Damage alteration systems do not change this calculation.





By current combat mechanics defense is highly undervalued by the relative ease of offensive stacking. The destroyer fleet actually largely works because of the lack of multi-targeting in the game. By distributing the hit area, you no longer need defenses at all.



In Summary

Simply increased lethality mechanics -of any kind- will not create the balance which you seek.

Why not just give each class of ships a certain number of slots for offense, defense and weapons. That way you have 200 tonnage but can only devote 75 of it to offense/defense and 50 to weapons.



Then when you research the bits that add 10% tonnage, etc, each slot increases by a bit so you can add two or three more to each slot.

While it is a lie, there is still an order to hits. I am not sure what determines which projectiles hit in what order, but this change might make determining that very important.



For what its worth, all automatic combat in games 'is a lie'. This just is broken up into 18 sections with three decision points rather than 100s. A more granular simulation would not be tremendously different.

Ketobor wrote:
If you have browsed these forums, you already know my solution for this issue.



Your solution has a series of very complicated problems which are hard to noticed at first, most notably how defenses interact with multiple sources of damage. If deflection blocks beams, does it block a certain number? Are they absolutely blocked? Does this subtract from the deflection for upcoming projectiles?



If they just block all projectiles via their own individual mechanics separately, then to what extent is this done? It is a very thin line you cross in that path until you have ships that are completely immune to enemies. If you have defensive mechanics sufficiently restricted, the traditional problem of focus fire on a sufficient front remains, due to the very fragile nature of ships relative to the damage of concentrated weapons fire.

What you see in combat is a lie, it is a rounds based system that auto figures out what shipes will be taking damage and with what values during that round, there is not a mechanic or a system, it is basic maths of substraction.



Focus fire is indeed a problem and will need to be properly updated as such a change would to happen.

jungle_rhino wrote:
I think a flat doubling of all ship HPs would go a long way towards solving the issue of focus fire/overkill. Basically more projectiles and larger HP pools which would reduce the lumpiness of the inflicted damage.



OR another way to do it is to actually change the way the weapons inflict damage - i.e. make Beam weapons actual continous beams that do damage over time and immediately switch targets after a kill - hence highly efficient against small ships with low HP pools. Missles would be the opposite with large lumpy damage but perhaps make them do 50% more DPS than beams so they are a better choice against large ships. Kinetics could lie in the middle.

This is a much more interesting difference than was first mentioned, but would be a dramatic change from current combat principles. The numbers on every weapon and defense would need to see substantial changes. That said, it would be interesting to see in action.

That would be the fairly logical way to approach things.

I like it.



I also like Eve.

If I could get back in to it without destroying my life.

I think a flat doubling of all ship HPs would go a long way towards solving the issue of focus fire/overkill. Basically more projectiles and larger HP pools which would reduce the lumpiness of the inflicted damage.



OR another way to do it is to actually change the way the weapons inflict damage - i.e. make Beam weapons actual continous beams that do damage over time and immediately switch targets after a kill - hence highly efficient against small ships with low HP pools. Missles would be the opposite with large lumpy damage but perhaps make them do 50% more DPS than beams so they are a better choice against large ships. Kinetics could lie in the middle.

It' looks like ideas I already presented in the defenceless destoyer rush and in a topic I created.



Post about size and accuracy/damages.



Topic about tonnage according to ship size (idea n°4)

Igncom1 wrote:
Or mabey just you know, Remove the Rock-Paper-Scissors defences?



The weapons specilising into the three ranges is fine (although how missiles only work at long range, and kinetics a short is beyond me), but how a ships armour can't stop a missile or a laser beam at all is insane!?!? and i don't mean in the way defences currently work or ajusting the other defences to partialy work for the other weapons (As GalCiv did).



Make the defences work in diffrent ways but not for diffrent weapons. Because the current weapons and defences promotes just using the weapons, when what should happen is ships trying to outlast eachother and duking it out till the last second, we need a reason to actually use defences, defences that actually make sence.

If you have browsed these forums, you already know my solution for this issue.



Your solution has a series of very complicated problems which are hard to noticed at first, most notably how defenses interact with multiple sources of damage. If deflection blocks beams, does it block a certain number? Are they absolutely blocked? Does this subtract from the deflection for upcoming projectiles?



If they just block all projectiles via their own individual mechanics separately, then to what extent is this done? It is a very thin line you cross in that path until you have ships that are completely immune to enemies. If you have defensive mechanics sufficiently restricted, the traditional problem of focus fire on a sufficient front remains, due to the very fragile nature of ships relative to the damage of concentrated weapons fire.

Or mabey just you know, Remove the Rock-Paper-Scissors defences?



The weapons specilising into the three ranges is fine (although how missiles only work at long range, and kinetics a short is beyond me), but how a ships armour can't stop a missile or a laser beam at all is insane!?!? and i don't mean in the way defences currently work or ajusting the other defences to partialy work for the other weapons (As GalCiv did).



Make the defences work in diffrent ways but not for diffrent weapons. Because the current weapons and defences promotes just using the weapons, when what should happen is ships trying to outlast eachother and duking it out till the last second, we need a reason to actually use defences, defences that actually make sence.

Hey guys, I love Es and the potential it shows but I feel that there's a problem. Primarily that weapons just seem to have linearly increasing damage and suchlike as you progress through the tech tree. Consequently the most basic missiles are roughly the same size and shape as lategame torpedoes. What does this mean?



Glass Cannons.



In other words you see fleets of relatively small ships ravaging each other with hyper powered weapons, so you have to options, you either glass cannon yourself or soley construct much larger ships with serious defences to ensure the assault. Neither of these is remotely realistic and leaves you with seriously dull fleet composition. How do you fix this?



THE SOLUTION



You create 3 ship 'sizes': small - medium - large and give each weapon a 'target size' which if ignored will result in massively decreased accuracy. In other words, imagine the early game missiles hit and damage all 'small' vessels for 100%, but the upgrades are designed to damage 'medium' ships. Battlecruisers, destroyers etc. What happens? Well If they just mounted those missiles on the small ships, then the medium ship would simply pack armour and weapons designed to ravage frigates, so the enemy has to include on larger warship with heavy anti medium weapons which is used to neutralise the enemy destroyer. Obviously this ship needs 'small' fleet support otherwise a fleet of frigates would just tank the massively reduced 'medium' missiles and slowly rip appart the 'medium'. The result? Evenly balanced diversified fleet composition with a strong sense of interdependence.



In other words: REALISM



'Large' Would operate in much the same way and the interplay between those 3 sizes would result in truly dynamic and exciting ship design and fleet combat. Imagine you fielding your anti dreadnought battleships armed to the teeth with heavy torpedos, in support two cruisers sit with a load of light anti frigate projectiles and around them squat the swarm of combined arms 'smalls' who weild anti capital torpedoes and point defense projectile in equal measure.



ALL CREDIT TO EVE



Eve enjoys one of the greatest space combat systems in history, and it's built on an infinitely more complex version of the above principle. Still I'd love to hear feedback. I also put together an embarrassingly detailed diplomatic AI proposal which I would really appreciate some feedback on. I'll link it bellow

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11114-discussion-ai-as-numbers-modifier-values-in-pursuit-of-fantastic-diplomacy

Igncom1 wrote:
Fire control systems for the weapons? why not just sick on more guns to the destryers who won't benifit from it much at all?

That is the point - it creates a paper/scissors/rock mechanic - where the larger ships can specialise against the smaller ships if they want to - obviously they will suffer against their own class or larger as a fire control system on a Cruiser fighting a Dreadnought is just wasted tonnage.



If this ended up disadvantaging smaller ships too much (don't think it would personally as they are so much cheaper to build) then you could give Destroyers/Corvettes a built in bonus or evaision chance vs Dreadnoughts - which would complete the circle: Heavy > Medium > Light > Heavy

Rhino that is absolute genius. Seriously mate I'm really impressed. Great idea to implement a lot of my plans with minor work, would be really modable as well if Amplitude let us down :P Any other thoughts people?

Fire control systems for the weapons? why not just sick on more guns to the destryers who won't benifit from it much at all?

Ok I like the concept - but I have what I think could be an interesting take on it. What we need is a new category of ship module - call it say 'Tactical module' some examples:



Fire Control Center - Increased damage +25% & target priority vs Scout/Corvette - Weight 25T

Capital Class Weapons - Increased damage +25% & target priority vs Cruiser/Battleship - Weight 50T



So the idea here is that you can fit a Fire Control Center to a Cruiser/Battleship/Dreadnought and make it highly specialised for swatting down defenceless destroyer swarms. You COULD still stick it on a Destroyer but at 25T the gain would make it a wash - you'd only take it for the targetting aspect.



The Capital Class Weapons module is really aimed at Dreadnoughts to counter Cruisiers/Battleships. Again a Cruiser/Battleship could mount it but the weight limits the usefulness.





The whole idea here is that the larger hulls need some advantage to counter the 'swarm' advantage gathered from distributed HP amongst smaller ships. I think this method provides a way that works within the existing tech tree, & game mechanics with minimal modification. While further enhancing fleet design and giving the player more choices, and control over the way their fleet behaves.

DakkaDon wrote:
I know...? The existence of glass cannons was the problem I recognised and hoped to fix. Does it read like I'm trying to create more of them? Im actually concerned that I didn't make myself clear.

I apologize, I managed to misread that as the solution, not the problem.

The rock paper scissors idea is a relatively nice work around, but I think this wouldn't be as bad as you reckon. I'm not talking about new techs at all, just taking the existing weapon techs (and mods they enable) and slapping small medium or large to them. You could do it at relative random, as long as the three way split was even and you ensured that the damage output was changed to recognise the targeted size. In other words a strength 100 missile might be relabled 'small' and become strength 50 It would maybe take me an hour to turn the tech tree into a relatively balanced triple sized system Thanks for the feedback though!



EDIT TO RESPOND TO THE ABOVE



I know...? The existence of glass cannons was the problem I recognised and hoped to fix. Does it read like I'm trying to create more of them? Im actually concerned that I didn't make myself clear.

You can already make Glass Cannons. They're also known as Defenseless Destroyers.

Do like the way you're thinking about this. Not sure if this is really an 'easy way' though.

If I understand you correctly, each weaponmodule (and tech) needs to be equipped with a size target.

In the endgame you'll want missiles to attack small ships, missiles to attack medium ships and missiles to attack big ships.

To just name a few. Defenses will just stay the way they are (without size targets), right?



Would it not be way easier to give each ship class (size) a bonus against one other?

Large beats medium beats small beats large -yes rock paper scissors. And leave the techs as they are?