First off I really enjoy this game and I easily rate it as the best 4x strategy game I have played. It has taken nearly 250 hours of my life. Because I enjoy the game so much I feel the need to post about what i feel could be improved. I have a lot of ideas about the game but I will post a few threads with some of them and see how it goes before flooding the forums with every crazy idea I have. I think this game is close to being a master piece but needs some tweeks.



Combat seems to be a big issue and these are the few thoughts I have had. Let me know what you think and lets see if we can get a few good ideas out of this and maybe improve the game we all love enough to post these long threads.



Threat – A ship produces a certain amount of threat per shot fired and this is translated into increased percentage chance of shots being received in the next volley, threat is accumulated through the three rounds of combat. A damage equation can also be combined so firstly weapon heavy ships are identified and then the damage they deal increasing it also so your ships are more likely to shoot variants which are getting through your deflect bonus.



Tank – A ship which has armour and is a cruiser class or higher can be designated a tank in the ship design window. A tank will gain a certain amount of threat for each ship which is firing which it is tanking, it can tank a number of control points equal to its own. Better armour can increase the threat gain or upgrades etc. Ships with the most military power would be tanked first.



Evade – Small ships have a higher evade score and with engine upgrades can be designed to give more threat to tanks. (they are shooting then hiding) the larger ships engine bonus is reduced for giving away threat.



Evade can be split into two categories, dodge, and hide. You have a certain percentage chance to dodge the shot entirely and take no damage and if that fails another hide percentage in which the shot is dodged by the ship but the damage is taken by a tank. A ship which is actively being tanked would have the hide bonus increased again based on ship type compared to tank type and engine upgrades.



Accuracy would be removed and instead replaced with the fact that each ship has a dodge chance and depending on the ship/upgrades a hide chance also. Sensor bonus would instead reduce evade chances making it easier to understand upgrades. Destroyer 15% dodge and 25% hide, dreadnought 10% dodge and 5% hide, sensor bonuses reduces dodge flat level by 5 percentage points or can be done with percentage minuses 10% 50% etc and engine bonus increases it.



Ship classes would gain extra bonuses to make mixed fleets more useful and likely. Smaller ships with higher evade would become more reliable in fleets with tank dreadnoughts. Ship classes could have an additional variant with different bonuses or drawbacks to further customise fleets to give more depth to fleets or extra ship types to unlock. Race ship types would be brought into a closer alignment still keeping different bonuses and a feel for each race but not making it so one or two races have must use ships.



Fighters and bombers would become more useful in the fact they would get past dodge chances of smaller ships and this might bring into play the point defence system and fighters to counter.

With the damage dealing part of threat system being used it is more likely that if you equip with short range weapons your ships will be able to unload and not have sustained heavy losses in rounds one and two.



The combat cards and formations would be removed. Fleet combat would be worked out using the threat system, critical chance and other weapon modifiers. This would speed up games where you have 20-30 fights per turn and no longer need to select two formations and three battle settings.



A retreat before combat system would need to be put in place with actual drawbacks to retreating, for example losing 25% hull on all ships for each retreat and if this would reduce a ship below 50% hull there is a 33% it is destroyed whilst retreating.



Fleets can be given retreat custom orders. For example, retreat when 50% of the fleet are destroyed or 25% hull damage etc, when a retreat is initiated the opposing side gets one additional volley. Faster fleets could gain bonuses to retreating or inflict heavier losses on retreating fleets.

Am I really the only one who loves the battlecards?

Igncom1 wrote:
Am I really the only one who loves the battlecards?

i like the battlecards too Igncom. they definitely add something to the game that gives you a small influence on theoutcome of the battles. a lot better than civ in that respect.

Adventurer_Blitz wrote:
i like the battlecards too Igncom. they definitely add something to the game that gives you a small influence on theoutcome of the battles. a lot better than civ in that respect.