More Advanced Combat

[Demitrious Ducas]

Setting up decoys for missions shouldn't be rewarded. It is a player using a design weakness to to avoid fighting the real battle. If a fleet of ships in combat were blocked from attacking the main group, by a lone sailor in a dingy throwing empty beer cans at them, weren't a ridiculous image, I could argue for using them. But, I just can't...

Combat fleets that engage another fleet that has little (relatively) to no attack, hp, or power should be allowed to advance and make further attacks.

Maybe if you could buy, decoys ships like you do marines and they were resupplied after each combat, and their value was based on the # of decoys and which fleets they were attached to, along with which combat tactic was chosen (see below) or based on a ship componant. This would make using decoys more interesting in missions and PvP having more meaning, than just a slot filler to avoid further attacks.

Would be interesting to have other attack options, like Feint (turns your's or the enemy's fleets stack in reverse, simulating the front lines feigned retreat behind the rear fleets, or for enemy it could mean the weaker/ lower disciplined fleets in the lower tiers advanced into the trap ahead of the main force), Flank (bonus to acc/ atk if you out number the opposing fleet), Defensive Push (reduced attack and increased defense), Counter (allow the enemy to attack first). Then you'd have different strats to choose and hope they pay off better than just the few options we have an the use of flawed decoys. Allowing you to choose an overall strat on the commander or war page that would control your fleets when your off-line, would add further depth of combat.

[Seither]

I see nothing wrong with using decoys, as they ARE ships, they just have nothing on them. Armies do stuff like that all the time, send in some weak, easy to destroy stuff first, then have your super good army behind it, only difference is ours comes afterward. Plus, the missions are doing it with having ships that CAN destroy ours in front, but the bulk power behind those where we can't touch them, so it's fair.

[randalthor]

i agree with monkey that decoys are fine but the ideas for the other attacks sound great to me. it probably would take a large amount of changing to do so Emi, look into it when you have time will you?

[ShadowBlade]

If we're doing advanced combat, then why not classes of ships?  Like small swarmer types are going to be faster than huge, hulking Death Star like ships, right?  A patrol boat is faster than a battleship.  And you could incorporate that into the strategy thing, like if you have more fighters, a flanking maneuver is more likely to succeed, or you could have an Assault Wall strategy, in which all the ships would stay in formation relative to each other until battle breaks.  Further, that could really switch up the battle if you incorporated speed, since the faster ships would get the first attack, regardless of who launched the battle.  You could include it as a class-based system or you could add a new component like engines to core, armor, and whatever.  It would change things a lot, but it would be more realistic.

[charmuska]

I think the combat is fine in its simplicity.  Don't go adding weird combat options that can make every fleet able to destroy every other fleet.

And for the decoys, they are effective in real battles (as long as the decoys are well-trained).  Decoys are how smaller armies are able to destroy larger armies.  The tendency being that the larger army will split off in pursuit of the decoys, where the smaller portion is destroyed.  Divide and conquer.  Guerilla tactics.

[Lammalord]

pretty much if you make the combat complex, no one will want to play the game, its just one more thing to take hours on learning like charmuska said keep it in its simplicity, i mean if you add all of this combact stragey, it would have to be on the side (sort of like the galaxy) and be something like "planned battles" were you may get a bit more reward (just like encounters) but just like encounters there way more risky...

[ars68]

just a note, my suggestion in the thread 'H&R and SG battle tactics' would also limit the use of decoys, as once the decoys were destroyed, the remaining fleets would then go at it again, that time with no decoys.

although while I agree, battle system is great in it's simplicity, it is also makes it possibly one of the dullest portions of the game.  throwing something, almost anything, would put in that little extra it needs, that as some have said before, making it not just 'whoever has the bigger ship wins' but actually SOME strategy to it.  but yeah, to much strategy will just ruin it.

[Demitrious Ducas]

I don't want an overly complex system, I liked the simple combat system as it exists, but it's lacking in depth to handle issues outside of normal war (pitting player#1's best ships vs. player#2's best ships and rolling the dice)...

For example the issue with infinate scouting from another thread.

The idea here is that infinite scouting isn't sporting when used to make real attacks without the resulting counters, most people would consider this bad form since it is used against a player...

But, a similar case I have made is using decoy ships in missions, it works, it is allowed by the rules, but it just isn't in the spirit of honorable hunting... most people said this shouldn't be fixed or isn't an issue when I made a post about it because it is only against the computer fleets.

My point in both issues is that, the lack of sportsmanship doesn't come from the target it has to come from within yourself for it to mean anything. But, in the hardnosed edge of gamming there is almost no honor among player, everyone is out for themselves or group and will do or try nearly anything to get an advantage. I think this is why a most advanced, but not overly complex, combat tactic system is needed, to disuade players from using loopholes to an advantage not intended by the rules.

I REALLY enjoyed the pen and paper space games of the 70's and 80's many of them were simple formula combat with dice to find a bit of random factor, but MOST of them had advanced combat tactics and options to choose that made that combat interesting and made the outcome based on more than just 3 simple fleet propeties (Atk, Def, HP). The ship design and componant design portion of this game kicks ass it is nearly infinately variable and can be used to make a multitude of ships with different purposes. SO uses such cool ships in a combat system that just falls short of the high mark set by the ship design portion of the game.

This is more evident because in most cases, it is an active player attacking an inactive/ off-line player, all the options and output go to the attacker, the player off-line gets no choice of tactics (only which ships to leave out) and get a very minimal combat report that lacks nearly any useful information about the attacker that could be used to make a counter attack. Scouting to gain ship/ fleet make-up for the defender is then essential when they get back on-line to find the've been attacked. The defender should atleast get the same attack report the attacker sees.

Then there are the hit and run issues where it isn't even possible to bring most or any of your real combat ships to make a counter attack since the initial attacker put them into reserve before logging and has much reduce total power So as a result you get a game full of power ship blasting back and forth, back and forth without doing any real damage to either side except for a few unexpected losses or unprepared for defenders... it just can't hold the interest of most people and they end up leaving the game, playing alts, greefing others, or trying to exploit every possible loophole or bug hoping not to get caught.

[Radical]

For some reason i'm thinking if Emi implements all those new attacks and the offline attacks, it might turn into a rock, paper, sicssors type thing.  Where you get lucky and happen to pick the right strategy to counter the other guys strategy.  Just my thoughts.

[Hellsword]

yeah, i like that battles as the yare now, because they are (relatively) fair and dont alow you to totall kill the other person evry attack. I think if the battles really need t obe changed then dont add new battle types, maybe add new types of weapons and shields to add some variety, or something o do with the components of a ship...

[ars68]

ya, except then you have the problem of what are the new components going to do?  I mean, I am sure Emi could put in so many new systems that it takes an hour at least to design a ship using everysingle item, but if they don't DO anything, what is the point?

you know... it's funny, but when you all started talking about that, and I started thinking of some other things I would like, but way to overly complexed, I all of a sudden though it would be something like MOO3 (Masters Of Orion 3)  LOL.  I don't actually know why either...  LOL

sorry, still caught up in the fact that MOO3 uses a weapon capable of destroying a planet, called a stellar converter (sound familiar?)  LOL.  E, are you sure you not going off of that game?  lol, jk

but basically, 2D spaceO   YAY!!!

[Hellsword]

lol ars i do think that idea came from MoO2 XD

[Scarface]

If you want to change up the attack system without making things too difficult to learn or program, then the one thing you can add in would be stacking. By this I mean that you set the order of your fleets. The NPCs would simply randomly stack their fleets as well. Then you will have some people that lead with decoys, some that lead with power ships etc. You would also need to add decoys into the NPC attacks so they could do the same thing.

The other way you can go with it is to put a min % a fleet needs to be of the overall fleet in order to participate in an attack, this would effectively eliminate decoys.

[Hellsword]

:S eliminate stacking by power? that would be a horrible idea... you would lose tons of ships per missions and agaisnt other players...