, idk how interesting that would be or how you could even keep that honest

floral patio
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The 3 people per square limit also helps the PCs a lot more

wind yacht
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Who issues orders to the NPCs

floral patio
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PCs give general VERY SIMPLE orders to NPCs

slow copper
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I do think that defenses not working in the second round is weird. Super fortifying a city doesn't do that much

floral patio
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Or you have a second GM

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Who does that

worthy pelican
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Most people would prefer to shoot stuff.

slow copper
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I think instead of logisitcs units, you have building bases and roads determine the logistics network

wind yacht
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My first instinct was that it would be a layer for Misc and nobody else

floral patio
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Also it's worth noting Peri that you were a singular GM here mostly I think, as where I I think the general rule is something like 1 per 5-8 people

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And to have much broader space for objectives

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So everyone isn't all crammed together trying to do things on top of each other

wind yacht
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Yeah, having played it out, I think 1 GM per 12 players or so is a good target

slow copper
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(I also think multi-tile cities is more cool than a single tile city)

floral patio
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One of the things is that the game rules have something for instance for "There's an objective in this set of a 3 tile radius, go find it"

worthy pelican
floral patio
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Which makes more of the terrain matter

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I think it should be damage and over both rounds

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That matters for combat winning

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Not just who gets more hits on the last round

worthy pelican
floral patio
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I also find logistics appealing

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It's worth noting that we had 2 combat engineers with Construct

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And neither of us got to use it at all

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And both really wanted to lmao

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Both me and Turi

slow copper
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The combat happened basically immediately. And switching to drop pods was kind of required given the scenario

floral patio
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Yeah.

worthy pelican
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Turi tried to turn 1 and got interrupted, yeah

wind yacht
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The game was over much faster than I anticipated

sacred valley
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I never flew anywhere. There was nowhere to go.

floral patio
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I had strong considered being a heavy support and saw what we were doing and just immediately went "Nope, no way I'm doing heavy support Construct bot"

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It's kinda good that it was tbh

worthy pelican
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I think it's good that it can get interrupted, I just think that shows how tight the scenario was with us starting in the middle.

wind yacht
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Map design will be very important for future games

floral patio
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Yeah, invisible enemies were really bad, having 95% of the map completely be pointless except that there could be invisible enemies felt bad.

spare bay
floral patio
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Also no idea how many.

worthy pelican
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I did feel that PC vision was largely irrelevant, too

floral patio
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Cities with lots of tiles or one tile are fine if mission objectives aren't based around taking them or holding them.

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I couldn't tell how our vision worked tbh

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We'd see people on the map outside of our vision

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Or not

wind yacht
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Any units that stopped in one of the cities became revealed

slow copper
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Anything that wasn't a scout was a ? unless in our vision or in a city

wind yacht
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and then NAVINT tracked their movements

slow copper
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Scouts were totally invisible unless in our vision I think?

floral patio
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Sure, but like.

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You see how that's confusing AF.

wind yacht
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I do yes

worthy pelican
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It seemed like scouts were invisible until we walked into them

floral patio
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They were

wind yacht
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You could theoretically search for them

floral patio
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Er, how?

wind yacht
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But that's action intensive

slow copper
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Oh, I thought search was only for objectives

floral patio
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Search looked to only be for objectives, yeah.

spare bay
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search is a universal S action that you would never actually take unless you have nothing else to do

floral patio
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Wouldn't you just be better Skirmishing into them?

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Like either way you run into them

worthy pelican
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I do think vision and FOW would be good systems for a game like this. But map and scenario design would need to play into that to make it worthwhile for recons/air units to do patrols.

wind yacht
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[S] Search: Make a standard move, then if no hostile units are present, search the unit’s tile for hidden objectives. If there is something to find, the GM rolls a 1d6 in secret. On a 5+, the hidden objective is found. Otherwise, the unit finds nothing. Multiple units may search the same tile in the same round. Taking this action reveals any adjacent hostile hidden units (no roll required)

floral patio
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Scout could have been good except there was so much "Oh god we're all stuck in fighting immediately"

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Sure, but like

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You reveal them anyway

slow copper
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Oh, whoops lol

floral patio
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By being next to them

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Don't you?

worthy pelican
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And ideally we would need to be able to see at a glance what's in vision and what's not

spare bay
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no

wind yacht
spare bay
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only if you run into them and a battle ensues

floral patio
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Oh, I thought we were seeing everything that wasn't a scout on the overmap

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And then scouts were just not there unless they were in vision

spare bay
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we're talking about scouts

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that's what search is for

floral patio
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Right, but are scouts invisible even if they're in vision?

spare bay
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yes

floral patio
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Oh lmao

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I thought they were just invisible to the sky

worthy pelican
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Yeah, the only ones we found were because we literally walked into them, lol

wind yacht
wind yacht
worthy pelican
floral patio
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Do we need to be using foundry?

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I don't think we're doing anything roll20 can't do

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And roll20 can do LoS

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And vision ranges

slow copper
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Foundry can do LoS. The issue is we have two types of LoS

worthy pelican
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So can Foundry (and better than roll20 IMHO)

floral patio
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Like I do agree foundry is a stronger tool

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But I don't know if we need the stronger tool functions

slow copper
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I'm sure you could mod it. But lol effort

wind yacht
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Foundry is the better tool, but I'm actually using gridless so I can get multiple units in one space

worthy pelican
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But yeah the problem is how to grant "partial" vision outside the PCs vision radius

wind yacht
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And also how to actually define the vision radius properly

floral patio
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You take pictures with PC vision and paste information outside of their radius onto the png.

livid geyser
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like having a relatively chill unit to play with is a feature, not a bug

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I appreciate getting to sit back a bit and blap stuff when it counts

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don't mind me

worthy pelican
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I want to suggest taking a page from Highfleet - if you lose LOS on an enemy unit you just see where it was and heading last, instead of getting to keep real-time position on it. But again, that's a bit clumsy to implement in a standard VTT.

slow copper
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Though I wonder if it needs the -1hp in addition to the turn cooldown?

livid geyser
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like, it's okay that you put me in the prime world bejeweled chair

floral patio
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I think Ashley only had the -1 hp because she was a Horus Scarecrow

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Which is immune to ground intercept

slow copper
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Oh, right. I am thinking of the other upgrade

worthy pelican
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I do think the Scarecrow was maybe undertuned. -1 HP and then having multiple orders at -1d6 seemed like it would be pretty susceptible to bad feels.

livid geyser
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I don't mind

floral patio
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I agree it's probably undertuned tbh, but balance is kinda a thing to work at over time.

livid geyser
wind yacht
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"clumsy to implement" will quickly become unmanageable with a dozen GMs and a hundred players
I'm leaning towards "NPC units visible all the time, except Hidden units, which are invisible outside player vision only"

floral patio
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@wind yacht I do think having more perks/equipment that do things that aren't related to more damage/etc

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Yeah

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I like that personally.

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And like, maybe there are units that are hidden in certain types of terrain

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If we're fighting giant monkeys and they all go in this big stretch of forest they get hidden

wind yacht
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More perks and equipment to cover more specialties is definitely on the to do list

floral patio
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But if they come out to attack a village we can see them

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I'll also reiterate I'm happy to help and help GM.

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Including with objective/terrain/etc making.

wind yacht
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You are on the list for when I have time to get the bigger game off the ground.

floral patio
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Coo'.

wind yacht
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I am busy from now until March though

floral patio
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Oh damn that's a long time.

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Would you mind if I take over then?

wind yacht
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Take over what/

floral patio
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Trying to set up a game.

worthy pelican
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Re: hidden units, I think you could do things like a hidden garrison on an objective. Fir the example given before of "there's an objective somewhere in these 3 tiles, go find it", I think having embedded non-scout defenders that pop up when you find it could be cool.

wind yacht
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Sure

floral patio
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Kk

worthy pelican
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But otherwise they don't come find you

floral patio
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I still probably wouldn't start anything until early-mid January

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But I'd rather start before March

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😄

wind yacht
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Fair enough

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I don't own anything here, I always intended this as a community project. Go for whatever you want!

worthy pelican
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Anyway, @wind yacht, this was quite fun, thanks for writing and running it!

slow copper
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Yeah. Thank you for putting all the effort in!

wind yacht
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I had fun too! Thank you all for participating.

spare bay
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gg

dim spade
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I felt very limited in my deployments because I sorta had to deploy on top of allies to make use of any real equipment choices I had

floral patio
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I'm gonna redo a lot of the stats and equipment.

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Please use feedback form <@&1310264693650362378> above so I can make sure nothing gets lost

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And Ashley if you can pin it, it'd be appreciated.

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Current expectation is I'll have a writeup for the main game and modified system sometime end of month-ish

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With trying to get started sometime early to mid January on actual unit building into starting.

vocal scarab
hearty yew
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ty for running!

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(Also Pax U was this weekend and I know its responsible for at least one of the missed orders FWIW)

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I missed the inital chat but some more feedback:

  • I think randomness is more fun when you're in control and happening more often. Having the players roll their own dice is probably unfeezable at this scale and considering the rate of turns a good roll is neat but doesn't feel as viscerally good as if you had rolled it, but a neutral or bad roll is much more emotionally impactful
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  • Tying health to power makes a certain amount of narrative sense and simplifies the map but also very much limits both unit and game design. It leadsd to the scarecrow being squishy and having -1d6's on abilities becoming very not useful
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  • My biggest feeling right now is the game sat on a precipise of both not complex and very complex. I think that's the biggest issue that probably needs to be addressed. It really didn't feel like we had a lot of strategic depth of choices but also that we had a lot of choices. Its just that functionally the only choice that really mattered was droppods and walk forward. I think for the game to truly sing it either needs to strip back the amount of choices each player can make so that the cognitive load matches the reward, or to tune more decisions so there's more options. Some of that has to do with things like scenario and map design (giving us decisions on how to approach problems rather than us being thrown into a problem with only one solution - defend). Some of that will have to do with the different things units can do - either giving them fewer but more meaningful options or making the various options much more specifically valuable. Not the only solutions, just some initial thoughts.
sweet cobalt
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Just want to say, thanks for running, Peri! o7

dim spade
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ye ty and appreciate it

blazing basalt
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^

slow copper
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@wind yacht there is a good chance I won't have the effort for it. But is there any wishlist for tools/mods you would have liked to have had for the game?

wind yacht
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The #1 tool would be a way to export the scene as an image at a high resolution
I kludged it here by taking several screenshots and overlaying them in a photo editor, but a one click export would be better

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@worthy pelican poked at it and couldn't find a solution, though

slow copper
wind yacht
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That looks promising!

worthy pelican
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Oh yeah, that looks like it would do the job!

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I looked for a dedicated module and couldn't find one, didn't think to search in those kind of utility collection ones.

slow copper
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As a software developer, my main skill is figuring out what keywords to shove in Google to find what I want lol

hard lance
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So yeah I absolutely missed an order or two because accessing this was tricky at PAX U, and also because with the way threads worked I basically never got a notification as to when things happened, which logistically on top of the weekend made the latter rounds absolute ass to experience in a way that wasn't really anyone's fault.