I would be lying if I said that you didn't play a part in inspiriting me



However, I think that my system is better flushed out, as well as being simpler and more streamlined.



I don't think there would be any problem with keeping multiplayer swift as I am only adding one more choice in each battle as opposed to several.

I find myself frequently annoyed that there is no way to protect my non-combat ships. For example, in the early game I may have a colony ship escorted by a defender or two, but a single volley from the enemy will split evenly. Later in the game, I may have S2G or Repair specialized ships that shouldn't be frontline targeted as well. Basically, I feel like I waste tonnage giving every ship a good amount of defensive abilities.

Adds more of a hands on approach... I say give it a try and see if it works. Maybe have certain formations give boosts to different classes of ships.

Dreadnoughts have the largest military power, so I would focus all of my attacks on that hard hitter and save the others for last. It really depends on the way the ship is spec'd, If you can tell that 1 dread has monster armor and shielding, and the other has monster weapons, a manual targeter will have to choose based on sight. Same goes with smaller ships. The more I go over this in my head, the more this invalidates your point that manual targeting would deter ship diversity.

The cards deal with bonuses and penalties to your ships, this deals with which ships are targeted. They work together, but are different.



You will usually want to target the smallest ships first, because they will die faster and include Destroyers, which tend to be very offensive. By killing the ships that will die fastest and have the highest relative attack and the lowest relative survivability, you save yourself from the most damage.



If you had a fleet that could 1 shot the largest enemy ship, then you may want to go for it. However, that is a balancing issue and I don't think it will happen too often when the game is released.

These are good ideas, but basically the cards take the pace of this. You think the enemy will pull a defense, you pull a sabotage to counter it. In the same way, you think your enemy will form a wedge, you counter it with concave.



Also, I think that, if we were able to manually target ships, the smaller ships would not be the ones we have to worry about. If i go into battle, I want to take the biggest strongest ship down first, not the little gnats that fly around getting in the way of my lasers.

A rock/paper/scissors would be if Phalanx counters Wedge, counters Concave, counters Phalanx.



This system instead encourages players to look at their opponent's, as well as their own, fleet composition and to take advantage of its makeup.



I do incorporate a counter system in order to encourage players to not do the obvious and to allow them to get inside eachother's minds, but that does not make it a simple r/p/s.

I have seen many mentions of formations but few good ideas on their implementation.



@Zougkla - How is this mechanic more than just another layer of rock/paper/scissors?

The combat in its present form needs more strategy/depth, even if just some simple tactics - tacking on more r/p/s doesn't accomplish this.

I do like the idea of fleet formations though, would like to hear other ideas you have on how to implement it.

I like this idea and I think it could be implemented without making everything overly complex. I wonder if this could be in combination with the type of ships you have in your fleet. So for example, when you say Phalanx, it could move the ships with the most armour to the front and keep the others at the back. Which is just a simple example, but I think the key of your suggestion is that it adds a bit more to the combat system without bogging it down.

It's a great idea in theory, but it kind of misses the point of the simplifies battle mechanics in ES, don't you think?

I also think that each ship should have more than 1 weapon bank for each weapon and that they should each randomly choose a target. Each weapon should, at least, choose its target independently.



That would help solve the potential imbalance of large ships being attacked by a swarm of small ships without defenses that they more than 1 shot and wasting their firepower.

There is another thread (arrowlance already linked it) on the subject.

maybe we should make only one ...

I wrote my idea about formations and a second card to play in the thread of arrowlance... so I won't spam here. (hey ... wait ... that's what i'm doing ? ^^)

just the link to the idea /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11640-5th-tech-tree-military-doctrine&p=23442#post23442

I can see your point, but when adding complexity you must be very very careful.



The idea of this system is to allow the players to take advantage of their or an opponents fleet composition, as well as to play mind games with eachother.



We will only know how much it adds if they decide to implement it.



PS: Remember that I have not given any hard numbers, only described how it would work. I agree that the final balancing should be left to the devs.

Zougkla wrote:
I would be lying if I said that you didn't play a part in inspiriting me



However, I think that my system is better flushed out, as well as being simpler and more streamlined.



I don't think there would be any problem with keeping multiplayer swift as I am only adding one more choice in each battle as opposed to several.

I'm glad my ideas inspired you somehow.



I agree your system has more technical information, but the reason I tried to not include any technical ideas is because I do not have the information I think I should have to suggest technicalities. I don't have any coding, numbers, or balancing data.



Your system is also simpler, but I don't consider that a bonus, I want to add as much complexity and choice as possible while keeping the card system and expanding upon it while allowing for streamlined multiplayer.



Your system doesn't add so much that it will slow down multiplayer, but I think it also doesn't add as much depth.

Some have expressed the desire to allow selecting individual enemy ships to fire on in battle.



I am not in favor of this for 3 reasons:

(1) It encourages the focusing down of ships. This penalizes small ships, who will be destroyed faster and thus will not be able to do as much damage in battle.

(2) It encourages the targeting of small ships over large vessels. This discourages you from having a diversity of ship sizes in battle.

(3) It encourages the focusing of fire on more offense oriented ships and discourages firing on defensive ships. This penalizes having a diversity of ships in your fleet.



So I ask myself, how can we allow the choosing of targets and yet make battle more, not less, engaging and strategic?



Then I came upon an answer.



Make it so that, in the intro phase of each battle, you choose your fleets formation and that influences your ship’s targeting priorities, modifies the enemies priorities, or counters some other formation. The targeting is still random, but the randomness is weighed in one way or another.



Some the formations make your ships prioritize different types of enemies, while others make the enemy prioritize different types of your ships. Successfully countering an enemy formation would reverse the effect of that formation.



For example, if I think that my opponent will go for Phalanx, I could go for Wedge and cancel out the effect. Or I could go for Concave and make it like I had gone for Wedge and he/she had not chosen anything. Of course, if I am wrong, I get no bonus and they get their advantage. Thus you must get inside your opponents head and weigh the risks.



The formations would be: (I need more good names!)

(1) Phalanx: Your ships are targeted more evenly.

(2) Wedge: Your ships focus fire enemy ships more.

(3) Concave: Counters Phalanx and Wedge formations.

(4) Sphere?: Your larger ships are targeted more.

(5) Column?: Your ships target smaller enemies more.

(6) Box?: Counters (4) and (5) formations.

(7) Wall: Your defense oriented ships are targeted more.

(8) Flanking: Your ships target offense oriented enemies more.

(9) Wing: Counters Wall and Flanking formations.



Edit: I also would like to see the tactical choices be displayed as holograms rather than as cards. It would fit with the diplomacy screen and make the game more entertaining and make battle feel less like a playing card game.

I believe my ideas mesh better with current combat system and will keep combat swift in multiplayer.



My Ideas: /#/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

I think the intro phase should be longer, but still timed, and there should be a button to begin the battle.



That way players can (1) have time to decide what to do, (2) not be slowed down if they are both ready, and (3) a player that is not paying attention will not annoy their opponent too much.



Edit: I think it is good to be able to change your choice during the battle but before that phase begins.

Mabey if the players select their combat options before the arrival phase (Give em like a min or so) and then go onto the battle, unless you think that is so slow for multiplayer?



have it configured during your turn via the fleet screen and then with the diffent battle objective (What your trying to achive) have them in the list of commands next to colonise or begin invasion.

teflon wrote:
It could get a bit daunting to deal with quickly if there are too many things to choose from, though. Fleet battles are currently a nice and snappy affair, so I'm all in favour of keeping it down to 5 or 6 formations that have a clear rock-paper-scissors style reaction and counter, just as we have with ship building decisions and choice of battle cards.

I think that 9 is good because it is not that many (you can get many more battle cards with tech and heroes) and it cleanly addresses my 3 concerns about being able to choose targets.



There should definitely be a mention of when each formation would be useful in the tooltip and/or tutorial.



Remember that you only choose it once per battle rather than for every phase.



Edit: I already submitted it to the Summary of Suggestions discussion thread

excellent idea ! as others said, it is simple enough to be implemented in the final version, which is a big plus for me. I just hope the this thred will get the attention from the devs it deserves.