Hi everyone,



To start, i'm sorry about 2 things :

I'm sorry because I really didnt found the topic where all of you guys need to speak about the "card-game system", so i'm writing right here and my apologies to moderators if they'll need to move this thread, if the community have discussed and have found answers to this issue, I didnt read, sorry.

I'm sorry for another things... I'm sure you already watched this writing and this is a bad english, I'm French and my english teachers wanted to spank my *** every time...



So, yesterday I bought this game and I really love it, but like the big majority of people I think this "card-game sytem" (CGS) too much simple.



I thought about this CGS this day and I think it's not a bad idea and I'm understanding about developpers' work.

So I have certain Ideas to improve the CGS and to make it better.



I'm a programmer in computer sciences and my specialties are low-level languages for µC and µP, so I really know that erase a program to remake it is a waste of time and waste of money, I think that re-thinking all the process is not a good option, and the CGS right now is not a bad idea actually.









Before my explanations, just place the context : why this system is not the best system and why we don't really like it :

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We need to control the fight, with the methods now in the game, this is the way we need, really ! In this game we are not the captain of a spaceship, but the commander of all the fleets. We have heroes and admirals to lead the fights, and this is why we are not really able to lead all ships and master all moves, BUT we have only to make important decision if we want to lead the fight, like initial placements, retreat or others.

The name of "cards" is reducer, I play with cards like this in flash web game application, I really think this needs to be changed, and this is not hard to change the design of the card.

I think the rock-paper-scissors is NOT the problem. Why ? In all games we have a lot of choices to make, and the issue right there is that in 3minutes of fight we have only 3 choices to make, this is the real problem, so we need to make some other choices, and some of them choices needs to be asynchronous, to improve the variety of differents fights.

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I have some ideas to improve the CGS, and I hope that we'll have some debates and discussion to help the community.





Firstly : improve tacticals



Keeping the actual 3-way fight system,

Tacticals needs to be improved, and the reality of tactics. I played a lot of wargames, and spaces wargames into these, the most important issue of all fights is the initial placement, and the move of units. Some ships are around the fleet, some others are inside, lot of time to be protected (mother ships or transports ships). To simultate this difference ot taking damages, i think that we could have 3 category of placement into a fleet for each ship, we could set these options whenever we want, or before a fight.

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Critical line (default): Theses ships, like defenders or others, are able to protects damages ships, they are the shield of the fleet, so, when a ship from a 2nd line or 3rd line is under fire, critical line's are taking 25~20% of all shots which target this ship, and the ship from 2nd or 3rd line is taking 20~15% less shots.

Heart line : Ships placed here are essentials to make damages into the fight, we find torpedo launchers, mother ships, etc... they'll take 25~20% of all shoots which target the 3rd line, and the 3rd line is taking 20~15% less shots.

Safe line : no effect right now.

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So, with this configuration we could tell us :"haha i just need to make some full-tanky ships on critical line, and so they'll only destroy my non-damage ships", to counter this :

• critical line ships are able to shoot like right now in the game while the 3times figth.
• Heart line can't hit with kinitc and beam before the 2nd part of the 3times fight.
• Safe line : Ships placed here CANNOT ATTACK at all, because they are protected by all other ships and so they can't take the risk to destory friendlies.
  
  

Secondly : Change name and design of "cards"



We could easily think about new names, like "orders". For an example of background, a Hero who unlocked an actual "card" which cost dust, in our new configuration is a Hero who found a specialist team able to modify and increase the shields of the fleet.



So, the admiral of the fleet (you) is hable to use an order (like cards right now) to each part of the 3times fight BUT only to ONE line of the ship formation (critical, heart or safe line), all the rest of the funtionnality of actual CGS also are staying the same (to counter card like rock-scissor etc...).



To make the right decision, we also need a summary of the fleet while the fight, and an interface into the fight at right and left who could tell us the state of all of our ships, listed by lines, to make the right decision at thr right moment.



I think this kind of system will radically improve the tactical of space fights.









Thirdly: Asynchronous choices



The fights are a little boring because we have only 3 choices to make each time we fight, but an asynchronous event system could grow up the enjoyment of the fights.



So, we need to find some event which could launch quick response actions from our mind but there is not really a lot of them.

I think this is the most complicated device to program actualy with the present system.



I don't really know how the system works right now but I don't think there is a concept of "event" implemented, and so it could be hard to make this kind of things. So... Discuss .









I just want to say that all this stuff is only some ideas i had today to improve the quality of the game. I accept the criticals, i'm sorry if there is already a thread or if developper's team already made a decision, I just expose some idea which I think are really good stuffs.



Let's talk about theses possibility or some of these ideas if it's possible.



Thank you to listening (yeah this text is really big right now ;P).









PS : fourthly : I really, really love this gorgeous game

I like the battle system, but I agree that it could use some depth. That could be accomplished with a formation choice or what if we had an ability that we can trigger once per battle, and it would be about using it at the right time...



I also agree that it could do with an aesthetic redesign. I would like to open a command consul and push a button rather than choose a card. It's the same thing but you feel like you are issuing orders, not playing some game.

Yeah,



Giving orders is more pleasant.

Otherwise, my apologies about my too much longer post x).

I only wrote some ideas, and I really think that a fleet mangement like my first idea or something like that could be gratefull and more interesting.

I like the card system a lot and prefer expanding upon it for depth. Here are my threads discussing that: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11640-5th-tech-tree-military-doctrine and /#/endless-space/forum/29-archives/thread/13307-expanding-on-combat-doctrine-and-fleet-construction.