I'm all aware the next expansion is supposed to focus on combat so maybe this suggestion should be added there if ppl like it.



Currently during combat ships fight in duel style 1 on 1, that works fine but gives very little control over the battle.



I was thinking it would be nice if ships could either focus fire or split it between multiple targets, which could be implemented using targeting support modules (can only use one per ship).



First would be a module that increases the number of targets a ship can lock on and split its damage evenly between all targets, with reduced weapon accuracy. This allows ships with superior fire power to split it's damage and reduce the amount of damage wasted on overkill, specially useful when the enemy fleet is larger in numbers.



Secondly a module that allows all ships equipped with it to lock on same one target, with increased weapon accuracy. This allows fleets to take down enemy ships even if your fleet lacks in firepower to do so in 1 on 1 fights, specially since defenses reset every phase.



For balance we could think of modules that could counter targeting modules, some type of ewar, like increasing the penalty to accuracy when targeting multiple ships or reducing the amount of ships that can lock on to your ship.



Edit:

Now that i thought more about it, i think this would be better implemented as battle cards. This would allow swapping ship tactics as needed from phase to phase, which would work better then having to retrofit ships just for 1 modules, which won't be possible outside your own empire.



The cards required to implement this idea would be:

Split Fire:

All ships split their fire evenly(as much as possible) between the entire enemy fleet, but with a penalty to accuracy. This could be countered by sabotage in my opinion, either by making it a direct counter or because the stacked accuracy penalties would be a counter on itself and probably better then any direct counter.



Focused Fire:

All ships fire on the same target (of course if the target dies, they swap to next target together, unless it's missiles), maybe with a bonus to accuracy but a penalty to ship defenses.



To counter Focused Fire a new card would be needed, something like 'We stand united', all ships in the fleet sacrifice some of their defenses to defend the ship that is locked by most ships (picking just one ship if multiple ships are locked by same amount of ships), with a penalty to either accuracy or damage. This could be directly countered by Focused Fire, since all ships will be targeted by same amount of enemy ships.



The reason behind the penalties behind this cards, specially accuracy, is because ships won't have the freedom to act on their own, this makes their position less then ideal but necessary (being in range of all ships for split fire, grouping together for focused fire or keeping in close range of all allied ships to guard them).



Edit:

If any moderator sees this, could you please change the tread name to something more relevant now that i redesigned my initial suggestion. Thank you.

Sounds nice.

I'm not generally against the idea of having more stuff to fill up my ships with, but I don't really want to do that at the expense of other modules or weapons and defensive capabilities... but in itself not a bad idea

Well one suggestion I have is that when I take part in the cinematic mode combat I don't feel very involved in the combat. I feel like I am some where else and not the CO of the fleet. Maybe instead of modules we could give the payer the option to select ships to attack, a priority so to speak, so the strategic part of the game is kept intake but gives the player more freedom over the battle. Then for AUTO battles it could be a secondary option to either "Focus fire", "Split Fire", or "Balanced".

maur4395 wrote:
I feel like I am some where else and not the CO of the fleet

That's right, REAL commodores should be in complete control of their fleets, even to the point of making mistakes such as crashing all one's ships into one another....



I agree though, it would be a nice addition if one could have a slightly more hands on approach, such as directing fire onto certain critical points on the enemy ships' hulls etc... perhaps they could even have options along the lines of what to target, such as bridge, engines, weapons...

I really like the idea. Picking a target would give you a lot more control over the battle and it would involve you more into it.

Battle Actions in Auto is already on the TODO list here, which would allow you to skip manual combat while still taking advantage of the battle tactics i mentioned.

Skyrah wrote:
Battle Actions in Auto is already on the TODO list here, which would allow you to skip manual combat while still taking advantage of the battle tactics i mentioned.

Correct me if I am wrong but I was under the impression that they were going to implemente the use of battle cards in manual? I don't want these as battle cards because end game cards are already a pain to scroll through and find the 1 you want in the 10-12 or so available. Adding three more just seems overdone.



On another topic I could see 'module target' like n18991c said but that would probably require a new ship model that was module specific. And that would require plates to go over these areas so defense modules would be location specific (as well as weapon modules) and while that would be totally awesome, probably not practical at this point.

maur4395 wrote:
Correct me if I am wrong but I was under the impression that they were going to implemente the use of battle cards in manual? I don't want these as battle cards because end game cards are already a pain to scroll through and find the 1 you want in the 10-12 or so available. Adding three more just seems overdone.

Of course at the moment cards can be used only in manual combat so this would be also the case of any new card added, but since maur4395 voiced his dislike for manual combat i reminded him that using cards in auto combat will be implemented in the near future, which of course it would apply to the cards i suggested too.



As for 'too many cards' and 'too little time pick them' issues you mentioned, i admit i had a bit of a problem with that at start too. When you select a fleet you get a 'Battle Actions' button next to where the Hero spot is displayed in the UI, this displays the full list of cards that fleet can use (this includes any extra cards available from an assigned hero to that fleet), this way you have all the time you like to read them in detail and get familiar with.