Okay this should be quite long but lets start with the easy bit first.





Part 1 Visuals:

Currently combat visuals all thou I am sure are not in their final incarnation gets quite bleh after a while because in my opinion we only have static skip models. The models don' reflect any equipment the ship might have on it, so it would be a good idea for this to be reflected. Like the support moduals are totally unrepresented, they should cause some small modification to the hull. Some clear examples would me Space to Ground Artillery that should be visible on the underbelly of the ships and if that fleet is currently performing a siege operation at that start system then it should be shooting at the planet in question.



But more then that we would need visible weapon mounts, sadly again this seems like it's being avoided you can see on the models often were that weapons are located but they are internal weapons. We would need visually visible external mounts. In combat we have an arrival scene which short of giving you time to pick a battle card is visually pointless. Imagine is instead during that phase you would have the large projectile mounts on turrets turning towards the enemy fleet getting a lock on, having the beam cannons emerge from the sides of the ships in the style of old galleons and begin to glow as they prep to fire and having Missile launchers/silos open up push out the missiles and incline them to fire fire on ballistic arc kinda like in battlestar Galactica kinda like in season 3 episode 11 for those who know were to find it.



For game play vise it wouldn't change anything at all. It would just build more anticipation and tension and bring out some more life out into the combat scenes. And in my opinion given the current boredom battle scene are at the moment they could really use some additional life injected into them.



Part 2 Combat System:

The current combat system is simple and strait forward and for most people it might be sufficient. But for tactical savvy people and micro manager maniacs it's completely insufficient. So I would propose to keep the current system but in addition add 2 more levels of combat complexity that can be select and chosen from the options menu before starting a new game and a quick name make up for these 3 combat level selection would be "Simple" what we currently have, "Enhanced" details following quickly and "Tactical" which will be a bit further.



Enhanced Combat functions like simple combat except that at the start of each combat phase (In the in-game dial those are 2-3-4) The Battle pauses and you get you tactical card selection screen but your also get a display of the current fleet condition status like the one you get prior and after combat has occurred. That way you get a chance to review your fleet load out and that of the enemy and check up on the health status of your individual ships. It's a system that will allow you to get a better understanding of what has happen during that combat phase what are your damages, your loses as well as the enemies to allow you to make a better more informed choice of a combat card tactic.



Tactical combat I think will push the limits of the engine, in this form of combat you should get all the information from Enhanced but also be able to give individual targets to your ships and also dictated how many weapons mounts/types to focus on any target(s). To prevent Massive focus fire this could potentially create mechanics of accuracy lost and targeting saturation should be added to the mix. So in example you make one of your ship fire on one target it has 100% chance to it, if your make it fire on 2 targets it has 90% chance to hit on each target, if it's 3 it could be 80% chance, The more targets a single ship has to engage in a single turn will cause it to lose potential accuracy due to the targeting system having to work over time to calculate several firing solutions, this penalty could be reduced by modual revamps coming later in this post. As for target saturation is kinda the opposite were as more weapons systems are being concentrated on one ship the targeting area of the ship become saturated by the projectiles, energy bolts, missiles as well as radar/ladar/etc waves all trying to get a lock on that target it starts to generate and "electronic storm" that hiders the ability to hit the target ship in question reducing the accuracy of the weapon systems shooting at it by a % that is determined by the total number of weapon systems shooting at it. Now I forget my math a bit since it's been 8 years but I know and it should be using equations that would create a maximum/minimum lost. Were as if you split fire on different targets this would not lower your accuracy below say 45% (ball park figure) not counting tactical card like sabotage that could lower it by an another 15% which would bring down the accuracy in this case to 38.25. That same applies to target saturation. (I'll see if I can dig up my math book again and get some nice equations for you guys)

In addition you should also be able to manage your ships to focus more on defense if they are injured at the sacrifice of offensive power, the offensive power lost should always be greater then defensive power gained. You could also do the inverse but given the current state of combat (were weapons are overkill compared to defense) I would advise against it for the time being till we see more balance in that direction. You should also be able to withdraw individual ships from combat. I know their was a vote to add in a retreat card for the whole fleet but being able to withdraw individual ships from combat at each phase but keep the rest of the fleet on the field.



Part 3 Defense:

Yes currently weapons are overpowered it seems and they will most likely lower then down do some adjustments many people have posted ideas on this this is just an additional layer that can be added on top or a completely stand alone modification to the current system. It's based off the fact that i noticed in my battle reports that ships have a default defense rating against the different weapons types 9 all thou minimal) and recalling a somewhat similar problem in an other 4x space strategy game, Sins of a Solar Empire. In Sins today all ships gain an additional defense power who's strength depends on the amount of firepower is currently taking in, it's called mitigation and it is very simple. It starts of at 12% if I remember right and climbs up to a high of 57% for regular ships and high level capital ships can bring it up to 85%. That rate reduced the amount of damage revived per hit of that % and if it hat not yet reached it maximum amount it increases again. I proposed something similar for endless, only instead of it being a flat rate for all type of weapons it would be spliced between between the 3 types of weapons we have in the game. 20% would be the starting base rate for each but instead of increasing independently and freely like Sins's mitigation system does it would do so at the expense of the other ones. So if you start combat against an enemy fleet that is beam weapons only the first hit would reduce the damage received by 20% but would increase the beam defense rating to 21%, this has the side effect of lowering the kinetic and missile defense to 19.5% each. 2nd beam hits same thing happens the damage is reduced by 21%, but the defense increases to 22% for the next hit and the other defenses are reduced to 19%. Now this system could be allowed to work until it drains the other systems to 0% but I think their should be a default button flow level of 5% so the main incoming defense by cause and effect cannot exceed 50% damage negation. This system could be open to player control to lower the drop limit to 0% if they wish or lock it up at a higher % level should they wish to do so.

Now the tactical boys can probably see by now how this system could work out with the ability to target the weapons system at different ships which with careful planing could allow you to land devastating alpha strikes. An other level of control that could be added is the rate of the % of the damage coming in makes a system increase it rating. If the devs are interested in knowing more of getting a better understanding I would be more then happy to give more details but it's gonna be difficult but typing only since I tend to explain my self better orally.



Moduals Part 4:

This part only pertains to the engine and scout moduals. These modual as far as I know only have purpose outside of combat in galactic space. And those advantages can be limited as scan range barely has any real used as late game fleets can jump in to your system from outside the range of the scanner and that engine only allow you to move further, further movement can be a great tactical advantage if used properly but for most people it won't matter much. So with the proposed changes above having the engine provide the ships with and evade chance % where the chance to evade is greater that smaller the ship is. Scout modual on the other hand enhancing sensor array would increase the chance to hit and lower the accuracy lost by splitting the fire of your weapons systems, the effect should be greater for the large ships.









That is pretty much what I had to say about everything I could see in the current game to help address what I see are issue int eh combat system that could be much more then what we currently have and feel what the devs originally intended. I also think that having forms of more complex more involved combat would open the game up to a greater variety of players by appealing to the taste pallets of more people. It would also pretty much create one of the most awesome combat system of any 4x game out there. Great potential, does the dev team have the time and will to do it however?

I agree with a bit of this, and a lot on some parts, but I will say you might want to break it down a bit better into sections as this is a lot to read and take in all at once.

Yeah I know typing isn't my best to explain my ideas since I am a person that acts/gesticulates makes dodols uses props to explain ideas of this sort in real life.

EadTaes wrote:
Yeah I know typing isn't my best to explain my ideas since I am a person that acts/gesticulates makes dodols uses props to explain ideas of this sort in real life.

Ah gotcha, if you have a cam maybe you should start a channel on youtube for game reviews and such for what you play. You have a lot in your head and maybe that would be an awesome way to show off what you want folks to see.

I like plenty of this, the current system is a good way to go about it, but needs a lot of fleshing out to make it worth watching or participating in manual battles.