Astro Galaxy - a realistic space exploration game

First of all i am not referring to these new fortifications.  Let me show you an example of a recent battle of mine where I had left some stuff on a planets surface when i attacked. For security reasons the location will be left out.


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Attacker opened fire!

Wave 1 - Primary forces (Weapons & Boarding)

Wave 2 - Primary forces (Weapons flyby)

Wave 3 - Protected forces (Weapons & Boarding)

TGE Recruiting Vs. SOL Station #6897
Weapons assault
TGE Recruiting attacks with Laser Cannon MK LXIV using standard mode.
Hit on target, doing 3015 damage!
OVERLOAD IMMINENT!
SOL Station #6897 exploded in a ball of fire!

TGE Recruiting is inspecting the station wreckage...
2 m3 Iron-nickel, 1 m3 Aluminum, 4 m3 Nitrogen scooped into cargo bay.
Target cargo bay was empty.

Emperor Jam-Jul Lison planetary force Vs. cyslide planetary force
Ground assault
cyslide planetary force maneuvers into landing range first.
cyslide planetary force sending trained personnel to find a landing spot.
The landing party found an area and sabotaged it, doing 365 damage!
Emperor Jam-Jul Lison planetary force sending trained personnel to find a landing spot.
The landing party found an area and sabotaged it, doing 653 damage!


Objective: Defeat the opponent primary & protected forces.

Stalemate.

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Now I thought it seemed odd so I sent a copy to SirEmi. Here is the reply he sent me.


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Astro Galaxy Support
16-May-2014 17:30
Re: odd battle report

Hi,

I've checked the battle report. The defender only had protected forces. In this case it would be 2 units vs. 2 units and each unit will match up with the other unit. There is no additional fire. Wave 1 is only for ship vs. ship combat.

If he would have had a ship protecting, then you might have got your ship to fight in Wave 1 against the defender ships, then Wave 3 will be similar to the battle above. Since there was no Defender fleet, it just skipped to Wave 3.

Fly safe and have fun!

Sir Emi, AG Support


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Now considering the station was destroyed, I can't see any reason why the ship shouldn't have been able to attack the surface.  With the station gone it wouldn't have been protected anymore and shouldn't have required an extra attack.  From how SirEmi made this sound in his reply, Even if I would have had no ground forces it still would have required another attack.   Now for a small scale battle such as this one, that isn't a big deal.  But if were to say do a similar situation between myself and lets say Dadds with our big stuff, this becomes a very big deal.   This would create such a huge timer that it wouldn't be worth the time for either side to complete and the QP required to speed it up would be way too much.  Then add needing an actual 2nd attack means a 2nd huge timer.  Of course by the time such a timer would count down the person under attack could easily just have got their stuff out of there or just brought in more reinforcements.  Now I understand before hand it was hard for those on the defense side. Attackers had most of the advantages.  But now it seems like that rather then the side being equal, they have become unbalanced in the other direction.

SirEmi I hope you don't mind me posting the PM. I just needed it to help explain my thoughts. Perhaps others will read it and see something in it I might have missed.

who is this Captain cyslide (power 18,670) that you, JJL (power 167,005,239) felt the need to attack?  Was this starting player posing that much of a threat to you?

Yeah, I think the second attack isn't necessary.

The attacker ship shouldn't stop at the station and should proceed to attacking the enemy's ground forces. Basically shouldn't skip Wave 2 for the weapons flyby.  :)

No threat.  I was going through clearing out some useless mods that had just been left strung along. I haven't heard anything back from the pilot so I am guessing he isn't very active.

ahh, just more of your little ethnic cleanings then,,,

Think of Wave 3 as exactly the way combat used to work before.

Each unit is matched with one enemy unit. If you have a small unit on the tail, it will effectively act as a decoy. Each unit gets to attack once.
If any side has units that are not matched, those units will got for the enemy most powerful unit.

This battle had something like this:

Attacker: #Unit1 {Ship powerful}, #Unit2 {planet module weak}
Defender: #Unit1 {Station weak}, #Unit2 {planet module weak}

What happened was:

A#Unit1 vs. D#Unit1
A#Unit2 vs. D#Unit2

There are several options you can use to make sure you win the fight:

1. Remove your planetary forces if using just one ship because they act like decoys. That will make sure D#Unit2,3,4,etc. attacks the ship.
2. Have several units yourself like multiple ships, or make sure the planetary forces are also a decent power.

In most cases going with #1 will do nicely.

If you attack a station or planet that is undefended by any ships, combat will be the same as before, with added marines fatigue.
Sorry the message didn't explain it properly...

I really think a change needs to be made then. I see no reason the ship in orbit shouldn't have engaged with the stuff on the surface.  Yes I can see the ground forces battling first. But air support should still come in after at least since there is nothing stopping them from coming in.

Will definitely think about it. That would require giving the units fighting in Wave 3 either unlimited turns until last man standing or the right for each unit to attack every other enemy unit once.

The ship used it's turn attacking the station... if the ship has the right to attack the second defender unit, then all the other units including the defender units should also try to attack each enemy.

It can be discussed and see if we can improve it.

That sounds like a good idea.  Another idea would be to possibly create a 4th round. Perhaps have 2 stages of protected. First being for stations and other things in orbit. The 2nd being stuff on the planet.

SirEmi: you could also use the ship weapons that has not yet fire in the battle to attack the ground. Even marine that have attacks left will only fire once.

That sounds like a great idea matamure!

Works in terms of story, and in terms of keeping combat fair.
 :rockon:

and, how can a planetary (NPC) force (strength of 0) not be destroyed the first time it is in combat?  My planetary forces are destroyed when I lose a battle.

Amen

this still ain't fixed...

Yeah, we need this fixed.  :)

It works that way because of the 2 phases of the attack for nest missions. 1- plunder, 2- destroy. Most of the time the station remains with a strengh of 0 after phase one. If it was not the case (if it was removed), we could not do step 2 and we would loose the rewards of phase 2.

yeah, I understand it now.  the first attack is a 'loot' attack and nothing is destroyed (even if the planetary force is of 0 strength, they will not be harmed).  the second attack 'destroy/capture' is the one that ends (or doesn't) that planetary force's survivability.  

I don't know why I didn't see it before, thanks.

One idea is to have a readiness attribute for planetary or station forces. When a player is logged off for more than 3 months or something, reduce hte readiness. If the readiness value is low then the attacker gains an advantage. This way combat is still heavily in favor of the defender, but still allows players to clear abandoned things.

The thing is I can't see why after planetary forces battling each other, or before that a ship couldn't still launch an assault on the planet. Especially if they were to still have weapons that haven't fired. Simply bombardment from orbit there. Sending in marines isn't too unreal either of course.  It just kinda annoys me. That said I don't make a habit of putting myself into this situation.