MoonMonster wrote:
Errrgh. I like it because it's *not* real time combat. I don't enjoy RTS games. It's cinematic and nice and you have a bit of interplay with your tactic cards, but in the end it's down to the fleet you brought and how it was equipped.



I wouldn't mind some high level options along the lines of the tactic cards, bur ... all that comes to mind is just variations on the cards. Like a Sphere defense or Pincer attack that has bonuses to some stuff, penalties to others, and you choose at what stage of battle it happens. Soo... I guess it's perfect as is, hm. Actually a pauseable planning phase would be nice, but yeah.

+1558484684,1

No real-time. Mind over reflexes. But I must say that at the moment the game is missing more cards or options or tactics pre-combat or etc.

I think that the cards impact is too strong, the "shi fu mi" is too cheated. If you loose at one phase, you can be sure you'll take serious damages, but if you win, you take nothing. I think it's not very balanced, you've to be lucky and that's enough... I think that they should delete the shi fu mi system and add more strategy and decisions buy us to have more dynamics battles.

Having certain cards require certain ships in the mix would be nice also like that repair card requiring a repair ship ect ect. Just to encourage including a bit of everything in fleets. Also the ability to select a Flag ship like you do Hero's that can be upgraded or have special cards that only work with its fleet ect ect.

More control and a way to move the camera can be nice. I suggest 2 options to improve the battle to get a less passive fight, first thing is to get control of our fleet (should be nice with crown control weapon on 1-2 ships) and have some fleet formation, or the second option can be a gameplay like in Gratuitous space battle where we cant control our fleet during the battle, but we have to ajust our strategy with many command line (like range we will engage combat with differents weapons, weapon type we will use, speed, repair etc) before the battle even within the creation of the ship.



An other thing that can be nice is to be able to get repair/shield-repair ship to help other 'bigger' ships in our fleet, so that way, we can improve specialisation and add more dmg and survavibility



The system with 'strategic' cards is nice and should stay in the game

Initially I wasn't all that impressed with the route the devs took on the combat angle of the game. However, it has grown on me the more I play. I like the way the camera work mimics the feel that some of the battles from the TV series Battlestar Galactica had. Nonetheless, I do agree that it is missing a bit of depth (at least any battles I've had within the first 130 turns or so). Hopefully the devs will consider some of the good ideas put forward from this thread to help flesh the combat out more.

mackintosh wrote:
More tactics (fleet formations)? Sure! Target designation (i.e. focus on capital ship(s) or support ships)? Perhaps. RTS-style combat? Not really. Don't get me wrong, I do love RTS games, but I feel the combat here is just the right mix to keep things simple and enjoyable for this particular game. It's a bit like Civilization and its battles in space.

Totally agree with that. Adding a bit more options seems necessary to me (ok we have 6 cards, 3 to enhance the attack of the paper, the scissor or the rock, 3 to enhance the defense of those three... hum... can do better...). I definitely like the simplicity and concept of ES fleet battle system with "powers or tactics - well cards...".

mackintosh wrote:
This! A thousand times this! I had gone through numerous battles where I couldn't gauge the relative health of individual ships vis-a-vis the overall fleet strength, which appeared to be full, only to have a ship seemingly inexplicably destroyed out of the blue by a wayward salvo, leaving me completely baffled as to how and why it happened.

Sometimes i've had ships blow up when they aren't even being shot at.

This kind of combat is pretty interesting. Beutiful cinamatics nice twist on combat. but is there anyway there can be a Real Time Combat addition to the game. That was the aspect i love on the older 4X games. Ilove building a huge fleet or combining fleets and in combat splitting them up and flanking the enemy.

EvilMonk3y wrote:


More feedback during battle would also be nice, stuff like a better idea of ship health / hull integrity would be great.

This! A thousand times this! I had gone through numerous battles where I couldn't gauge the relative health of individual ships vis-a-vis the overall fleet strength, which appeared to be full, only to have a ship seemingly inexplicably destroyed out of the blue by a wayward salvo, leaving me completely baffled as to how and why it happened.

At first the battles were cool to me, but they left me wanting to have a little bit more tactical control, and camera control, over the battle.

EvilMonk3y wrote:
Top of my wishlist is a free moving camera or at least more options to manually change camera angles.



I agree with more tactics, it would be nice to have more control (such as the mentioned priority targeting, formations or extra pre-battle planning). I don't think it needs to become an RTS, it is better to stay 'hands off' than shoe-in a half hearted RTS mode in my opinion.



More feedback during battle would also be nice, stuff like a better idea of ship health / hull integrity would be great.

yes a camera we can control would be great along with everything else

Top of my wishlist is a free moving camera or at least more options to manually change camera angles.



I agree with more tactics, it would be nice to have more control (such as the mentioned priority targeting, formations or extra pre-battle planning). I don't think it needs to become an RTS, it is better to stay 'hands off' than shoe-in a half hearted RTS mode in my opinion.



More feedback during battle would also be nice, stuff like a better idea of ship health / hull integrity would be great.

A little more control would definitely be nice. I like cinematic, but as others are saying a little more depth/more options is always nice.

i like the system but i really want them to allow a dynamic camera that we can manipulate, some of the angles they give us are not so good.



i want a view that isnt right beside the ship. that i can rotate,



combat wise its pretty good so far and i have definately seen cards play a major role in a battle. like i was almost beaten but then my repair card countered their card and it healed me to nearly full while allowing me to totally destroy them, i just hope the horatio i am warring against dont start putting Chaff on their ships to counter my missiles cause they are what are allowing me to be superior ships at the moment.

macgyv wrote:
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..

I like this too, something that feels like you have a lil more control other than a rock,paper,scissors aspect. and in no way am i asking to just throw away the combat system they have. I was wondering with DLC or MOD if there could be an addition or extra way to have another system of combat to choose from in addition to the combat system the team has developed.

It is early so the system might not be fully fleshed out but both Birth of the Federation and Dominions3 had similar hands off combat but gave tactical options that let you manipulate the actual battle in a meaningfull way.A card statistic does not make me feel like an admiral.