This is cool!!

I don't know if devs have ever played Dominions 3... but they should.

There should be a way to organize one's fleet priot to combat, i.e. to order support ships back so they are only engaged in combat once the protecting ships are defeated. I had a fleet containing four warships and three colonizers attacked by a small pirate fleet, though they were no match and they were destroyed in the second phase, of course all of my clonizers were gone too. The game in combat seems to focus on the weaker ships. Btw, I don't think this generally makes sense, as I would imagine a weaker opponent, especially pirates, would only attack inferior forces and avoid superior ones. Anyway, it may be out of scope to implement a more realistic combat model, but please add an additional layer to combat so as to allow the player to organize his forces before, so to put support ships behind.

Pause button and free cam button, to make awesome videos!

I like the battle, I like watching what happens. Yet I agree with the spirit of this thread - I want MORE. More tactics, more time, more variety, more more more more more more more

I'm agree with the possibility to pause game during battle phases in order to choose wisely the tactics cards. Else, just pause the game at the beginning could be a good idea too.

Yeah I agree the battles need something more to them, I'd actually like to see more complex battles and then maybe limit the players more on how many ships they can make (or let players make larger fleets) so you don't have to go through 8-15 battles in a row like you sometimes do...



A planning phase would be cool where you could position ships in a certain manner. For instance put some "tank" ships in front to absorb fire and some "nuker" ships in the back that could focus on long-range missile barrages and then some in-between ship types. Make it like a chess board and have the two fleets flying directly towards each other and let players position the ships on the board (on their half of the board) before you let them start moving towards the enemy, the ships in front will of course take the bulk of the fire initially until ships start passing through each other's lines. If that makes any sense... You could even keep the current weapon bonuses, where when attacking a ship at long range your missiles are more effective and when ships start closing in on their target beams/lasers are more effective, and when ships are up close slugging it out kinetics are most effective.

Prelude Card - Overwhelming Opposition: This area is so dangerous, that it is the wisest and safest course of action to pull out. If the player uses this card, the battle is immediately suspended and the user's fleet immediately reverses course. An side effect of this card is that it leaves the user's empire with an sense of impending doom.

Randeng wrote:
You have to think that when you travel, you're in a kind of "wormhole" and once you're in it, you can't go back as you wish, it's not because it works with turns that your ship stops in the middle of the travel in the next turn, it only goes from one point to another.

Yeah I understand that with the whole galaxy strings and all that. But I mean sometimes your exploring and there's like a string that's so long your sensors can't see what's at the other end. You could just not travel down it but who's gonna do that. It would be cool if you had someway of trying to run for it when you arrived at the end of the string where there's a fleet attacking you you have no chance against.

I think they can add this functions, like you have a list of ships and you choose wich one you want to destroy first. They can also add "battle formations", for ships, at the begining of the battle

For now I would like to see a pause button in the combat. It's hard to manage a fleet of ships and answer the door at the same time!!!

Randeng wrote:
What's MOO2 (the name)?

Master Of Orion 2

I've scattered some of these thoughts in different threads, but here are a couple of ideas I have re combat:



Overall I like the system, and it could be a lot better with a couple of tweaks:



I think a the cards should only be usable in one phase in each turn of combat. That way there is the additional decision of using, say, the Overclock card in the long-range round to negate any repairs your opponent might want to make, or in the short-range round for the boost to melee damage. Being able to use the same card in all three phases is overpowering in some situations.



I don't like that before combat you can see the makeup of your opponent's fleet and the firepower. It takes a lot of willpower not to peek. I'm hoping that will be changed as the game is balanced.



Finally (and this may be a bug, I haven't looked at the bug thread), how is it that in combat in the early game, when ships have nothing but kinetic weapons, shots are fired and damage is taken in the long and mid-range phases?

What's MOO2 (the name)?

kosch wrote:
Would be nice if combat was like MOO2 but just with the sexy graphics engine please

I totally agree. I am still searching for a game that delivers what MOO2 delivered. The combat in Endless Space is the same as it is in Galactic Civilisations 1 and 2 I believe, only you have battle cards that it akin to rock, paper and scissors that GC did not.

ergie wrote:
First of all I'll say I love the game. But the combat is too repetitive at the end. Anyway I love the concept. Absolutely. Is something new and for a veteran in 4xTBS and RTS games as me is very interesting



Some of my suggestions:

- More cards, defined by ship equipment, research, size of ships involved, role, admirals, formations, etc. So the control of the battle wont be only rock-scissor-paper aproach. I'd like more depth (with more cards).

- Control on the time, I mean Pause (in any moment) and 2x,4x... time sliders.

- Maybe more phases (or more specialized phases, f.i. fighter phase, orbital defense phase if you're in a colony, etc), that only would activate in determined circumstances.

- More information about the results of each phase, (damage inflicted, received, ships damaged, etc), so you can plan your new movements

- Free camera to move around the combat scene in any moment. This would give the combat life.

- Assign Heroes to one ship in the fleet, not to the fleet as a whole.

- Initial tactics for the fleet (maybe defined in the strategic galaxy view- f.i: "Primary Action: target capital vessels first, target escorts first, Secondary Action: Retreat if Commander vessel is destroyed", etc)

- Some random elements to make the battles more interesting and introduce a risk factor even with superiority (could be cards too)

- Possibiliy of retreating from battles in any phase (with losses)

- More inmersion (music, sounds, sirens, flashes)

I like the sound of this already. Don't forget though free cam movements will be added later to the game was stated somewhere.

I think it needs to stay the way it is now, but have. . .more. Right now it's just bare bones slugfest; and who ever has the hard counter to the enemy fleet wins.



I want different attack directions too, the enemy fleet warping in and pulling alongside you is getting old.



And just an Idea I was thinking of earlier, sort-of a planning pre fight phase and an endgame phase. You can play special cards during and only during these turns, the pre fight cards could be something like Stand-off, which increases the long range fight time, and the end phase cards could be something like, withdraw, which makes your fleet leave the system to save it from getting stomped by another enemy fleet, or intercept which creates another small battle phase unless countered by the enemy fleet by some other card.



But I like this real time hands off approach, my fleet has admirals, let them do their job.



EDIT: Improving AI fleet composition would be nice too. Early on, the enemy fleet of 3 ships who went 200 missle and no defence is actually painfully hard to fight. But once you research flak, you stomp all over them, and they never change tactics. . .at least until very late in the game, but by then you have giant "kill-all-the-things" ships that just stomp all over the AI.

Cards are unlockable during the game, with the techs, and with the level of your hero.

Did anyone know: is the graphic enginee be able to handle battles like EVE or Nexus?

Man, would be great to make videos of battles in cinematic art.

A bit more of tactics would be good, mostly :



* which targets hit in priority (with a list)



* formation (big ship in front, then small ones / the other way around / ...) Each formation giving penalties to some weapons/ships. For example with the big at the front and small at the back, the small could not use the long range weapons but only the medium and small ones etc...



Aesthetic point of view: right now I didn't feel the power of the different fleets and the dramatics of victory or defeat. Playing with sounds could give some "space opera" feeling like some voices to stress out the dynamic of the combats: "they've lost their battleship", "damage all over the engine desk", "abandon the ship", etc..