Re: [FT] PBeM

I think you've missed the point....  this is for a computer moderated
play-by-email engine.  The player must submit -all- orders for a turn in
an email to the game engine - which processes those orders and executes
the game turn.

> List of active firable weapons in a list, only those weapons
> that can bear on a target are in the list and that have
> firecontrol available should they need it.

This list I can calculate.. the player won't know where the enemy ships
are going to be when they write the orders to determine what to fire
upon - so they ought to have some method that will allow the game engine
to make decisions based on their own tactical decisions.

For example .. 
  A player has a small, expendable ship that he wants to fly deep into
the
enemy fleet and expend all weapons at the enemies carrier.  He only has
one fire control, so wants all weapons to fire at the carrier if he is
in
range, otherwise fire the beams etc.. at whatever is closest.
  The other player has two small ships which he has detailed as close
escort to the carrier.	They wish to fire on any ship that is in range,
but
with preference to any ship that has fired on the carrier this turn (in
the
hope that the enemy wont get close enough to fire at point-blank range)
  Elsewhere in the battle, a battlecruiser is plugging away at another
BC that
has taken heavy damage.  He wants to finish it off - but it is crippled
so
he sets it as a secondary target, after the 2 heavy cruisers that are
bearing
down on him( and may or may not enter range this turn )

  What do people think of the following firing orders (that will fire
non-expendable weapons)

TARGET X, Y, Z

  Fire at those ships in that order of preference. 

DEFEND X, Y

  Fire on any ship that is in range and has fired on X or Y this turn.
(this order makes no sense if I set the 'simultaneous fire' game option)

  Default order for all non-expendable weapons is to fire at the closest
target
in arc.

  If the ship has more valid targets than it has firecontrols it will
use
the order of preference, then target size, then random selection to
assign the
FCS.

  As a further thought, you could assign a weighting to the enemy ships
which
will be applied to determine their 'value' for targetting purposes.

  At the moment the turns orders are going to look something like (with
multiple
ship entries) : 

ORDERS player_identifier password

SHIP ship_id
MOVE S1+3   // turn starboard 1, accelerate by 3.
<whatever the targetting orders end up being>
REPAIR system, no_of_DCP, system, no_of_DCP etc...
SEND ship_id message

Comments? Suggestions?	(I'm casting out the suggestion line again here
;) )

--
Colin