put 6-7 missle defend modules on your high Hp Cruisers = End of all misslile destroyers.

OMG! I love you guys!

Igncom1 wrote:
Doesn't emergency shelter take them out of combat, but saves them if you win combat?



From what I recall, they would be "destroyed" when they are, and if the rest of the ships win, then you get it back but with 1 HP.

Firstly, you don't need to win for emergency shelter to work. I just recently lost my entire fleet but because I used the emergency shelter I still had all of my ships after the end of combat.

You can also see that ships that go below 0hp with emergency shelter on do not blow up; instead they have this awesome particle effect around them so they're not technically "destroyed". Now, in current battle system, the enemy will not target those semi-destroyed ships (I think) and I'm fairly sure that this is also going to be the case in the new expansion. But some clarification is always helpful ^_^

Igncom1 wrote:
Spread fire forces a even distribution of fire-power, making tanks much, much more effective at adsorbing damage

Just to clarify this bit - spread fire is actually the bane of tanks. The purpose of a tank is to soak up damage and protect the rest of the fleet (hence the word "tank"). And spread fire makes tanks go "Hurr durr, I live and all my friends are dead, poor them". I'm guessing you were thinking about capital ships - dreadnaughts good at both dealing damage and absorbing it. Or a situation when your entire fleet is made purely from tanks.

Shyrka wrote:
Reading the tactics section again, I'm slightly disappointed by the way this actually appears to be worked out. If, for example, the enemy is using glass cannon missile fleets, then no amount of formation tinkering is going to change the result: they'll always use spread fire, wiping out your weaker ships first regardless of your formation. I was originally assuming that this would be done as some sort of calculation, rather than by comparing the lists directly. The way this appears to be written, unless the enemy uses something /other/ than spread fire, the formations make no difference at all. Am I wrong?

I second this comment. Unless I'm misunderstanding the description, there is little reason to select "focus fire" or "strong fire" because "spread fire" is generally more effective against both fleets with tank and fleets without. Since there is penalty to attacking a ship low on the list, you want to always use spread fire to wipe out all the glass cannons first then fire on the tanks that remain (essentially a free focus fire). Another issue that exacerbate this is the fact that both "focus fire" and "strong fire" have dead round for a target switch, making them less and less effective as fleet size grow.



Based on discussion so far, I do see two situation for selecting "focus" and "strong". 1) You are technologically inferior to your enemy and you really want to bring down a few of em before they wipe your fleet. 2) Your enemy decide to use a full fleet of dreadnoughts. Well if you're in situation 1) you're probably losing the game and "focus/strong" just make you lose slightly less badly. And anybody employing full fleet of dreadnoughts will find themselves losing the economic war due to how much more expensive dreads are. Chances are very high then that any competitive game will devolve into fleets of small/mid-size vessels going at each other with "spread fire".



There are several possible fixes (some already pointed out).



a) The most obviously one is to remove the re-targetting delay. I don't see the logic there, why would spread take no time to re-target but focus and strong requires it.



b) Give obstruction bonus to ships that are further back in the formation. For example, let's say the formation is divided into three layers, let's called them vanguard (front), core (middle), rearguard (back). Ships in the core gets a 20% obstruction bonus where 20% of the enemy fire hits the vanguard instead. Likewise, ships in the rearguard would have a 40% obstruction bonus where 40% of the enemy fire hits the vanguard/core instead.

You can also make weapon choice more strategic by making obstruction bonus only apply to beam/kinetics, so that missiles have a specialized role in anti-formation combat. This would in turn make ships that specialize in core/rearguard action be designed with more flak and be weaker in solo action.





An aside, what's with the description of "strong fire"? It says a third of your fleet targets enemy top three, so what's the other two third doing?

PANCZASU wrote:
Firstly, you don't need to win for emergency shelter to work. I just recently lost my entire fleet but because I used the emergency shelter I still had all of my ships after the end of combat.

You can also see that ships that go below 0hp with emergency shelter on do not blow up; instead they have this awesome particle effect around them so they're not technically "destroyed". Now, in current battle system, the enemy will not target those semi-destroyed ships (I think) and I'm fairly sure that this is also going to be the case in the new expansion. But some clarification is always helpful ^_^

XD That sounds silly!

Just to clarify this bit - spread fire is actually the bane of tanks. The purpose of a tank is to soak up damage and protect the rest of the fleet (hence the word "tank"). And spread fire makes tanks go "Hurr durr, I live and all my friends are dead, poor them". I'm guessing you were thinking about capital ships - dreadnaughts good at both dealing damage and absorbing it. Or a situation when your entire fleet is made purely from tanks.

Yeah! lol, but I get what you mean, as poor support ships would be torn asunder!



Guess that what I get fro playing the UE a lot with their high HP ships!

First of all: Wonderfull, I cannot wait to see the Expansionpack.

Second: I know that you cannot change much about the battle-system, so I hope you find these suggestions I already posted in the Expansion-Pack-Discussion usefull and doable:

- Since Range is a problem for many players (with the right weapons, I never ever reach close combat!) there should be options or cards to jump a phase if needed. "Accelerate" or "First-Strike", could be cards which help fleets, fitted for kinetic-weapons, or making small ships more attractive, since they engage in close combat and manage to evade enemy long-range-weapons. Countertactics could be "Defensive Strategies" or "Guerilla-Tactics", to avoid/counter close combat.



- "Formation-Cards" could be choosen before the battle starts. The Fleet will than appear in this choosen Formation and will have boni/mali. Right now the ships seem to fly in a very loose formation. The "Wedge-Formation" could be used as an attacker, since the attacker is the one closing in. (I.e.: + X on Weapon Damage; -Y on Defense). A "Line-Formation" could improve accuracy or a "Loose Formation" would reduce the Fire-round by one, before fleeing the battle. A supperior "Back-door-strike" could position the attacking fleet right behind the enemy, so they can fire on the engines and thus minimizing the threat of counterattack. Basic Formations should be available with the first military-techs, superrior Formations for Heros or late-researche only.





Source: http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/...ion-pack/page6

And by the way: are "Terrains" and "Star-Stats already off the table? You can find the suggestions in the same post.



I personally find the expansion-options really good, since I love to have many options and changing tactics. Perhaps we could use some more Formations and Fire-Options. Sad that we won't be able to use speed and manipulate distances....

I've been looking at this and thinking about it all weekend, I can't help but think it doesn't work. Early game why would I choose anything other than spread fire ? it negates anything your opponent is doing with formations.



The glass cannon model as far as I can see is only supported by this system (mainly due to the fact that if the opponent doesn't choose spread fire they can only kill a maximum of 6 ships a round, meaning the throw away fleet that's just done massive damage/killed your fleet survives). The argument that having bigger ships with better modules for health/def is all well and good but it simply won't work, mainly due to costs. If your producing a dreadnaught costing 1500K+ of production that can survive the throw away fleets spread fire where the destroyers cost like 72 production each, at fleet size 22, your fleet costs a total 1584 production, where as the opponent cost in excess of 7500 and still not at full fleet cap, you can survive the salvo at spread fire, but then the throw away fleet uses focus fire (next time), meaning you lose three dreadnaughts. The guy using throw away fleets is now at a massive advantage, he loses the fight but is killing stuff that costs two to three times what his fleet did, meaning the advantage is with the guy using throw away fleets.



Now the counter argument is using flak on ships but then focus fire negates this again with just using basic missiles, why you may ask, simple, the amount of missiles being fired, late game destroyers can get 30+ missiles per ship with no module used, 22 x 30 = 660 missiles fired, between three ships can you get 220 units of flak on ? (due to flak firing three times, you need a third minimum in comparison to missiles) now the higher tier of flak you go the more expensive and heavy it gets, it's possible but then your loading down three ships with nothing but flak, oh and my throw away beam fleet just turned up and your counter is useless. The costs don't work, the guy using throw away fleets simply out produces the opponent by a factor of 5 fleets to 1, just on cost.



The only thing I really see this doing is making low tier builds able to cripple better tech and stronger fleets, as the formation doesn't do anything, and focus fire from lower tech means you still causes damage, which is great the person in the weaker military position hurts the other guy more, which then reinforces more throw away fleets due to cost's.



As my friend says, it's bobbins!!

It's not entirely bobbins, but it's pretty close. I'm fairly certain spread-fire always wins unless you're massively technologically outmatched. Mixed fleets have tactical possibilities for formation as long as the enemy doesn't go spread fire. Otherwise there's no relevance to what formation you choose.



The glass cannon fleet you outline should always use spread fire. If I have a fleet with 3 massive armour/flak ships in it and a bunch of smaller ships, spread fire guarantees taking out the smaller ships. If you focus fire, you'll take out the front 3 ships, but I can game that and choose to put the weaker ships at the front for this combat, in which case you don't touch the flak-barges at all (and I can presumably produce cheaper ships at the same rate you can).

Antera wrote:
I second this comment. Unless I'm misunderstanding the description, there is little reason to select "focus fire" or "strong fire" because "spread fire" is generally more effective against both fleets with tank and fleets without. Since there is penalty to attacking a ship low on the list, you want to always use spread fire to wipe out all the glass cannons first then fire on the tanks that remain (essentially a free focus fire). Another issue that exacerbate this is the fact that both "focus fire" and "strong fire" have dead round for a target switch, making them less and less effective as fleet size grow.



Based on discussion so far, I do see two situation for selecting "focus" and "strong". 1) You are technologically inferior to your enemy and you really want to bring down a few of em before they wipe your fleet. 2) Your enemy decide to use a full fleet of dreadnoughts. Well if you're in situation 1) you're probably losing the game and "focus/strong" just make you lose slightly less badly. And anybody employing full fleet of dreadnoughts will find themselves losing the economic war due to how much more expensive dreads are. Chances are very high then that any competitive game will devolve into fleets of small/mid-size vessels going at each other with "spread fire".



There are several possible fixes (some already pointed out).



a) The most obviously one is to remove the re-targetting delay. I don't see the logic there, why would spread take no time to re-target but focus and strong requires it.



b) Give obstruction bonus to ships that are further back in the formation. For example, let's say the formation is divided into three layers, let's called them vanguard (front), core (middle), rearguard (back). Ships in the core gets a 20% obstruction bonus where 20% of the enemy fire hits the vanguard instead. Likewise, ships in the rearguard would have a 40% obstruction bonus where 40% of the enemy fire hits the vanguard/core instead.

You can also make weapon choice more strategic by making obstruction bonus only apply to beam/kinetics, so that missiles have a specialized role in anti-formation combat. This would in turn make ships that specialize in core/rearguard action be designed with more flak and be weaker in solo action.

Antera has managed to explain and elaborate on the point I was trying to make. We're racking or brains here trying to come up with other scenarios when we'd want to use anything other than spread fire and so far, apart from the ones described above, we're failing.



The majority of our battles at the moment feature glass cannons of some sort, usually missile destroyers. No amount of clever tank builds or formations is going to stop a spread-firing missile destroyer fleet from wiping out your support ships. Frankly, in our experience, high-tier missile destroyer fleets can threaten even heavily armoured dreadnought fleets due to sheer damage output, even using the current spread-fire mechanics. I know that weapons and defences are going to been changed significantly in the expansion but, as it stands, the formations aren't really going to change anything.



Personally, I like Antera's option b as outlined above: something that allows the ships at the front of the fleet to intercept shots directed at those to the rear. Until there's a mechanism for allowing ships to protect other ships with their own defences, I don't think we'll see any major shift in fleet tactics.

Well generally all ships should have defences, just some should have more then overs, and if your enemy is spreading fire to avoid moving through your list, then you won't need many defences per ship anyway.



And really even the current missile glass cannons are easily beat by even a few flak cannon destroyers with kinetic guns, so I don't get the problem beyond the early game, especially with flaks 3 to 1 ratio of effectiveness.

Igncom1 wrote:
Well generally all ships should have defences, just some should have more then overs, and if your enemy is spreading fire to avoid moving through your list, then you won't need many defences per ship anyway.

The maths doesn't support that, in the case of missiles, more missiles than defenses means the defenses can't stop them all, as long as the damage out put is great enough to kill the target, then your only option is to add more, at which point you have less weapons as such you can't kill the opponent. This also plays into reduced weapon cost, where the is no option for the opposite cheaper defenses. A destroyer have 30+ missiles means you need "at least" 10 units of flak, but then you have to take into account that the three times flak fires has a decreasing interception rating I believe it's 90%, 70%, 40%, respectively. So to make the defenses actually guarantee your ships survival you need to increase the number of units of the defense your using, card play can come into this but it becomes mute when your opponent knows what your going to use just to make sure the missiles hit and kill you.

Igncom1 wrote:
And really even the current missile glass cannons are easily beat by even a few flak cannon destroyers with kinetic guns, so I don't get the problem beyond the early game, especially with flaks 3 to 1 ratio of effectiveness.

I've only ever seen this work with snipers 3 damage buffs and high end flak, making the cost of the destroyers massive, upto 4-5 times what the missile boat costs, and then my cheap beam fleet comes in and kills you, and both fleets together still cost less than yours, as such i'll out produce you comfortably.

Depends how you play, Currently I have been using 50% repair/HP mods and 50% kinetics and being able to conformity kill even dreadnoughts within the first phase.



Generally missiles are only at their best in the beginning and end of the game, mid game beams are better, and late game kinetics are unavoidable.



And destroyers with 30+ missiles? How is that even possible? You would need some mid game tech tonnage boosters for that, meaning that a cheap glass cannon beam ship could wreak them all.



Further more if the enemy is using basic level missiles for the monopoly, that both means they need a monopoly and that I can just as easily use basic flak to still comfortably counter most of the missiles.



But you are defiantly a MP guy, all I'll say is that a cruiser with repair, 50-70% HP mods and the rest kinetic can easily tank a huge amount of missiles, even in the late game these ships are hard to take out, better to go for HP% traits then snipers (That really isn't needed).

Igncom1 wrote:
all I'll say is that a cruiser with repair, 50-70% HP mods and the rest kinetic can easily tank a huge amount of missiles, even in the late game these ships are hard to take out, better to go for HP% traits then snipers (That really isn't needed).

Even running at 40% extra ship health from faction traits and the top percentage health armour module, my cruisers were getting annihilated by T1 missile destroyer fleets (22 missile destroyers filled with T1 missiles with the fleet percentage damage module); for cost you need to survive 3-4 fleets of destroyers and even if you get lucky you don't have enough time to heal them all back up before the next fleets of destroyers show up. No point going defences instead of armour as you just get a cheap beam fleet thrown at you instead and you can't stack enough of both defences.



And that's 3-4 GC fleets using spread fire. If the first fleet in just focused fire the front 3 ships, the rest of the fleet will die to spread fire from the second GC fleet.

Doesn't emergency shelter take them out of combat, but saves them if you win combat?



From what I recall, they would be "destroyed" when they are, and if the rest of the ships win, then you get it back but with 1 HP.

Igncom1 wrote:
Depends how you play, Currently I have been using 50% repair/HP mods and 50% kinetics and being able to conformity kill even dreadnoughts within the first phase.

This is true, I happily kill insane AI at home with similar tactics, I also use tactics of throw away fleets using beam and missile, the AI dies horribly to this, as long as your production can support it anway.

Igncom1 wrote:
Generally missiles are only at their best in the beginning and end of the game, mid game beams are better, and late game kinetics are unavoidable.

Again I have no disagreement with this, the mid game fights are more strategic, however as you said at the start or the end tactics just goes out the window to mass glass cannon.

Igncom1 wrote:
And destroyers with 30+ missiles? How is that even possible? You would need some mid game tech tonnage boosters for that, meaning that a cheap glass cannon beam ship could wreak them all.

+30% tonnage on ships at the start, plus another 15%, 20%, 25%, 30% later on, tier one missiles weigh next to nothing, they can get up to 40 with the right build.

Igncom1 wrote:
Further more if the enemy is using basic level missiles for the monopoly, that both means they need a monopoly and that I can just as easily use basic flak to still comfortably counter most of the missiles.

Doesn't quite work, I've tried it multiple times, you need superior flak and in large numbers, and with damage buffs, +10 min max damage on fleet x 22, and jadonix, and starting damage buffs, it's easy to get tier one missiles to +300% damage late game, at that point you only need enough to hit to kill, or at least damage enough that the next GC fleet finishes them off.

Igncom1 wrote:
But you are defiantly a MP guy, all I'll say is that a cruiser with repair, 50-70% HP mods and the rest kinetic can easily tank a huge amount of missiles, even in the late game these ships are hard to take out, better to go for HP% traits then snipers (That really isn't needed).

I play single player at home, and multi-player at work, any strategy I use can be used in either, the only difference is that MP games mean Im going to have a harder job to even get close to a victory, And as stated you only need to do enough damage that the cost to produce kills the opposing fleet which cost more, If I can make 4 fleets cost the same as your one, but it only takes three to do it, i'll win no matter who or what the opponent is human AI mineral or vegetable.

Meedoc wrote:
This list evolves through the game thanks to specific technologies unlocking new formation.

What does this mean exactly? Are there going to be more formation options than the 4 already listed, unlocked with specific techs?

Right now, I feel like formations and targeting are a little... underwhelming. It would have been nice to include ship-role based bonuses...

What about this engagement:



Fleet A: x Cruisers and battleships with lots of Armour/Defence.

Fleet B: x+/-1 Cruisers and battleships with lots of Armour/Defence.



thus two tank fleets of similar strengh.



With spread fire it is unlikely that you will kill any enemies in the first round, It basically only happens when several of yours target one enemy ship. With Strongfire this is not the case as you will probably take out a few of his ship. in the second round however your ships will all be damaged to some degree but you will most likely still have them all. Your enemy however has 3 ships less that can't fire the second round, netting you a considerable advantage. In case of HP heavy cruisers Nano-repair also plays a large roll because damaged ships can be repaired, destroyed ones... well not.



It is however correct that this novelty does not change anything about Glasscannons.

Hello,



I would like to join in to remind you that you have to consider these mechanics within the context that will be brought with the expansion pack.



Here is an example (I still want to keep some surprises for the release! =) ): Long range: they shoot only once, during the phase. They are designed to deal heavy damage during the rest of the fight. They can be countered using a lot of armor, but they will be really efficient against repair. To maximise their effect, you may either use a spread fire to decimate weak ships or rather use one of the orders focusing on less ships to be sure you'll shut down at least a part of the opponent's fleet.



What I can say is that you will be able to work on the fleet composition, combining different ship designs to exploit the formation & targeting mechanics at their best.



For instance, if you happen to be using a "glass cannon" strategy, I will be able to counter it with a fleet full of ships with lots of armor and a few long range weapons: I'll receive a lot of damage, but my armor will save me so I'll be able to deal enough damage to kill unprotected ships. However, this strategy can be countered with a different setup, etc. etc...



We count on you to dig deeply into this system and find creative combinations!



Cheers,

Guess I'm late to this party. Just bought the game this week and like what I see.



One concern about just now reading the targetting changes planned. If I understand correctly ships will be manually assigned targets right? My concern is that this: One of the unique things I noticed right off the cuff about ES is that the combat doesn't fall victim to the general tedium of other space strategy games (for example Space Empires 5, Homeworld 2, or even Eve Online) where all tatics boil down to every ship sequentially concentrating fire on the enemy fleet in a predicatable pattern. The unpredictability and dynamics out of the fights are then lost.



I view the current ES battle mechanics as a creative solution to the general tedium that almost ever other space fleet game ultimately boils too and which ultimately kills there re-playability overtime. Yeah, some in the community may be requesting it, but are they still going to be playing in 2-3 years?



2 cents

LoBlo wrote:
One concern about just now reading the targetting changes planned. If I understand correctly ships will be manually assigned targets right?

No, that notion is wrong. You just employ a targeting strategy, you do not click each and every ship yourself.

All DR fleets work just fine in late game when your high production systems can churn them out, I have done this in many games. If you are up against better tech or heavy ships, instead of spread fire = your fleet dead, the other fleet not hurt, which result I have seen and had happen to me many, many times - often a very high level leader does this too - NOT spreading fire would be of great benefit and allow you to weaken the fleet. I have seen games where a fleet is unstoppable even when opponents have more production, and the focus fire would prevent this. I can see a LOT of reasons for focus fire and it could vary by round as well, so say you are at long range with short range weapons, you need focus fire to have a chance to kill the enemy vs. dispersed effect, or visa versa.

The formation thing is nice, it could strengthen even more the idea of a mothership/gunship protected by screen ships (it already works, though I don't remember what's the priority target currently). Targetting, well, the middle option seems better to me, but I guess it will depends on the enemy fleet (lots of small ships = spread, a few dreadnought = focused).

PanH wrote:
The formation thing is nice, it could strengthen even more the idea of a mothership/gunship protected by screen ships (it already works, though I don't remember what's the priority target currently). Targetting, well, the middle option seems better to me, but I guess it will depends on the enemy fleet (lots of small ships = spread, a few dreadnought = focused).

Also think of the situation when he has a few big and well defended ships in the front line and you have a lot of glass cannons.

Of course spreading fire would be the most effective then, to hurt him most.

So, now that we actually have the expansion, what are your opinions on this?



My feelings are that Fleet Formations aren't very useful, because there's no incentive to put anything but the best defended ships on top of the list, to tank for your fleet. There's no reason I would risk my glass cannons, for instance.

Well if you use lot's of small meat shields for your less defended bigger ships.



It could be cheaper or quicker to replace a few bricks.

This document is now public!

I don't know if I'd ever phrase: "use weak ships as a shield" as the requirement. If I had a couple of destroyers and a dreadnought, the dreadnought having slightly more weapons than the destroyer but the rest being full of defense, I'd want the dreadnought to tank, right? But this way, my destroyers would be put in the very front row.

Since you already have "defend the fleet", I don't see the sense of that, really.

Also: If you want to protect the supports, shouldn't they be on the bottom of the list?



And I find it nice that you have to live with your selected formation during the fight.



Regarding targeting: I like the options, but I would like battlecards along with it like "taunt": All enemies are forced to strong fire. On block -> All enemies are forced on focus fire.

If you'll want the dreadnought to tank, you'll use the "Defend the fleet" formation but your opponent may use a focus fire to destroy it quickly. By using the "use the weak ships as shield", you'll be sure that your dreadnought won't be focused and will be able to deal more damage while the destroyers are destroyed.



And yes, there are some leads to use battlecards to mess up the targeting and formations during a fight

Here is the list of available formations:

Could we add a "random" (or have that as the default if none selected), and I don't mean randomly pick one of those four, but just scramble the ship list randomly.

Are the dead rounds only in there for some type of game-play balance or something? They don't strike me as really necessary.



Sounds pretty good though and adds does add some depth to battles while keeping things simple enough.



/2cents

Simplicity is good.

Now about the way we'll select them : before battle we'll have to chose a formation then in each phase we'll have to chose a battle card then a targetting order. I hope those thing we'll be chosable with auto-battles.



About formations: will they be updated each round ? for instance, if I chose defend the damaged ships and my first ship got damaged but has now less HP than another ship of my fleet, will that other ship be put on front of the fleet ?

Moreover those ships in the "back" of the formation : shouldn't they get some malus for being farther than other from the front ?

Adds flavour to the game, I like it!



What I would also like to have is something like "Protect the motor"... In fleets, as soon as I can, I try to have one ship design with the speed bonus affecting the whole fleet, giving me a slight speed advantage in strategic terms. Would be nice to be able to protect said ship.



Other thingie (please don't kill me!), I was wondering why the speed only mattered in a strategic sense. Why can't speed affect the battles as well ? What I mean with it .. based on an example....

I have a fleet of VERY fast vessels armed with kinetics. I lunge at full speed towards my opponent to give my weapons the most time in the most effective zone. My speed of closing (and hence the length of the different battle phases, only thing remaining the same is the overall length of the battle) is not static anymore but comes out of a combination of my speed and the enemy's speed. If I am missile heavy, I can then choose, for example, to keep the range open... and so on.

Relative speed could also perhaps affect how fast one can retreat for example, in terms of sustained damage.

Sharidann wrote:
Adds flavour to the game, I like it!



What I would also like to have is something like "Protect the motor"... In fleets, as soon as I can, I try to have one ship design with the speed bonus affecting the whole fleet, giving me a slight speed advantage in strategic terms. Would be nice to be able to protect said ship.



Other thingie (please don't kill me!), I was wondering why the speed only mattered in a strategic sense. Why can't speed affect the battles as well ? What I mean with it .. based on an example....

I have a fleet of VERY fast vessels armed with kinetics. I lunge at full speed towards my opponent to give my weapons the most time in the most effective zone. My speed of closing (and hence the length of the different battle phases, only thing remaining the same is the overall length of the battle) is not static anymore but comes out of a combination of my speed and the enemy's speed. If I am missile heavy, I can then choose, for example, to keep the range open... and so on.

Relative speed could also perhaps affect how fast one can retreat for example, in terms of sustained damage.

What happens, if your hyperspeed fleets closes in faster than the fighters/bombers nominally do? Also I don't see why the overall length of the battle should remain the same. You'd only cut slices off phase 1 and 2, while elongating the short range phase, overpowering kinetics.

Also, logically, if I were missile-heavy and had super engines, I'd keep a slower enemy on max range forever and never close in at all.

What happens, if your hyperspeed fleets closes in faster than the fighters/bombers nominally do?

>>Then not only can you choose to retreat on your own terms, whatever the odds, but also you guarantee that the enemy catches a sore neck trying to follow the swift movement of your ships! (Doesn't work with Amoeba).

More seriously, I would think that Bombers/Fighters get more acceleration in a tactical sense than Ships of the line, unless the technological gap is truly humongous, in which case, they are toast anyway.



Also I don't see why the overall length of the battle should remain the same. You'd only cut slices off phase 1 and 2, while elongating the short range phase, overpowering kinetics.

>>Small misunderstanding: I see it as relative.... You check for each phase what is the most favorable course of action (if you are Fast+Kinetic Heavy = Close in, if you are Slow and Missile Heavy, try to keep range open as long as you can) and the relative values gives you the relative length of each battle phase. The system is supposed to keep track of your relative tactical advantages and weaknesses and cope with it in the best way. Does it make more sense that way?



Also, logically, if I were missile-heavy and had super engines, I'd keep a slower enemy on max range forever and never close in at all.

>>I totally agree, wonder whether the games mechanics allow it, tho.

I'm having some worries about that but it's hard to tell if they turn out to be justified without being able to see this in action.



My main-worry is that the best attacking choise might often be too obvious and thus picking them won't feel very tactical. Also the Formation-choices all don't seem to make that much of a difference.



Ship with most hull, ship with least weapons or ship with best defenses on top?

If I'd design a ship to tank/be on top, it would be all three at the same time, rendering all but the MP-Option useless.



There never is any incentive to not have the ships with the most effective health/best defenses(and thus least weapons) on top.

And if someone sees I have such a ship in my fleet, he'd probably never choose the focus-fire-option. This again would make it questionable if it makes sense to design a dedicated tank-ship in the first place.



I think it would be much more reasonable to sort them by a specific defense type.



Sort by: Deflectors/Shield/Flak/Omni



So my Formation-choice would at least depend on the enemies fleet-composition and not be always the same.



I also like Sharidanns idea of speed having a meaning in combat:



Every party picks which phase he wants to be the longest.



And then a formula depending on speed could determine the length of the phases.



Example:



Player 1 has speed of 4

Player 2 has speed of 7



1st case: Both prefer melee:

Long-Range-Phase: 16.7 % of time

Mid-Range-Phase: 16.7 % of time

Melee-Phase: 66.7 % of time



2nd case: 1 pref melee, 2 pref range:

long: 42.4 %

mid: 33.3 %

melee: 24.24 %



I calculated:

Phase the faster one wants to be in=Speed of the faster/(Speed of the faster + Speed of the slower + Average Speed)

Phase the slower one wants to be in=Speed of the slower/(Speed of the faster + Speed of the slower + Average Speed)

Phase noone wants to be in=Avearge speed/(Speed of the faster + Speed of the slower + Average Speed)



If both want to be in the same phase it is:

Phase both want to be in=(Speed of the faster+Speed of the slower)/(Speed of the faster + Speed of the slower + Average Speed)

Phases noone wants to be in=Average Speed/(Speed of the faster + Speed of the slower + Average Speed)/2

Unfortunately we cannot modify the length of the different battle phase for several reasons: such as the refactoring of the whole battle system.



The formation cannot be refreshed each round, but it may be interesting to resort the ships at the beginning of each phase. I have to check what influence it could have on the targeting selection: can it create some sort of targeting combo? Or will it rather flatten the choices?



The formation has to be more diversifies; it is just a first draft, as well as the targeting orders. When we're talking about best defense / worst weapons, it means "considering the opponent's fleet". For instance if you have a ship A with 200 deflector and 1 ship B with 50 Flak but the enemy only has one Missile, the ship B will be placed before A.However, if the enemy only has Beams, we will place ship A first because its theoretical defense is higher than B.



Thanks for your feedback!

Meedoc wrote:
When we're talking about best defense / worst weapons, it means "considering the opponent's fleet". For instance if you have a ship A with 200 deflector and 1 ship B with 50 Flak but the enemy only has one Missile, the ship B will be placed before A.However, if the enemy only has Beams, we will place ship A first because its theoretical defense is higher than B.

But having some algorithm smartly figure it out for the player takes away the part where he feels that he has made the right decision!



For me the whole point of playing turn-based games is that I like that from time to time am challenged to think and make the right decisions, while having bad results when not making the right decisions.



Having good algorithms for the AI to use is all good. But giving the player access to all of these takes away the incentive to actually play the game.



Imagine playing chess against the computer but instead of thinking and moving your pieces yourself you always click on "suggest move". That might be interesting to watch one or two times but it will become boring really quickly and if you win you will never find it was because of what you did right.



The combat in my opinion, right now is the weakest part of Endless-Space in regards of having your decisions make an impact. Picking cards is better than nothing but when compared to other games' combat it's really lackluster.



With the inclusion of formations and aiming-orders there then would be a great chance to allow the player to make impactful choices.

So I hope you use that chance and don't make it so the choice is almost meaningless and an automatism does the actual important part of the ship-sorting.



I don't know if you guys know the trading-card-game Magic. But that's what I feel has a meaningfull way of combat with it's attacking- and blocking-system.

@Ail: You played Kamigawa second edition?

I'm now imagining the Ninjutsu-mechanic with ES-ships... Damn you for making me imagine that. XD

Here is the list of available formations:

• Protect the damaged ship: ships with the highest Hull Points are on top of the list;
• Use weak ships as a shield: ships with the least weapons are on top of the list;
• Defend the fleet: ships with the highest defence are on top of the list;
• Protect the supports: ships with the most MP are on top of the list
  
  

I've been meaning to comment on this for ages but been literally too busy. Anyhow, I was hoping for something a little more in-depth honestly, good start though



Anti Missile Formation - Ships are grouped extremely close together (requires XP) that allows ships to combine flak values from individual ships into a fleet value. Due to tight formation enemy kinetics are more accurate as if they miss the first ship, they'll hit the second! (ship death can result in aoe dmg to nearby friendly ships?)



Individual Movement Formation - Ships spread out, reducing effectiveness of fleet repair modules (or something, just tossing idea) but reduces accuracy of spread fire order



Protect Colony/Troop Transport Ship - basically protects non-combat ships from damage? (Protect the supports category) This should almost happen by default. /shrug+







Admiral heroes could allow for 1 formation change during battle?

Hi guys,



We've had a lot of headaches with this features but I think that we finally have something cool. So it's different from what I announced in the overview, and I think, for the best. This new approach involves less micromanagement and bring a new simple and efficient gameplay which is going to enhance the battles.



So, here are some of the targeting orders and formations we have in mind. As usual, feel free to comment and bring your own ideas!







Rational



We want to add more strategy regarding the battle, and for that there are two new features: Formation and Targeting.

• Formation allows the player to define how his ships are sorted. This will then define which ships will be targeted first by the opponents.
• Targeting defines how shots are divided: you can either focus on one ship or spread shots on the whole fleet.
  
  

With those two additions, battles are going to be more strategic and require a better upstream preparation.







Formations





Gameplay



From the battle notification, the player can select one formation for its fleet from a list. This list evolves through the game thanks to specific technologies unlocking new formation. Also, some formations require a ship over a specific level.



As previously mentioned, a formation defines how your ships are sorted. Each formation uses properties and sorts your ships either in a top down order or in an ascending order.





Here is the list of available formations:

• Protect the damaged ship: ships with the highest Hull Points are on top of the list;
• Use weak ships as a shield: ships with the least weapons are on top of the list;
• Defend the fleet: ships with the highest defence are on top of the list;
• Protect the supports: ships with the most MP are on top of the list.
  
  

A formation is selected only during the pre-battle and cannot be changed during a fight.







Targeting Orders





Gameplay



From the battle notification, the player can choose a targeting order, which will impact the outcome of the battle.



The targeting order can be defined for each phase, if none are selected, a default targeting order (the Spread fire) is used or the one selected in the previous phase.





There are three different types of targeting available:

• Focus fire: all your ships focus the first ship of the opponent (depending on its formation). Once the target is destroyed, there is 1 dead round to acquire a new target.
• Strong fire: from the top of the list, a third of your fleet targets the three first opponent’s ships. Once the target is destroyed, there is 1 dead round to acquire a new target.
• Spread fire: each one of your ship targets the first ship of the list which is not targeted. If every ships are already targeted, the ship selects the less targeted from the top of the list. Once the target is destroyed, a new target is acquired immediately.
  
  

Ail wrote:
I'm having some worries about that but it's hard to tell if they turn out to be justified without being able to see this in action.

Ship with most hull, ship with least weapons or ship with best defenses on top?

If I'd design a ship to tank/be on top, it would be all three at the same time, rendering all but the MP-Option useless.

I think there may be some additional ship-design subtleties that this proposed design caters for. In our current games, we've started seeing a lot of heavily-armoured ships (cruisers and dreadnoughts that are at least 50% armour modules). This means that they have very low defence scores but have very high health and can soak the damage. Currently the "Protect the damaged ship" formation would work for these, but not "Defend the fleet", so that needs to be considered before any changes are made.



Arguably, a lot of the time you'd get the same result with some sort of omni 'put the toughest ship in harm's way first', but these proposals do provide for at least some flexibility. In theory, you could use "Use weak ships as a shield" to flood the enemy with cheap, sacrificial ships that do nothing other than take fire - perhaps literally bare ship hulls - whilst your big, heavy-hitting dreadnoughts (that have sacrificed defences for weaponry) hammer the enemy fleet.



It should also allow us to finally use support ships, like corvettes with fleet repair modules, without them dying instantly: put your big, defence or armour heavy ships at the front while the corvettes cower behind. So far, I'm really looking forward to these changes.

Reading the tactics section again, I'm slightly disappointed by the way this actually appears to be worked out. If, for example, the enemy is using glass cannon missile fleets, then no amount of formation tinkering is going to change the result: they'll always use spread fire, wiping out your weaker ships first regardless of your formation. I was originally assuming that this would be done as some sort of calculation, rather than by comparing the lists directly. The way this appears to be written, unless the enemy uses something /other/ than spread fire, the formations make no difference at all. Am I wrong?

could we use damaged ships as shields?

Well, here is your answer

•Use weak ships as a shield: ships with the least weapons are on top of the list;

I am guessing the 'list' is what ships are in front (correct me if I am wrong lol).

T41 wrote:
Well, here is your answer I am guessing the 'list' is what ships are in front (correct me if I am wrong lol).

but would a damage ship be listed as one with less weapons?

Shyrka wrote:
Reading the tactics section again, I'm slightly disappointed by the way this actually appears to be worked out. If, for example, the enemy is using glass cannon missile fleets, then no amount of formation tinkering is going to change the result: they'll always use spread fire, wiping out your weaker ships first regardless of your formation. I was originally assuming that this would be done as some sort of calculation, rather than by comparing the lists directly. The way this appears to be written, unless the enemy uses something /other/ than spread fire, the formations make no difference at all. Am I wrong?

Spread fire forces a even distribution of fire-power, making tanks much, much more effective at adsorbing damage.



The glass cannon strategy (And remember that weapons and defences are also being changed in the expansion) focuses on lots of all damage destroyers, designed to overwhelm enemy defences, however it takes little fire to kill enemy glass cannons, so the best solution is to use ships with enough guns to quickly kill enemy ships like 3 or 4 beam modules, and then fill the rest of the ship with HP, Repair and defence modules to totally dampen enemy fire-power enough to kill them before they kill you.



Destroyers work well for this, but corvettes with tonnage bonuses to repair modules might actually be better at this, evening out your own fleets with your own small ship fodder, and then topping them off with cruisers and up.



Spreading out fire-power will kill the corvettes within a few rounds, probably killing most of the corvs and 2/3rds of the destroyers, leaving the cruisers to finish off the destroyers within a round or two when their fire-power isn't concentrated enough to punch through.





This should technically work in the current ES version too, and should see you into the mid game of cruiser dominated war fair.

Will the formation change the targeting behavior of Fighters and Bombers at all?





if the enemy is using a High HP Ship as a shield (lets say a dreadnought)



will the Bombers and Fighters attack this ship at first?

I'd assume Bombers and fighters are the extension of a ships attack, thus they attack what their mothership attacks.

Formations are only really meaningfull, if you could assign specific weapons / armor to specific regions of a ship. If any formation is offering the same amount of dps (because it doesn't matter which side is facing the enemy!), while the targeting defines, which ships are going to die first, there is no point in a formation. Especially if we are talking about "tanking", there should be also thoughts about "line of sight". Which weapons can fire without line of sight? If it not possible, why should someone protect ships? It would only sacrifice his own dps.

Formations change the line up of ships to be targeted first.



The targeting orders separate targeting into 3 category:



Target every one evenly, target the first 3 enemy ships with 1 third of your entire fleet, requiring ships 1 round to re-target and finally target the first ship with every one requiring one round to re-target.





So targeting decides how many ships are shooting at the list of enemy ships, and formations decide how that list is ordered.



If an enemy likes to use dreadnoughts at the top of their list, then your ships might find it difficult to focus fire, or strong fire but might be able to pick of enemy support ships with spread fire, if you are lucky.



And similarly, if enemy dreads are giving your trouble, then when you warp in with your missile destroyers you might want to use strong of focus fire to ensure that your destroyers aren't wasting missiles on support ships who aren't the problem, requiring a true fleet effort to brake through enemy flak, and get the kill, even if your destroyers were glass cannons, no shots were where you didn't want them.



So yeah:



Targeting: How your ships target enemy list.



Formations: How your list is ordered.

I love the changes but I have one question.



What if you have a fleet with one Dreadnaught filled with tons of defense modules, several glass-canon destroyers and go for the "Defend the fleet" approach. Then you use the "emergency shelter" battlecard. Now, let's say that the enemy focuses his fire on the dreadnaught and manages to take it out (but the ship stays alive because of the emergency shelter). Does this mean that in the next phase the enemy ships will focus on the dreadnaught again or will they ignore it because it was "destroyed"?