A note on some stuff that is coming for combat.

[Teal_Blue]

Misery said " This isnt Starcraft, you're not going to be getting units into EXACTLY the right spots for exactly the right situations, this being because they wont hold the heck still, the damn things. "



Forgive me if i don't quite understand, but 'why' are the ships moving all the time? Wouldn't it be easier to control them from a still position, say like chess, or a TBS approach?

[x4000]

Ships don't really sit still in real space/air combat, as it costs a lot of energy to turn on the brakes.  Also, in this simulation ships are able to dodge the shots, unlike in AI War.  This both looks cooler, and adds different mechanics into the mix.  The control of them is made pretty straightforward by just hitting a number key and then right-clicking somewhere.  Or rubber-band selecting them, as the need may be.  Generally speaking you don't need as precise of control as you might think here (putting that guy on that pixel), as it's more about general areas instead.

[khadgar]

Abilities sound kinda neat, but from what I've seen I think that the core of the combat is positioning & order of deployment. Adding a third layer of ability activation might be neat, but it could muddle things down if there are more than a very small number of abilities. Maybe abilities should only be on the flagship, and only 1 at a time? I don't know if there is any sort of equipment or loadout thing going on, so I'm not sure how this would best work.

Another idea is to do "specials" rather than abilities. Automatically activated when applicable, they could be influenced by the ship class, the flagship, the sector you are in, or maybe even the specific pilot you have. So maybe a lancer class ship will get a short speed boost when told to attack an enemy who is over a certain distance away. It's not an activated ability per se, as it activates on it's own, but it isn't necessarily random chance either. So this is sort of like having "auto-cast" abilities, but still giving some more unique flavor to individual ships or designs.

Some other examples:
-When only 1 interceptor from a squad remains, he goes berserk and attempts to ram the nearest enemy ship.
-A certain type of pilot causes his ship to become temporarily invulnerable for 2 seconds when it drops below 20% health.
-If more than X boarding pods are incoming to your flagship, it gains 250% turning speed and 50% acceleration for 10 seconds.

Or whatever. Having abilities you can activate manually isn't bad in my opinion, but it certainly might make me feel like I have to play at a slower speed in order to get the timing right.

[x4000]

@khadgar: Those are some really intriguing ideas, actually!  I really like that quite a lot.

[nas1m]

I don't like the squadron idea. the amount of micro in making sure ALL of my fighters in making sure then they are already in the right spot is just as much micro as selecting certain ones to use such ability. However, it doesn't come with the benefit.of.tactical flexibility. Better to just naked them eexplode on death automatically and be done.with it.

I have to disagree.

Currently, if playing normally as it is when the AI is being tough, you already have to do this..... but only sort of.   This isnt Starcraft, you're not going to be getting units into EXACTLY the right spots for exactly the right situations, this being because they wont hold the heck still, the damn things.  You can of course give them direct orders, but it'll be about 2 seconds before they're out of position, and looping back around, or something.  Only the snipers seem to actually hold still ever.

Not to mention that it depends on the ability, really.  Abilities done in the way that SC does them often DO require intense precision.  But that's because of the nature of the game.  Example, maybe snipers can have some sort of "barrage" ability (either coming directly from them or the flagship, whatever).  Which would just, I dunno, triple their firing rate for a short time.  They dont need to be in exactly specific spots for something like this, and you dont have to be super specific about targeting when using such a thing unless that's your playstyle.... you really dont have to do much different at all.   Are your snipers already firing into the general area where you want some extra damage done?  You just activate it.... and that's it.  Let them do their thing then while you deal with something else. Same with something like, I dunno, some special laser attack.  Tell the squadron to do it, and each one will do their part as they reach the spot.  There's little need for them to do it at exactly the same time.... it's no different than attacking normally.  The amount of micro put into attacking normally is up to the player.  But usually you can just tell them "go here, attack this" and then you dont have to pay attention to it, because this isnt SC and it doesnt need to be hyper perfect. 

Seconded.

Whereas something like on-death effects.... THAT could get irritating depending on the effect.  And I can think of several ways to highly abuse the idea of ships that cause AoE explosions when they pop, or similar abilities.

And Seconded .

[Misery]

Abilities sound kinda neat, but from what I've seen I think that the core of the combat is positioning & order of deployment. Adding a third layer of ability activation might be neat, but it could muddle things down if there are more than a very small number of abilities. Maybe abilities should only be on the flagship, and only 1 at a time? I don't know if there is any sort of equipment or loadout thing going on, so I'm not sure how this would best work.

Another idea is to do "specials" rather than abilities. Automatically activated when applicable, they could be influenced by the ship class, the flagship, the sector you are in, or maybe even the specific pilot you have. So maybe a lancer class ship will get a short speed boost when told to attack an enemy who is over a certain distance away. It's not an activated ability per se, as it activates on it's own, but it isn't necessarily random chance either. So this is sort of like having "auto-cast" abilities, but still giving some more unique flavor to individual ships or designs.

Some other examples:
-When only 1 interceptor from a squad remains, he goes berserk and attempts to ram the nearest enemy ship.
-A certain type of pilot causes his ship to become temporarily invulnerable for 2 seconds when it drops below 20% health.
-If more than X boarding pods are incoming to your flagship, it gains 250% turning speed and 50% acceleration for 10 seconds.

Or whatever. Having abilities you can activate manually isn't bad in my opinion, but it certainly might make me feel like I have to play at a slower speed in order to get the timing right.

What about just having always-on passives, then?

Others may disagree with me, but I tend to absolutely loathe abilities that suddenly activate themselves, rather than me choosing when to do it.   In the case of this game, since I tend to play extremely defensively in strategy games as a whole (as opposed to extreme aggression in any other genre), this'd likely keep me only using very specific ship classes, and ignoring anything I percieve as having risk due to activation that I cant control, unless it was some ship type that's absolutely necessary for whatever reason.  Or if the game allows it, I simply turn all of them off.  There's other reasons too, but I'm lazy and you probably get the idea.

And a couple of other points I'll mention before I totally forget:

Another reason why I'd be for activated abilities of some sort is to make sure that the player can constantly take an active part in things.... giving orders, which tend to be on the simple side so far, and then just watching them happen every time isnt as exciting as it could be.  I'm not exactly the patient sort, so I tend to hammer the fast-forward button often while I'm waiting for battles to finish and the situation to change.  That type of lull usually says to me that something is missing.

At the same time though, there are benefits to simply having passives too.  Something like Lancers having the ability to shatter shields easily but do little damage against heavy armor is something that could differentiate the ships alot more.  Which is the biggest issue right now to me, is that the ship selection can feel redundant at times.

Cant remember whatever else I was gonna say.

[x4000]

I think that at the new default speed there is always going to be a lull, because it's being played half as fast as it was original designed to be. So I spend a lot of time holding super fast forward as well. I agree with you on making sure the player has plenty of things to do, but I think that use of the fast forward key will always be a big thing in this game for anyone not playing on 1.0 speed or higher. And then using the slow mo button will happen at key times, heh.

[Misery]

That's a good point.

And I'll admit, some of it was me being a tad impatient.... I wasnt thinking of the current default speed when I said that, haha.  I was thinking of the previous default. Though I definitely think the current speed was the right choice to make for default. 

Still, I always like the feeling of taking an active part in these things rather than allowing the AI for my units and such to do too much on it's own.  Looking forward to these additional combat elements you'd mentioned for that reason.

One way or another though, if each ship type can be made to stand out a bit more from the others, that'd just help alot in general, regardless of the method chosen.

[x4000]

Yep, I am definitely working on that -- I agree with everything you said there.  I have a lot of ideas, it's just a matter of having time to get all that in place.  And there is just so little time... breathe Chris... but it will come together in the end.

[chemical_art]

I have to disagree.

Currently, if playing normally as it is when the AI is being tough, you already have to do this..... but only sort of.   This isnt Starcraft, you're not going to be getting units into EXACTLY the right spots for exactly the right situations, this being because they wont hold the heck still, the damn things.  You can of course give them direct orders, but it'll be about 2 seconds before they're out of position, and looping back around, or something.  Only the snipers seem to actually hold still ever.

Not to mention that it depends on the ability, really.  Abilities done in the way that SC does them often DO require intense precision.  But that's because of the nature of the game.  Example, maybe snipers can have some sort of "barrage" ability (either coming directly from them or the flagship, whatever).  Which would just, I dunno, triple their firing rate for a short time.  They dont need to be in exactly specific spots for something like this, and you dont have to be super specific about targeting when using such a thing unless that's your playstyle.... you really dont have to do much different at all.   Are your snipers already firing into the general area where you want some extra damage done?  You just activate it.... and that's it.  Let them do their thing then while you deal with something else. Same with something like, I dunno, some special laser attack.  Tell the squadron to do it, and each one will do their part as they reach the spot.  There's little need for them to do it at exactly the same time.... it's no different than attacking normally.  The amount of micro put into attacking normally is up to the player.  But usually you can just tell them "go here, attack this" and then you dont have to pay attention to it, because this isnt SC and it doesnt need to be hyper perfect. 

There's all sorts of ability ideas that could work like this.  The "click it once and let it be done" idea as opposed to Starcraft's "obsessed with micro" style.

Whereas something like on-death effects.... THAT could get irritating depending on the effect.  And I can think of several ways to highly abuse the idea of ships that cause AoE explosions when they pop, or similar abilities.


While I have nothing against Starcraft, frankly I think that game kinda poisoned the genre as a whole, as alot of developers seem to think that doing abilities or special combat effects that way is the ONLY way. When in fact there's so many other ways it could be done so that it requires hardly any micro, or none at all. 

And on top of that, it wouldnt be a bad idea to have something like this give these different ship classes more ways to stand out from each other.  Currently, I dont think they're doing that quite enough.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but it doesn't explain why a whole ship class has to activate abilities at once instead of just ones selected units. And if abilities really are simple to use, such as triple rate of fire, does it really add to the depth, or is it just another thing that if not juggled correctly a nerf. Abilities should make more of a tactical impact then that.

[x4000]

or is it just another thing that if not juggled correctly a nerf. Abilities should make more of a tactical impact then that.

Right, I had originally had some plans for stuff that I then realized would fall into that category.  "Originally" meaning back when we switched to this combat model, prior to the start of alpha.  I am definitely wanting to stay far away from that sort of thing.

[chemical_art]

Glad to hear it. That said, abilities that give painful tradeoffs, like 40% reduced damage in return for 25% increase i. rate of fire might be interesting...maybe, sometimes.

[x4000]

For the most part I am thinking about weapons that you trigger at key points, but only have limited ammo of.  We'll see, though.

[JAlfredGoodwin]

How about more limited things that are AWESOME but have out of combat results?

"The use of antimatter-based weapons in combat has horrified the non-aligned races, leading to the formation of an Anti-Federation Popular Movement on Several Planets."

[x4000]

That's a really good idea!  Because yeah, being able to win one impossible battle with ease by using a "cheaty" sort of weapon is no big deal if it causes major repercussions out in the solar system.  I love that!  Do you mind putting that in mantis so I don't forget?