Astro Galaxy - a realistic space exploration game

First of all, a big thank you to all that choose to pledge and make it happen.

This is the first project of many updates to come  :)


Combat revamp completed!

Project details:

=> Three wave combat system added
    + First wave weapons and boarding ships vs. ships.
    + Second wave weapons flyby until defender ships are defeated, no marines.
    + Third wave, attacker units vs. defender stations and planetary forces (weapons & boarding / ground assault).

=> Marines fatigue in combat.
    + Each boarding / ground assault adds 10% fatigue to a marines unit. When unit attacks, an "xx% fatigued" is added in front of the unit name in combat, that indicated the fatigue level.

+ The "Preliminary combat analysis" and battle report reflects these changes. Forces are now split in "Primary forces" and "Protected forces".
+ The primary forces fight first in Wave 1 (weapons and boarding) and Wave 2 (weapons flyby). The Attacker has to defeat the Defender's primary forces before he can get to the protected forces.


Other:
    + You can now set a ship as "Protected". It only works when ship is on the "Defender" side. It will send the ship to the back of the armada in the protected forces group. This is useful if you want to protect a certain ship when defending, but it doesn't do anything if you are attacking. You can set the ship as protected in "Ships", by clicking the icon in front of the ship's name. It will change to a "Shield" icon to indicate the ship is now part of the protected group.

    + You can now disable weapons, shields and armor now. Weapons can be disabled from the ship weapons interface or ship modules, there's an icon for disabling the module on each
    + Shields and armor can only be disabled from ship / station modules view. Planetary modules can not be disabled (because it would become un-attackable).
    + The ship / station power will be reduced by the disabled module power rating.
        - Nukes can't be disabled, but it can still be set to hold fire, however that won't affect the power rating.
    + When a module is disabled, it appears as greyed out when viewing / scanning the ship / station.


Project reward items:
    + Go to Pledge -> Completed or Your pledges project details
    + Power Armor Marines Assault Unit can be delivered now, and are fully functional. They have +75% HP during battle and a starting capacity of 5000 marines. It works really well on planets with fortification bonus. On capture / destroy attacks, it will get 15 HP +75% => 26.25 HP / marine. Also extremely good on ships with boarding optimization.
    + Cloning Facility module available as well. Clones are produced in the module vats and need to be unloaded in a ships / station cargo bay. Passenger tag will be "A group of cloned people" and of course you can talk with them and train them as personnel or marines at no cost, or leave them on Earth if you want to get rid of them. They can't be "cremed" sorry :)
    + You can still acquire new modules of different marks you may need for the regular price for another 7 days. After that, the QP price will double for these modules (Power Armor Marines Assault Unit and Cloning Facility).

    + For QP investments, you will have to wait until time for delivery changes and you see the QP+interest in "Pledged QP", then you can withdraw it by clicking the cancel pledge action.
        - if the project has been completed for 30 days ore more and you have a QP investment pledge, you will automatically receive the QP investment + interest back. The QP logs will show the returned investment.

Fly safe and most of all, Have fun!   hi

SirEmi

How long can the pledge items can be holded in the pledge page?
I also like the new ship defense option. This will bring the game up a level of playing.

The pledge items from completed projects will remain there for regular price for 7 days, then the price will double. Eventually, the reward items from completed projects will be added to a list of special items that can be purchased with QP.

Some of these items or similar items will be found via exploration and mysterious encounters, opening a way to combine and upgrade the Mk level via reverse engineering. However these items will remain very rare and special and will only be found as artefacts, ancient, advanced, illegal, alien devices.

Done 3 battles with the new system, all seem perfect. I also disabled weapons where appropriate on all my other comming battles to reduce the timer.

Sir Emi, did you included the mod for the combat drive (more combat speed = more critical hits)? Also, for COM missions, does the timer take into account only the attaker size?

Thx for this update.

Combat speed affecting critical hits will be added in another project. It takes some time to think the logic behind that and we don't want to do too many changes at once.

Attacker size affecting attack timers is under discussion, mainly from a balancing perspective of reward vs. time.

Reducing the timers for COM missions would in effect change the balance between COM missions and all other "missions" (SOS, mining and pirating). That was my concern when the idea was proposed. It was so advantageous for us big players that I did not say anything at the time. The ability to deactivate modules is also changing that balance. It let us complete missions faster then improving the average solars per day from every ships we have.

Emi, just to clarify

I've got 7 days to pick up my pledge modules, and if I don't I'll have to pay extra to get them?

And does flyby mean that when one ship has finished firing weapons, the other just fires all of its weapons with no retaliation, before boarding occurs?  The term had me a little bit confused.

Thanks for the update emi, and looking forward to the next ones!

No, you can pick up your module whenever you wish, it will stay there until you either deliver or cancel it. The price will never change on your pledge that you already made.

After the project is completed for at least 7 days, the price will change in the project itself, and all new pledges for that module will have to be at the new price. Older pledges will not be affected or modified in any way.



Weapons flyby means that any unused weapons will be fired by the attacker and the defender at each other, until the defender ships jump or the attacker & defender has no more unspent weapons. Both sides will fire any unused weapons. Weapons that already fired on Wave 1 will not fire again in Wave 2/3.

Yes I find that reducing the attack timers by making it 2x attacker at this time is a bit early, as it will un-balance combat missions versus other mission types. Maybe after other mission types like exploration, mining etc. become more profitable and popular we might think more about it.

Ship speed affecting critical / hits is approved though, and will be implemented whenever we work out the details and after gathering some data from reports with the new combat system.

What made you change your mind and say something about it now? Is it because you are not the no. 1 earner anymore? You should've said something at that time if you think it was unbalanced. :)

@ SirEmi: Thanks for the update. :)

Ralph, the answer is simple. I was greedy. And you were already the number one in power. Why now, probably because I want to work toward a better game.

I appreciate your honest answer. +1. LOL

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SirEmi, I just finished 8 com missions, and I found something that may be a bug. Here is an example:

http://www.astro-galaxy.com/index.php?action=combat_reports&bid=35199

The report states that the fatigue went lower from 30% to 20% in a single round.

Thanks Emi.  That makes a lot more sense.

I wasn't sure I wanted to pick up the pledge I made just yet, but I obviously didn't want to lose it and have to pay more 0o

All reports say it looks like a great update, keep up the good work emi :)

Thanks for the update, SirEmi!

I love disabling those modules! already cuts my timers with 50% most of the time!!
thx Sir Emi

Sir Emi: "Ship speed affecting critical / hits is approved though, and will be implemented whenever we work out the details and after gathering some data from reports with the new combat system."

Have you implemented it? In my last battle, I had all excellent hits with my Vipers. My ship has an high speed!!!!

Also I have a question: does marines can do critical hits? I do not see in the report the "quality" of the marines hit.

It's still in development, it will be included in another project.

I too really like the the new module disable feature, but I would suggest an 'enable all' button for a future update.

I think SirEmi did an excellent job getting all this done in like 12 days.

What was missed out was the ability to set a hangared ship as active or passive so that if a fleet carrier is attacked, its support ships would deploy to counter the attack. Been waiting for that revamp since the invent of the hangar module.
I guess its going to cost more QP to get yet another promised update fixed. sigh.
I am yet to test out this new combat system PvP so time will tell how it will hold up under stress test. Any volunteers?

OK one thing that i do notice with the fatigued marines is: Why must the most fatigued marine module (ie the 1st one in line) always go out first? Surely you would send out your strongest and fittest team first, as is with all weapons. I just completed a lengthy nest mission which saw one of my marine modules go out to 100% fatigue, and another to 80% fatigue, but i have a dozen or so marine modules never used. What this means is: you could effectively send 5 dud marine boarders out and do no damage, giving the other opponent 5 strikes against you for no loss using their marines while your top crew are drinking beer at the bar waiting to be called upon.
As it would be for an empty marine module, which would normally go last, so should a fatigued module, particularly one that is at 100% fatigue and will do nil damage to an opponent.
Is this "tweak-able" Sir Emi, to make the highest marine module board first? Was it by design? As it stands i see it as an interesting tactic to use/remember when targeting marine/shield ships that are out there in current circulation. Tweaking it would quite possibly see me at a disadvantage vs purely boarding vessel configurations, but I still have to ask the question.

P.S. <addendum> I do like how I dont have to pull my miners up now before entering a combat round, providing i have enough firepower to get the initial job done of course. Good Job on that, Sir Emi!

Regarding the marines order in battle with fatigue. To make it work properly, we'll have to add a "tweak" that will reorder all marine troops after each 1 on 1 fight.
As it is now, the marines are ordered by most powerful unit first, but they are not re-ordered after each 1on1 round, so they keep the same order and the first unit will eventually become very fatigued as pointed out.

I guess we'll do it like the romans. Measure the power with fatigue and rotate the units to have most powerful in front all the time, while taking fatigue into account.

It does sound more reasonable to alternate those troops and send some fresh meet on the field of honor...
But I should not even count the power with fatigue to decide who comes first.
Just take the units with less fatigue and most power
(In IT terms, order on fatigue ascending, power descending)
Otherwise lesser powerfull units will never hit the combat. And they do need training no ?  :)

It's something like this: A: 1000, B: 800, C: 700 power marine assault units

A:1000 power w/ 10% fatigue = 900 => A (900), B (800), C (700)
A:1000 power w/ 20% fatigue = 800 => A (800) or B (800), C (700)
A:1000 power w/ 30% fatigue = 700 => B (800), A (700) or C (700)
B:800 power w/ 10% fatigue = 720 => B (720), A (700) or C (700)
B:800 power w/ 20% fatigue = 640 => A (700) or C (700), B (640)
C:700 next...
...
...
...
...

Because sometime you have a Mk XX module and Mk I module on the same ship, and you don't want to send the Mk I until the Mk XX has fatigued enough...

Sounds ok for me, except the 'or' part. Will it be highest module first on equal power? Or random?
S.

Thanks for clarifying and tweaking it, SirEmi. :)

For the most part I like the update.  I do have one complaint.  The Power Armored Marines themselves. Many newer player aren't likely to be able to afford to get these right away and older experienced players who can afford the QP for them find themselves in a position where they are just not that useful. I doubt I am the only one who's marines already easily outclasses these low MK Power Armored Marines.  I was hoping perhaps we might be able to research these but that isn't the case. It really isn't worth dropping a bunch of QP just to try to get a high MK one.

"Why must the most fatigued marine module (ie the 1st one in line) always go out first? Surely you would send out your strongest and fittest team first, as is with all weapons."

Finally someone else is saying something about this.

Only General Pickett ( google pickett's charge, if you're not familiar with him), would employ this tactic... even he saw the error of his ways, eventually; not before most of his men were dead, loosing the battle, a major factor in loosing that campaign, and the turning point of the war... other then that, the strategy worked ok "cough". :wounded1:

Game developer is always saying he wants to emulate real world as much as possible, this in no way emulates real world. If you have a dozen or two MAU's why would you not rotate them, instead of shooting the 1st units lifeless bodies out the torpedo tubes when they reach 100% level of fatique

Good points on fatigue. As with any new stuff there will be issues like this to work out, but I'm sure SirEmi will fix that in due time.

I've also been alerted to the idea of being attacked when your modules are disabled, and you are thus a sitting duck(especially if you aren't online).

So I would also like to propose an "all hands on deck"/standby setting, that will enable all modules if a new ship enters the battle field.

That idea automates the settings too much, IMO. Another player could very well propose a setting that will disable weapons and shields that are not needed in the battlefield, even when offline.

What we probably need is a button that enables all disabled modules. :)

I agree with this.
The 'all-hands-on deck' is redundant, just take the time to engage the disengaged as needed.

The button to enable all should include 'disable all' as well and I see it as a good tool to have available.

Yeah a button to disable / enable and then check all Weapons / Shields / Armor should be ok.

Then if you logout and think you're going to be attacked, make sure to put the systems back online :)

Ok so then we're faced with enabling all and then disable individual modules when you log back on to shorten the timer.
This becomes more of an issue if you're 'juggling' a fair number of ships and having to do this with each one- you might forget to power one up before logging off or after completing a com mission.

For those in the top20 this is not as much of a concern because they aren't as likely to get 'jumped' even when 'off guard' as they are so powerful that few would bother attacking them even then.