Yes I know there are already a few of these ideas up, I even have my own one. But this is a second. It allows for more depth to fleet battles. (I personally like Fleet Doctrines idea and think this would increase that even more). But should still be separate.



My Idea covers several grounds to fleet battles. We'll start with the first.







Entering the fight - The different ranges are a great aspect, and I feel the battles are more realistic than any other space game I've played that utilizes the same "build an empire" mechanics. We are flying "Ships" after all, how do ships fight? broad side. It makes sense. Even in today's day and age of 2012 with high tech sophisticated long range missiles, etc. Ships still fight broad side. Its just, natural.



But what about distance? I've always been a stickler about having as many choices and customizations as possible to the games I play. I have a huge Tech Idea that expands the tech tree massively and allows customization of research for many number of things. So I'll cover that in a little bit as well.



First off though, range, and your ships speed. I think allowing your fleet to attempt to close in, or stay away should be an important factor. One that is very viable even in today's age, and it can have many tactics to it, and allow for better customization of ship building as well. We all know how the battles work and how range effects all the weapons, so I wont go into that. I think having 2 choices every turn is very important. 1) the normal card you'll play and 2) your fleets speed. (Full/Cruise/Slow/Stop)



Full Speed: Ranges (Long/Medium/Short respectively for underneath)

Laser/Beam defense 25%/20%/15%

(Your missile) Missile Damage -10%/-5%/0%

(Reason, your going faster, therefore at longer ranges you'll be harder to hit for their laser beams, however, its also harder for your missiles to track them when locking on, this also gives you a reason to choose this speed)



Cruise:

No change, same as how it is now.



Slow:

Laser/Beam Defense -15%/-20%/-25%

(Your) Missile Damage 10%/15%/20%

(Your now slower, exact opposite of full speed, your now easier to hit, however your missiles get a bonus due to better tracking over cruise)



Stopped:

Laser/Beam Defense -15%/-25%/-30%

(your)Missiles Damage 30%/25%/20%

(Your now stopped, giving the enemy a perfect sitting target, obviously at close range this would be a death sentance in a real combat situation. Unless you were heavily loaded with defenses, however your missiles also get a much higher tracking)



Speeds: The new rule to speed is, whether your at long/medium/short range depends on your speed compared to theirs + the turn time.



If your going full speed and so is he, no distance will be gained (unless your ships are faster with better engines)

If your stopped as the defender, and he's full speed, he'll close in very quickly, possibly surpassing the medium range all together if his ships are quick (this may also be a tactic for you)

If your going cruise speed, and he's going fast, the turn timer may go slower at long range, and take longer to get into the medium range (depending on ships speeds)





So lets give a situation: Your Fleet is badly damaged, You have engines on your ship, and the enemy fleet is closing in ready to engage, What do you do? You hope you have better engines equipped which are more powerfull, and you set your ship to full speed on all 3 turns, trying to keep the distance knowing they are focusing on lasers, and your missiles can do better long range.



Situation 2: You like to focus heavily on defense, You know your opponent likes to use missiles, and you know your ship has great missile defense, but you have an idea your opponent also knows this, and is expecting you to try to keep distance between and cripple his missiles with cards. Instead you go full stop, he goes full throttle. Turn phase starts, and he quickly goes from long range, to short range, and is now at your mercy.



Just 2 situations of how diff fleet make ups can effect how you choose for speed and your battle tactics.







I want to first touch base on the Retreats.. Atm they make no sense to me.. I click retreat, I see them retreat, no damage done.. then something flashes on my screen saying "Sorry your ships were unable to escape and were destroyed" -.-; Not what I saw in the battle right?



How to fix?



Ships speeds, again come into the issue, Faster ships will be able to "warp" faster, if the enemy fleet is slower, they will not be able to stop you. However, if your ships are significantly slower, they'll take damage trying to escape. This opens up alot of possibilities, and different fleet tactics all in all.



Imagine, you know you cannot beat a fleet head on, they are deeper into the military tech and have superior fleet and ships, however their slow. What do you do? You build a harrass/strike force. Small fast ships, built with lasers and heavy missile/beam defenses. You end up harrassing their fleet with hit and run tactics, go in fast, and get out fast. You wont win the battles, but you'll slowly hurt their ships, and keep them from doing a proper assault on your systems.



Since your ships are also fast, they are able to warp out again on the 2nd/3rd turn and survive due to the enemy ships being slower.



Ships themselves atm, all have the same speed in battle, so fleet composition really doesnt take into effect much (you just build the biggest ships you can and fill in any odd command points with smaller ones). Not much to it... Also since Fleet battles consider the fleet all 1 ship, it also limits the ability some.



However, if you instead make it that each ship class has different stock speed to them, you are now getting somewhere. This alone expands the many ways you can setup a fleet alone and different tactics you can use.



Further more, making a "warp engage speed" for each ship also will help. Smaller ships being able to get into warp faster than larger ships, with tech that can shorten these times if you equip the module. This also changes how and which ships you put into a fleet.







This is the bread and butter to the whole idea. Breaking up the tech tree into several "parts" along the 4 main branches. For this, since we are talking about ship speeds/weapons, etc. we'll focus on the military branch.



Now imagine having a separate path for lasers-beams-missiles-shield-armor-hull(ships themselves)-engines-planetary bombardment, etc. etc. etc. Each having a multitude of techs in them up the path. (Much like how Sword of the Stars). This would allow you to focus on what type of fleets you personally want to create. Do you want to focus on beams? missiles? want a purely defensive massive ship fleets that are the bulwark and unbreakable wall for your systems as you seek a diplomatic means to victory? Do you wish to be a passive/aggressive and focus on small/fast ships to harrass your allies enemies but not necessarily take over yourself (unless its culturally, which is a whole nother idea of mine).



With an expanded tech tree in all 4 of the main categories, this can be achievable. (the other 3 main portions other than military are of course for other things).

Well, now that i voted "Terrible idea" i feel obliged to justify that, so here we go:



Part 1:



First of all, either I misunderstand something or this system is based on the false assumption that the attacker will always want to close distance. For example what about this situation:



Attacker has a missile focused long range fleet, you as the defender have a kinetics-heavy fleet. Attacker obviously choses to "stop", he has no reason to close distance. Now what do you do as defender?



Overall i don't think "more interactivity" in battles is necesarilly a good thing.

- If you can play a "speed card" each phase, your decision would mostly dependend on what happened the previous phase. That is, see what your oponent played and use the few seconds before the start of next phase to adjust your strategy. Maybe that's appealing to someone, but I for one am happy to plan my cards at the beginning of the combat and just enjoy the show after that.

- the combat system is light-weight on purpose, doubleing the number of decisions the player has to make in each combat is a very major change. I don't think the devs are likely to consider such thing.

- the more tactical options in combat the more the auto-resolve option becomes random and unreliable.

- the more interactivity, the more potential for a clueless AI to screw up massively (and let's face it most AI's in games these days are pretty clueless...)



Part 2:



I agree with many things you say (current retreating mechanics being weird, not enouch incentive for diverse fleet composition), but don't quite see how the different speed per hull would solve anything.

Imagine, you know you cannot beat a fleet head on, they are deeper into the military tech and have superior fleet and ships, however their slow. What do you do? You build a harrass/strike force. Small fast ships, built with lasers and heavy missile/beam defenses. You end up harrassing their fleet with hit and run tactics, go in fast, and get out fast. You wont win the battles, but you'll slowly hurt their ships, and keep them from doing a proper assault on your systems.

Well, you call it hit and run tactics, I call it borderline trolling that would make wars drag out pointlessly .



Part 3:



Kind of confused as to how is this related to the previous two parts, seems like a completely independent suggestion to me. I agree that the tech tree could promote specialization a bit more.

embair wrote:
Well, now that i voted "Terrible idea" i feel obliged to justify that, so here we go:



Part 1:



First of all, either I misunderstand something or this system is based on the false assumption that the attacker will always want to close distance. For example what about this situation:



Attacker has a missile focused long range fleet, you as the defender have a kinetics-heavy fleet. Attacker obviously choses to "stop", he has no reason to close distance. Now what do you do as defender?

Which is a good thought process, which I thought of myself after writing this, why couldnt the defender, turn around? its realistic, 1 fleet stops, doesnt matter if their behind, your fleet turns around.



Also remember stopped fleets have worse Kinetic defense.

Overall i don't think "more interactivity" in battles is necesarilly a good thing.

- If you can play a "speed card" each phase, your decision would mostly dependend on what happened the previous phase. That is, see what your oponent played and use the few seconds before the start of next phase to adjust your strategy. Maybe that's appealing to someone, but I for one am happy to plan my cards at the beginning of the combat and just enjoy the show after that.

- the combat system is light-weight on purpose, doubleing the number of decisions the player has to make in each combat is a very major change. I don't think the devs are likely to consider such thing.

- the more tactical options in combat the more the auto-resolve option becomes random and unreliable.

- the more interactivity, the more potential for a clueless AI to screw up massively (and let's face it most AI's in games these days are pretty clueless...)

You get to choose 2 things. 1) a card 2) a speed. Speeds are not cards, its a setting.

Part 2:



I agree with many things you say (current retreating mechanics being weird, not enouch incentive for diverse fleet composition), but don't quite see how the different speed per hull would solve anything.

I explained it pretty thoroughly about strike craft, about how if you need to build a fleet thats faster to counter their heavy hitting slow cumbersome fleet to stay alive, that building smaller/faster ships or bigger ships with more engine power can allow you to build a fleet that can get in and out without being destroyed.



This being said, you wouldnt build a Dreadnought in a fleet you want to be fast and quick.

Well, you call it hit and run tactics, I call it borderline trolling that would make wars drag out pointlessly .

Welcome to war then, its always been like that.



That being said, you still have choices at your disposal as the defender/attacker with large fleets against smaller fast ships. With thinking and Strategy you can still over come them. Its not trolling, its a tactic, and there are counters to these tactics too.

Part 3:



Kind of confused as to how is this related to the previous two parts, seems like a completely independent suggestion to me. I agree that the tech tree could promote specialization a bit more.

Because none of these Ideas above would work with the current tech setup.

Which is a good thought process, which I thought of myself after writing this, why couldnt the defender, turn around? its realistic, 1 fleet stops, doesnt matter if their behind, your fleet turns around.

I don't think I follow. If the attacker stops, you automatically start closing in on him instead of running away? That is, I as the defender select full speed to keep distance, yet the attacker anticipated that and selected "stop", than bam I'm suddenly heading full speed towards him instead of away from him? I guess the decision to "turn around" would have to be made explicitly by defender. Of course it leads to more unanswered questions which I don't feel like getting into...

You get to choose 2 things. 1) a card 2) a speed. Speeds are not cards, its a setting.

I understand that, sorry for the confusing wording - I called the speed setting "speed cards" since you also pick one for every combat phase.

I explained it pretty thoroughly about strike craft, about how if you need to build a fleet thats faster to counter their heavy hitting slow cumbersome fleet to stay alive, that building smaller/faster ships or bigger ships with more engine power can allow you to build a fleet that can get in and out without being destroyed.



This being said, you wouldnt build a Dreadnought in a fleet you want to be fast and quick.

Yeah, so it wouldn't encourage diverse fleet composition, quite the oposite. You would have dedicated destroyer swarm fleets and dedicated drednaught/battleship fleets. Which the current system already promotes (destroyer fleets can stack more fleet-wide speed bonuses so such fleets can be extremely fast on the star map) without being as strict.

Welcome to war then, its always been like that.

Yeah, but this is not a wargame. Which means "realism" is secondary to gameplay. I don't think hit and run tactics should be viable for the same reason you can't disrupt enemy supply lines or jam communications in this game. It would be tedious and doesn't fit the focus of the game.



IMHO if you'd like to make this more like SotS, you should really just go play SotS, it's an awesome game :-). ES is not about tactical combat and patching tactical elements as an afterthought would lead to a pretty crappy and shallow tactical game at best... (just my opinion of course)

embair wrote:
I don't think I follow. If the attacker stops, you automatically start closing in on him instead of running away? That is, I as the defender select full speed to keep distance, yet the attacker anticipated that and selected "stop", than bam I'm suddenly heading full speed towards him instead of away from him? I guess the decision to "turn around" would have to be made explicitly by defender. Of course it leads to more unanswered questions which I don't feel like getting into...







I understand that, sorry for the confusing wording - I called the speed setting "speed cards" since you also pick one for every combat phase.







Yeah, so it wouldn't encourage diverse fleet composition, quite the oposite. You would have dedicated destroyer swarm fleets and dedicated drednaught/battleship fleets. Which the current system already promotes (destroyer fleets can stack more fleet-wide speed bonuses so such fleets can be extremely fast on the star map) without being as strict.







Yeah, but this is not a wargame. Which means "realism" is secondary to gameplay. I don't think hit and run tactics should be viable for the same reason you can't disrupt enemy supply lines or jam communications in this game. It would be tedious and doesn't fit the focus of the game.



IMHO if you'd like to make this more like SotS, you should really just go play SotS, it's an awesome game :-). ES is not about tactical combat and patching tactical elements as an afterthought would lead to a pretty crappy and shallow tactical game at best... (just my opinion of course)

Perhaps we are both just over thinking it, there is a way you can establish speed in battles. I understand speed on the star map, but in battles.. its suddenly stock "every ship hast he same speed".

embair wrote:
IMHO if you'd like to make this more like SotS, you should really just go play SotS, it's an awesome game :-). ES is not about tactical combat and patching tactical elements as an afterthought would lead to a pretty crappy and shallow tactical game at best... (just my opinion of course)

Agreed. Enrichment of the current battle ethos is what one should be striving for here; stay within those constraints and the chances of your suggestion being adopted, even if only in part, improve considerably.



Turn based 4X games used to be ‘you go, I go,’ then SotS evolved that into ‘you all issue orders then all orders are executed simultaneously’ which works very well indeed for both SP and all forms of MP. It’s fair, it’s fast (certainly much faster than ES currently is in the mid-late game) and it just bloody works. I appreciate that Amplitude tried something new* with ES – ‘you all go when you want to’ – and I can dig that as long as everyone is able to remain objective when evaluating how successful it has been.



* Except it’s not new. CIV tried it and it didn’t work there either.