Igncom1 wrote:


Considering the flat boring and frankly dumb mechanics of vanilla ES combat, and addition to complexity will prevent people from 'gaming' the system and building fleets of glass cannon ships.



A change I support.

I don't find them dumb or flat.....I'd say there's just enough level of complexity. Missiles act very very differently from beam, and beam from kinetics. Missiles fire first, and do a lot of damage, but flak is the most efficient defense. Beams are a great all around weapon, but have the lowest damage potential. Kinetics are hard to use, because they are effective only in melee, but they are difficult to defend against and can do massive damage. I think these differences are great, and with the retrofit mechanic large scale fleet engagements can become very interesting. These proposed changes would flatten most of these very unique characteristics for each weapon type



I don't know why they want to change all the weapons to the same damage formula.....it will make it easier to understand but much much much more boring. Not to mention giving the range option for all weapon types would simply make there be virtually no difference between the weapon types. The ONLY difference would be which defense type counters each weapon. So actually, I feel like these changes would actually make the game MORE flat, whereas now there are interesting, subtle mechanics to the weapon types that you can exploit.

Then we disagree, heavily.

Keep in mind this is me considering a MP game...where your fleet won't last long if you can't retrofit it or reinforce with a new model. Sitting a hero on your ultimate fleet doesn't work if your enemy knows how to retrofit properly.



vs AI, especially on lower difficulties, could probably use some more options to make it more interesting. But then we get into the area of making MP rules different from SP rules...

Tridus wrote:
That's not really going to change because of this. It's still in the end going to come down to playing rock paper scissors where if you picked the right defensive modules you're going to be far stronger than if you don't. Adding long range kinetics and short range missiles doesn't change that a whole lot.

I never understood why players, even devs, think of the combat system as rock paper scissors. It really is not at all. There are three types, but one does not beat the other. If you pick missiles and I pick beam, that doesn't immediately mean you win. Yes it is true that there are counter ships, but that's not rock paper scissors. There are usually many kinds of ships that could be a counter ship. You can scout, check what they are equipped with, build or retrofit accordingly. You can build a ship with all types of defenses, a single kind, or none at all. You don't just guess and hope you win, you plan according to the need. You don't have only 3 options when building a ship. The only similarity with rock paper scissors is that there are 3 types of weapons.

It's down to how you have 1 defence to a weapon, and that defence only counters that weapon and does nothing else.



So in essence similar to the way where one counters the other, but that's it.

It's because of how the defenses work. If you pick beams and I get beam defenses before you attack me, you're going to have a bad day. If I don't, I'm going to have a bad day. It feels like RPS in its outcomes, even if it's not directly what it is.



Giving you three times more beams to choose from doesn't change that: if I loaded up on shields, all the beams won't work very well. If I didn't, any of the beams will be devastating. It works that way with one set of beams, and it's not going to work that differently with three sets of beams that are all stopped by one set of defenses (shields).

Shields work on adding more HP to the ship that is regenerated every round.



A short range laser might be able to pack enough shots to make shields ineffective in a direct engagement, where at long range a different type of laser could work on bypassing defences altogether at the cost of damage.



Science fiction has a plethora of ideas concerning the weapon groups of kinetic, energy and missile. So to say that it won't work any differently is to say that we intend on doing the same thing 3 times......we do not.

Bypass defense altogether at long range.....well that's just flat overpowered.



short range laser has enough shots to make shields ineffective? Sounds like kinetics. So we are making the combat more interesting by making all the weapons act the same? interesting.



I understand that you can have different ranges have different effects on how a weapon acts, but I'm not sure there would be enough reason to use short range beam over short range kinetics. If they have enough deflect, and not enough shield, then why not just use medium range beam?

Kareal wrote:


Neutron Beam: Too specialized, the cost/benefit would have to be far too weighted to balance its specialization for it to be used. i.e. why not spend that tonnage to destroy the ship when you are crippling a module not used in the space battle?

The point in favor of neutron beams would be, that each "filling" of a troop module would directly cost pop. You'd have to go back to a system you own to reload, which could delay an invasion for several turns.

Affinity wrote:
Bypass defense altogether at long range.....well that's just flat overpowered.

As some one who has spent a lot of time modding, I disagree on the basis that denying something straight off like that is really stupid.

short range laser has enough shots to make shields ineffective? Sounds like kinetics. So we are making the combat more interesting by making all the weapons act the same? interesting.

As an idea it might have not been unique, but your sarcasm makes me not want to take you seriously.

I understand that you can have different ranges have different effects on how a weapon acts, but I'm not sure there would be enough reason to use short range beam over short range kinetics. If they have enough deflect, and not enough shield, then why not just use medium range beam?

Because the short range beams serve a different function, higher damage, when pitted against a tougher enemy ship could mean the difference between killing it and not.



However you are proving to be rather close minded about the idea of including new weapons due to the way the game currently plays, So I am going to end this discussion here.

I am actually going to agree with Igncom here (surprisingly enough lol)



As someone who switched from a combat Only strategy game, the combat in ES is way to rock-paper scissors and way too predictable. For example, If I have 8 ships with High defenses (20+ on each module) and about 10 modules of kinetics while my opponent has 8 ships with normal defenses and normal missile armament, than what do you think is going to happen? Depending on the missiles and flak, I will most likely at worst lose 1 Maybe 2 ships. Second phase? At worst, 1 ship because of the accuracy damper. 3rd phase? My kinetics are going to chew through them like butter.



Before you start arguing that I'm guessing, this is all from experience. Combat in ES is, as mentioned, too predictable. With this new weapons plan, it adds an element of un-known to the opponents fleet and makes combat strategical and very interesting.

Damn... this is awesome news. I cannot wait to try out the new combat when we get our update, there is so many possibilities... this is definitely going to make me want to do manual battles in the late game to laugh as my Instant Kill Super Weapon blows up someones Dread.

Digitalhawk96 wrote:
Damn... this is awesome news. I cannot wait to try out the new combat when we get our update, there is so many possibilities... this is definitely going to make me want to do manual battles in the late game to laugh as my Instant Kill Super Weapon blows up someones Dread.

I still think there should be some sort of Flak to take this weapon down. It just seems... game breaking to me.



Maybe even impose +25% module tonnage costs on a ship equipped with this weapon.

Igncom1 wrote:
As some one who has spent a lot of time modding, I disagree on the basis that denying something straight off like that is really stupid.





As an idea it might have not been unique, but your sarcasm makes me not want to take you seriously.







Because the short range beams serve a different function, higher damage, when pitted against a tougher enemy ship could mean the difference between killing it and not.



However you are proving to be rather close minded about the idea of including new weapons due to the way the game currently plays, So I am going to end this discussion here.

People just cannot accept change... especially a change like this, reworked combat and ship customization is just syrup to my pancakes; more micromanagement? Maybe. More depth to the game? Definitely.

Perhaps a special slot that changes the number and effectiveness of the ships fighters & bombers, Say quality over quantity or vice versa depending the faction?

Stealth_Hawk wrote:
I still think there should be some sort of Flak to take this weapon down. It just seems... game breaking to me.



Maybe even impose +25% module tonnage costs on a ship equipped with this weapon.

You are putting your eggs in one basket with this weapon, i don't know if 100 tonnage and 2500 industry is fair just yet, i will have to see. Within reason it should 'weaken' the ship so you have the chance to kill it before it goes off. I have a feeling there will be a way to counter it, not an easy way, but a way... wait... it says it shoots only once, the question is, can it miss? Im happy because we are getting a form of planet (ship) blower uper.

Digitalhawk96 wrote:
You are putting your eggs in one basket with this weapon, i don't know if 100 tonnage and 2500 industry is fair just yet, i will have to see. Within reason it should 'weaken' the ship so you have the chance to kill it before it goes off. I have a feeling there will be a way to counter it, not an easy way, but a way... wait... it says it shoots only once, the question is, can it miss? Im happy because we are getting a form of planet (ship) blower uper.

True. With the new targeting feature it may be possible to bring a ship with this bad boy down before it goes off. But it should at least carry an evasion cost since it would be bulky.

if every weapon type can now be used effectively at long range to counter this you could have the option of converting you kinetics to shoot down missiles etc. for that phase or something otherwise why wait till the melee phase?

EpicFroob42 wrote:
if every weapon type can now be used effectively at long range to counter this you could have the option of converting you kinetics to shoot down missiles etc. for that phase or something otherwise why wait till the melee phase?

Because if you successfully deploy Fleet Shield when your enemy has long range weapons, they just got screwed.



I'm just not sure: what is the point of having three different kinds of weapons that do the same things?

Meedoc wrote:


With the exp pack, we want to strengthen the military playstyle of each faction. For that, we're going to have unique stats for the Hull for each faction.



Amoeba

they have 1 extra special slot on their hulls



Automaton

they have an auto-repair when their Hull Points are under a certain limit



Cravers

They have a passive bonus on bombardment success



Hissho

They have a tonnage reduction on fighter modules



Horatio

They have a tonnage reduction on troop modules



Pilgrim

They have a passive bonus on evade and speed



Sower

They have a malus on evade but a bonus on accuracy for all their weapons



Sophon

They have a tonnage reduction cost on Special Weapons & Defences but others weapons & defences are more expensive.



United Empire

Their hulls are cheaper in term of industry.

Factions should rightly have their own unique style of ships, and these proposed changes are already really nice.



However, I find it already unfair that only one faction (out of nine) is getting a malus. Perhaps I'm underestimating the potency accuracy will have with the proposed changes, yet it feels that some factions are getting the better deal out of this.

Just wanted to say...HATS OFF to the game designers for sharing info regarding the expansion. It's not too often we are treated to such awesomeness!!!!!