Summary / Title

Empire ships stop firing on other flotilla after destroying the first flotilla

Description

When attacking an enemy fleet using 'Post-op analysis', 'Repair and Recover', or 'Power to shields', my fleet ignores the other enemy flotillas after destroying the first enemy flotilla. Resulting in a Draw.
Choosing the 'Turtle' tactic results a decisive victory, decimating the entire enemy fleet as expected.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Load the attached save.
2. Attack the enemy Vodyani fleet in Fatia using the empire fleet on Fatia.
3. Choose 'Post-op analyis'.
4. Resolve battle
5. Observe the empire fleet is not attacking any enemies after destroying the first enemy flotilla.
6. Observe the battle is resolved as a Draw.
7. Reload the attached save.
8. Choose 'Turtle'.
9. Resolve battle.
10. Observe the empire fleet is attacking all enemy flotillas.

Reproducibility

5/5

Expected Behavior

The empire fleet should not ignore enemy flotilla while it has targets that are in range of their weapons.

Version

0.3.6 S2 ALPHA-Public

Attachments

[Save]

Empire s.zip

I thought this was interesting so I checked out the save and went through it like you said.

The problem seems to be in firing arcs, which are in part intentional design. The main difference between the two tactic selections was that one had your main flotilla pointed at more or less perpendicular angles to the enemy flotillas (see Turtle), while the other wasn't (see Post-Op; note that flotilla 1 travels at about a 45° angle to yours while flotilla 3 is almost completely behind).

For Post-Op though, the behaviour was strange. While it makes sense that your ships could not fire at flotilla 3 (outside of firing arc, most likely), I would have thought that the topside turret mounts (given wider firing arcs than the broadside guns -- I had thought at least 270°) would be able to acquire flotilla 1 from their position at the point of the 2nd flotilla's destruction, and if not then, they would closer to the end of that flight path. They never fired once after the 2nd flotilla had been destroyed.

So I'm wondering what exactly the firing arcs of weapons mounted topside or broadside are, and if possible, that information be displayed on the scan view. It's kind of difficult to figure out why your ships aren't doing damage otherwise when they should be within range to do so.

If this is intended behaviour it sure adds some opaque depth to the combat, because how will I know when my fleet can be out manouvered in such a manner before the battle begins?

I'm hoping a dev would shed some light on this, because if firing angles make such an impact, ship design can have a dramatic impact on combat.

I would like to add that, if I recall correctly and nothing has changed, weapons fire against secondary targets depends on the actual distance between the flotilla positions, rather than pre-defined ranged brackets like fire against the main target. It is possible that even long range weapons have an "actual range" so low that the enemy flotilla was considered out of range for the kinetic weapons in your turrets.

I really don't think the system is "Working as intended" at the moment.

Hi,

I apologize for the delay.

Thanks for the report, there is indeed a bug that creates an important disparity.  

We're working on a fix!