Thursday, July 22, 2010

Idea 1: splitting/merging fleets

Splitting fleets is present in almost all rulesets and it would be practical if you could split fleet A into fleets B and C and then give further orders to B and C without wasting a turn for splitting.

Possible solutions:
  • Server side:
    After sending the split order to the server for fleet A you update universe data and get data for fleets B and C. The only feature that needs to be added to the client in this case would be auto-updating after certain commands (split and merge).

    pro:
    split procedure can be complex,
    also provides basic support for non-turn based rulesets,
    results of the split are visible immediately
    con:
    update after every command (updates could be made in batchs)
  • Client side:
    Split order is execute on the client side and sends this information to the server along with other orders.

    pro:
    no need for extra updates from the server,
    results of the split are visible immediately
    con:
    client side scripting language should be specified (so all clients can execute this type of orders)
  • Multiple order queues:
    After giving the split order to fleet A you add orders for the remaining ships (fleet B) to the same queue and orders for the rest of the ships (fleet C) to another order queue.

    pro:
    probably the simplest solution to implement
    con:
    an unintuitive way for the player,
    results of the split are not visible immediately

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