Recognized Event Reports

[MacThule]

Abstract: A window like the email window (F4) which records & displays reports for every personal or faction ship core (or NPC) that engages or is engaged in any degree of combat.

NPCs are coming. Fleets are coming. We will soon be responsible for a great number of entities.

Currently I don't even know what happened to the test drone I left sitting outside my station. Obviously it was destroyed, but by whom and in what way are complete mysteries. Even modern technology IRL is typically better than this - some sort of report would have been transmitted by the entity as soon as an enemy was spotted or it took damage.

I think we need to know 1) when every attack occured, 2) where it occured, 3) which entity related to me was attacked, 4) who [if known] was attacking, and 5) what the outcome of the engagement was (i.e. which entities were destroyed in the end if any, or how much total damage each one dealt/received in the end). Honestly it might even be nice to have an expandable detail list available when selecting a report that gives a rundown of each damage incident, unless the data weight of this is prohibitive.

I could see jamming systems preventing reports from being generated - that might be fun.

 

[jontyfreack]

maybe the scanners could be used to send out a signal. and a scan inhibiter stops the signal from being sent.

and maybe by using the scanners you can detect the reports of scans that were not sent, so you can scout out a previous battle and detect the reports from ships to know what you are going up against.

this would make scanners very useful and a lot more commonly used


all the +1s for the op

 

[jgames666]

maybe the scanners could be used to send out a signal. and a scan inhibiter stops the signal from being sent.

and maybe by using the scanners you can detect the reports of scans that were not sent, so you can scout out a previous battle and detect the reports from ships to know what you are going up against.

this would make scanners very useful and a lot more commonly used


all the +1s for the op

Totally agree, this would be a great additional use for scanners, but I do think that if it's done this way, make messages like this intercept-able by anyone within range.

When a radio signal is sent in space it has to be canceled by another radio wave of the same velocity opposite heading and same wavelength. This would easily be done by a jammer, but if the wave is strong enough it can make it out.

Also, have the wave reach the whole galaxy after a certain period of time. For instance a real wave would take possibly billions of years to extend the whole galaxy irl. It might also get canceled in that distance by other radio waves. However, for the sake of fun we should have it reach the whole galaxy within maybe 5-10 minutes to make the game a bit more entertaining.

 

[jontyfreack]

YES.
and also the signal should have a max range, of lets say for now 8 star systems, but this can be boosted by 'radio' stations. (an excuse for me making stations that only serve as outposts, now to serve as both outpost and signal boost)

and this would make it so that these stations could be taken out to decrease the range of the signal. ie the signal might never reach the homebase because the relays were taken out (this would stop sending the signal from the relay stations, so people who can figure out a loss in pattern will know that something is amiss)

and enemy factions could use scout ships to intercept the signals in the same way as you say so that the losses of a certain ship can be hidden for the element of surprise. but if the signal is detected by a relay first, the relay would relay the signal to another. so enemies would have to do a lot to keep battles hidden (this would stop exploitation of jamming, because you have to stop the signal from being sent to a certain extent)

and relays could use scanners or another block on stations to encourage people to make more stations that are not their homebase, and thus explore more often.

and coupled with warp gates, imagine being told to deliver a message to the trade guild with the NPC factions, because the relays have been destroyed.

also (going on a bit because of the YES) if a signal is intercepted, you could resend it to a different direction, or have it as a LOG (you know, those book like thingies that you have when you spawn) so you can give it to a player so they know that a hidden battle took place, but the lost signal was found at an isolated relay and you delivered it to them...maybe expecting a reward....so poof more player and NPC interaction, signals given off by ships when they are under fire, or if they find a resource rich sector, or even when they have destroyed an enemy fleet.



I like these ideas a lot

 

[jgames666]

and also the signal should have a max range, of lets say for now 8 star systems, but this can be boosted by 'radio' stations. (an excuse for me making stations that only serve as outposts, now to serve as both outpost and signal boost)

I agree with everything in the post except the distance limit. I think it should cover more distance before needing a relay. Say perhaps 15 - 20 sectors, OR make it server-side configurable.

 

[jontyfreack]

I agree with everything in the post except the distance limit. I think it should cover more distance before needing a relay. Say perhaps 15 - 20 sectors, OR make it server-side configurable.

yep server side configurable just like jump drive distance.

but I said systems, a star system is 16 sectors. so every 8x16 sectors. that is quite far before needing a relay. so maybe actually needing one relay per system would be a good idea. yes or no?

also being able to deliver these signals manually would be a good thing, especially because NPC and fleets coming up, having some shuttle craft to deliver notifications such as "your fleet got destroyed" by hand if the relays were destroyed, or if it was intercepted.

that would mean that it would be balanced enough for it to not get rid of stealth, because even if the signal was intercepted, if a relay had picked it up it could still send it via a shuttle. but if a relay had not picked it up (say outside of faction territory) then you would not know if your fleet was destroyed, until it failed to return, and say if the signal was a message that said the state of the message such as "destroyed, resources, victory" the coordinates of where, an to the coordinates to where the message would be sent, like a faction homebase.

I am excited for the rp possibility here. a scouting mission going south, but no one knowing what happened, so you are sent out to find the signal that was lost (it could hang around in the sector for an in game week) this would be awesome if you got hired by one of the NPC factions to do so, such as being hired by the scavengers to make sure a signal is intercepted before it reaches the trade guild outposts. or being hired by the outcasts to deliver a message to one of their outposts that they found some asteroids. and being hired by the trade guild to stop a signal from being intercepted. ect ect

 

[jgames666]

yep server side configurable just like jump drive distance.

but I said systems, a star system is 16 sectors. so every 8x16 sectors. that is quite far before needing a relay. so maybe actually needing one relay per system would be a good idea. yes or no?

also being able to deliver these signals manually would be a good thing, especially because NPC and fleets coming up, having some shuttle craft to deliver notifications such as "your fleet got destroyed" by hand if the relays were destroyed, or if it was intercepted.

that would mean that it would be balanced enough for it to not get rid of stealth, because even if the signal was intercepted, if a relay had picked it up it could still send it via a shuttle. but if a relay had not picked it up (say outside of faction territory) then you would not know if your fleet was destroyed, until it failed to return, and say if the signal was a message that said the state of the message such as "destroyed, resources, victory" the coordinates of where, an to the coordinates to where the message would be sent, like a faction homebase.

I am excited for the rp possibility here. a scouting mission going south, but no one knowing what happened, so you are sent out to find the signal that was lost (it could hang around in the sector for an in game week) this would be awesome if you got hired by one of the NPC factions to do so, such as being hired by the scavengers to make sure a signal is intercepted before it reaches the trade guild outposts. or being hired by the outcasts to deliver a message to one of their outposts that they found some asteroids. and being hired by the trade guild to stop a signal from being intercepted. ect ect

Haha. Sorry to have misread your post. I was meaning that it should be 15 - 20 sectors or 1 per system, but I would want the config to be in Sectors not systems because then it can be set with more precise parameters, but also this leaves the possibility for a different system for long range transmissions, or for unlimited-range quantum communication devices that are very expensive to operate.

I post a similar more in-depth idea for this on here: Transmitter block allows ships to show up on galacitic map

 

[jontyfreack]

you have some good ideas. I like this a lot.

and I got thinking for a while, relays would be used to boost the signal as a ship based signal only has a short range but high speed (for instance a ship can only send the message 16 sectors in every direction before it becomes unreadable), so a relay station should have a much longer range (say 8 systems) but it takes a bit longer and is easier to intercept because you can destroy a relay station.
with that and your idea of a dissipating signal, if a faction was to gain territory they would put outposts and relays in every system that they own. A. to show territory. B. to provide reports within the territory. C. so that territory can be monitored more easily.

and with the event signal, each relay can be used to boost the signal be it at a slight delay to the time it arrives at the destination. like you said a ship based signal should take about 4ish seconds to travel a system, with the more scanners equipped the faster and the less of the message is lost over that distance (within 8 sectors it would have all the detail, the sector, the event, the ship name, hp status, destination sector. and from 8 -16 sectors the signal gets worse, randomly losing some of the details, such as unfinished coordinates or ship name and hp) and the relays should have a much larger range, but would take around 3.5 seconds per sector (keep in mind the times are just place holders for now) without losing detail, unless it is intercepted, then the signal may be hacked and a parameter is randomly lost (the better the hacking module, the more lost, and certain gained, like destination coordinates)

so the signal can be intercepted to change its direction to stop it from reaching its destination, the relays can be destroyed to stop long distance communication, and the signal can be hacked so information is lost or edited by the time it reaches the destination.

all the while people at home are going to wonder what happened to their scouting fleet, then they get a message that reads. "found a planet full of strippers, I think we will stay here a while, take your time to find us" but after a MANUALLY DELIVERED MESSAGE BY SHUTTLE WHEN THE SIGNAL WASPICKED UP BY A RELAY BEFORE IT WAS HACKED the message should have read "mayday mayday, we are under attack, the enemy is within the home systems, look out. tell my wife I love her"

hmm, just thinking, do you think it is a good idea to be able to send messages along with these signals. such as if you find some asteroids you can send a message like "7 blue ones, oh and their is a pirate station nearby...look out for that" or if you are under attack "please send help, like now. WE NEED HELP. please"

maybe we should summon a dev or council member? I will get the sacrifice

 

[jgames666]

you have some good ideas. I like this a lot.

and I got thinking for a while, relays would be used to boost the signal as a ship based signal only has a short range but high speed (for instance a ship can only send the message 16 sectors in every direction before it becomes unreadable), so a relay station should have a much longer range (say 8 systems) but it takes a bit longer and is easier to intercept because you can destroy a relay station.
with that and your idea of a dissipating signal, if a faction was to gain territory they would put outposts and relays in every system that they own. A. to show territory. B. to provide reports within the territory. C. so that territory can be monitored more easily.

and with the event signal, each relay can be used to boost the signal be it at a slight delay to the time it arrives at the destination. like you said a ship based signal should take about 4ish seconds to travel a system, with the more scanners equipped the faster and the less of the message is lost over that distance (within 8 sectors it would have all the detail, the sector, the event, the ship name, hp status, destination sector. and from 8 -16 sectors the signal gets worse, randomly losing some of the details, such as unfinished coordinates or ship name and hp) and the relays should have a much larger range, but would take around 3.5 seconds per sector (keep in mind the times are just place holders for now) without losing detail, unless it is intercepted, then the signal may be hacked and a parameter is randomly lost (the better the hacking module, the more lost, and certain gained, like destination coordinates)

so the signal can be intercepted to change its direction to stop it from reaching its destination, the relays can be destroyed to stop long distance communication, and the signal can be hacked so information is lost or edited by the time it reaches the destination.

all the while people at home are going to wonder what happened to their scouting fleet, then they get a message that reads. "found a planet full of strippers, I think we will stay here a while, take your time to find us" but after a MANUALLY DELIVERED MESSAGE BY SHUTTLE WHEN THE SIGNAL WASPICKED UP BY A RELAY BEFORE IT WAS HACKED the message should have read "mayday mayday, we are under attack, the enemy is within the home systems, look out. tell my wife I love her"

hmm, just thinking, do you think it is a good idea to be able to send messages along with these signals. such as if you find some asteroids you can send a message like "7 blue ones, oh and their is a pirate station nearby...look out for that" or if you are under attack "please send help, like now. WE NEED HELP. please"

maybe we should summon a dev or council member? I will get the sacrifice

This refining of the ideas I like. And yes the ships should definitely be able to send custom messages. This allows for messages to be codded by a code language if desired. I'm not actually sure if I want to change anything in this outline.

 

[MacThule]

My main priority is getting ANY kind of feedback on damaged/destroyed cores and NPCs. If that's a dumb list just directly recorded from the event log via an active filter I'm fine with that - it's data that's my focus here.

BUT

I love electronic warfare and I think some the response suggestions are totally do-able and would add some very unique and engaging dynamics to Starmade. Black box retrieval style messages, signal intercept, signal jamming, relays/sat-comms, custom signals & coding - all great ideas :-D

 

[jgames666]

My main priority is getting ANY kind of feedback on damaged/destroyed cores and NPCs. If that's a dumb list just directly recorded from the event log via an active filter I'm fine with that - it's data that's my focus here.

BUT

I love electronic warfare and I think some the response suggestions are totally do-able and would add some very unique and engaging dynamics to Starmade. Black box retrieval style messages, signal intercept, signal jamming, relays/sat-comms, custom signals & coding - all great ideas :-D

Hey you posted the original post to get our brains rolling, so thumbs up to you, mate!

 

[terra mining corp.]

perhaps a blackbox left at the site only discoverable by faction giving the last camera view and ship stats?
[DOUBLEPOST=1454863810,1454863660][/DOUBLEPOST]to add it could be used to id attackers and could also be used as a trap because you would only know the last position until you get there.

 

[MacThule]

I think black boxes sound fun in certain situations. My main point is that if I'm trying to manage multiple fleets, and multiple stations with NPCs for my faction, I absolutely NEED to have some idea what is happening when assets start to vanish. No one can sit online for 12 hours a day just tracking faction assets and investigating losses and that's not very realistic. IRL if you were a fleet admiral, you'd send a team of investigators to get the info because you have other things to do. So personally I don't want to go chasing 5-10 black boxes to figure out what happened, I want to open a window and see reports.

I know in theory I can "hire" a player to do it for me as a mission, but in reality, I try almost every day to hire players to just run materials for me and no one is even interested in that, even when offered 80-90% of the value of the goods being traded. There just aren't enough hundreds of players on any server to make that viable, so I think that automatically generated reports - for now - is the way to go

 

[jontyfreack]

but with the NPC update coming, what is to say you cant hire a faction to do the dirty work for you?

 

[MacThule]

I believe it's extremely unlikely that the first function they're going to implement for NPCs is NPC factions that can be assigned a mission to go to a specific sector, retrieve a black box meta-item(which doesn't exist, BTW), and bring it back to you, if not shot down, etc, etc, conditions, loopholes, etc. Regardless of the likelihood of that, fleets are coming before NPCs. Event reports are a near mandatory function for being able to manage fleets over the long term. To leave core fleet functionality contingent on speculative future updates to an entirely different sub-system of the game which does not even exist yet seems... silly.

Byzantine, time-consuming and unreliable means of getting information about your faction's assets can always be implemented later if people really, really want getting basic game information to be a chore for some reason. Such systems could build on an existing report feature - they wouldn't be hindered by a basic report function implemented more immediately. My intent in suggesting event reports wasn't about coming up with new fanciful ideas for missions and things for NPC or players to do - though those ideas are fun and later on could be a thing - it was about something I feel we need in the game now, and will need even more in a month or two when fleets arrive.

For now we just need a way to find out what's happened to assets while we've been away or busy with other activities. Something straightforward. Something easy to code that can be implemented soon, to compliment the fleets that are coming so very soon, rather than something so complex we won't see it for 9+ months.

What I'm talking about is straightforward both in terms of development and use, and doesn't rely on additional game functionality yet-to-come. F1 already shows the event log for while a player is logged on. Events are already being tracked; there's just no way currently to get at them if you weren't logged on when they happened. All that's needed is a feature that sends certain event types (destruction of personal or factional cores or stations, or ideally even damage to anything linked to either of those) from the existing log to a long-term storage that players can access as easily as they do the in-game email (F4). From a button. I'm talking simple text reports. They won't eat up a ton of storage and could even be made to force download to client and be removed from server storage once the player logs on and the server can purge records more than a week or two old if not retrieved by then.

 

[Criss]

Some of this will be necessary with the integration of wider faction mechanics and fleets. You will be claiming territory and should know where threats are, and on a per-system basis what is going on. I am not sure if distance should factor into how quickly you receive detailed information.

This could tie into possible scenarios. A fleet is engaged with pirates in a far system and as such you receive a message a ways into the battle.

1 - You still have time to make your way over and help.
2 - You are confident in their ability and let them fight alone.
3 - You're so far away the message never receives you. Later on you discover fleet ships were lost, the cost of having too large an empire is that it becomes difficult to manage.

These are just some options. I will discuss them with the team once we have some basic fleet mechanics in.

 

[MacThule]

So, the fleets are in game now and lack of any form of log or report regarding the history of fleets and fleet members is now officially a problem.

Lost 4 elements of a 5-fighter squadron(fleet) while it traveled about 10 sectors near no suns and not within 2 sectors of any pirate stations. What happened to them? Something.

Lost 2 elements of another 5-unit fleet guarding my HB while I was in that sector working. No visitors, no sensor alerts. Just... something happened. There were ships and then there weren't. Resources lost, no sense of why.

Please fast track some kind of report system regarding the fates of fleet members.

 

[MacThule]

Some of this will be necessary with the integration of wider faction mechanics and fleets. You will be claiming territory and should know where threats are, and on a per-system basis what is going on. I am not sure if distance should factor into how quickly you receive detailed information.

This could tie into possible scenarios. A fleet is engaged with pirates in a far system and as such you receive a message a ways into the battle.

1 - You still have time to make your way over and help.
2 - You are confident in their ability and let them fight alone.
3 - You're so far away the message never receives you. Later on you discover fleet ships were lost, the cost of having too large an empire is that it becomes difficult to manage.

These are just some options. I will discuss them with the team once we have some basic fleet mechanics in.

I do like the idea of time delay based on distance and a (small) chance of receiving no report that increase over range! I'd be happy with ansible-like instant info, of course, but your take would be very fun and gritty. I hope this is still something that we might see in the relatively near future.