New look at the combat system

[lisunken]

I agree with Dadds OOB format for the fleet.  Also, Marine should not able board or be use at all. if the ship shield is  up and armor or air locker is not breached. Only when shield or armor / air lock is breach them marine can be use.  That my take on marine.

[Fenix]

Yea certainly I understood the concept of powering down modules by changing the personel on it though I don't have such high level modules to use as an example so I didn't see how drastic a change it could make. Still I feel like we should have energy generator modules to power all of our weapons and shields and things, it would just give the game a more realistic feel in my opinion.

As for marines I have a sightly different opinion. I don't have a problem with them going through armor and shields however I don't like the way it works now. For example the most basic standard marine module can go through a ship with 5 mil shields and just do it's damage? That makes no sense to me. The way I would like to see it work would be something like this. The higher level a marine unit would be the larger it would be and since it takes research time it's technology would be more advanced so I feel like maybe the marine unit should only be able to get through a set amount of shields/armor. For example a mk 1 marine unit can go through 1,000 units of shield/armor, and if the target has more than that then the marine unit gets destroyed in the attempt. This would make it so that weapons have a use even on a marine heavy ship and keep these marine only ships at least honest in that if they want to go through a ship with 5 mil shielding then they are going to have to create a really high level marine module and not spam 50 mk 100's or something. Of course the numbers I'm using here are just an example, I'm sure a bit of research would have to be done in order to find a proper number to really make it balanced. My reasoning behind the idea is that a meteor burns up in our atmosphere which basically serves as a shield, but some of them do make it through given the right circumstances, I feel like the same concept can be applied here.

[SirEmi]

I like the idea of stations and planets being actively defended by ships in orbit, so an attacking ship has to either defeat or absorb the damage of the defending fleet before they can attack the stations and then planets.

I also like the idea that a ship should be able to fire all remaining weapons after the main attack waves:

e.g.
First wave (Weapons and boarding):
100k ship A1      vs.  50k ship D1
1k ship    A2      vs.  50k ship D2
1k ship    A3      vs.  50k ship D3

The 50k D2 should be able to fire again if it defeated the 1k A2, however on the second wave there should be no boarding and just weapons fire

Second wave (weapons flyby until all defender ships have fired all weapons):
100k A1 vs. 50k D2
100k A1 vs. 50k D3

Then if supposedly there is a station or planet involved and the Attacker is still standing, it will join the battle on the third wave.
Third wave (weapons and marines):
100k A1 vs. S1
100k A1 vs. P1

There should also be an option to set a ship as protected target, like send a mothership or important ship to fight only in the back line while on defense (third wave).

[sargas]

I like that...

[Fenix]

That all sounds like good stuff certainly.

[SirEmi]

For marines, I am thinking of adding fatigue because of re-boarding.

Marines would fatigue in battle. For each boarding attempt they would lose 10% Attack Power, down to a minimum of 0 after the 10th boarding attempt. So each time the marines are going out they are getting more fatigued, until they can not do any more damage.

The fatigue can also be adjusted by how the boarding went, so if the marines used 10% or more of their power they would fatigue 10%, but if they used less then 10%, like 1%-9% because it was an easy battle, they they would only get that fatigue, with minimum 1%.

[JamJulLison]

Sounds like some good ideas there SirEmi.

[sargas]

Will fatigue cause a loss of manpower?

[Matamaure001]

SirEmi: I like all the ideas you bring so far.

One question: While doing nest missions with very high power ships ( 20 millions range) equipped only with marines (6 MK M), once I had to face 21 and an other time 23 ennemy ships. With your proposed modifications, would it be possible to win the battle? Will you modify the nest mission so that this situation will not hapend anymore? 3 weeks ago, I have played with a 35 millions ship for a short time!

[lisunken]

Great.  When can this be implemented.   

[SirEmi]

SirEmi: I like all the ideas you bring so far.

One question: While doing nest missions with very high power ships ( 20 millions range) equipped only with marines (6 MK M), once I had to face 21 and an other time 23 ennemy ships. With your proposed modifications, would it be possible to win the battle? Will you modify the nest mission so that this situation will not hapend anymore? 3 weeks ago, I have played with a 35 millions ship for a short time!

With marines fatigue those missions will certainly get harder with one ship that relies only on the marines as after 10 boarding attempts they will no longer do any damage.
My guess is to adapt and split the 35 mil ship into 2 ships of ~20 mil or so...

So yeah when those changes come in, you might need to change tactic a bit or install some weapons maybe.

I'm also thinking of making PvE attack timers e.g. missions specific to only take into account the attacker power rating.
This will mean that you could use specialized buster fleets against hordes of enemy ships, and you can reduce timer by bringing less fleet power to the battle. The attack timer could be AttackerPower multiplied by 2, in general reducing attack timers for missions and stuff. For PvP attack timers would remain the same, depending on A+D power.

[SirEmi]

Will fatigue cause a loss of manpower?

No, fatigue will only reduce the effectiveness of the troops on the next attack, it will not result in any casualties or drop in HP power of the marines.

It will decrease the attack power depending on how hard the previous attack was.
10% or more power used means 10% fatigue, <10% power used means 1%-9% (power used rounded down with min 1% / attack)
With each new marine attack, fatigue for that ship's marines increases until it is 100%, then they will no longer do any damage.

[Matamaure001]

For the option of splitting a 35 million ship in 2, it is not practical because of the cost of the license (around 96 millions for me now).

I like the idea of modeling the power of a ship to reduce timer but with marines it is not possible (I can not put those in cargo bays, can I). If I could move then in a state (let's say: stasis in cargo bays) where they would not attack and count toward total power, that would be great. I already pack 375750 marines in 100 m3 lol.

Be careful before reducing the timer for COM mission (you know, I like it very much) because it will mean more solars for us big players.

And I don't mind adapting to new rules, I have done it in the past. I am already planing for the rules outlined here

[Fenix]

Ok so let me see if I have this all correct. First off weapons will fire multiple times? You mentioned "a ship should be able to fire all remaining weapons after the main attack waves", did you mean anything particular by using the word remaining? For example if you had 10 lasers on a ship they all fire and then any other weapons on the attacker and defending ship go off until all weapons have been fired, will a new round automatically start where the lasers then fire again? Also would these rounds continue until someone is defeated or until some number of rounds have passed? If all of those assumptions are correct then definitely a major improvement.

Then ships will be attacked first, followed by stations and planetary forces after those ships have been defeated? So if I had 3 ships orbiting a mining station any attacker would have to defeat and force those 3 ships to jump before being able to touch my station or mining facilities on the planet? Again a major improvement.

Lastly marines will have diminishing returns after each attack via your fatigue mechanic so that each successive attack is less powerful than the previous one and eventually they can become too fatigued to fight essentially? I do worry that the percentage you used won't be enough to keep it balanced at higher levels however I guess we won't know that until we get there and it is certainly an improvement over the way they work now so that works for me I suppose.

Any sort of estimated time you can give us for when these changes might happen? Like idk next month? Spring? Summer? lol

[SirEmi]

Regarding managing ship power by powering down modules:

A setting can be added to Ship->Weapons that will affect the ship power, weapon setting disable (not for nukes), but for all other weapon systems and maybe for shields too.
When set to disabled, the weapon will no longer fire in combat or count towards power rating. In the view ship screen, it might show with gray area to mark it as disabled.