Out-Of-Game Communication is trouble
Here's a possible workaround. If you have a unit go outside radio range, it reduces the distance it can see. That way If they are playing with OOG communication, They get hampered ingame if they go outside normal radio distance.
Hello there,
I do not know how the communication in your game is designed to look like (e.g. as free text), bit a more formal way of communication may be the solution to your problem. A formal message may for instance look as follows:
Message(Sending Unit, Location, Content).
Content is a string out of a predefined set of possibilities, some examples of which could be:
1) “No hostile activities in this area.”
2) “Spotted x y” with x being a number and y E {battleship, submarine, tank, …}
3) “Destroyed enemy x” with x E {battleship, submarine, tank, …}
4) “Out of x” with x E {fuel, ammo, food, …}
If a scout wants to report his status, the game calculates the possible messages from which the unit may choose. For instance, if there is indeed nothing happening around the scout, message 1 is available. If there is an enemy battleship within its sensor range, message 2 becomes available and is filled with the variables “1” and “battleship”. And of course his location is also automatically filled-in by the game.
While this is quite straightforward, the clue is the following:
The game also has to restrict what actions a commander can take depending on the messages he receives. One such restriction is that no resources may be sent anywhere without justification by a message. An example:
It is not realistic to send an entire fleet of battle ships for the rescue of a scout that is not responding –the reason for this could be as simple as a radio that is out of order. Therefore, the game would not allow the commander to react on this message with sending an entire fleet to the scout’s position. The commander may, for instance, just send another scout unit. However, if the scout was able to report “Under attack by 5 battleships” before it was destroyed, the game would allow the commander to send resources for a battle. Consequently, the commander always has to send a scout unit to a location before he can send anything else there, even if the scout merely reports “No hostile activities in this area.” Maybe this is a limitation for some scenarios, but in general it should not be too far away from reality where there always is some sort of reckoning before the actual battle machinery is sent out to die.
The good thing about the method presented here is that the impact of outside communication is reduced dramatically. If the scout is destroyed before it can send its warning, there will be no evidence in the game that would allow the commander to react. The worst that can happen is that the owning player of the scout sends an email to the commander, with the request to send another scout which may then have the chance of reporting what is really going on, justifying the assignment of war resources to its location. While this alone may take a considerable amount of time, there is also a chance that the second scout gets destroyed as well and the true enemy force does not get uncovered.
I hope this was inspiring, at least it was for me :-)
Best regards
Callidus
I do not know how the communication in your game is designed to look like (e.g. as free text), bit a more formal way of communication may be the solution to your problem. A formal message may for instance look as follows:
Message(Sending Unit, Location, Content).
Content is a string out of a predefined set of possibilities, some examples of which could be:
1) “No hostile activities in this area.”
2) “Spotted x y” with x being a number and y E {battleship, submarine, tank, …}
3) “Destroyed enemy x” with x E {battleship, submarine, tank, …}
4) “Out of x” with x E {fuel, ammo, food, …}
If a scout wants to report his status, the game calculates the possible messages from which the unit may choose. For instance, if there is indeed nothing happening around the scout, message 1 is available. If there is an enemy battleship within its sensor range, message 2 becomes available and is filled with the variables “1” and “battleship”. And of course his location is also automatically filled-in by the game.
While this is quite straightforward, the clue is the following:
The game also has to restrict what actions a commander can take depending on the messages he receives. One such restriction is that no resources may be sent anywhere without justification by a message. An example:
It is not realistic to send an entire fleet of battle ships for the rescue of a scout that is not responding –the reason for this could be as simple as a radio that is out of order. Therefore, the game would not allow the commander to react on this message with sending an entire fleet to the scout’s position. The commander may, for instance, just send another scout unit. However, if the scout was able to report “Under attack by 5 battleships” before it was destroyed, the game would allow the commander to send resources for a battle. Consequently, the commander always has to send a scout unit to a location before he can send anything else there, even if the scout merely reports “No hostile activities in this area.” Maybe this is a limitation for some scenarios, but in general it should not be too far away from reality where there always is some sort of reckoning before the actual battle machinery is sent out to die.
The good thing about the method presented here is that the impact of outside communication is reduced dramatically. If the scout is destroyed before it can send its warning, there will be no evidence in the game that would allow the commander to react. The worst that can happen is that the owning player of the scout sends an email to the commander, with the request to send another scout which may then have the chance of reporting what is really going on, justifying the assignment of war resources to its location. While this alone may take a considerable amount of time, there is also a chance that the second scout gets destroyed as well and the true enemy force does not get uncovered.
I hope this was inspiring, at least it was for me :-)
Best regards
Callidus
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement
