New version .810 now out! (WeGo Turn-Based Combat! Combat Balance! Etc!)

[keith.lamothe]

Yep I agree with the pan thing myself (was going to open a Mantis request on it, but assumed it might be there already).  I thought I was simply missing something...it definitely would help for planning purposes to be able to pan around the battle field, see which enemies are where so I could plan my moves accordingly (versus headed in the general direction of the dot).

Maybe this is intentional (can't see beyond your ship view points), but it doesn't feel natural to me.

Just my 2 cents.

I believe doctorfrog's point was about the solar map not allowing pan, rather than combat.  The combat change was intentional (and I think the solar map one was too), as part of focusing on the direct control thing.  Not sure if the change back away from direct control (in the sense of keyboard movement) alters the combat side of things.

[Mánagarmr]

Fire arcs add A LOT of tactics and thinking to combat, and can also lead to intentional "flanking" of known ship types in order to "dodge" their more powerful weapons. It's something that SPAZ did very well, and I would love to see it here in TLF as well. It's simply a great mechanic with barely any downsides.

[Greywolf22]

When the combat was real time...it made sense not to be able to pan the view...or at least it did to me.  Much like other real time games the screen pans as you move around.
However going to more of an turned based tactic (specifically for combat...although I can understand the same with the solar map), I think for me anyway, it seems to make
sense that you can pan around to see what sorts of ships you are encountering and how to prioritize where you are moving, what weapons you are using, where you are aiming
etc.

Maybe that's  just me though...I do tend to want to take my cursor to the edge of the screen to pan around to see what sorts of enemies I'll be encountering and
where they are...but maybe that's just me.

[Hyfrydle]

I think panning on both the combat and the solar map would be useful.

[Misery]

Fire arcs add A LOT of tactics and thinking to combat, and can also lead to intentional "flanking" of known ship types in order to "dodge" their more powerful weapons. It's something that SPAZ did very well, and I would love to see it here in TLF as well. It's simply a great mechanic with barely any downsides.

This, honestly, I dont think would be too good in this case.

I play SPAZ as well (and other games that do this), and to me this mechanic is no different than selecting a weapon to fire.... the only difference is you're doing it by spinning your ship, as opposed to selecting a weapon via the hotbar here.

With this game, it'd just be more of an inconvenience than anything else. As it is you can only select one weapon per turn anyway, which is probably going to be enough of that sort of thing for most players as it is, particularly with the very chaotic battlefields.

Not to mention I can think of many situations where this would merely get tedious instead of adding more to it.

[x4000]

Fire arcs add A LOT of tactics and thinking to combat, and can also lead to intentional "flanking" of known ship types in order to "dodge" their more powerful weapons. It's something that SPAZ did very well, and I would love to see it here in TLF as well. It's simply a great mechanic with barely any downsides.

This, honestly, I dont think would be too good in this case.

I play SPAZ as well (and other games that do this), and to me this mechanic is no different than selecting a weapon to fire.... the only difference is you're doing it by spinning your ship, as opposed to selecting a weapon via the hotbar here.

With this game, it'd just be more of an inconvenience than anything else. As it is you can only select one weapon per turn anyway, which is probably going to be enough of that sort of thing for most players as it is, particularly with the very chaotic battlefields.

Not to mention I can think of many situations where this would merely get tedious instead of adding more to it.

Right, exactly this.  I was in first totally in favor of the idea, and then I kept thinking about it.  Having to strategically position yourself is a great thing, and I'm all for that.  But trying to manage the orientation of your ship is definitely a no-go here.  Instead I think that doing things like lining up shots that hit multiple targets or whatever is a lot better of a use of positioning.

[keith.lamothe]

The firing arc thing works better when there's also shield and/or armor arcs (as in SPAZ, iirc, though I may be misremembering). 

Also when there are multiple active weapons. 

And when turning isn't something that's done as easily as it is in TLF. 

And in general when all ships don't act essentially as fighters (all firing from the central point, all very maneuverable in terms of turn radius and acceleration, none of the combatants massively slower than average, etc).

I'd certainly like all of the above, as capital-ship combat is far more interesting to me than fighter combat, but just adding in firing arcs by themselves probably would seem a bit like it sat down between two stools.

[Cinth]

The firing arc thing works better when there's also shield and/or armor arcs (as in SPAZ, iirc, though I may be misremembering). 

360* shield w/ 4x 90* armor arcs   
So looking forward to the sequel.