Re: Indirect cXP awards?

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald at phy dot cmich dot edu>]

Lincoln Peters wrote:

> I don't see a way that the actions of one unit can result in a cXP award
> for another unit (though I imagine that such a thing would involve the
> "unit control" mechanism).  Is there a way to do this?  Is this
> something else that has yet to be implemented?  Or has such a thing even
> been considered yet?

I hadn't considered this before. I think you may be right in that the 
unit control mechanism should be involved for "missile units".

I have thought about the distinction between guided, seeker, and simple 
missile before, but the particular cXP consequence of using a guided 
missile had escaped my attention. This is an interesting consideration.

> (This kind of mechanism would not only be applicable to ships carrying
> missiles.  It could also be applied to starship firing photon torpedoes,
> wizards firing fireballs, and all sorts of other things.  And, since the
> attack is supposed to affect units in multiple cells, the firing
> mechanism is inadequate.)

I think the concept of spread damage (as opposed to point damage), which 
has been discussed on the list several times before, may be one way of 
modeling the explosion. I also think that this would probably be easier 
to implement than to link a missile unit's cXP back to the unit that 
launched the missile. In the case of spread damage, I am not sure that 
it makes sense to award cXP for each unit damaged, but simply to award a 
fixed amount if there was a chance of a hit.

If I get tired of working on the SDL interface this weekend, I will 
probably look into the spread damage (and possibly some other 
combat-related) stuff.

Eric