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Unread 5 Mar 2014, 01:31   #1
RLGambit
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Ship Stats page - where's the key?

So my brother joined PA again to play with me during havoc and I was explaining the ship stats page. He mentioned that it was frustrating there was no key to it, and he had to try to figure out what it all meant.

I figure that if we want people to come and play this game (whether old PA players or new), it would be helpful to explain each of the headings on this page and what it all means. I understand some of this information is in the manual on other pages, but a key should be provided.

Even now, I'm not sure what A/C or D/C is :/

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Unread 5 Mar 2014, 02:28   #2
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

-T1 T2 T3, means their targetting. And the ships will fire at T1 untill there are no enemy T1 targets left, before it jumps to T2/T3.
-Init is order of fire. The lower the initiative, the sooner it fires in battle.
-E/R is Emp resistance
-A/C is Armor/Cost and D/C is Damage/Cost

rest is self explained.
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Unread 5 Mar 2014, 04:13   #3
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

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Originally Posted by TheoDD View Post
-T1 T2 T3, means their targetting. And the ships will fire at T1 untill there are no enemy T1 targets left, before it jumps to T2/T3.
This is a good explanation to keep it simple, but it works slightly differently than that, and I've seen a lot of people come by #support confused. Note that if you've just started playing Planetarion, you'll probably end up more confused reading this, so I advise sticking to the above explanation.

EMP guns and damage are distributed evenly amongst the number of targeted ships. If there are 15000 Wraith (targeting Fighters) firing at 48000 Phantom and 12000 Banshee, then 12000 Wraith fire at Phantom and 3000 fire at Banshee. It takes 10667 Wraith to kill 48000 Phantom, so there are 1333 Wraith left to fire at Co. However, 3000 Wraith only kill 9000 Banshee, so 3000 Banshee will survive, even if there are no Co present for the other 1333 Wraith to fire upon.

Here is the calc showing this, you can see the same effect happening with Beetle and EMP.
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Unread 5 Mar 2014, 04:39   #4
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

That's all very well explaining what it is on the forums, but new players generally won't browse the forums, and I think adding a key to the stats page should seriously be considered.
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Unread 5 Mar 2014, 04:51   #5
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

Definitely! I was actually looking for one of those questionmarks on the stats page, expecting it to be there with explanations. A brief description when you hover over the terms would work as well - or both!
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Unread 5 Mar 2014, 13:55   #6
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

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Originally Posted by Clouds View Post
That's all very well explaining what it is on the forums, but new players generally won't browse the forums, and I think adding a key to the stats page should seriously be considered.
This is what I was trying to get at. Thanks Clouds.
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Unread 5 Mar 2014, 19:32   #7
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

The OP made an interesting point
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Unread 5 Mar 2014, 23:56   #8
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

As a technical IT trainer and creator of support material for all manner of complicated systems and processes I can confirm that not a single person who 'happens' upon this game will have the single first f#cking clue what's going on.. Not a chance..

Someone mentioned a supporting manual or something a while ago that loaded when you logged in for the first time.. That would be better..
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Unread 6 Mar 2014, 03:21   #9
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

Yeah if nobody can code something, either add it to the "quick start + terminology" page, or add the terminology to the stats page.

I could swear all this stuff used to be explained in the manual somewhere at some point...

Mouse-overs are a good thing.

Also, new players really don't need to know A/C and D/C stats, as mentioned above, it's just confusing.

Guns only affect EMP ships, so that should change as well.

Also, maybe a "Cost" header above the M/C/E in the stats page.

Race is irrelevant as well since it's all color-coded and no race shares the "same" ships. Toss it.
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Unread 6 Mar 2014, 10:33   #10
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

I'd say that A/C and D/C are more relevant to players than Arm/Guns/Dmg. If there were an E/C, we could do away with ERes too. Could rename them to Aeff, Deff and Eeff, though, or something similar.

Perhaps 'basic' (only names, targets, init, effs), 'advanced' (all current columns, minus race and guns) and 'xml' (all current columns, including race, minus guns) versions of the stats page would be useful.
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Unread 6 Mar 2014, 11:18   #11
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk View Post
I'd say that A/C and D/C are more relevant to players than Arm/Guns/Dmg. If there were an E/C, we could do away with ERes too. Could rename them to Aeff, Deff and Eeff, though, or something similar.

Perhaps 'basic' (only names, targets, init, effs), 'advanced' (all current columns, minus race and guns) and 'xml' (all current columns, including race, minus guns) versions of the stats page would be useful.

To us more veterans yes they are more relevant but to the guy just signing up they mean **** all. Bear in mind that upon signing up you are asked to choose your race without knowing that there is even stats (still the biggest screw up this game has imo). A new player would probably look at what has the most Dmg or the most Arm or the most Guns. No one is actually gonna look at the attacking/defensive efficency of a ship at sign up.

Maybe a reworking of how the stats actually work where A/C and D/C is a hidden figure and Guns have more of a reckoning on a ships ability (maybe add Shielding aswell as a defence guide) would make the stats more n00b friendly and easier to read.
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Unread 6 Mar 2014, 12:48   #12
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaiba View Post
To us more veterans yes they are more relevant but to the guy just signing up they mean **** all. Bear in mind that upon signing up you are asked to choose your race without knowing that there is even stats (still the biggest screw up this game has imo). A new player would probably look at what has the most Dmg or the most Arm or the most Guns. No one is actually gonna look at the attacking/defensive efficency of a ship at sign up.
Whenever people look at Dmg or Arm, the overwhelming likelyhood is that they're doing it wrong. There is only one legitimate use case for looking at those low-level specifics: you're making a tool that simulates combat. So I stand by my point. Effs are vastly more relevant to players than Dmg or Guns or Arm. It's not even the right thing to look at when you're making stats! (They're write-only.)

To people just signing up (which is a completely different audience than 'established players'), the stats are entirely irrelevant. Here's everything a new player needs to pick a race: "Ter is normal, Cat disables ships, Xan ships have cloak, Zik steals, and Etd does a bit of everything". Done! It's a bad thing that new players aren't given this rudimentary bit of information, yes, but it is absolutely a good thing that new players aren't shown the ship stats. Not the current version, and not even the basic version I described in my previous post, not until they have a light factory.

No game should ever present its potential audience with a spreadsheet, even if said game is mostly a spreadsheet.
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Unread 6 Mar 2014, 13:58   #13
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk View Post
Whenever people look at Dmg or Arm, the overwhelming likelyhood is that they're doing it wrong. There is only one legitimate use case for looking at those low-level specifics: you're making a tool that simulates combat. So I stand by my point. Effs are vastly more relevant to players than Dmg or Guns or Arm. It's not even the right thing to look at when you're making stats! (They're write-only.)
Wether they are doing it wrong or not it will be what they look at. I think that effs and res should be fluid anyway and not available as information to anyone. Why should you be able to enter a battle and know 4 ticks before hand exactly how many ships you will lose. That is not how battle works, any number of factors, human error (or Cat/Zik/Xan error :P) can influence a battle and this should be reflected in combat.

The stat maker should be able to create a ship and set its A/C and D/C as a fixed figure but then the battle equation should apply a +/- randomiser of 50 for example. Certain factors could affect this randomisers probablity of being good for the attackers or defenders. Things like fleets recalling defence between ticks 2-1 would reflect badly on the defender as it means the defence is scared... or landing an attack against 5x number of defenders gives attackers higher chance of the boost cos of the 'blood rush' or whatever.

I think that the fact you can calc an attack down to the ship is something that makes combat boring and the game boring from that. Taking a risk or punt even with all the scans and info would be more fun surely. The unknown is what grips us. Watching any attack land with crossed fingers and sharing what happened afterwards would be better and higher interaction too. Rather than just laughing at the guy that mucked up.
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Unread 6 Mar 2014, 15:59   #14
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaiba View Post
Wether they are doing it wrong or not it will be what they look at.
Which is why I'm saying it should be removed from the default ship stat view.
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Unread 6 Mar 2014, 23:04   #15
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

Let me add to this debate.

So, my brother is a returning PA player who wanted to dig into some of the stats to try and figure out what to build and what's good. I think some simple mouse-overs would suffice in helping him understand that spreadsheet. Perhaps even a mouseover for an explanation of what the hell the spreadsheet is (or being able to click on a "What is this?" bit of text with a drop down explanation) would help for even newer players.

i don't think you need to start erasing columns, as it can be both noob and pro friendly with just a bit of explanation.

I also agree that they shouldn't see this page first when signing up to play a game, but I don't think new players do. Instead they usually read the intro that explains the races and a bit about the game. They hit the stats page when they wanna get more involved.

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Unread 7 Mar 2014, 10:10   #16
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheoDD View Post
-T1 T2 T3, means their targetting. And the ships will fire at T1 untill there are no enemy T1 targets left, before it jumps to T2/T3.
-Init is order of fire. The lower the initiative, the sooner it fires in battle.
-E/R is Emp resistance
-A/C is Armor/Cost and D/C is Damage/Cost

rest is self explained.
almost.

A/C (Armour per cost) is a cost dependent indication of armour:
it works like this: (Armour/(M+C+E)[taken per ship from statspage]) *10000

e.g. Phoenix: 50+35+35 ressources = 120
Amour of 6

= 6/120*10000=500 (tada!)

For D/C its the same calculation just with "Damage"

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Unread 7 Mar 2014, 22:35   #17
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Re: Ship Stats page - where's the key?

Yes but it would be helpful if that was explained on the stats page because unlike most of us, a new player isn't going to jump the forums to figure that out.
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