[Freeciv] Re: feature request: spy satellites

[Wolfram Sieber <wolfram.r.sieber@xxxxxxxxx>]

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Fishpark schrieb:
> But if the satellite moves by itself, how long will it
> take for the thing to cross the map? how useful would
> it be if it only covered your favourite battleground
> once every 20 turns?

I think, that any civ unit might have some disadvantages -- if it had
not we could start the game with an allmighty unit free of
disadvantages... Therefore, I think a spy satellite that crosses an
interesting area once every 20 turns is a good idea: It isn't
universally useful, so the player has to assess whether or not it is
well enough for his/her intentions.

Besides, I'd like spy satellites that continually move since they
sometimes may give a hint: if you accidentally see when an alliance is
compiles a large army.


> And if it moves all by itself, how will you profit
> from its visible range? units move pretty fast in
> freeciv (esp. on linux) so you'd lose track of the
> units almost as soon as the satellite flies over
> them...

Correct, but exactly that would make it to another strategic element of
the game, like cities development, infrastructure, technology race,
space race, and planning battles. The user had to plan how to use
his/her spy satellites.

Also, ground based units move slowly if there's no railroad. so, these a
spy satellite would see - for a turn. (Also a ship moves by turn, and if
one doesn't move the unit manually, one won't see the areas between the
previous and the current position of the ship.)

> neccessity to return to an airbase. Space units would
> be unreachable except by cruise missiles. I guess
> they'd have to have limited lifespan, only a couple
> turns (10? 20?) so that they wont be too powerful. How

If it exists only for 10/20 turns, it possibly wouldn't cross the map
not even once -- if it's a large map.
- --
Wolfram
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