Well, we've had one update, the combat is still a mess, so I'm going to take a solid crack at outlining what needs doing to untangle it whilst remaining true to the GDD.


We know that in fight actions are essentially off the table, but pre-fight actions have scope for re-working. There's been extensive discussion in earlier threads that I put out concerning this topic and from other users as well. This got us some of the way there, but now it's time to bring that all together and put it into a cohesive plan of action.


Without further ado:


Combat 2.0


1) Remove the simulation aspect of the pre-fight screens. You do not need to play around with what the enemy is doing because the enemy AI (and indeed player) is almost certainly going to play optimally for their fleet comp. That means simulating is more or less a waste of time in the vast majority of cases, it also frees up screen real-estate for the following steps.


2) Change the order grid from single orders per fleet to orders per "stage" (Long/Medium/Short) per flotilla. This means at the most complicated, you're dealing with a 3x3 grid, as is your opponent. This allows for a much wider "vocabulary" in the battlespace.


3) Add a "battlebook" option in the military subheading, which allows players to devise their plans for fleets and then recall them at the battle screen, this allows them to set up their devised plans quickly and efficiently for their specific fleets.


4) Change the binary damage curve of weapons to a "soft" damage effectiveness curve, so defences are not entirely ineffective against each flavour of attack type. Shields should have a limited ability to deal with kinetics (but nowhere near as effective as armour) and vice versa.


5) Change the "hard" curve of weapons range efficiencies to a "soft bell curve" which allows for an optimal range with falloff either side of the optimal point of range. Implement more -types- of armour to allow for more diverse options in defensive configurations.


6) Implement more -types- of weapons that allow for exotic effects on the battlefield (things like swarm missile launchers, plasma bolt throwers, etc).


7) Make "retreating" render the opponent vulnerable for the duration of the battle (i.e. can only be executed on the first phase and takes all three phases to charge, gains an evasive bonus as a trade though) which should mean that there's a decent chance for attackers to take a bite out of the retreating forces.


There's a lot more that could be done, but that I feel is a good opening starting point and would address a great deal of the weaknesses currently inherent in the combat. Other areas would require more structural reforms to areas outside of combat which are outside the scope of this submission.


Thanks,

Hobbes