Despite the new additions to the combat system, I still feel it could use an improvement.



Here I propose a highly simplified, yet effective combat system that can be realistically implemented.



This post is rather long and contains four main sections, so I repeated important points throughout the post so you don't get lost.





----------General Mechanism-------------



The new combat system will use subdivided areas to define the battleground; there will be 5 areas and they will all move together so as to respect the current range system.



As a player, you have absolute control over 2 sub-areas (the other 2 belong to your enemy):



1) The front where the battle is most intense.

2) The back where ships can stay away from the front-line.



You will have to define which ships will be at the front and the back before the battle begins (while the battle-timer is running or predetermined at your convenience), creating two groups that will persist throughout the battle. This group composition can only be changed before or after battles, not during the fight. However, the group position (front or back) can be switched back and forth in each phase.



Depending on the situation, you can order front-line ships (they move together as a group) to retreat to the back-area in the next phase only if you queue this retreat option before the end of the current phase. If you made this queue, the front-line ships will retreat to the back in the next phase, but will not attack while retreating to the back (unless you play the offensive retreat card - I would only use this card if my retreating front-ships can deal more damage than other ships + other cards - this offensive retreat card is not the same as the fleet offensive retreat card). Also, enemy can target your retreating ships (randomly) only if they play the "attack retreating ships" card. This card can be trumped by the "suppressive fire" card, which will be explained below (see the "Targeting" section). The ships that were originally at the back will become the new front-ships while the original front-ships are retreating.



To allow players to understand the state of ships at the front and the back as the battle is progressing, your fleet-composition screen you see on your left will be subdivided into:



1) Current Front-ships (current total HP)

2) Current Back-ships (current total HP)

3) Fleet (current total fleet HP)



To simplify the combat, retreating ships (now labelled back-ships) will eventually receive all incoming kinetics/beam/missiles that are already homing in on them (enemy played the "attack retreating ships" card). They will survive only if they have the capability tank those incoming projectiles. This means, the new front-ships (which were originally at the back before the original front-ships started retreating) will not defend the retreating ships. However, the retreating ships will receive +5% defense bonus, even if they just started to retreat. Retreating ships will eventually receive the repair bonus of 10% and the full defense bonus of +10% when the retreat to the back-area is completed (These are the bonuses back-ships receive). Please note that retreating will be completed at the end of the phase, in which the retreat started. Therefore, the aforementioned "offensive retreat" card becomes very important since, otherwise, your retreating ships will not attack at all until the retreat is complete. However, you are welcome to use other cards depending on the situation.



The other two areas belong to your opponent, and the same rule will apply to him/her.



As I explained earlier, you will have to define which ships to be at the front and the back before the battle begins, and front-ships can retreat to the back in subsequent phases, so your initial decision of group position is not final (although group composition cannot be changed during battle). Please note that, to simplify the combat, you cannot choose individual ships to move back and forth, meaning the entire front ships will have to retreat instead of the specific few in the front you want to retreat.





--------Fighters & Bombers------------



You are still here? Awesome. Please read on.



The remaining area is the dead man's land.

This is the area your fighters and bombers will engage your opponent's fighters and bombers. The capital ships will not engage them.

Once enemy fighters/bombers (f/B) are neutralized, your f/B can cross this area and engage enemy capital ships directly. Again, enemy capital ships will not engage your f/B (assuming f/B get destroyed automatically when their respective motherships are destroyed). Note that f/B choose capital ship-targets randomly (more details in the "Targeting" section).



Fighters prioritize enemy fighters > bombers > capital ships.

Bombers ignore enemy fighters and will try to make it through the dead man's land to reach enemy capital ships.



Fighters will reduce enemy capital ships' attack capability while Bombers will reduce enemy capital ships' defense capability. The more bombers you have, the more useless enemy's "tanks" will become. Don't forget the fighters though, because without fighters of your own, your bombers won't survive the dead man's land where enemy fighters will try to destroy your bombers (unless you have more bombers than enemy's fighters, in which case few bombers will make it through the dead man's land and do some damage to enemy capital ships before being wiped out by enemy fighters, assuming you have no more fighters to occupy enemy fighters). Therefore, You can either try to have more bombers or have some fighters and some bombers to balance it out. It all depends on your opponent's f/B composition, which will be part of the combat summary (i.e. You - Most effective: Fighters Vs. Enemy - Most effective: Bombers).





---------Targeting-----------



General Mechanism) You can engage enemy ships in both the 1) front area and; 2) back area throughout your battle, meaning you can change your target group in each phase. Recall that ships in the back area receive defense and repair bonuses. So, unless you really want to take those out first, I would target the enemy's front-ships first. Enemy's retreating ships count as back-ships (the ones that were originally at the back will automatically be labelled as front-ships and lose their defense and repair bonuses).



Here is the crucial part:



1) If you are sure he/she will retreat their highly damaged front-ships to the back area in the next phase, you will be wise to target those retreating ship in the next phase with the "attack retreating ships" card. Do not worry about having to engage your enemy's NEW front-ships while the retreating is taking place because the enemy's new front-ships will receive 30-50% attack penalty while their original front-ships are retreating (let's just say that, in real life, the original back-ships have to try not to hit their own retreating ships that are moving back towards them). The enemy's new front-ships will always receive this attack penalty while the retreating is taking place (also they no longer receive the defense bonus since they are not at the back anymore), and they can only reduce this attack penalty if they play the "suppressive fire" card. This card will also trump the "attack retreating ships" card, allowing your retreating ships to escape without harm while your new-front ships must take the punch in their stead. It is important to note that choosing the suppressive fire card automatically causes your current front-ships to start retreating, just like the offensive retreat card. Therefore, while your regular retreat card that allows front-line ships to retreat to back is always available from turn 1, those two cards must be researched.



2) The front-ships will receive attack bonus (assuming there is no retreat taking place in the current phase - see previous paragraph). This creates diversity in battlefields; not everyone will want to start with "tanks" at the front. The bonus will encourage players to bring out their most deadly ships to the front-line from the very beginning. If the enemy tank is not strong enough to tank it all, they will fall rather quickly. This all depends on their defense module type and your weapon module type. If the enemy brings out the highly damaging ships to the front just like you did, and your front-ships received too much damage, I would suggest "offensive retreat" in the next phase since you can still use your powerful weapons while retreating. However, if you think your enemy will use the "attack retreating ships" in the next phase because of his/her insight, and you know your retreating ships won't survive that, I suggest the "suppressive fire" card. As always, you must learn to read enemy's thoughts to win.



The attack bonus of the front-ships will be 5%. I stayed away from 10% because that would render the defense bonus of 10% applied for the back-ships pointless. As I mentioned before, retreating ships receive +5% defense bonus (instead of +10%) until they complete the retreat (Upon successful retreat to the back-area, they will receive the +10% defense & +10% repair bonus - see above). Therefore, should your enemy chooses to target your retreating ships, at least your retreating ships can cancel out their attack bonus of 5%).





Specific Mechanism) Only your front ships can choose to attack either the front or back ships. Once you decided your target ships in a particular phase, you have two options. The default targeting will have all of your front ships attacking one ship (chosen randomly) at a time. (i.e. 1 random ship from either the front or the back ships, depending on which group you chose for your front-ships to engage). The other option is having each of your front-ships engaging each one of your enemy's ships randomly. If you have more ships than max possible targets in that group, the excess will choose randomly). If you played the "attack retreating ships" card, but they do not retreat, the default target group will be the same as the one you targeted in the previous phase. If you never specified your target, default is the front group.



If you chose to attack the front-ships, but those front ships retreat, and you did not play the "attack retreating ships" card, your front ships will automatically attack the enemy's NEW front-ships by default.

If you chose to attack the back-ships in this scenario, you will attack the same ships while the retreating is taking place. Remember, you have to play the "attack retreating ships" card to attack retreating ships. Read your enemy's thoughts!



Your fighters/bombers belonging to the front-ships will follow the same rule as your front-line capital ships.





Now, your back-ships CANNOT choose their target group (front or back). This would be another reason to bring deadly ships to the front rather than bringing the tank to the front all the time (my other reason is stated above - position-oriented bonuses). Therefore, your back-ships will target whatever it pleases randomly. If you think your back-ships can still manage to make kills with this condition, feel free to keep them at the back. If you are not sure (anymore), bring them forward (meaning your current front-ships have to retreat to the back). Note that back-ships can never target retreating ships, not even by random targeting; this is to simplify the combat system.



Your fighters/bombers belonging to the back-ships will also target randomly. To maximize their potential then, I suggest you bring ships with many/strong fighters/bombers to the front-line instead of back, but don't forget to consider other factors.



You will be notified throughout the battle when your enemy's front ships started retreating to the back and when they finished retreating. A cool sound-effect would be nice to notify this.



If an enemy group (front or back) is wiped out, the remaining group will not have anymore position-oriented bonuses/battle-cards. They can still target your groups however. A sound-effect to indicate group kill/death should be added.



Player Preference:



You can choose not to have two groups, but instead have just one larger group. However, you will not have defense-oriented bonuses/battle-cards. You can still target an enemy group if they have the two groups.

---------Effects on the current battle system-----------



1) Because I created the front & back system, and ships can switch positions, you may think the range system of the current game could be affected. This is not the case since the overall position of the entire fleet will still respect the long & medium & melee ranges. Front and back positions are in fact one position from a bigger perspective. I added these areas to add diversities in the battlefields (position-oriented bonuses & position-oriented targeting ability) and make more use of retreat options, which brings us to....



2) Sheredyn: We know they really want to finish you off as they do not allow you to retreat from their fleet in the current game. I want to maintain this in terms of the entire fleet. However, in terms of retreating to the back position, I want Sheredyn to be immune to enemy's "suppressive fire" card. That means, Sheredyn fleet can attack/wipe out ships retreating to the back-area as they please. This will add to the uniqueness of this race in combat.



3) Fleet Retreat: Since I introduced retreats that do not involve the actual fleet retreat, we will need to distinguish them from fleet retreat/offensive retreat cards. Ships at the front with lots of damage will most likely not survive the fleet retreat.



4) Phase Length: As this new system requires a bit of more attention, I would add 5 more seconds to each phase.



5) Number of phases (optional): If it takes an entire phase to allow completion of a retreat, you would need two more battle phases (5 total) to allow max two retreating maneuvers (i.e. front ships retreat after the first phase, then complete retreating at the end of second phase, and stays at the back (becoming back-ships) during the third phase to receive the defense/repair bonus, in the fourth phase, the new-front ships start to retreat back so your current back-ships become the front ships again (finishing retreating at the end of this phase), and in the final phase, the groups maintain this final position). If retreat takes half a phase to complete a retreat AND each phase becomes twice as long as the current length, we do not need two additional battle phases.



However, if you want max of only one retreating session, the current phase system does not need to change.



6) Spartan Maneuver (Phalanx Maneuver) - Battle Card: This card will allow ships at the back to suddenly join the front-ships, receiving the 5% attack bonus while maintaining all the back-area bonuses. This is reminiscent of front-line Spartans defending the front with shields while soldiers at the back thrusting their spears forward to pierce enemies. This card must be researched/hero-specific and is very dust-expensive.





-----------Conclusion-----------



I believe this system is quite simple and can be added to the game without altering important fundamentals of the current system.



Now, back to my homework...



Thanks for reading!