More The Last Federation Info Coming Up! Plus Combat Teaser #1

[orzelek]

Sadly fleet combat is one of not many things I dislike quite strongly.

Seen it tried few times in various titles and it always leads to annoyances like:
- need to try this one more time since stupid AI did ....
- if I don't get a fleet I'm subpar, when I have fleet see above
- various mechanics that limit fleet deployment (you added one here tied to time) that mean that you have fleet but you don't and strategic options that come from that are usually forced on and not tempting for me

[x4000]

Well, fortunately, there is an option in the advanced start that lets you enable combat auto-resolving if you want.

I really hated the combat in the Total War series, but I loved the grand strategic part of it.  So I just auto-resolved every battle and had a grand ol' time.  A lot of people would say I'm missing half the game doing that, but since I didn't like that half, it was fine.

I will also note that I really disliked the combat in Homeworld, and a number of other kinds of games you might be thinking of, and couldn't enjoy those games at all because of it.  But I am really enjoying the combat here, so you might find yourself surprised, who knows.  It's a common thing for me to take something that I hate-but-want-to-like and make a version of it that I like; I disliked all space RTS games for one reason or another prior to making AI War, and that was the chief reason I made AI War.

YMMV in terms of if your tastes match mine, of course.

[chemical_art]

Will the player flagship gain abilities over time? It would be interesting to have gain power based on what foes it fights. It would be yet another decision in deciding who should get burned

[x4000]

Not at this time, no.  However, which special flagships you can capture is partly based on who you have already added to the federation and who has military outposts.  If you already added someone to the federation, or you destroyed all their military outposts, you can't get their special flagship.  So if you want it, you need to leave them your quasi-enemy for a while.

[orzelek]

What you can do with your flagship then in terms of improving it?
Is the selection of squadrons way of customizing your combat experience?

As for Homeworld - it's an RTS and it's a bit different from what you are trying to do here (full 3D could confuse thats another thing).
From what I understood those squadrons will be costly to get and maintain so losing of 1-2 means that you might get the feeling that you need to reload and replay. And that leads to the issue with fleets for me - they don't add fun - they add another things to babysit.

[Teal_Blue]

What you can do with your flagship then in terms of improving it?
Is the selection of squadrons way of customizing your combat experience?

As for Homeworld - it's an RTS and it's a bit different from what you are trying to do here (full 3D could confuse thats another thing).
From what I understood those squadrons will be costly to get and maintain so losing of 1-2 means that you might get the feeling that you need to reload and replay. And that leads to the issue with fleets for me - they don't add fun - they add another things to babysit.

At this point all we have is a tenuous idea of how combat and ship movement and behaviour will play out. I think it is a little too early to start panicking about fleet behaviour and how we hate it, or like it or anything else. Seems to me, that the best thing might be to sit and wait until we get a chance to actually play the game and see how it really acts, how the ai sets itself up, how we can position, or arm, or defend, or hide, or arrange our ships against other fleets. If i am worried about being overwhelmed, i might be surprised to find the number of ships in a conflict is much less overwhelming than i originally imagined.

In addition, the generic worry of ai doing this or that? Well... if i control my ships, and the ai is difficult, then perhaps i am playing at a level above me and need to adjust that. If the ai is too easy and there is no challenge, then likewise i would need to adjust it. But that worrying at this point is all rather ephemeral, because we are imagining that TLF is like some other game we don't like. Which is really not fair, because TLF isn't the other game. I would suggest not worrying until you actually see something you don't like in practice, like during the beta tests and say something then. If it doesn't appear, then count yourself grateful and let the devs know that your worry didn't materialize. 

That at least is 'my' opinion, 

-Teal

[Cyborg]

I miss Homeworld. Back when it came out, my piece of crap computer could only play it in slow motion. I bet it would look amazing now in HD.

[Teal_Blue]

I miss Homeworld. Back when it came out, my piece of crap computer could only play it in slow motion. I bet it would look amazing now in HD.

I never played Homeworld,  but i did play Sword of the Stars, actually a lot. I looked at Galactic Civ 2 also, and even thought the diplomacy part of GC2 would play out better than SOTS, but never actually wound up buying it. Of course these are really more TBS than RTS, so may not really be a fair comparison. I have watched some amazing YouTube videos of Homeworld though, and i must admit they do look very exciting.    I'm just not sure i can play that fast and keep up, haha. Anyway, pleasant Homeworld memories to you... maybe relic will smarten up one of these days and do a HW3?  Stardock is doing a GC3 and so, maybe it will be time for me to try out GC2, haha. Or of course go back to Sots which i am used to and really love. I have been wanting to get Sots2, but heard such horrible things i didn't want to risk it. Though to be honest, some Let's Plays on YouTube seem really interesting, and different than the first game. I might even get it before GC2 if i can get the courage up to take the risk. 

Or of course, I could fall in love with Arcen's TLF and find myself so short on time, that i don't get GC2 or Sots2 at all.    Haha, that would be something! 

-Teal

[Cyborg]

The IP for homeworld is now owned by gearbox, so I think we will be seeing it on the usual suspects this year.

[Teal_Blue]

The IP for homeworld is now owned by gearbox, so I think we will be seeing it on the usual suspects this year.

That would be something wouldn't it! 

HW3

[orzelek]

HW3 would have big things on your feet to fill.
But Gearbox could manage I think.

Main criteria for me would be how badly they would dumb it down or make it "social".

[Teal_Blue]

HW3 would have big things on your feet to fill.
But Gearbox could manage I think.

Main criteria for me would be how badly they would dumb it down or make it "social".

I know very little about gearbox as a company, but i would hope, perhaps that is unrealistic, but still i would hope that they could make an interesting game for the fans, but still simplify some of the 'controls', not the depth of the title, making HW3 something to be proud of. It has been a long time since the second, so the technology is there to make a really nice game, if they put the money or effort into it. But then they have done well with their Borderlands titles, I really thought those were innovative, even if i didn't play them.  I did think the humor was nice too. Anyway, i hope you are right, it would be nice to have them do a HW3 title and pull it off rather nicely. 

-Teal

[x4000]

What you can do with your flagship then in terms of improving it?

Not a whole lot, other than leveling it up.  You choose which squadrons it has, and what pilot types are assigned to each type of ship, and that's about that.  The RTS portion of the game is more about maneuver and tactics than it is about endless pre-preparation.  That said, the metagame is all about endless pre-preparation, so there is that.

Is the selection of squadrons way of customizing your combat experience?

Yes, to a large extent.  As noted in the OP, the number of possible combinations with the squadron design is really huge.  But honestly, customization is not what I would really first think of when I think of the squadron selection -- I think of that more as optimizing for whatever the current threats are.

As for Homeworld - it's an RTS and it's a bit different from what you are trying to do here (full 3D could confuse thats another thing).
From what I understood those squadrons will be costly to get and maintain so losing of 1-2 means that you might get the feeling that you need to reload and replay. And that leads to the issue with fleets for me - they don't add fun - they add another things to babysit.

Ships are fragile as heck in this game, and in a lot of cases combat at the moment is over in 1-2 minutes.  So in terms of babysitting, there's not really the ability or need to micro to that level.  Refleeting is handled automatically, and so long as you win with a certain margin, it's fine.  The default difficulty level does not encourage micro, and that's something in general we always try to avoid.

[orzelek]

*cut*

As for Homeworld - it's an RTS and it's a bit different from what you are trying to do here (full 3D could confuse thats another thing).
From what I understood those squadrons will be costly to get and maintain so losing of 1-2 means that you might get the feeling that you need to reload and replay. And that leads to the issue with fleets for me - they don't add fun - they add another things to babysit.

Ships are fragile as heck in this game, and in a lot of cases combat at the moment is over in 1-2 minutes.  So in terms of babysitting, there's not really the ability or need to micro to that level.  Refleeting is handled automatically, and so long as you win with a certain margin, it's fine.  The default difficulty level does not encourage micro, and that's something in general we always try to avoid.

Fragile AI ships as wingmen - thats fleet combat nightmare for me. It's not even about their cost - it's about the simple fact that they will go puff a lot that gives that factor "I could done this better but didn't.." and leads to reloads or annoyances.

What do you mean by winning with certain margin being fine?
If replacement ships have cost then any losses mean paying. If they don't then it would indeed be a bit more relaxed - but then amount of losses doesn't matter as long as flagship survives.

[x4000]

I think you'll have to see it for us to really have a productive conversation, honestly.  I'll be showing video of this before long.

I wouldn't really classify your ships as "AI" or as "wingmen."  This is an RTS, you're ordering your guys around.  If you mess it up, it's pretty much your own fault.

In terms of the cost of refleeting, there is a cost, and you may be correct.  I think it can be balanced in a way that is fun for the majority of people, though.  And in terms of the desire to savescum, I would posit that with any system where mistakes are possible, that desire is going to be there.  If you do that and learn to fight more effectively, then you'll stop doing it as much.  Or if you want to remove the temptation of doing that, then just enable ironman mode and you are basically having to work with whatever winds up happening.