What about a Total War Style battle? You could keep it in a 2D plane but use formations to show the 3D of space.

Those'd be nice additions.



Maybe for the ship formation, either setting that when making the fleet or as part of the arrival time.

Spread fire would be nice, especially for what you were saying, with the big ships.

All of these are good suggestions



I think the battle system still needs some tweaks to make it truly amazing, however, as it stands it is a unique and inventive approach that strikes a good balance between micromanagment and fully automated.



I would echo you sentiment for wanting slightly more control over the outcome, rather than it being a purely rock paper scissors based system as it currently is.



Fleet tactics such as formations and fire control towards specfic targets are fairly vital, along with maybe some more freedom as to movement of the camera.

The idea of fleet formations and choosing the targeting method sound great. Would be interesting to see how this could be implemented.

1. Ship formations going into battle... formations would allow you to put certain ships "in front" that would be the initial targets and other ships "behind" that would be less-targeted by enemy ships. This would allow a much larger amount of ship specialization; you could make tanking ships, nuking ships, and a range in between.

This would make so much, so simpler.

I don't know what the Devs have planned seeing as the game is still in the alpha stage and there may be a lot more polishing to come for the battle system, but I think, and do so many others, that it needs to be more strategic and interesting. Personally I think there are enough cards that can be played during battle between hero cards or cards unlocked through research and I don't see how adding more would really increase the fun/strategic value of combat. Instead I have three suggestions that may or may not be difficult to implement in the game, but are somewhat simple in theory and should add a great deal of strategic value to combat:



1. Ship formations going into battle... formations would allow you to put certain ships "in front" that would be the initial targets and other ships "behind" that would be less-targeted by enemy ships. This would allow a much larger amount of ship specialization; you could make tanking ships, nuking ships, and a range in between.



2. Players should have two options for attacking. The first being to have their ships focus-fire on one target (this is how it currently works in-game) and the other to have ships spread their attacks out across the entire enemy fleet. For example you could have your ships fire a missile volley at a single target (Again like ships do currently) or have your ships spread their missile volley out to hit every ship in the enemy fleet. (Perhaps ships "in-front" would still take the bulk of the damage). There are certain situations where if you have a big advanced ship with heavy, heavy weaponry where it is more advantageous to spread your attacks out instead of focus firing. For instance if your super ship is battling a fleet of 6-7 weak ships that it should have no problem defeating (lets say it has 2x the firepower of all the weak ships combined). As the game is now, the fleet of weaker ships usually wins because you big ship can only fire at one ship at a time and takes 6-7 attacks to kill off the weak ships. Instead, 1-2 volleys that spread the damage across all the enemy ships could easily dispatch them... if only the ships weren't forced to focus fire.



3. Ship add-ons that give specific ships various abilities. For instance have a module you can attach to a ship that gives the fleet it travels with +15% shielding against beam damage or 10% ship healing after every battle, but also make these specialized or support modules weigh significantly more than others. This would allow players to build "support" ships as opposed to always building attacking ships. The more varieties of ships players can build, the more intricate and strategic battles become. Instead of having sheer numbers and fire-power, fleet composition and support ship abilities could give players an edge in battle.

Gordon wrote:
This would make so much, so simpler.

Simpler as in less strategic, or simpler as in it's easier to control your fleets?

Control. Also, putting your dreadnoughts in front, so they could draw enemy fire.

Camera options, I'd prefer alittle more control over how I look at the battle, not just predetermined camera shots (cinematic). I dont care for FULL camera control but maybe ability to watch one ship or whole fleet ect ect.

I would love to see some elements of Gratuitious Space Battles battle system implemented here.

I don't know what the Devs have planned seeing as the game is still in the alpha stage and there may be a lot more polishing to come for the battle system, but I think, and do so many others, that it needs to be more strategic and interesting. Personally I think there are enough cards that can be played during battle between hero cards or cards unlocked through research and I don't see how adding more would really increase the fun/strategic value of combat. Instead I have three suggestions that may or may not be difficult to implement in the game, but are somewhat simple in theory and should add a great deal of strategic value to combat:



1. Ship formations going into battle... formations would allow you to put certain ships "in front" that would be the initial targets and other ships "behind" that would be less-targeted by enemy ships. This would allow a much larger amount of ship specialization; you could make tanking ships, nuking ships, and a range in between.



2. Players should have two options for attacking. The first being to have their ships focus-fire on one target (this is how it currently works in-game) and the other to have ships spread their attacks out across the entire enemy fleet. For example you could have your ships fire a missile volley at a single target (Again like ships do currently) or have your ships spread their missile volley out to hit every ship in the enemy fleet. (Perhaps ships "in-front" would still take the bulk of the damage). There are certain situations where if you have a big advanced ship with heavy, heavy weaponry where it is more advantageous to spread your attacks out instead of focus firing. For instance if your super ship is battling a fleet of 6-7 weak ships that it should have no problem defeating (lets say it has 2x the firepower of all the weak ships combined). As the game is now, the fleet of weaker ships usually wins because you big ship can only fire at one ship at a time and takes 6-7 attacks to kill off the weak ships. Instead, 1-2 volleys that spread the damage across all the enemy ships could easily dispatch them... if only the ships weren't forced to focus fire.



3. Ship add-ons that give specific ships various abilities. For instance have a module you can attach to a ship that gives the fleet it travels with +15% shielding against beam damage or 10% ship healing after every battle, but also make these specialized or support modules weigh significantly more than others. This would allow players to build "support" ships as opposed to always building attacking ships. The more varieties of ships players can build, the more intricate and strategic battles become. Instead of having sheer numbers and fire-power, fleet composition and support ship abilities could give players an edge in battle.



Edit: Moved to G2G forum, which is more appropriate.

I love the idea of formations... After playing this weekend I came to the forums to suggest that myself. For those that desire more real-time control, you could even allow formation changes throughout the battle (perhaps as an ability of a hero). It would certainly be nice to use superior numbers to a greater advantage by attempting to flank the enemy fleet...

There is also another suggestion going around at the moment of having specific hard points on vessels for weapons to fire from. Although I see this as being too advanced to add into the game it would be a useful addition for you to be able to choose to orientate ships accordingly. Example, having ships facing broadside for full firepower or then facing nose first into a volley where the greatest shielding is.



Perhaps this could not be implemented graphically, but maybe statistically with more cards or something.

Even something as simple as modules to draw fire or reduce chances of being targeted would make using smaller ships in the later game more of an option. I like the idea of heavily armoured ships drawing fire for lighter ones, at the moment this isn't really an option.

I like where you going with these. The potential problem though is in larger fleets allowing the player to focus fire on a single target could get chaotic. Combat progresses in real time and you pick your options very quickly or else you miss your turn. In a large battle with 10+ ships on each side trying to tell your ships which should fire at which could get hectic. That being said I think your ideas could be expanded upon as follows. Some of what I mention is likely to be similar or the same as I'm trying to flesh out the ideas more into a direct UI and mechanics break down.



1) Ship Formations - The user can put his ships into formation across 3 different rows (Front, Middle, Back). This is to keep the UI simple as well as combat which I'll explain below.



2) Targeting Options - Instead of focus fire on a single ship the player can choose which of the enemy rows he wants to concentrate fire on. And he can choose each of his rows targets individually. This way the user can choose to mop up some weaker ships with his front row tanks while his 2nd row nukers focus on the enemy third row. It adds for a large amount of variety here. And when it comes to shooting past the first row or two at the ships in back it would be harder depending on a number of things. How many ships there are in the rows in front of the one your targeting, ship size difference in those rows, and etc. Shoots aimed at middle/rear rows while ships in front still remain have a chance of hitting the ships in the front as it's not simply a higher miss chance for no damage. It's a the enemy ship shielded its fleet mate with its hull.



3) New Cards & Card Usage with formations - I know you mention you don't think many new cards need to be added. But with the addition of formation it adds the potential for some new cards. I'm mainly thinking of row swapping cards. Say your front line gets hit hard so you can order them to fall back to the second row and your 2nd line will move up to the front to take the brunt of the damage. Also with each row acting individually there could be the potential for individual rows to have individual cards. Though I think that could get a bit confusing, and an alternative is to maybe have current cards do extra effects on different rows. For example "Tighten formation" could reduce the chance 2nd & 3rd ships get hit but lower their damage output because lanes of fire are no longer open. Or "Clear the way" could make it so front line ships provide less protection for 2nd line ships because they moved out of the way to allow all guns to come to bear on the enemy.



4) Rework Defenses - It was mentioned in another thread about making FLAK different then the other defense by having all ships combine their flak values into a flak curtain shooting down all missiles that come towards the fleet. That way the defenses would act differently instead of all being the same just counter a different weapon type. I like this idea and it fits in well with formation idea. Because you can then extend the idea to shields as well. The shield bubble around the ships could block lines of fire for the ships behind them. Thus the ships in the front row would use their shields to contribute to the defense of the ships in the 2nd & 3rd as well as themselves. However the shields on the ships in the 2nd row would only contribute themselves and those in the 3rd row. This would mean support ships in the back could be great for FLAK as it applies to the whole fleet while ships in the front are best for shields. And of course Kinetic would remain unchanged.



5) Preset Tactics - Most of the time I want to use the same cards over and over on specific combat phases, like the one that boost missiles on the Long Phase. To speed up some of these choices in combat allow the player to have default targeting and card settings for the fleets.



This could add a lot of variety to combat. As formations and new defense system would allow for a lot of different combinations. I don't really have much to say in regards to new ship addons. But I think with these changes we could see more specialization in the ships as they are set to fill individual formation roles.

The OP got some very good suggestions. More additions to the combat would be great, not necessarily a major revamp of the whole combat system but addtions to make it more enjoyable.

I second the formation.

And I add "orders before battle" like you say : attack the weakest, kill at least someone, do as much damage, attack the strongest, etc.

I love that idea it would make the battles a lot more interesting without adding to much of a time factor to them.

Supporting it. Battles are a bit oversimplified. Innovative, but oversimplified.