Hi everyone,

I've been trying to understand the combat system in order to improve my decisions while giving orders in combat and improving the design of my ships.

One of the things I don't get for the moment is how range works. I found the paragraph quoted below but it dates from beta with intentions of doing so I wanted to have confirmation on what was really implemented and what was abandonned/changed etc ...

If you can tell me how to complete the table below, it will be most usefull. In case this topic has already been answered, don't hesitate to put the link in reply.

And I would like an explanation on the flotilla interaction because I noticed that sometimes when we are 3 flotillas vs 3 flotillas, flotilla 1 crush its adversary in first phase, flotilla 2 is crushed by adversary and then i see a phase where my flotilla 1 is not shooting but is being shot in the back by the flotilla 2 of my ennemy. 

Does this mean that 

1) Flotilla 1 can attack flotilla 1, flotilla 2 can attack 2 then 1, and that flotilla 3 can attack 3 then 2 then 1 ?

Or 

2) It depends on the weapons equiped (if flotilla 1 has no weapon for short and short is elected in phase 2, then one is shooting and not the other) ?

Or

3) It depends on the ship design used (for exemple coordinator will never attack an other coordinator even if it's the two last ship in battle) ?

Or

4) All of the above

Thanks a lot for the answers in advance.

Paired trajectories

We decided to define the trajectories based on the combination of both player choices. A play describes a range intention for each flotilla: Long, Medium or Short. That’s why the trajectories are drawn in pairs, resulting in confrontations that make sense and have a synergy between ship design, fleet composition and play selection. For example:

• 2 Short-range trajectories will stay at optimal distance after reaching each other.
• Two Long-range trajectories will stay at long range for the whole battle.
• A Long-range against a Short range trajectory will start at long range and end up in short range.

This allows us to make trajectories that optimize the broadside fire (because this parameter is not controlled by the player). With the paired trajectories, spaceships will be most of the time in the right angle in relation with the opposite flotillas.

An element to take in account: the engine that we implemented to simulate the battle currently works only with pre-generated trajectories (we made this choice at start because of the design fundamentals (no interaction) and it simplifies a lot of things and allow us to have interesting realization). So we currently have a big technical limitation to take in account.

And at the moment, we have a problem that deforms the results: the ranges are based on “real” distances between the ships so we have some incoherencies (in particular the Short range opportunities that are reduced).

What we’re planning to do: change the targeting system to set one fixed range per phase per paired trajectories. We will show the 3 phases in the advanced battle screen, in the report and during the battle. The 3 phases are not Long, Medium then Short, but optimize the 2 players' choices (for example with 2 Long range intention plays for a flotilla: the range will be long, long, long).

Encounter Rules

So, what are the parameters that you have to keep in mind to select a play? How do we want to keep a satisfying number of combinations (without exploding it and having only random choices)? How do we want to create meaningful choices?

• We implemented a simple “rock paper scissors” relation between the range intentions: Long > Short > Medium > Long. This is the result of powerful short-range weapons that get destroyed before reaching the opponent, if they select a long-range intention. This allows a first clear feedback between the plays (the stars).
• But to select a play, you need to take a look at the compatibility percentage which compares the equipped weapons with the range intention. It’s probably the first thing that you will check to select a play. And with several flotillas, it could already create some dilemma. But with the automatic ship distribution, you can easily see the opponent's choices and try to guess his choice, and maybe not select the most compatible play for you, as long as it is the counter to your opponent.
• Something that we don’t currently show are the module families:
  • Energy defenses (shield) are good against Energy weapons (Laser and Beam).
  • Ballistic defenses (hull plating) are good against ballistic (or projectile) weapons (Slug and Missile).
    You need to take in account the opponent’s equipment. If you have missiles and beams on your ships, maybe you will have to take the long play because there are lots of shields on the other side.
• It’s not the case right now, but for the diversity part of this choice you will have different plays in your deck and in your opponent's from a battle to another, but also arena effects, etc.

A piece of feedback we read several times is about the range limitation for weapons. We can understand that seems a bit frustrating and not very flexible. But it’s a convenient way to create clear counter rules and keep the battle more readable (it’s not easy to visually see accuracy or even worse, damage penalties). We also use that to balance the two common weapons (Slug and Laser which are more flexible but less powerful) and the two specialized (Missile and Beam). Mixed with the module family (Energy / Ballistic), we create a basic but balanced distribution of the weapons and give real impact to the ship design and play choices that you can see during battle.

As you can read, we already have several parameters to take into account during the battle setup. And most of them will be the result of the empire choices: the researches to unlock hull / weapons / defenses, the resources to build them, the ship design (and soon the selected battle play, see planned features) etc. What interest us is also to have dilemmas between the best play for you and trying to guess the opponent’s choice, creating a mind game between the two players.

What we’re planning to do:

• We’re working on a better advanced screen battle to feedback all these parameters (especially the family modules of the two sides)
• We will change the range intention between paired trajectories to better favor the winning side in the rock paper scissors (which will certainly have 2 on 3 phases in its intended range)
• We also have obviously an important balancing work to do to reflect the theories described here
• We want to accentuate the difference between the strategic modules and create game changer support modules to add diversity in the fights (in addition to the battle plan deck and the arena effect)

Thanks for this table which is very interesting and explains a lot. But if this is the case, we can see that there is :

- 11 phases cases for medium

- 9 phases cases for short

- 7 phases cases for long

Which means, that if I equip massively medium range weapon and short range weapon, by voting for a strategy medium or short, there is only one case where i'm not dealing massive damages. Whereas by equipping massively long range weapons, even if I always prioritise long on strategy, there is only one case where I will deal a lot of damages ...

Seems unbalanced but perhaps it is compensated by damages and critical strike.

What about my second question on flotillas ? Any ideas ?

Gzar wrote:

Ranges between flotillas are counted as longest range for weapon (so medium for beams and long for others)

You can only shoot flotillas next to you so top flotilla cannot attack bottom (except with bombers)

Oh, this is a lucky day! Thank you.