I love when things getting complex and I like what I see here with all this ship divided on different sections, however I would love to see more hulls and modules than in ES1.



I see that ES2 added another weapon type but reduced defense type...



Also ES AI is horrible at designing ships. I really hope that AI in ES2 be better at it.

Romeo wrote:
It allows for the possibility of delicate-but-high-power weapons, it allows for the possibility of splash damage, it allows for attrition for stronger ships, it allows for aggressive patterns to destroy the shield modules of tanky ships... There's a ton of options module damage opens up.

1) Delicate but High power weapons - There is already a fair amount of weapon differentiation, is this really an option we want to add to the pile?

2) Splash Damage - Can do this with just HP on ships.

3) Attrition for Stronger Ships - HP can still offer this. A damaged ship is still weaker in that it can take less punishment, even if its offense is not reduced.

4) Destroying shields on tanky ships - Doesn't that make tanky ships less reliable? Does that actual add to the strategy if I can't rely on the ships to do their "job"?



There are obviously things that adding module damage can give you....but they have a cost in terms of complexity, and I'm not sold that its worth it. I think one of the big issues in ES1 combat was that their was a large amount of complexity in how weapons did damage....but little payoff in terms of the strategic choices that complexity provided. I somewhat worry about this system in that same vein.



Ultimately if this system is going to be implemented, than I think it should be implemented aggressively. If your adding in the complexity, might as well get the most bang for the buck you can in terms of options, custom modules, abilities that play off of it, etc.

It allows for the possibility of delicate-but-high-power weapons, it allows for the possibility of splash damage, it allows for attrition for stronger ships, it allows for aggressive patterns to destroy the shield modules of tanky ships... There's a ton of options module damage opens up.

Most of this stuff looks pretty good. I guess my big question is....does the module damage really serve that much purpose? To me, it just adds a ton of complexity, and further increases the death spiral of combat (the stronger fleet will more quickly drain the offense of the opposing fleet than if they had to wait for ships to die).



What do we really gain here?

Meedoc wrote:
More as a the theory for now

"More as a theory for now" => yaaaaaaaaaayyyy \o/

"More as the theory for now" => oh noooooooooeeees...



This is a quantic theory.



A.k.a. quantic boarding theory :

Boarding, yes, with lasers and such.

Nobody knows what's inside the box until someone, well, fire dat lazorz

Sinnaj63 wrote:
So it was previously stated that there wouldn't really be boarding mechanics does that mean you changed your minds or that you're just considering it in theory?

More as a the theory for now

Meedoc wrote:
For damaged ship, we have this kind of mechanics. For ships destroyed during a battle however, we don’t want to go for that, as it can have huge consequences on the economy. We would prefer to implement boarding for instance that will allow to take advantage of your opponent’s ships to compensate your own losses.



Cheers,

So it was previously stated that there wouldn't really be boarding mechanics does that mean you changed your minds or that you're just considering it in theory?

Sorry I missed your post Brazilian_Joe here are the answers! Overall what you’re suggesting is interesting but it doesn’t fit with the direction we’re currently taking with the battle. So I isolated more specific comments and answered them separately.

SHIP SIZE MANAGEMENT



There is this thing in ES1 that smaller ships becomes worthless in late game, the player usually banks on larger ships.

Modules should be optimal when interacting with other modules of the same size, but have penalties when interacting with other size.

The use of battle plan and ship roles will help with that part.

On one hand we have some module restrictions tied to the role of a ship (and some roles exist only for a specific size) and on the other hand, we have the battle plan that can have prerequisites based on role.

So, if you focus on large ships only, you’ll limit your options.

SMALL VS. BIG RELATION



ES1 has a small number of ship slots in the fleet. IMO the number is far too small. 4-to-1 relation in ship size does not cut it.

The price difference should be greater - small ships should be cheaper and mass-produceable.

Fleets should be able to have more ships of smaller size. the relations between the smallest class and the largest one should be much greater.

We increased the size difference compared to Endless Space: we’re, for now, on 1 / 3 / 6 instead of 1 / 2 / 4.

We don’t want however to fall down on the opposite issue where making small ships is always optimal in terms of efficiency / industry costs.

SALVAGING



Smaller ships should be salvageable, which means a part of them would 'resurrect' after a battle. A larger ship is usually a better investment than a fleet of small ships, because it can soak up a lot of damage and then be repaired. Smaller ships are destroyed much more easily.

To make smaller ships useful until endgame, salvaging mechanics should allow part of them to be resurrected after a battle without having to rebuild the whole fleet in a planet. Salvaging should become more efficient as the game progresses.

For damaged ship, we have this kind of mechanics. For ships destroyed during a battle however, we don’t want to go for that, as it can have huge consequences on the economy. We would prefer to implement boarding for instance that will allow to take advantage of your opponent’s ships to compensate your own losses.



Cheers,

Sunbeam wrote:
Didn't happen in any of my games... unless it takes forever for AI to retrofit or start building proper ships to counter.

/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/10933-ai-fleet

Really? Unless they were in the wrong part of town, I always found the AI was trying to do the best at a "Hard Counter" that it could, regardless of tactical logic (If you had several veteran units with a Hero on it using all Beam weapons, it doesn't matter how many shields they threw on, they'd die in the opening salvo, but they'd still try and stack shields...)



I often found the AI was updating more often than I was. =P

Romeo wrote:
They weren't bad at it, just very predictable. You had only shields? They'd use Kinetic and Missile. You were loaded to the gills with Missiles? They'd suddenly load them up with Flak.

Didn't happen in any of my games... unless it takes forever for AI to retrofit or start building proper ships to counter.

/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/10933-ai-fleet

Sunbeam wrote:
I love when things getting complex and I like what I see here with all this ship divided on different sections, however I would love to see more hulls and modules than in ES1.



I see that ES2 added another weapon type but reduced defense type...



Also ES AI is horrible at designing ships. I really hope that AI in ES2 be better at it.

They weren't bad at it, just very predictable. You had only shields? They'd use Kinetic and Missile. You were loaded to the gills with Missiles? They'd suddenly load them up with Flak. By spreading out the damage types, the AI could be baited in to spreading itself too thin.

Stalker0 wrote:
1) Delicate but High power weapons - There is already a fair amount of weapon differentiation, is this really an option we want to add to the pile?

2) Splash Damage - Can do this with just HP on ships.

3) Attrition for Stronger Ships - HP can still offer this. A damaged ship is still weaker in that it can take less punishment, even if its offense is not reduced.

4) Destroying shields on tanky ships - Doesn't that make tanky ships less reliable? Does that actual add to the strategy if I can't rely on the ships to do their "job"?



There are obviously things that adding module damage can give you....but they have a cost in terms of complexity, and I'm not sold that its worth it. I think one of the big issues in ES1 combat was that their was a large amount of complexity in how weapons did damage....but little payoff in terms of the strategic choices that complexity provided. I somewhat worry about this system in that same vein.



Ultimately if this system is going to be implemented, than I think it should be implemented aggressively. If your adding in the complexity, might as well get the most bang for the buck you can in terms of options, custom modules, abilities that play off of it, etc.

1) Yes, I'm never going to argue against more gameplay options.

2) Not really? A laser doing 10 damage to a ship and a missile to 10 damage to a ship have the exact same effect. With module damage, the lasers damage could be precise, the missile could be say 7 against primary target, and 2 damage against all adjacent modules.

3) Yes, but that's not exactly a complex form of attrition, is it? Especially if there's a healing mechanic in play. With modules being damaged or destroyed though, even the biggest ship is eventually going to need repairs to keep it capable.

4) Not really. The other side is going to need time shooting at their shield modules rather than the ships themselves, and that's assuming they aren't suffering casualties in the interim. They could be used as a "sacrificial fleet" to take out the shields while the next fleet takes out the undefended ships. Point being, is the system opens up a ton of new, interesting options.



I fail to see how they have a cost in terms of complexity. Yes, they're more complex than a simple tonnage system, but no one is getting in to 4X games looking for a "simple" experience. And compared to the prior game, there's now a plethora of factors to consider when equipping ships. As for the other paragraph, I believe that's their intent.

Slashman wrote:
I'm curious to know how we're going to have more control over fighter and bomber behavior. Will we be able to give them target priority lists?

My assumption would've been whether to release them early or late. Early you sacrifice lethality, but protect their carrier, releasing them only within a certain range would allow them to get a ton of firepower on the enemy but their carrier would take it on the chin. Of course, I ain't with Amplitude, so I could very well be spouting nonsense.

I'm curious to know how we're going to have more control over fighter and bomber behavior. Will we be able to give them target priority lists?

I hope you devs are carefully poring through my wall-of-text post for the whole bunch of gameplay mechanics I am proposing (ship sizes, salvaging, modules, weapon, heat), so far I have seen no official comments on it

Thanks Romeo for answering partially

1. I'm ecstatic to hear that your mental picture of the battlefield involves a couple of capital ships with a screen of smaller warships - that should keep the battlescapes visually beautiful and compelling. Will there be any unique benefits to having capital ships other than being somewhat more efficient to produce than a handful of destroyers? Will there be any support modules restricted to capital ships, such as the potential boarding module?

There will be modules restricted to specific ship class / roles; and for the boarding as said earlier, that's something will look into but we can't promise. We prefer doing it right than doing it for the sake of doing it.

2. In ES1, it was great to be able to retrofit your old ships with a new design to be able to react to the enemy ship design/strategies, however, I think it was way to fluid, so as to not reward good strategic planning. Since the cost was pretty minimal to go from, say, 6 kinetic defense modules to 4 laser defense modules, if I noticed the enemy was using entirely beam weapons I could greatly enhance the beam defense of every ship across all my fleets within 1 turn, for about 1-2 turns worth of dust income (if that). Being able to counter-play the enemy is great, but I think retrofitting was too generous in ES1. Will there be any controls to keep constant side-grade retrofits from being easily viable?

Overall, we'll work on making retrofit costs higher, by adding a flat cost based on the ship size. Moreover, the battle will lay emphasis on the fleet composition and not only weapons.

4. This is more of an overall battle question, but as phases are out the window, will it be possible for a fast ship to avoid close quarter encounters with the enemy, or to expedite engaging in close range (depending on its loadout)? Could a theoretical battle occur where a group of small, fast destroyers with say long-range beam weapons are able to harass a group of large, tanky, kinetic-based capital ships, without ever being at risk of hit by their kinetics? If yes, that would be awesome, because I would love to be able to watch a space version of the Battle of Coral Sea play out, where the ships never saw one another and the entirety of the battle was conducted via fighters and bombers.

For now, we're placing the fleets quite close to provide a cool cinematic experience. For the movement, it will be driven by the battle plan chosen by the two sides; so you could have battles where both fleets stay at long range or rush to close combat. But for now, we try to push fleets into firing range quite early on to avoid boring cutscenes.

5. Which brings me to my last and to me my most important question - what changes are you making to ship design that will make fighters and bombers relevant again? When Disharmony came out and I saw they were added to the game, I immediately bought and downloaded it just so I could try them out. Unfortunately I was somewhat disappointed by them in the game. The fighters never seemed to be able to kill anything and while the bombers were sometimes very powerful, the dominance of LR Kinetics usually determined the battle before the bombers ever got a salvo off. Will there be different variants of fighters/bombers? For instance, F/A style fighters that lose some of their interception capability for the ability to do some damage to enemy ships, or bombers that trade damage/accuracy to engage ships from a distance that helps protect them from the enemy kinetics?

We're reworking the fighter and bomber mechanics to fit with the new game system, it should make both fighters and bombers more interesting. As a player you'll have more control on their behaviors and thus better include them in your strategy.



Cheers,

greavance wrote:
So first of all, this looks really awesome Amplitude, this is the GDD I've been waiting for ever since the Battle Overview! This element was honestly probably the most gripping part of ES1 for me, as trying to carefully craft the perfect ship design for your situation was always a worthwhile challenge. Now then, for the questions:



1. I'm ecstatic to hear that your mental picture of the battlefield involves a couple of capital ships with a screen of smaller warships - that should keep the battlescapes visually beautiful and compelling. Will there be any unique benefits to having capital ships other than being somewhat more efficient to produce than a handful of destroyers? Will there be any support modules restricted to capital ships, such as the potential boarding module?



2. In ES1, it was great to be able to retrofit your old ships with a new design to be able to react to the enemy ship design/strategies, however, I think it was way to fluid, so as to not reward good strategic planning. Since the cost was pretty minimal to go from, say, 6 kinetic defense modules to 4 laser defense modules, if I noticed the enemy was using entirely beam weapons I could greatly enhance the beam defense of every ship across all my fleets within 1 turn, for about 1-2 turns worth of dust income (if that). Being able to counter-play the enemy is great, but I think retrofitting was too generous in ES1. Will there be any controls to keep constant side-grade retrofits from being easily viable?



3. Will there be any reason to carefully position your modules on each of the 8 sections? For instance, if I were to make a fast ship loaded with kinetics to go assault larger enemy ships, would I want to put my kinetic weapon modules on the front so that they could all fire while the ship is facing the enemy? Or will it mostly come down to just how damage would be distributed among the ship, so that I would want to spread my modules out so that any section lost would not remove all of my offensive/defensive capabilities?



4. This is more of an overall battle question, but as phases are out the window, will it be possible for a fast ship to avoid close quarter encounters with the enemy, or to expedite engaging in close range (depending on its loadout)? Could a theoretical battle occur where a group of small, fast destroyers with say long range beam weapons are able to harass a group of large, tanky, kinetic-based capital ships, without ever being at risk of hit by their kinetics? If yes, that would be awesome, because I would love to be able to watch a space version of the Battle of Coral Sea playout, where the ships never saw one another and the entirety of the battle was conducted via fighters and bombers.



5. Which brings me to my last and to me my most important question - what changes are you making to ship design that will make fighters and bombers relevant again? When Disharmony came out and I saw they were added to the game, I immediately bought and downloaded it just so I could try them out. Unfortunately I was somewhat disappointed by them in the game. The fighters never seemed to be able to kill anything and while the bombers were sometimes very powerful, the dominance of LR Kinetics usually determined the battle before the bombers ever got a salvo off. Will there be different variants of fighters/bombers? For instance, F/A style fighters that lose some of their interception capability for the ability to do some damage to enemy ships, or bombers that trade damage/accuracy to engage ships from a distance that helps protect them from the enemy kinetics?



Sorry for the barrage of questions - it's only because I'm so eager to get my hands on this game! Thanks for your time and I'm looking forward to launch day!



P.S.: I really, really want the situation to arise where I'm biting my nails as I'm watching my group of bombers make their way to the enemy dreadnought, flak bursting all around them as shells from the enemy kinetics whiz by, hoping beyond hope that enough of them will survive the onslaught to unleash their payloads and take out the otherwise indomitable ship. If I ever experience that, I will buy the game for every human being I know with a steam account.

1) See above posts. As for the boarding module, they've said repeatedly that there isn't one. Can't answer whether or not there's Dreadnaught specific stuff, but one would hope.



2) I'll let them answer that, I don't know.



3) Yes, they did say that different placement would have different cones-of-fire and the like. Also, some modules can only be a certain type, as a further consideration.



4) Again, I'll let Amplitude take that one.



5) Presumably the new system would already lend itself well to those craft, given the limited amount of weapon modules, and new movement system. I would also expect they noticed the balance issues from ES1 and are adjusting accordingly.



And we're all eager for the game, it's hard not to be.

So first of all, this looks really awesome Amplitude, this is the GDD I've been waiting for ever since the Battle Overview! This element was honestly probably the most gripping part of ES1 for me, as trying to carefully craft the perfect ship design for your situation was always a worthwhile challenge. Now then, for the questions:



1. I'm ecstatic to hear that your mental picture of the battlefield involves a couple of capital ships with a screen of smaller warships - that should keep the battlescapes visually beautiful and compelling. Will there be any unique benefits to having capital ships other than being somewhat more efficient to produce than a handful of destroyers? Will there be any support modules restricted to capital ships, such as the potential boarding module?



2. In ES1, it was great to be able to retrofit your old ships with a new design to be able to react to the enemy ship design/strategies, however, I think it was way to fluid, so as to not reward good strategic planning. Since the cost was pretty minimal to go from, say, 6 kinetic defense modules to 4 laser defense modules, if I noticed the enemy was using entirely beam weapons I could greatly enhance the beam defense of every ship across all my fleets within 1 turn, for about 1-2 turns worth of dust income (if that). Being able to counter-play the enemy is great, but I think retrofitting was too generous in ES1. Will there be any controls to keep constant side-grade retrofits from being easily viable?



3. Will there be any reason to carefully position your modules on each of the 8 sections? For instance, if I were to make a fast ship loaded with kinetics to go assault larger enemy ships, would I want to put my kinetic weapon modules on the front so that they could all fire while the ship is facing the enemy? Or will it mostly come down to just how damage would be distributed among the ship, so that I would want to spread my modules out so that any section lost would not remove all of my offensive/defensive capabilities?



4. This is more of an overall battle question, but as phases are out the window, will it be possible for a fast ship to avoid close quarter encounters with the enemy, or to expedite engaging in close range (depending on its loadout)? Could a theoretical battle occur where a group of small, fast destroyers with say long range beam weapons are able to harass a group of large, tanky, kinetic-based capital ships, without ever being at risk of hit by their kinetics? If yes, that would be awesome, because I would love to be able to watch a space version of the Battle of Coral Sea playout, where the ships never saw one another and the entirety of the battle was conducted via fighters and bombers.



5. Which brings me to my last and to me my most important question - what changes are you making to ship design that will make fighters and bombers relevant again? When Disharmony came out and I saw they were added to the game, I immediately bought and downloaded it just so I could try them out. Unfortunately I was somewhat disappointed by them in the game. The fighters never seemed to be able to kill anything and while the bombers were sometimes very powerful, the dominance of LR Kinetics usually determined the battle before the bombers ever got a salvo off. Will there be different variants of fighters/bombers? For instance, F/A style fighters that lose some of their interception capability for the ability to do some damage to enemy ships, or bombers that trade damage/accuracy to engage ships from a distance that helps protect them from the enemy kinetics?



Sorry for the barrage of questions - it's only because I'm so eager to get my hands on this game! Thanks for your time and I'm looking forward to launch day!



P.S.: I really, really want the situation to arise where I'm biting my nails as I'm watching my group of bombers make their way to the enemy dreadnought, flak bursting all around them as shells from the enemy kinetics whiz by, hoping beyond hope that enough of them will survive the onslaught to unleash their payloads and take out the otherwise indomitable ship. If I ever experience that, I will buy the game for every human being I know with a steam account.

Regarding the discussion of "small ships versus big ships" I want to say:



It makes sense to me that small ships have more Health/Industry than large ships. Building Battleships or Aircraft carriers is a really expensive endeavor, and usually requires special facilities. For smaller ships like Corvettes, Destroyers, and Frigates, you can probably retool commercial/civilian drydocks.

It also makes sense to me that they could, taken together, take more punishment than the single large ship, simply by virtue of excessive firepower being wasted on the, and a single lucky hit not crippling the whole group.

When it comes to targeting, though, I urge you to keep in mind that while destroying the Battleship would significantly decrease the enemy's firepower, you'll have to chew through all of it's 1000 hitpoints before it stops shooting, whereas the four small ships with a total of 1200HP would lose a fourth of their firepower every 300 points. So I believe it evens out.

Slashman wrote:
Right but what makes the enemy shoot more at the smaller ships than the bigger ships? Can you arrange placements in the floatillas? Otherwise would I not just shoot the bigger ships down first because their loss equals major loss of firepower?

If I'm not mistaken, I believe they've already said we can't target ships directly, meaning those little ships are just an appealing a target as a mammoth flagship. As for your second question, I would assume that would be the logical answer, provided of course that the flagship isn't brimming full of defenses, in which case you're just punching a brick wall while the smaller craft pick things off.



Until we actually can start to get our hands on it, or at the bare minimum, some very thorough gameplay videos, fretting over balance is a pointless exercise.