Love the concept. I wouldn't ask for full-out tactical combat, but this would address some of the issues of the combat in the game - that it feels a bit 'rock/paper/scissors' (i.e., random choice versus random choice), and could really give a compelling reason to use fleets with mixed hull sizes where the little ships aren't just cannon fodder.



Can I also get a +vote for being able to play 'retreat' from the combat initiation popup?

Do try to remember Igpron that this would have to be implimented without revamping the combat systel which is a no-no, /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13098-community-suggestions-amplitude-is-following , so I can't really see a way to build formations around the current combat with a fraction of the depth you just explained. :P

I hope no one minds a mention of a fellow space game - it's relevant to the topic and demonstrative of the multitudes of options available in fleet setup.



Gratuitous Space Battles is actually doing well advancing fleet tactics.

Favorite tactics at this point include a formation leading with a Brick cruiser in the front with a high-speed frigate in the back doing anti-fighter duties (ie: same weapons that do high-angular-speed, shortish-range anti-shield duties) but stuck in formation with the brick in front and with contradictory orders saying "go after their ships!," such that anything coming into range against the Brick is assaulted by the hundreds of torpedo bomber escorts that're on orbit duty around the frigate. Then, when the frigate gets trashed, the extra hundred fighters along with the torpedo bombers are released on whatever just lost its shields taking down the frigate. It doesn't really suffer from too many tactical disadvantages, either, except Pilot cost, though I think it's why the dev added an AOE weapon.

Another favorite tactic (of mine) is a hundred frigates with great engines swarming in with the short-range weapons that overpower the best shield resistance and the best armor resistance.

I've seen a line of orbital defensive pods (no engines) that shoot long-range-plasma (lowish accuracy, cheap, good damage, great range, good rate of fire) at absolutely everything, though these typically die real fast against swarms of fighters.

I've seen a more classical approach with missile boat cruisers dishing out massive damage at long range, fighters engaging each other in a swarming dogfight in the center, and frigates acting as a screen/picket (anti-fighter/missile).

There's loads of complexity you can get into with fleet formations and even just the handful of ship types we have now. A few more examples from GSB:

Carriers, missile boats, and high-speed short-range frigates of doom, oh my. Also, Brick front liners, shield augmentation groups, torpedo bombers, heavy and light fighters, single-defense specialized groups (shield blasting frigate group here, armor blasting cruisers there), resistance levels of the armor such that sufficiently weak fire is completely shrugged off (though you can still nail a vent (to destroy the reactor core) once in awhile).

The game's not expensive, fleet setup is pretty detailed, and you play against other peoples' fleets in the Galactic Conquest DLC.

My point is that there's lots of depth available to fleet formation; however, I can't detail them all because there's too many.

Well I do like ideas thrown around so far. But I feel that with the current combat it wouldn't really work/be relevant.



Lets, for a moment, assume they were to remake majority of the combat including weapon platforms, then I'd say this would need to be implimented. But untill such time I can't feel it would bring anything big to the table in any of the ways suggested.



And incase this sounds too enigmatic, by re-design I mean more versions of the 3, such as rails for long-range inaccurate vs small targets kinetic damage, rockets for short-range missile bursts, et cetera. Untill weapons actually have charasteristics I see no reason to build fleet formations to counter them. Right now missiles always act as torpedoes, weren't this the case I would possibly think I need to build smaller escorts with lot of flak to protect my larger capitals from torpedo fire while they return fire. Heck even the ship types & engagement ranges could be re-done but thats aching to a complete combat overhaul which I can't see being done, at least not for foreseeable future.



As a summary, I don't know if different teams handle different parts of the game or not but if there is a team responsible for developing combat, there's numerous things I'd like to see before this. Even if this would be neat down the line.

You could also assign each class of ship a default fleet assignment/position at the ship creation screen. For example, build a low defense/all missile ship and give it the "rear volley" default position so that ships of that class always show up at the rear of a fleet in battle. Custom ship formations per fleet could still be implemented and be allowed to override class assignments if necessary.

I would suggest to put a formation card selection before fight instead of battle cards, battle cars can only be selected during the war. of course, take the automatic in to account, ai should be able to select cards themsselves when player don't.

I like it. Adding fleet formations could make the battles more interesting and more varied.

Personally I'm very fond of the idea, the combat is something I've always disliked in this game, because it's not customisable, and you have no effect on it other than weapon choice and card choice.

LadyAthena wrote:
Blitzkrieg: This Formation is designed to warp your ships in closer to the enemy fleet upon engagement. [StartsatMediumRange] [Combatwillgoasfollows:MediumRange,ShortRange,ShortRange] [WeaponPreference:Kinetic,Lasers]

This is interesting.

It would need some rework though, if it leaves Missiles dead in the water, much less effective than kinetics and lasers.



-----------------------------------------



It would open up a whole new world of tactical combat. That's definitely the weak point of this game at the moment.



Personally I would love to see a few certain formations, like a hammerhead, bubble or ball of death.



Hammerhead: Split the fleet into 2 (or more) parts, and attack the enemy on several fronts. Would make the defensive formations (where most of the defence is concentrated on 1 area) less effective.



Bubble: All ships spread out evenly in a bubble-like formation around the enemy, then proceeds to shoot them from all directions. Will spread the damage more than the Hammerhead, and would also make single defensive ships less effective.



Ball of Death: If anyone has played Starcraft, you're probably familiar with the Terran bioball. Gather lots of biological units (marines, medics, marauders) in a single ball, and attack-move to the enemy.

Same principle, the fleet focuses on offence, neglecting defence. Kinetics and Lasers would be more effective than missiles, as they can hit the missiles on approach. Hell, that missiles can be destroyed on approach should be standard anyway.



Or perhaps a V or a straight line formation, where you can concentrate fire on 1 area.



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1 defensive flaw of either formation could be a concussive force when a ship is destroyed.

An interstellar (-galactic) ship will have a lot of energy stored both in their engine, weapons and in general. If destroyed, it would release a lot of energy in the form of a shockwave, so anything in the vicinity will either be destroyed or severely damaged (depending on the ship). Shield could prevent much (or all) of the damage, but it will put a lot of strain on them.

I think formations is a great idea. Others have suggested this in the past. Unfortunately, back in Beta, the ES devs explicitly said that they're not going to significantly change the combat, even in an expansion. I think combat is a major weak point in this game, and I wish they would address this problem, but I don't think anyone should get their hopes too high.

Pietrak wrote:
I support everything that makes battles more interesting.

makes us two

Can this formation include priority targeting? Because at the start, we do know what ships the enemy has and vice versa. Battle formations can then include priority targeting, so the attacks aren't random. However, once battle begins, the priority targets cannot be switched or changed; only the battle cards can be changed at this point. It now becomes not just a rock paper scissors game, but a visually appealing battleship board game



--where the priorities you gave matter a lot. Like in a real battleship board game, whenever you waste a shot you are closing in on defeat.

I support everything that makes battles more interesting.

Personally, I think that Battle Actions are quite enough to cover combat setups. More flexibility could be made not via an extra new feature (i.e. formations), but with existing ones -- say, ship modules.



For example, we can have a ship module that makes the ship holding it a "primary target", i.e. it'll be drawing more enemy fire to itself. Same with, for example, "cloak module" (less enemy fire), etc. etc.

Neowitch wrote:
^This. How often did I think "Oh, for f***'s sake, why don't you attack the enemy with the least HP?"

I do believe there are plans to let you choose which ship to attack,it's just not at the top of the list at the moment.

I like the basic idea but I would attach formation position of a ship to it's design. This way, you would setup the position of a ship only once (in the design screen) and this would automatically be applied for every battle. I imagine that there are positions for reaching the basic formations suggested by LadyAthena:



[list=1]

protected - will position a ship behind all others in the fleet (if any). This would be the best choice for escorted ships like colony ships and pure support vessels. It would finally be possible to have pure support vessels.

max. damage - will position a ship in the default way like it is right now for dealing maximum damage in combat. Ships in this position will still protect ships in position 1.

protector - will position a ship on the front line meaning this is the primary target for enemy fire. This could be the one with the flaks intercepting all missiles so the ships in positions 1 and 2 don't need own flaks aboard.

[/list]

EpicPetunia wrote:
Personally, i think we should be able to give commands to the ships in terms of 'focus fire on these ships'. The AI SEEMS to be able to do so.

^This. How often did I think "Oh, for f***'s sake, why don't you attack the enemy with the least HP?"

So, for my newest Idea of things for Endless Space... I was playing around with the idea of Ship Formations.



The reason this isnt a suggesttion (yet). Is because I'm still not positive how it would effect Endless Space. But I felt it would be cool to open a thread on it for the players to discuss this idea.



My own idea on it comes in the form that the "formations" would be pre setup, but the setup's would actually do something, or influence things. Then from there you choose where in the "slots" you want your specific ships in the fleet to be. You could also rename these formations how you please.



Some formations would be designed to literally block certain ships, or defend certain ships, or to give the maximum damage available by allowing all guns to be pointing the enemy fleet (how it is already in the normal formation).



Of course how you setup your formation is important too, if you accidently put a smaller ship in the rear thats being blocked by a larger ship because you didnt place it high enough, it cant fire (except for missiles who can go over the larger ship). So placement is important as well as choosing the appropriate formation for what you want to be done.



A few ideas could be:



"Armored Wall: This formation is designed to have your more armored ships in front to take the focused fire, ships in the front are more likely to be focused on"



"Fire-fall Volley: This formation is designed to have smaller ships in front, with larger ships behind, giving the maximum potential for damage."



"Imperial Guard: This formation is designed to have the rear ship or ships fully protected by the front, allowing no shots to penetrate the defense. Best used when escorting Colony ships, or other ships with little to no offense ability"



Just a few formation ideas off the top of my head. If they impliment Carriers as well, there could be several more formations for those in mind.



Discuss!



Edit: I thought this was relevant:

Neowitch wrote:
Not bad. But I considering my last war went pretty much like this:

1. Throw all my fleets at the enemy!!!

2. Trash and get trashed...

3. Fuse what's left of my fleets to form new fleets.

4. Start from 1. Repeat 30 times.



... setting a new formation every turn seems more of a bother than an enrichment to the game experience.

Its not every turn, Its a strict fleet formation for that fleet, if you so choose to make ships for certain formations, or use certain formations for specific situations (like escorting a colony ship). THe formation cannot be changed during a battle.

Nomas wrote:
You could also use specific formations depending on your weapons of choice. For instance you could build ships filled with kinetics. If you do that you should prefer to fight the enemy at close range so a move at full speed to approach the enemy option could be nice for example .

Perhaps it lowers the other damage of other weapons by a certain % due to the ships speeds at the long and medium range. Not entirely sure how that would work though. Or perhaps simply a Formation like:



Blitzkrieg: This Formation is designed to warp your ships in closer to the enemy fleet upon engagement. [StartsatMediumRange] [Combatwillgoasfollows:MediumRange,ShortRange,ShortRange] [WeaponPreference:Kinetic,Lasers]

If you're going for formations, you will also have to think of counter formations. Otherwise, everyone will just take defensive formation, build 3 tank ships and draw in every battle. GeeGee, you just broke space combat.



Personally, i think we should be able to give commands to the ships in terms of 'focus fire on these ships'. The AI SEEMS to be able to do so.

Romeo wrote:
Reset it. Or have the fleet whose name was retained also retain the formation.

That's what I meant earlier. If it gets reset you have to set it again every turn.

I wouldn't go with the latter solution. I, for my part, never pay attention to which fleet I select first when merging fleets. So if the player selects the wrong one first they still have to change the formation setting.

Neowitch wrote:
But how does a fleet that was merged from two other fleets with different formations know which formation it should use?

Reset it. Or have the fleet whose name was retained also retain the formation.