New look at the combat system

[SirEmi]

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.

Ships will still fire each of their weapons once. However, if there are still weapons to be fired after the first round, then those weapons will fire in the second run until depleted. Sometimes it happens that a big ship with lots of weapons defeats multiple smaller ships, and so that big ship will continue to fire it's weapons and fend off the enemy swarm, instead of only fighting one ships as it is now.

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.

The third wave happens if some ships get past the enemy ships, then those ships will be able to assault the stations and then the planets of the enemy fleet. So yes, if you have 3 ships protecting a station, the attacker will need to defeat your 3 ships by pounding on them before being able to attack the station. The third wave is a battle of it's own, the remaining attacker ships will attack the stations and planetary forces with their remaining weapons and fatigued marines.

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

It wouldn't take too long once there's a good idea it usually gets implemented very fast. I'm very satisfied with the new server upgrade we did, and working on the updates now.

[Fenix]

I see... I'm a little disappointed that weapons won't be firing multiple times though. How exactly is the rest any different than the way it works now though? I don't have much experience in PvP but against nest COM missions my ship already does fire it's weapons at multiple ships if I beat the first one and still have weapons that haven't fired yet. Are the PvE and PvP mechanics different in that way? Or am I missing something else?

Glad to hear that upgrade went well and glad to hear it will be coming soon then.

[JamJulLison]

Fenix say you have 2 ships and your enemy has 1 ship and a station right now. 

Your first ship right now engages the highest power target.  Then even if all weapon's aren't fired, your other ship will attack the next target rather then the first ship.   It is also the same when defending. Say that big ship fends off your bigger ship. Your other ship will still go on to attack that 2nd target there.   

[Matamaure001]

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."


I am very pleased with this idea. Thx

[JamJulLison]

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."


I am very pleased with this idea. Thx

If they would effect the power by disabling then with nukes it should do the same.

[Fenix]

Fenix say you have 2 ships and your enemy has 1 ship and a station right now. 

Your first ship right now engages the highest power target.  Then even if all weapon's aren't fired, your other ship will attack the next target rather then the first ship.   It is also the same when defending. Say that big ship fends off your bigger ship. Your other ship will still go on to attack that 2nd target there.   

Yea I got the whole order of battle thing I just don't understand what is actually changing about weapons...

[sargas]

what I see is that while each weapon fires only once, if there are weapons that didn't fire during wave one, they  can fire during wave two, and then move on to wave three ...marines attack during wave one, do not attack during wave two, and participate in wave three fatigued...

[JamJulLison]

Fenix say you have 2 ships and your enemy has 1 ship and a station right now. 

Your first ship right now engages the highest power target.  Then even if all weapon's aren't fired, your other ship will attack the next target rather then the first ship.   It is also the same when defending. Say that big ship fends off your bigger ship. Your other ship will still go on to attack that 2nd target there.   

Yea I got the whole order of battle thing I just don't understand what is actually changing about weapons...

What this will mean is with the change,  say your 1 ship defends off the first ship, it will then take on the 2nd ship rather then be skipped over.  So it will fire off any weapons it didn't use before.

[Fenix]

Yea... I don't see that as a change to weapons at all but rather a change to which target they fire upon which falls under Order of Battle. Any weapons that didn't get fired when attacking the first target would fire at the 2nd target regardless, this just changes what that 2nd target is so far as I can tell. Idk maybe I just can't see the difference because of the way I think...

Personally I don't quite understand the way the order works right now... not so much how it works but why it works that way. I don't really care for the whole "most powerful ship attacks first and attacks the most powerful defending ship" thing. I guess maybe this is just my own view or stubborness but I honestly think it makes way more sense to allow people to choose the order in which their ships would attack and defend, which I guess that part about being able to prioritize your ships for defense is partially what I would want. I would prefer some kind of fleet link on the left there where you could assign ships to a particular battle group and make Ship A go 2nd Ship B go 4th Ship C go 1st and Ship D go 3rd or something like that. I mean we have to sit around for hours and some of you stronger guys have to sit around for days or even weeks for a timer to go through anyway, it's not like we don't have time to fiddle with settings to optimize our attacks.

[JamJulLison]

Setting for defense should really have to be done before a timer is started.  If an attacker shows up and attacks, realistically there shouldn't be as much time to mobilize beyond whatever settings they set before.  The attack on the other hand would have had time to prepare before hand and decide how he wants things before starting the attack.

[Dadds]

@Fenix: I guess simply explained in a multiple platform PvP encounter, the way it stands now is if an attacker with a huge weapons loadout is trying to defend a target, say an orbital or a mining outpost, this ship is easily circumvented by simply sending out 2 small ships. What happens is the strongest of the small ships takes on an unbeatable foe, gets creamed in the first laser strike and em-jumps. Then, the 2nd ship lines up against an orbital, or a planet, and loots, takes the spoils, or blows the station without the mega-ship defender having any other say in the matter. He just sits on and watches in abject horror that all those shiny new guns didnt fire one shot in anger and couldnt defend against 2 pea-shooters.

Many times my weapons optimized, specialized ships only ever get to fire 1 or 2 of their weapons before they leave the field because they vanquish their direct opponent in that first strike.

Trust me, what Sir Emi suggests will be a HUGE change to PvP and PvE encounters and will make the bigger ships with weapons loads much more capable of defending a colony.
I for one am pleased that Sir Emi and so many others find the suggestions to an order of battle favourable as well as suggestions to help make the resilience of marines reduce so they do not become an perpetual, infinite fighting group.

[SirEmi]

What Dadds said, my thoughts exactly  

I will also add that to be able to get to the third wave, the attacker will have to sustain damage from all defending ships until they are either defeated or they exhaust their weapons. So if a defending ship defeats an attacker ship and it still has weapons online, it will target another attacking ship, until all weapons have fired or the defending ship jumps or all attackers are defeated.

[Fenix]

Ok so what I'm getting from that is that weapons aren't changing at all, it's just the Order of Batttle/targeting that will be changing which is quite a boost to defense. And also the marines which is good because they were definitley unbalanced. Sounds like good stuff to me like I said before. By third wave you mean attacking stations and planentary forces? Well yea if the attacker can take all the hits from the defending fleet and either defeat them or make them deplete all their weapons that is fine, does that include marines as well? Meaning the attacker would have to endure 10 hits from any marine modules that the defending fleet might have? Though I would think the battle would be over before that could happen but eh anything is possible I guess lol.

[JamJulLison]

Wave 1: Ships vs Ships

Wave 2: Ships vs Stations

Wave 3: Ships vs planet/moon/asteroid

[Fenix]

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).

That indicates to me that stations and planetary forces would be attacked at the same time Jam.

*Edit* In hindsight I think this quote actually answers my question regarding marines in the 2nd wave... I think...