Combat Revisions

[Leedot]

Hi folks -

So we've been discussing the combat system internally along with taking player feedback on the game's balance into account and thought it would be good to get your feedback as obviously any large changes to combat are going to have a big impact on you.

First let me state some of the goals of this design.

1 - Keep it simple while allowing for a variety of strategic unit configurations.
2 - It should be easy to make adjustments to the balance without changing the system itself.
3 - Strong forces should be able to be whittled down over many battles if reinforcements aren't brought in.

Simplified Combat System to preserve the sanity of players and developers.

Stats -
ATK - Damage done per round
ATKSPD - Number of targets a ship can attack per round
DEF - Amount of damage a ship can attack in a single battle. DEF is completely regenerated at the end of combat.
INIT - (Initiative) used to determine the attack order. Highest initiative attacks first.
*Whenever I say 'ship' I'm referring to any unit that would be involved in combat so include ships, orbitals, and planets.

Step 1 - Calculate Bonuses
Assign ATK / DEF / etc. bonuses from all technologies to each players ships.

Step 2 - Determine initiative / Assign attack order
For each ship ( or orbital/planet) generate a random number 1 - 20 and add their initiative value. Ships belonging to the planets owner get an additional +5 if they're at war with the attacker. If the attacker is currently at peace with the attacker the attackers ships gain +5 initiative. These bonuses only apply to the first round of combat.
Highest number attacks first. In the event of a tie generate a random number for each ship. The ship with the higher number wins and has an earlier attack.

Step 3 Resolve Combat
(these steps are repeated for every ship)
Step 3a - Determine Target
(ATKSPD - If an attacker has an ATKSPD greater than 1 steps 3a/b are repeated the number of times equal to the ATKSPD value.)
Ships are attacked first, then orbitals, then planets. Within those categories target is assigned randomly. Yes, this means that attackers aren't choosing the optimal targets but since all ships are making the same less than optimal choices it should remain balanced and it saves us from having to worry about AI.
Step 3b - Apply Damage
Damage = Targets DEF - Attackers ATK. If target's DEF is reduced to 0 or lower it's destroyed and removed from combat. It does not get to attack this round if it has not already done so.


Repeat steps 2&3 until all ship from one side are destroyed.

Step 4 - Wrap up combat
Make diplomacy status adjustments if any between players and assign any capture colonies to the victor if necessary. The diplomatic status of the two players goes down by one step automatically, so a peaceful player is now embargoed, or an embargoed player is now at war.

Step 5 - Send out combat reports
(should be self explanatory)

Other considerations -
How long does combat last? Combat resolves instantly. (or as fast as the computer can do the math anyhow.) The combat animation playback should be roughly 3 seconds per attack.
What happens is Player's A&B are in combat and Player C attacks player A or Player A sends in reinforcements? Player C will enter into combat after Player & B's combat has been resolved. Player's A's reinforcements will be treated as a separate battle that will take place as soon as the current one is resolved.

Let us know what you think!

[AntiHaze]

DEF - Amount of damage a ship can attack in a single battle.

Damage = Targets DEF - Attackers ATK.

So DEF is now HP? You don't have you multiply it by 2?

[Leedot]

This isn't something that's currently in the game but a proposed system but yes, DEF = HP, so no multiplying by 2 to help keep things as straightforward as possible.

[catswift]

Could you explain the purpose of the randomized initiative? You also don't speculate ranges for possible initiative values for ships (other than the +5 for diplomatic status), so I don't know if 1-20 is supposed to be a small difference or if it could be a really big difference.

I like the addition of ATKSPD. Should introduce a good variance in ships if assigned well.

Oh, wait. Are you saying all ships have a random initiative and there is no base value per ship?

[VanderLegion]

Could you explain the purpose of the randomized initiative? You also don't speculate ranges for possible initiative values for ships (other than the +5 for diplomatic status), so I don't know if 1-20 is supposed to be a small difference or if it could be a really big difference.

I like the addition of ATKSPD. Should introduce a good variance in ships if assigned well.

Oh, wait. Are you saying all ships have a random initiative and there is no base value per ship?

It says it rolls the 1-20 then adds the ship's initiative value, so makes it sound to me like each ship (class I'm assuming) will have it's own initiative modifier that gets added to the roll.

[zarkwizard]

It says it rolls the 1-20 then adds the ship's initiative value, so makes it sound to me like each ship (class I'm assuming) will have it's own initiative modifier that gets added to the roll.

Yes, it would be along those lines. For instance something like a Planet Killer would have a lower initiative since it is a bigger ship and takes longer to fire it's weapon, and would have an attack speed of 1. Where as something like a fighter would have an initiative of 20, since it's smaller and faster and doesn't require it's weapons to charge.

We'll come up with some numbers and post them when we get some basics working and we'll look for feedback for everyone to see what their thoughts are.

[JetJaguar2000]

Two obvious issues related to randomness:

1. How is order resolved when multiple ships end up with the same initiative? Can we guarantee that the resolution order is evenly distributed between the the two combatants?

2. Random target assignment. The fact that all ships are making sub-optimal choices does not remove bias in the event of lopsided ship attack ratings. If one fleet is made up entirely of ships that can one-shot any ship in the other fleet, random target assignment isn't a problem, but if a fleet of smaller ships is going against a fleet of larger ones, random assignment will distribute their damage in a way that will destroy the minimum number of ships possible. This seems problematic, since you'd expect smaller ships to focus fire on larger ones to maximize their effectiveness.

[Supamand]

1.What happens if the combat between two players at war is at the sun or at non-colonized planet? Does initiative bonus set to 0 for player A & B?

2.Will the skills be revamped to give boosts to ATKSPD and Initiative?

3. What happens if a player B has a large fleet at player A's colony (both players at peace) and than player C's fleet arrives to the colony (player C is at war with player A and B). Will player C fight with player A and B simultaneously or will they take turns? What will determine turns?

4. Are targets selected at random at each turn of combat or will the system allow to pick a ship/orbital with lowest DEF?

5. How much ATKSPD are you planing to give a planet and will it vary on population?

6. How will a planets ATK/DEF play a role in the new combat? And will the population reset to the max if the attacker failed?

7. Incentive for victory: what happens when a players fleet is destroyed? Does anyone benefit from it?
Would it be possible to let's say award the winning player with 50% of CO/RO from the total sum of destroyed ships/orbitals (the value would be determined by the build coast of each unit).

8. I know there is a skill that lets you stealth your fleets and/or orbitals. Would that skill have a bonus impact on the initiative for two players at war?

[Supamand]

Left out one thing...
What happens if player A ship attacks first with ATKSPD of 4:
1. Would it fire up to 4 times at player B ship?
2. What will happen if player B ship is destroyed from the first attack? Would the other 3 attacks be voided for the round or will player A's ship find new target to use up all attacks?


*Thoughts about Initiative*
I'm honestly not too crazy about 1d20 dice for initiative. But let me break out the way I understand the system with simple example:
Player A (2cruiser) attacks player B (2 cruiser).

Player A stats:
ATKSPD: 2
Initiative: 3+1d20
Surprise Initiative: +5

Player B stats:
ATKSPD: 2
Initiative: 3+1d20
Surprise initiative: +0

Combat begins:
Player A initiative = 3+1(random 20)+5=9
Player B initiative =3+20(random 20)+0=23

Player B attacks first (for both cruisers) and targeting same same ship of Player A. Players A cruiser destroyed.

Player A attacks second, non of player B ships. Are destroyed.

Round 2:
Player A initiative roll < player B = player A dead.


Combat report:
Player A got owned by d20 dice! Lol

Conclusion, if any type of dice is introduced to trigger initiative, the max dice value should be no more than 25% of max initiative. I honestly think its better not to have this random effect or have it only apply in stalemate of initiative.

[Leedot]

Jet - Resolution between to ships with the same initiative is random.

Assignment - after talking about it internally a bit more we'll most likely do a priority list where each ship type has it's own set of priorities for which ships to attack first. In the event of there being more than one of the highest priority ship the attacker will choose the one that's taken the most damage.

Supamand -
1 - If the battle is at the sun or empty space no one receives an initiative bonus.

2 - Probably at some point but not necessarily right away.

3 - That depends on how elaborate Zark / Tsagoth want to get but I'm arguing for keeping it simple in which case they take turns. My initial thought for order is that visitors fight first (determined randomly if there's more than one player with ships at that planet who are at war with the new comer.) and if the new comer survives that then they fight the planet owner. My reasoning for that is the assumption that if you've got peaceful ships hanging out at your planet that belong to someone else it's because they're an ally who's there to help protect your planet. It would also suck if the planet owner lost and then the former planet owner's friend had to then fight the planet.

4 - See the comment to Jet above about target assignment.

5 - We haven't decided yet but my current thought is that Planets and Super Capital Class ships have high ATK but an ATKSPD of 1.

6 - My current thought is that the planet's DEF (which is linked to population) is fully restored if it survives the battle. It's ATK is the same as any other ship although pretty high and attackers can't target the planet until everything else has been cleared away.

7 - The main incentive for victory is to claim or protect territory. I'm not opposed to a co/ro bonus but I'd have to think about the balance implications a bit more. It would certainly be a boon for more aggressive players and I could see it being a Warlord specific trait. My main fear is that in a game like this there's already plenty of motivation to be aggressive so adding more might push things into the realm of that being viewed as the only viable option.

8 - More likely there would be a stealth check each round (compare the two players knowledge of stealth tech and then roll a die), if the attacker fails then they cannot target the stealth orbital that round. In the case of stealth ships and initiative bonus probably makes more sense since entering combat pulls them out of stealth.

ATKSPD - The number of attacks that ship has per round. If a ship has an ATKSPD of 4 and there's only one available target it will attack that target 4 times. If an attacker has 4 attacks and kills it's current target after 2 attacks it then moves onto the next priority target.

On initiative - I personally enjoy some randomness because it's more true to life. (someone wins against the odds due to mistakes made by the other side, inopportune equipment malfunction, etc..) It's important to note that initiative is determined - per ship - not per player so that reduces the odds that your example would happen. Also ships will have a base initiative value as well so that adds some additional weighting to the scenario as well.

That said I could see reducing the range of the random initiative to say 1-10 if 1-20 just winds up feeling too random or even pulling it out if it's something that drives everyone nuts.

[Supamand]

Hmm so if planet/colony does have only 1 ATKSPD, then you really would need to build up mine fields and orbitals early in game to defend vs players. Otherwise a planet can only kill 1 ship per round.

I'd suggest to maybe making ATKSPD for planets = population / 20mil = 20 ATKSPD (for 400mil pop planet)

But planet killers I really not even sure about those. But knowing the sheer coast of the unit, I would want to see it with low initiative but rather high ATKSPD.
Just think back to Death Star from Star Wars. It had 1 main weapon to kill planets (check), but it also had a ton of surface mounted cannons and carried a bunch of fighter ships.....
So, unless you guys figure out a way for planet killer to spit out unlimited amount (but no more than 10 at the time) of fighter ships. Thank I'd advise to set base ATKSPD to ~10

[Royce]

If target assignment is random, and target number is limited, couldn't people spam probes as decoys?

[SG7]

I just think loudly. There are many games where combat is vital and it works well. Rules are transparent and no one complains. One example of such games is CIV III, CIV IV.
These rules can be easily transplanted to EoE.
1.Is there really a need to come up with complex and sophisticated new rules?
2.Is anything wrong with combat in existing games?
3.I am curious why one of the existing battle schemes from popular games was not implemented.

[Troy McCauley]

I just think loudly. There are many games where combat is vital and it works well. Rules are transparent and no one complains. One example of such games is CIV III, CIV IV.
These rules can be easily transplanted to EoE.
1.Is there really a need to come up with complex and sophisticated new rules?
2.Is anything wrong with combat in existing games?
3.I am curious why one of the existing battle schemes from popular games was not implemented.

Combat in Civ takes up hundreds of thousands of lines of code and was developed by a huge dev team.

Zarksoft is a very small team and they are trying to improve the game based on our feedback, just saying "do what someone else did" is not helpful unless you are gong to provide some examples of how it can be implemented here.


As for what we can do to improve the system, I like atk speed mainly because it adds a different variable that can be used to differentiate the ships. Also I think random assignment is a bad idea as it makes it very easy to exploit the system such as the previously mentioned probe spam tactic.

One way to do it would be for Ships to target ships of the same class first, then the largest ship/target, then orbitals, then planets.

This prevents using worthless units to make larger ones invincible but still provides value for having escorts and makes atk speed a useful stat. Thus having escorts protects your capital ships from being swarmed by smaller ships. Which is exactly the role such ships play in actual warfare.

I like the idea of giving players a reason to have a mixture of ships as opposed to just building fleets of 200+ Dreads. but i definitely dont want to see fleets with 500 probes wandering around.

[SG7]

Combat in Civ takes up hundreds of thousands of lines of code and was developed by a huge dev team.

Really? Do you have real data for it?

I am trying to be helpful. CIV is very well researched by its game funs and combat system is well documented. It is much easier to mimic existing scheme than to come up with a new one.

[Royce]

Really? Do you have real data for it?

I am trying to be helpful. CIV is very well researched by its game funs and combat system is well documented. It is much easier to mimic existing scheme than to come up with a new one.

The proposed scheme isn't particularly novel. Aside from random target selection, it sounds like a zillion RPGs I've played.

[catswift]

I don't see an issue with "probe spam". You would only do this is you couldn't build anything better (due to limited object count), and from my experience I'm maxing my object count with cruisers by day 3. If someone needs to defend against that, and all they can build are probes, all the more power to them.

[Nateo]

1) Probe Spam

I'm guessing the "issue" of probe spam would be fixed by their proposed priority list for each ship. I'd assume probes and trade ships would probably be placed at the bottom of every ship's priority list in that case.

I also don't think the the core issue of building certain types of (possibly) lower quality ships is much of an issue in an environment where each ship has defined, balanced priority lists. Depending on how priorities/ATKSPD/Initiative are implemented, it can make for more interesting strategic decisions as opposed to "just build as many of the biggest ship you have".

2) Planets, Planetkillers, Super-Capital Ships, and ATKSPD

Also to address the concern about ATKSPD = 1 ships. In my mind, Planetkillers are more of a specialized super-capital ship designed to one-shot other super-capital ships and (of course) kill planets. From that standpoint, having a huge ATK value but only ATKSPD of 1 makes sense.

For other super-capital ships, I think the previous poster's comment on them having more than 1 as ATKSPD has some merit. These ships (presumably) are built to take out the standard capital ship (Dreadnaught) as well as fight other super-capital ships effectively (and be less effective against medium-class, and even worse against fighters).

What I would suggest for these super-capital ships then is for them to have ATK value that is just enough to take out a Dreadnaught, but maybe ATKSPD of 5 and 10 (super-dread, monitor). So battle would play out like this (with some imaginary numbers):

A Super Dreadnaught (ATKSPD=5, ATK~=DEF of Dreadnaught) would take out either:
- 5 Dreadnaughts per round (most ideal target, basically almost all of ATK value used up on each ship, taking out the same number of ships as ATKSPD value)
- Some percentage of another super-capital-class ship (next ideal target, doesn't kill, but also doesn't waste much or any ATK value)
- 5 medium-class ships (not as ideal, perhaps half of the ATK value used up on each ship, only taking out 5)
- 5 fighters (worst case, lots of wasted ATK value on each fighter, still only taking out 5)

And you could use that similar model for all other ships in terms of balancing the numbers so that each class is most effective against the previous "tier"-class of ships (super-capital > capital > medium > fighters > super-capital)


Sorry for the lengthy post, but it's very exciting to see you guys willing to make needed changes to existing systems. My one last suggestion would be that whatever is done, make sure there is a very detailed and written out manual on how combat (and any other game system for that matter) works :p

[Tsagoth]

My one last suggestion would be that whatever is done, make sure there is a very detailed and written out manual on how combat (and any other game system for that matter) works :p

I already told those two that I'm not doing anything until I see it written down in explicit detail, with all the mechanics worked out, so not to worry on that score.

[JetJaguar2000]

It should be pretty easy to mock up a combat test script to simulate a variety of different scenarios. I hope you can do something like that to test outcomes before anything is put in to the game itself.

[zarkwizard]

It should be pretty easy to mock up a combat test script to simulate a variety of different scenarios. I hope you can do something like that to test outcomes before anything is put in to the game itself.

We were discussing that today. We are working in an excel spreadsheet and will be adding combat simulation code to the spreadsheet to help run simulations to determine the outcomes. When we are done we will probably put something in the client that will allow people to simulate battles as well.

[Royce]

I don't see an issue with "probe spam". You would only do this is you couldn't build anything better (due to limited object count), and from my experience I'm maxing my object count with cruisers by day 3. If someone needs to defend against that, and all they can build are probes, all the more power to them.

A moderately wealthy player would have no difficulty dismantling a chunk of his harvesting fleet and building dozens or hundreds of probes to accompany his attack fleet for a major invasion, then destroying them all and rebuilding harvesters/cargo ships. Probes can also be made very fast, so if combat takes any length of time, planets could keep chairing them out. Also, because you're maxing your count with cruisers doesn't mean other people are (I am not), nor does it mean you would under the new system. All you need is a couple of large ships, and many probes, and you have a good chance of surviving and winning every battle. Your probes take most of the damage, and you can rebuilt them almost instantly at negligible cost.

[catswift]

Probes can also be made very fast, so if combat takes any length of time, planets could keep chairing them out

This is a separate issue which will need to addressed, thanks for bringing it up. Planets in combat should have their production queues halted while the planet is in combat (after all, the colonists are busy earning the ATK points per m). It won't stop the dedicated player from flooding ships in from other planets, but at least then it requires dedicated micro-management to pull off.

[2pourdrummer]

A little off topic, but I would like to see a summary of my attack and defense for each planet. Right now, I don't know how much I have and it can change depending on what is in orbit.

[Leedot]

I think the priority lists will prevent probe fleets from being an issue. I've got what I feel is a pretty balanced spreadsheet for all the ship / orbital values which I'll be posting after Zark / Tsagoth have had some time to go over it. We'll then of course run it through a simulator many times to make sure it's behaving how we'd expect it to before putting it in the game.

[Leedot]

2pour - We'll look into including that information when we rework the local planet menu to include more detailed information about a planet's income streams.

[Leedot]

Alright, so anyone who's interested in the new balance / numbers we're looking at for the combat revisions can see them here.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArcazSep5Y77dHlsb29Dc3o4TER6b0JBM013djlwX 0E

[Royce]

I really think outposts and low population colonies should have more than a single target. What is there just 1 turret on the whole planet? Also, a 1M population planet should have attack greater than or equal to an outpost since it is basically an outpost with more people.

Also, am I reading that wrong or do all non combat ships have 1 attack and 1 target? That would be silly. There's no way a massive colony ship should be massively overpowered by a single fighter.

[catswift]

I do not understand the increased RO costs (unless paired with an overhaul of the imbalance in class RO production).

[Royce]

I do not understand the increased RO costs (unless paired with an overhaul of the imbalance in class RO production).

I just noticed that and it's insane. I will never play anything but trader if the numbers on that sheet make it into the game.

[Leedot]

Royce - The thing is there are a lot of good options for defending your planets / outposts. Thing of building an outpost / colony like building a city or mining facility in real life. By default they don't really come with weapons. If you want there to be more than one turret per planet early on you can do that with mines / energy arrays / missile platforms, etc.

Similarly Colony ships / Outpost ships are more civilian ships imo. If you want them to have greater defense at all times you can fleet them up with some destroyers or some other offensive ship.

I do agree about the starting defense of colonies at least being the same as an outpost though so that's been corrected.

Catswift - Yeah, my RO multiplier was off - should be corrected now. The Trader / Warlord / Researcher balance over all is a separate issue that we'll need to address. The main goal here is to make sure that all the ships are balanced in terms of their strengths / weakness in addition to relative costs.

[Royce]

Royce - The thing is there are a lot of good options for defending your planets / outposts. Thing of building an outpost / colony like building a city or mining facility in real life. By default they don't really come with weapons. If you want there to be more than one turret per planet early on you can do that with mines / energy arrays / missile platforms, etc.

Not a good comparison IMO. A city is not a solitary entity like a planet. Every city built has powerful defense from the start if it is within the borders of a nation with a military. A planet invested in a by an empire existing in a universe where many empires vie for resources would most certainly equip such an investment with at least some defensive capability.


Similarly Colony ships / Outpost ships are more civilian ships imo. If you want them to have greater defense at all times you can fleet them up with some destroyers or some other offensive ship.

I guess my problem is I want things to not only be balanced, but to also make sense. To me the #targets should be largely a factor of size, further influenced by ship purpose (battle, transport, etc.). A large ship (the colony ship appears to be a small planet with a gargantuan ship built around it) would likely have way more than 1 point of fire. It may not have powerful guns, but I guarantee an enormous ship would have more than one. Likewise, a planet would have to have multiple points to attack from on all sides.

I feel like planets and very large civilian and other non-warships need higher targets but should have low initiative and low to moderate attack. I also think the cruiser, dreadnought and energy array (currently an array of 1 gun), need more targets, but whatever, I guess I'm the only one who finds the current numbers very odd :(

[Leedot]

Yeah, I'll admit that the numbers don't make complete sense if they're taken as literal translations of how many weapons are mounted on a ship / planet. By that same token I'd be surprised if an entire planet only had 10 guns as well.

[Royce]

Yeah, I'll admit that the numbers don't make complete sense if they're taken as literal translations of how many weapons are mounted on a ship / planet. By that same token I'd be surprised if an entire planet only had 10 guns as well.

I'm not sure how else to make sense of target# as a stat other than a representation of the object's number of firing points. If you have any suggestions for another way to wrap my head around it, I'd be happy to hear it so maybe this wouldn't bother me so much :p I realize this is a sci fi video game, and not an interactive documentary. I don't expect realism of any sort, but a certain degree of logic would be nice. If an orbital contains an array of weapons, it should be able to fire on multiple targets. A capital class ship, not designed specifically as a planet killer, like a dreadnought, should be able to fend off groups of small ships in addition to battling with other large ones, maybe not as effectively as it attacks large ships, but to only allow it to attack one target just makes no sense to me. I guess ultimately I think a ship like a dreadnought should have multiple attack types, one low attack, high target# and one high attack, low target# (possibly with different ship class targeting priorities). Anyway, I realize you are trying not to get too complex, and you're gonna do things the way you want to in the end. I would just urge you to consider making this a little more logical. And that's my last two cents on the matter ;)

[VanderLegion]

I'm not sure how else to make sense of target# as a stat other than a representation of the object's number of firing points. If you have any suggestions for another way to wrap my head around it, I'd be happy to hear it so maybe this wouldn't bother me so much :p I realize this is a sci fi video game, and not an interactive documentary. I don't expect realism of any sort, but a certain degree of logic would be nice. If an orbital contains an array of weapons, it should be able to fire on multiple targets. A capital class ship, not designed specifically as a planet killer, like a dreadnought, should be able to fend off groups of small ships in addition to battling with other large ones, maybe not as effectively as it attacks large ships, but to only allow it to attack one target just makes no sense to me. I guess ultimately I think a ship like a dreadnought should have multiple attack types, one low attack, high target# and one high attack, low target# (possibly with different ship class targeting priorities). Anyway, I realize you are trying not to get too complex, and you're gonna do things the way you want to in the end. I would just urge you to consider making this a little more logical. And that's my last two cents on the matter ;)

What might be easier than having two different weapons or attack types to deal with capital ships vs fighters would be to have the same high damage attack it has now, make it multiple targets, but only able to target one capital+ ship at a time, and take penalties for attacks against smaller ships, or maybe only able to target fighters/destroyers outside of the 1 big attack. Then just make the penalty against fighters a large one, would have the same effect as a second attack with different damage.

[Royce]

In the first post, it says something about how ships that can attack multiple targets will attack a single target multiple times if only one is available. That's good IMO, but if it's the plan, I don't understand some of the ship descriptions on the spreadsheet. For instance, it says the missile platform is not quite as potent against a single target as the beam array. But wouldn't the missile platform's 10 attacks of 50 damage each be much stronger single target damage than the beam array's single 100 damage attack, like 5 times stronger?

[Leedot]

Royce - No, you're right that description isn't really accurate for the beam array.

[Nateo]

I also thought there were mentions of "effectiveness" against certain types of ships (and planets). Are these advantages all reflected in the initiative/damage/# of attack stats? Or is there an additional modifier for advantageous match-ups?

[Leedot]

In the current system there are specific modifiers, in the new system I've tried to set things up so that all the ships have different strengths based on their stats that make them more or less useful in various situations but they don't have any additional modifiers against specific unit types.

[ThoonHulk]

One of the things I would like to see added is some ability to be notified of incoming attacks and have time to respond to them. This could take the form of a heads up whenever a fleet of a player you were at war with was dispatched towards a system you had forces in. That would allow me to at least meet an incoming invasion force with my ships by reallocating / building forces to counter them.

Another complementary option would be having combat take some predetermined length of time, say 30 minutes per round. Then the attacker can still surprise me, but if my planet doesn't fall immediately I can move forces from elsewhere to respond to the attack. This has the added effect of making warp speed increasing technologies far more interesting, though they would need an order of magnitude adjustment to be really cool.

I just don't think the idea of having to station large fleets at each planet you want to protect, and never move them, is much fun. Orbitals defend at a discount, so that's at least freeing me up a little bit to cover myself and still go on the attack, but I think wars and combat would be far more interesting if I could respond to attacks to defeat them, rather than just counterattack afterwards.

[Marked]

I like this idea. For a game I am supposed to only have to check once or twice a day major combat against two large fleets or against a large colony should take some time so that when I do log in I have a chance of reacting to it. I guess what I am trying to say is make sure the pace of the combat matches the pace of the rest of the game.

[Leedot]

Thoon - We've had an orbital on the design table for a while now (the art's done already) called a Hyperspace Wake detector that can increase your visible range / send notices of incoming ships but with all the other revisions / fixes we've been doing there just hasn't been time to get to it yet.

As for combat taking time I like the idea particularly because it allows for players to pull in reinforcements or as for help from allies but I can't really speak to the logistics of adding in new players / ships into combat in real time. One thing that does come into question is how we'd go about displaying that visually since one of the goals is to eventually add in a more visual representation of combat. You've probably seen this floating around but this is what we've been working on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjhTu8oR1N0 So in the case of a battle that takes 30 minutes per round I'm not sure what the best way to display that would be. My first thought is that you could simply have the combat view be a post battle recap that's attached to the battle report like it is now. So you'd still see the planetary battle animation going on to show there's a battle going on there but you wouldn't see the detailed view until post battle.

Something else we'd need to do is change the background in the ship roll up for all ships currently in combat so we could more clearly indicate that they're in use. (technically they should also move to the 'under ai control' position of orbit but I think most people think of that as simply a place to manage harvest routes.

[Royce]

technically they should also move to the 'under ai control' position of orbit but I think most people think of that as simply a place to manage harvest routes.
Because it is just a place to manage routes. Even the harvesters on routes themselves pull into your regular ship position to the right of the planet. If that other spot is meant for AI ships to actually be located in, it isn't happening.

[Supamand]

Lee - I'm not sure if it has been discussed before, but I was looking at your excel spread sheet have few questions about Orbitals.

1. Mines look like they will be the strongest orbital with the highest initiative. Do they expire after one attack or will they stay active until taking dmg? Because if they don't expire after attacking, it will be impossible to take over anything. For example we take 1 Monitor to attack an outpost. If you have at least 3 mine fields at this outpost, they will kill Monitor and remain intact. So you would need at least 2 monitors and a lot of luck to come out victorious from this battle. Now look at the CO value of the mines and Monitors and Skills required. I'd say mine orbitals are overpowered! But if they do expire from 1st attack, then it would be fair balance with the listed stats.

2. There are a few skills that boost orbital build speed and orbital damage, but you rarely see anyone build any orbitals at colonies, especially with the combo ship transformations. What I was thinking is to maybe adding a build time to the ship conversion into orbital? Otherwise orbital defenses and advanced orbital defenses skills are not very useful at all... I'd only train those two skills to exploit awesomeness of the mine fields.

3. Orbital Shipyard seams like a pretty important Orbital and takes for ever to build. Currently there is no information about it in the game as far as Attack and Defense. Do you think you could add it to the excel sheet? Same goes for other non combat orbitals, I'm wondering what it will take to destroy them.

[Leedot]

Ok, I haven't been ignoring this thread but I knew Zark was almost done with the test script and wanted to field test the numbers a bit more before making any more posts. Now that I've had a chance to do some pretty extensive testing of various scenarios I've updated all the numbers to reflect what I'm currently using in the test cases.

A few changes of note -

- Colonies have a lot more DEF / can target more ships but do less damage per attack. This is because with the old numbers it made more sense to just use a ton of weak units to overrun the planet's defenses. Now you -can- take a 400mu planet with a lot of small units or even a good number of high damage units but having a mixed group is the most efficient.

- Orbitals are more expensive / less powerful. They're still about 5x more cost effective than a ship of the same price but of course they're immobile so I think that's a fair trade off.

- Instead of using a priority list ships prioritize the strongest target that they can kill in a single attack so they opt for destroying as many targets as possible over doing the most damage possible. This winds up working pretty well for maintaining the desired balance in terms of keeping a mixed grouping of ships for optimal performance without having the ships be overly dumb.

- Defenders get +5 initiative on the first round of attack always if they're in orbit of a planet they own.

So far from all the testing these numbers / system feel pretty solid / balanced and I haven't really seen an battles where one side was wiping the other unexpectedly. With the (1-10) initiative variance you do get some upsets every now and again when the numbers are close but I like that it's not deterministic down to an exact number of ships.

Supamand - As for non combat ships / orbitals currently anything that doesn't do damage lives or dies with the planet.

[JetJaguar2000]

I'm not sure if there is some other pending change that covers this, but given that you currently can't see the composition of an enemy force before engaging (when at war), can you add a feature that allows you to "evaluate" an enemy force before combat to see if you stand a chance?

I'm thinking of something like the "consider" feature in most MMORPGs, but I don't care how it's implemented (just showing the ship list would be good enough). It starts to get really frustrating going in to battles blind in this regard, especially with the lack of combat reports. Too easy to have entire fleets wiped out when you guess wrong about defenses, etc.

[SG7]

A few changes of note -
- Colonies have a lot more DEF / can target more ships but do less damage per attack.

Quick question:
What is ETA for those changes. I am not in a hurry since old scheme worked OK for me.

[Leedot]

Jet - We'll be expanding the range of visibility to cover an entire solar system so if you're in the system you have visibility into the entire system. Complete battle reports will also go up with the revised combat so if someone posts a fleet at the sun set to war status you'll be able to at least get info on how many ships are posted at the sun.

SG7 - I don't have an eta for these changes just yet but they'll go in as a group so they probably won't affect your current game.

[Leedot]

A quick update, Tsagoth is moving on to implementing the new combat server side now that Zark and I have been able to do a ton of scenario testing offline and feel that the system is sound and the new numbers are looking pretty balanced. We'll also be implementing the extended time frame combat that Thoon suggested so each round of combat will take 30 minutes. During that delay you or other players will be able to send in reinforcements or pull their ships out of combat.

If a player orders all of their ships to retreat they're pulled out of combat immediately be the remaining fleets get a free round of attack on the departing ships as they leave. If a player has multiple ships / fleets in play and only orders some of them to leave the number of ships that may open fire on the fleeing fleet is reduced by the number of ships remaining in combat; This is done to simulate the effect of some ships staying behind to lay down a covering fire.

[destrkta]

Only reason I've stopped build dreds is that cost effectiveness vs battleships is asstoundingly bad, and the fact that I've lost them to planets that are colonies (which I would never have attacked in the first place)