Maby missiles should have HP and the flak systems can attack the missiles each round, like:



5 missiles lauched eaach with 50HP



2 enemy Flack guns shoot at them each for 35HP, 1 missile goes down



Flak guns shoot again before missiles arrive, 2 missiles go down, 2 missles strike target.

Arghy wrote:
Flak should be cumulative for the entire fleet as it is now there is literally no reason not to got 80% missiles 10% guns/lasers. Flak should also be a global factor, if both fleets are filling space with flak then both sides should lose missiles to it. The more flak on the field the higher the chance of missile destruction for both sides and this number gos up for both sides the more flak there is.



Missiles should actually get a bonus round before combat to counter the flak bonus and to reflect their role on the battle field.

.

Totally agree with this. Antimissile capability should be an envelope, not just for missiles targeting a particular ship. Would allow diff design philosophies where say a destroyer has minimal offensive weapons, but provides missile defense for the entire fleet.





Also, regarding lasers and the like. They are 'light" weapons. They should be, at the range fight is happening, instant hit weapons. Light does not travel at the same speed as a bullet (kinetic weapon), a shade under 300k/sec yet these "light pulses" travel at the same speed as a kinetic weapon. Ummmm....no.

justathoughtor2 wrote:
I'm going to have to agree with Arghy. Aside from the birdmen being bat shit insane (we all knew that already), the point is that because engine units (or accelerators), have no influence on combat, there is no way to close the distance in combat against missile-heavy ships. This seriously needs to be remedied.

Hmm... I like the idea of engine units (and possibly engine tech) having an effect on combat , I can think of two ways this could work the first is the obvious one: a straight up accuracy modifier like the one from the Hero Tactician abilities. However due to the different efficencies of weapons at different ranges I wonder if you couldn't play with that as well, maybe allowing you to choose to lengthen or shorten the time spent at a specific range if you had the higher speed... although this would require redoing weapons since otherwise all you're doing is running headlong into that salvo and nothing changes: you'd have to give weapons an actual "cooldown" time rather having them fire per phase probably so I'm not sure how doable that would be.



Edited to add: I do like jtrowel's suggestions as well, they could be worth looking into

I think that the idea of having the 3 types working differently is a good one.



Missiles could be the only ones to be fired at long range (by default, maybe some tactics cards could allow you to try some other options), with beams at medium (kinetics not in range yet, and missiles exhausted by then), and kinetics at short range (plus maybe beams firing again)



Of course, firing first is a big advantage, as you can kill some ships before they get to fire, but you can balance the system by havinf the weapons types differents in other ways, such as missiles being expensive and/or taking more space compared to other types, meaning they would be less cost effective.



A fleet full of missilles lauchers would be sure to get to strike, making it good when you have overpowering force (killing a small fleet before taking too many losses) or when you are the underdog and want to be sure you kill at least a few ships, while other weapons would be more effective (if your ship survive), being better for balanced opponents, especially if you play defensive ships hard to kill.



Exemples of what could be implemented:



Missiles: long range only, bad damage/space ratio, might target larger ships first (larger footprint for auto-targetting systems)



Using a defensive heavy ship to soak the missiles, and smaller attack vessels could be effective in a combined arms strategy.



Beams: worst damage/space ratio per phase, but fire both at medium and short range (for maybe the best overall damage/space ratio, but still worst damage/cost ratio).



Kinetics: fire at short range only, but with a good damage/space and the best damage/cost ratio



Tactics could include things like:



"Hold the missiles" : wait to fire the missiles only when at medium/short range, losing the range advantage to reduce the effect of flak defense (firing at shorter range means less time for the defenses to intercept the missiles, or that the defenses might be overloaded by trying to manage both the incoming missiles and other weapons)



This would also give a way to handle an opponent with the perfect build to counter your ships. You would still be worse because you would be firing you missiles like if they were overcosted kinetics (and part of the defensive flak would still work), but still ...

I'm going to have to agree with Arghy. Aside from the birdmen being bat shit insane (we all knew that already), the point is that because engine units (or accelerators), have no influence on combat, there is no way to close the distance in combat against missile-heavy ships. This seriously needs to be remedied.

Alright just realized that those 'missile boats' have a staggering 1600+ missile score and my dreads are rocking 555 flak defense with 2100~ hps. The birdmen are goddamn insane that must be over 20 units of missiles--what the hell is to stop the game from becoming a tit for tat balancing act? You should not be encouraged to make a new design every turn in hopes of forcing your opponent to not have any fun and quit the game in frustration.



If combat became more involved with formation/movement orders changing the outcome of a battle immensely you'll see spam armys drastically get lowered. If you spam nothing but missile boats and i have a mixed fleet you'll have to either let me out maneuver you by getting out of the missiles green range or play counter cards to ensure i dont get in close to use my mixed weapons. Either way the pure missile guy should be severely limited in tactical situations



Throw in different weapon types 3 different ranges to every weapon type and its now become even more involved--is he carrying 700 points worth of point blank kinetic weapons or is that sniper weapons? The opening of a battle would be intense and awesome with both sides scrapping plans to deal with the new situation. The mixed boat is even more powerful now because if you got 500 points in every weapon type that could be spread over every range you'll have flexible or be extremely lucky.

One of the useful things that I've seen in other games (MoO 2 comes to mind) to keep lower tier weapons useful, is that as you researched later techs, your older tech gained levels of "refinement" which, first and foremost, made those weapons smaller. So you might have unlocked the fourth tier of missiles, but you still used the first or second, because they were a better investment due to lower costs and higher quantity.



Having some high-power, low-fire rate weapons especially for use against capital ships might make for some interesting flavor options, as well (granted, in the current system, these are known as "missiles").

weapons can be diversified simply by adding effects to the upgraded weapons.



first tier kinetic-- vanilla stats + adds a small fleet wide bonus to flak (guns used for antimissile defence)

second teir kinetic -- vanilla stats + bonus against corvett hull designs

third teir kinetic-- vanilla stats + increases fleet beam accuracy (call them tracer rounds or something)

fourth-- vanilla stats + super effective against crusers, weaker agains everything eles

etc...



that way the base stats of guns keep getting better (same progression as current) but late game if your dreads are challenged by corvetts with missiles it is worth it to put early tier kinetics on board in spite of the lower dps. it also makes smaller ship hulls relevant, if late tier kinetics have a bonus against dreads but nothing

eles then a fleet of appropriately armed corvettes suddenly become relevant.



the rock paper scissors of the weapon and defence system stay the same, but tooling the appropriate weapon tiers to the fleet composition of your enemy gets deeper. for instance a fleet of armoured corvettes with anti dread kinetics, could tip the balance against a fleet of armoured dreads with anti dread kinetics. but a fleet of armoured corvettes with anti corvette kinetics would lose against the fleet of armoured dreads with anti dread kinetics.

Arghy wrote:
Flak should be cumulative for the entire fleet as it is now there is literally no reason not to got 80% missiles 10% guns/lasers. Flak should also be a global factor, if both fleets are filling space with flak then both sides should lose missiles to it. The more flak on the field the higher the chance of missile destruction for both sides and this number gos up for both sides the more flak there is.



Missiles should actually get a bonus round before combat to counter the flak bonus and to reflect their role on the battle field.



I'd love to see weapons broken into different range groups also, short-medium-long so you can actually choose your engagement range and ruin it for the other guy with tactics. At long range combat would be pinpoint mass drivers, beams and advanced missiles. At X range you can use all 3 weapon types but Y/Z have penalties removing their bonuses at their chosen range. Throw in cards unique to their range and the ability to change the range with cards and you've made combat 300% more complex and fun.



Have a general order like 'keep distance', 'close range' and depending on your ships speed this will eventually happen but the other guys movement/formation order can help or counteract this and cards will help this along.

Except it makes counter building easy and missile boats suffer from only being able to target one ship per phase. They also risk death before launching.



Speaking of formation you should check out my combat suggestions: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11640-5th-tech-tree-military-doctrine

Whaaa? i've had laser and kinetic heavy ships and i've never managed to destroy ships before they got off a missile salvo and even my most protected UE dread cant survive a large salvo. I completely cornered a birdman into 2 systems with 12 fleets of nothing but dreads and battleships yet now i'm on the defensive because he fields suicide missile fleets. I dont destroy his ships before they get off a salvo and a single salvo destroys half my fleet so i lose a fleet of expensive dreads to his cheap missile ships.



You should always be encouraged to field balanced fleets not just in size but weapons to or you'll get horrible spam come MP. Weapons should have diminishing returns and defense should be the focus or rather the lack of defense in certain areas. Just because you field an outrageous amount of missiles doesnt mean someone who fit a balanced amount of flak should be slaughtered. They should take some extra damage yes but ships should be surviving until you get into melee range in almost every battle unless theres a massive gap in defense vs offense.

At the moment, if you get all missiles, I can completely murder you before you get a chance to fire, so... plenty of reason not to do mostly missiles...

Flak should be cumulative for the entire fleet as it is now there is literally no reason not to got 80% missiles 10% guns/lasers. Flak should also be a global factor, if both fleets are filling space with flak then both sides should lose missiles to it. The more flak on the field the higher the chance of missile destruction for both sides and this number gos up for both sides the more flak there is.



Missiles should actually get a bonus round before combat to counter the flak bonus and to reflect their role on the battle field.



I'd love to see weapons broken into different range groups also, short-medium-long so you can actually choose your engagement range and ruin it for the other guy with tactics. At long range combat would be pinpoint mass drivers, beams and advanced missiles. At X range you can use all 3 weapon types but Y/Z have penalties removing their bonuses at their chosen range. Throw in cards unique to their range and the ability to change the range with cards and you've made combat 300% more complex and fun.



Have a general order like 'keep distance', 'close range' and depending on your ships speed this will eventually happen but the other guys movement/formation order can help or counteract this and cards will help this along.

VieuxChat wrote:
Remember the game has to stay simple (not simplistic). Different kind of ammo would be too much things to remember when you enter combat.

You should seriously never-ever, under any circumstances, try playing EVE Online...





Madgiraf, I like your suggestions in #13; adds some complexity without being overwhelming, and makes outfitting a ship require a bit more thought that just adding whatever.





Oh, and...

VieuxChat wrote:
At the moment weapons have feww differentiation : missiles are fired last in each phase and .. that's it.

I believe missiles are fired somewhere between 40 and 50% into the turn; I've had ships being destroyed by missiles even though every enemy ship was destroyed around halfway into phase 1.

Igncom1 wrote:
Maby missiles should have HP and the flak systems can attack the missiles each round, like:



5 missiles lauched eaach with 50HP



2 enemy Flack guns shoot at them each for 35HP, 1 missile goes down



Flak guns shoot again before missiles arrive, 2 missiles go down, 2 missles strike target.

It is somehow already the case, though I do not have the details of the game mechanics. If one missile has 100 damage value and you shoot 5 of them, then your salvo is 500 damage, which is also somehow 500 hp. A calculation intervene with the accuracy of the flak (chance to intercept) then according to the amount of points (hp of the missile) destroyed, their target get the remaining amount of damage. Not quite sure if that's correct, but it seems to me the calculation is not based on the amount of missiles (or modules) you have, but on the total value.

I believe the amount of missiles on screen is only cosmetic (correct me if I am wrong... which could be very possible).

At the moment weapons have feww differentiation : missiles are fired last in each phase and .. that's it.

I'd like to see more appeal to that without changing things too much.



First the base values : you can play with accuracy, power, number of salvo, critical chances.

I think there's too much random in the attack whereas the defense is always static. 300 flak will always supress 300 points of missiles.



There could be different kind of missiles. Small missiles but in great numbers to cloud flak, big missiles with some decoys. Missiles that disperse when hit.

But it needs a different mechanic for the defence. Flak for instance could be a number of shots to try to destroy one incoming missile. So even with 300 flak you'll never hit every incoming missiles.

Shields could work as now : a flat damage reducer. But each hit will reduce it for the next phase (so you can try to overload he shields first)

Armor could reduce any damage but it would be costly, reduce the speed and wouldn't be as high in value as the other 2 defences.



Thoughts ?

Ok, I spent some time thinking now.



Here is are some small ideas and I tried to keep a simple concept (values are just to give an idea, they aren't optimized):



Beam/energy weaponry - countered by shields



Pulse direct fire weapons are already in game.

Rays - those need time to charge up 33%, though once charged they do high damage (2x175% continuous till 100% of the phase, with damage done at 66% and 99% of the phase) and have a high chance of crit (+15%), though they cost 50% more space than their pulse counterparts.

Energy torpedos - Direct fire tracking missiles that only shot at the end of the phase and doing high damage (+300%)

Continuous beam - Though similar to rays, they are slightly different. Continous beam shoot 2 times per phase (40% & 80%), do slightly more damage than their pulse counter part (+25%) but are far more accurate (+75%).

Turbo-beam battery - High fire rate (fire 6xburst per phase) though bursts have reduced accuracy (-15%) and reduced damage (-50%).



Missiles - countered by flaks



Guided missiles are already in game.

Rockets/Micro missiles - Dumbfire missiles with high rate of fire, they hit at 50% and 100% of the phase but do a bit less damage (80%) than standard missiles.

Mirv - Multiple warhead missiles, they have reduced accuracy, crit and damage but they negate 50% of the flak efficiency

Stealth missile - slightly lower damage than standard missile (80%) and negate flak by 75%, if a scout module is in the fleet (only the highest module count) it reduces the stealth efficiency of the missile by 15% depending on the level of the module. Production cost is doubled.

Armored missile - heavily armor plated missile, will reduce flak efficiency by 10% per level of armor technology, though it is slightly bigger (20% extra space required for each module).

Super missile - This missile can only be shot twice per battle, first one at the begining of phase 2 (20 % medium range phase) and second one at the end of 3rd phase (melee phase). This missile requires double the space (200%) of a normal missile but does tremendous amounts of damage (+400% damage + 10% crit) than standard warheads.



Kinetic weaponry - countered by armor plating type



Normal slugs are already in the game.

High explosive slugs - lower crit (-10), high damage (+50%)

High perforation slugs - High crit (+7%), production cost increased by 25%

Gatling systems - Higher rate of fire, they shoot a burst every 5 times a phase (every 20%), but damage (-40%) and crit (-10%) is much lower than normal slugs.

Gauss sniper gun - Very low rate of fire (only shoots once per phase) but high damage (250%) and crit (+12%)





Those would be secondary options (modifications) made available (drop down list ?) when putting a module in a ship design. Visuals (and sounds) would also differ, but this would allow to use the current level of technology (though it may require naming adjustments, especially for energetic torpedos).



The percentages given are based on the total potential damage value of each weapon level (i.e for a level 1 kinetic weapon the damage is 1-3 per shot and 4 shots, totaling 4-12 potential damage, therefore a "gauss sniper gun modification" of 250% extra damage would bring this to 10-30 damage).





Armors (+HP)



Now I would add secondary stats on the armor (+hp) so they give a bit of base defense as well, with some of the highest levels giving a bit of base deflection, absorption and missile damage reduction (100% accuracy, but low absorption since armor is not shooting itself at missiles).



SPECIAL WEAPONS



EMP torpedo - this hybrid missile/energy weapon does 0 damage, it have to pass trough both flak and shields (double defense), if it hits it has a 5% for every level of beam and missile weapons to crit, in case of succesfull critical hit the ship hit is "disabled". Production cost is triple.

Tractor beam - this weapon can only be used at short range (melee phase) and it will disable an enemy ship, doing 0 damage. It requires 1 tractor beam module per 100 tons of the enemy ship.

VieuxChat wrote:
At the moment weapons have feww differentiation : missiles are fired last in each phase and .. that's it.

I'd like to see more appeal to that without changing things too much.



First the base values : you can play with accuracy, power, number of salvo, critical chances.

I think there's too much random in the attack whereas the defense is always static. 300 flak will always supress 300 points of missiles.



There could be different kind of missiles. Small missiles but in great numbers to cloud flak, big missiles with some decoys. Missiles that disperse when hit.

But it needs a different mechanic for the defence. Flak for instance could be a number of shots to try to destroy one incoming missile. So even with 300 flak you'll never hit every incoming missiles.

Shields could work as now : a flat damage reducer. But each hit will reduce it for the next phase (so you can try to overload he shields first)

Armor could reduce any damage but it would be costly, reduce the speed and wouldn't be as high in value as the other 2 defences.



Thoughts ?

Very difficult attempt because I agree with this too :

VieuxChat wrote:
Remember the game has to stay simple (not simplistic). Different kind of ammo would be too much things to remember when you enter combat.

I will start with questions (which you partially answered already) :



What are the stats we can have an influence on ? According to my poor understanding of the game mechanics I believe we those four factors + 1, but "power" (or damage value) can hardly be played with, since that is the base of upgrading techs and somehow same goes for tonnage :



Shots per phase - Ok for missiles, it's easy it's near the end of the phase (like 60% till launch and 30% till hit, then 10% till next phase starts, those are just approximative so thank in advance to anyone who will provide exact values - I am at work and I can't check now)

Damage value - countered 1/1 by flak defense value - so it's "basically too basic" to use and would not be of much use, so anything like armored missile, large missile would not work, since for that you take the next missile technology (this always considering we want to keep things simple and will not add other game mechanics or calculations or even hidden values). I mean slight modifications why not, but balancing with other techs will be a challenge.

Critical chance Chance to double damage ? what does exactly critical hits do ?

Accuracy Chance to hit for each missile I guess.

Module size Balancing that with other techs is going to be a funny challenge, though why not.

Time to reach target This is a virtual indicator only. Typically missile animation starts before the "hit" when hit/damage/crit calculations are actually made.



Do we have anything else ?



*Just heavily brainstorming there, none of those concepts are meant to be used as they are exposed here under*



Now without being too innovative with concepts (like blink missiles, teleporting shortly to avoid flak fire, or stuff like this that is highly specific), what could we have?

We could have bigger missile (add +1 ton to each module of a stack for + % damage) ?

We can't have armored missile (resistance to flak ? there is no such stat I guess, values are 1/1 flak value against missile power it would require a new game mechanic or an alteration of the existing one) ?

We could have fast reload missile (2x shots in the same phase, but less damage, less crit chance or 2 shots only per battle skipping the middle range phase).

We could have multiple warhead missiles (MIRV, missile splits upon entering flak range, less crit chance, higher accuracy)

We could have faster missiles (reach target faster, but loose another stat).

We could have micro missiles (more missiles in the launcher... stats difference ? I can't think of a clever one, but animation would be cool... ^^)

We could have a lot of other "quite conventional" warhead modifications like high perforation, high explosive.

We could have stealth missiles impossible to stop, unless you have the appropriate tech (like a scout in the fleet with the proper module, but there I am going into "too specific stuff again" - sorry! ^^).



Now we also have concepts like reactive armor that is supposed to counter kinetics (actually missiles are kinetic energy too), or ablative armor that is supposed to counter plasma weapons (high density, high temperature projectiles)... Those are totally ignored in the current state of the game, a reactive armor is not better against kinetics than beam, and a set of plasma weaponry of 1000 value, will do the very same 1k damage on every armor type it hits (the only reduction of the 1k can only come from shields)...



Same goes with let's say a photon torpedo or any "missile type" weapon that is actually based on energy (i know we do not have that), should that particular weapon be affected by shields and not by flak ?



Where shall we start ? Usually that is what designers are for, they choose the path they want to follow, they are not the ones who find ideas (though they may, don't get me wrong) but they are the ones who stand their ground to keep moving on that path, and not be tempted to go in other directions, even though it may be very very tempting with all the great ideas everyone can have.

VieuxChat wrote:
Remember the game has to stay simple (not simplistic). Different kind of ammo would be too much things to remember when you enter combat.

I strongly disagree here. 2-3 variations of each weapon type would hardly be overwhelming, and could potentially add a great deal of depth.

I don't think we should play with ammo types although I would be extremely happy to see one or two more weapon types.



I agree that the laser colours should be different and that they should not look like projectiles and be a steady stream (fired in bursts maybe to make it not look like shit).



I also think that the resistances should be reworked, it makes fleet creation tedious and makes putting some science into the military tree a by turn 50 requirement. Running into ships with 3000 deflect when you still can't make lasers because you only have the first variety which requires a strat you don't have is annoying. It also makes the combat almost luck based against the AI (I assume omni-tanking will be the multiplayer style) as they tend to only focus in one damage/resistance. This makes beating the more difficult AI less enjoyable and entirely too tedious. I feel like I get punished too hard for making some badass ship with tons of missiles (kinetic/laser w/e) only to have it countered by a fleet full of ships only fit to resist that. I feel much more rewarded for building smaller ships in great quantities that will sacrifice themselves for he sake of destroying enemy mega ships by finding their resistance holes.

Added to the Suggestion summary thread /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13003-summary-of-suggestions-so-far-discussion