Firstly, is this even currently possible or is it hard-coded? Or is it still unknown?



Secondly, is it known based on what is available in the xml files what can be modded combat wise? Are we limited to modifying existing values or is it more then that?

Or do we have to wait until a more readily accessible method of modifying the files is available to the public (or at least modders)? A lot of the below could be done through tatical cards or new technologies and would run behind the scenes thus avoiding altering the basic combat mechanics. Below is a list of potential items that are hopefully moddable.



Combat Phases:



Time length per? Yes- had long range phase up to 1000 minutes



Number of phases? Not currently moddable to the restriction placed due to compression, should be really easy to do though



Weapons:



Weapon Range?

Weapon Damage? Yes

Weapon Behavior?

- ie lasers to 'true' laser instead of plasma balls

- ie rate of fire Sorta - still unclear on what is actually happening in the combat system, should be from what xml file shows





Weapon Design?

- player designed weapons based on tonnage

- ie hvy & light laser / grasers

- ie customized missle design (range / warheads/ EC(C)M)





Ship Defense:



Electronic Counter Measures?

- ie decoys / missile lock loss / link ship defensive systems

Electronic Counter Counter Measures?

- ie ability to adapt to an enemies ECM

Point Defense?

- ie counter missiles / point defense lasers

Battle Damage:

- ie loss of offensive / defensive / movement capabilities (not just health)





Combat Cards:



Card Count?

- ie multiple cards per phase?

New Cards?

- movement based (keep distance / close distance)

- tactics (fire off bore? concentrate fire? spread fire)

Combat Phases



One of the downfalls I currently feel with this system is to the rushed pace of combat, especially with the current card system. Most players find themselves frantically picking cards for half the battle, in essence tabbed out. I've seen many suggestions about a pause before combat allowing players to pick cards at their leisure, and while that would definitely be a god sent (along with an auto retreat option on the battle screen) the ability to adjust the time scale (either overall and/or per phase) would greatly decrease the rushed environment and allow for more space opera battle field. Personally, I'd love the ability to greatly extent the long range phase of the battle and as the ships come closer and closer decrease the time.



Weapons



Currently, I feel that weapons are simply a choice of A, B, C with very little imagination, lasers and kinetics are basically different colors, and while missiles are different due to their wave like volleys but ultimately very much the same as the previous two. I am assuming weapon range and damage is moddable, which it should be if the game is indeed mod friendly like the the developers have been stating, is it simple a matter of a changing one number in the XML files or it is more involved then that?



Is it possible to restrict the range at which specific weapons fire at? ie Missles only function at long and mid range and lasers at melee range? Can the behavior of a weapons be altered, specifically beam weapons? Think Star Trek phasers (a weapon that delivers energy as a coherent beam from the source to the target)



Is it possible to create different types of lasers, and specifically at different power levels. You can basically create this in game by using different levels of and pretending that a lvl 1 beam is a light weight laser and lvl 5 is a heavy beam. I've always considered when working with a technology research panel that 1 < 2 < 3 < 4 etc Why put level 1 lasers onto a ship when I can put lvl 4 instead. The difference would have to break down into their tonnage requirements, not their damage lvls for this to work. This could be achieved through expanding the warfare research tree, through the additions of new technologies directly associated with a particular weapon it would be relatively easy to introduce variations at the core of each weapon type. Rather then simply having Beam 1 < 2 < 3 < 4 it would be more along the lines of Weapon: Beam Damage +0 Range +0, Rate of Fire +0 Total Tonnage = 6). As the player determines their play style, warfare and research goals Beams could potentially end up as Weapon: Beam Damage +6 Range +3, Rate of Fire +1 Total Tonnage = 8). The ability to create customized missiles would create for a varied and dynamic combat environment similiar to the above beam design. The difference would be warhead selection. Weapon: Missile (Nuke/Laser/ECCM) Damage +3 Range +3, Rate of Fire +2 Total Tonnage = 10)



Weapon Creation and Design. Based on what I've described above, would this be possible? Could players created weapons similar to how ships are designed now, modules are added restricted based on tonnage and the place those weapons on the ship?



Ship Defense



Ship defense currently is very limited to a rock / paper / scissors style, if attacked with a beam do I have barriers (yes or no). If yes then do I have enough protection to survive? The system could be so much more then that. For example, why cannot armor affect beam damage instead of just kinetic damage and vice versa (same for missile damage). There should really be more overlap of defensive systems, optimization for a particular damage type, yes but armor is armor.



Where is becomes interesting is the entire concept of Electronic Counter Measures. Most of the following is aimed at missiles since Beam and Kinetics are fire and forget weapons, not weapons that have limited self propulsion available, and can theoretically evade the majority of defenses available. However, the following ideas of drones confusing missile IFF targeting systems would apply to both beam and kinetics as if enemy ships cannot differentiate between targets neither should the targeting systems ship side.



I'm not entirely sure how missile attacks are executed in game, as some miss, some hit due to chaff. Chaff is basically simplify all the above into one simplistic idea, boring and well simple. Rather simple have missile hit or miss, with miss chances increase as chaff values increase, can this be expanded on? Can players create multiple defensive categories in place of chaff? ie complete scrap chaff and create two new categories, counter missiles and point defense lasers. Counter missiles intercept and destroy enemy missiles (mid range), while point defense laser attempt to destroy remaining missiles as they close to attack distance (melee range). Other defensive measures such as decoys and jamming technology would additionally cause missiles to loose lock. Finally ship armor should directly affect damage from missiles.



As battles continue ship attacks / defensive values should increase, maybe very limited increases base on technological research goals the player has assigned but there should be basic pattern recognition as battle progress. There is limited number of attack profiles available and the more you battle that culture the more you learn. This results in a continued development race to create better weapon attack systems. Where I'm going with this is, decoys / jamming / counter missiles / missile accuracy should theoretically change as battles and wars progress. The more research in Electronic Warfare the better results. Would it be possible to apply changing values like this? The more you fight a race the better defensive wise each side becomes against that particular race? This would be offset through weapon development as new technology emerges it would have dynamic differences on the battle field.



The introduction of battle damage would be pipe dream of mine, I fail to see why it is so difficult to achieve but I've never had a game where damaged sustained by the unit effects its ability to fight. From 100% to dead that unit fights effectively as it can. For shipbased combat the idea of a ships capability to actively fight is vital in my mind. As the battle proceds the more damage a unit takes the less damage it can deal out and the less effectively it can prevent damage. Simple idea to introduce drastic changes to a battle end result. A feel lucky hits on an emeny and maybe their reactor goes critcal and goes into shutdown, or fails and takes out the ship. That is a drastic example but ship damage really should affect the effectiveness of ships, everything from damage / defense / speed.



I'd also be interested in see the ability to link ship defensive systems to provide comprensive interdiction net against enemy threats. This example in particular would be exellence against missiles.



Combat Cards



The combat card innovation is a great idea that should be expanded on, the more involve the player is the less combat feels like spread sheet mechanics, but +25% miss +20% beam dmg is boring. Multiple people have suggested ideas along the lines of movement cards, after all why should missiles frigate close into beam range on energy weapon bearing ships. Shouldn't they be trying to maximize the distance in order to utilize their range advantage? I personally like the way combat is handled in the game but some of choices are confusing. Combat should be kept simple and easy with relatively little interaction from the player, as the ship battle it out based on their designs and technologies. In contrast combat cards should dynamic effects on the battle. Should ECM be used now? or when ships close to mid range. Should the player concentrate fire on command ship or diversify fire? Should the increase their rate of fire utilizing off bore techniques (missile broadsides are fired from both sides of the ship, the missiles on the far side of the ship make 180 degree turn) effectively doubling their broadside but decreasing accuracy? I realize some of these might already be in game, but the tooltips on the cards are very limited. I personally detest the sabotage card name, as the very act of sabotage is impossible in spaceship combat unless they have a traitor on board. heh - good effect, bad name.

I definitely agree on the need to spice up our array of battle armaments, abilities and tactics. For example, this was the game Sword of the Stars II's only true redeeming feature (everything else was even more of a premature release nightmare), where the vast array of weapons, ship modules and customisation (though I do agree it became a headache trying to build advanced ships) was what I loved seeing.



I understand that from the looks of it, if a new ship module or weapon or ability were to introduced, only 1 or a couple would be developed at a time depending on communal G2G voting results sadly (I hope that within a year or so the company still remains financially successful that they manage to increase the variety of all aspects of the cinematic combat of this game (one of the game's best points).

If I were to simply the above post into a few lines:



Weapon Design (design your own weapons similiar to the ship creation)

Ability to destory enemy missles at range

Increased ability to counter enemy damage through EC(C)M

Battle damage matters

Right now, the only thing you can really change are the modules you put on a ship. Changing how they function (changing a laser to be a constant beam) is not really possible. I havent looked at card abilities yet. Adding in new combat mechanics would also not be possible since that requires new programming.

flipstar wrote:
I definitely agree on the need to spice up our array of battle armaments, abilities and tactics. For example, this was the game Sword of the Stars II's only true redeeming feature (everything else was even more of a premature release nightmare), where the vast array of weapons, ship modules and customisation (though I do agree it became a headache trying to build advanced ships) was what I loved seeing.



I understand that from the looks of it, if a new ship module or weapon or ability were to introduced, only 1 or a couple would be developed at a time depending on communal G2G voting results sadly (I hope that within a year or so the company still remains financially successful that they manage to increase the variety of all aspects of the cinematic combat of this game (one of the game's best points).

I'd argue that the Cinematic Combat of this game is one of the game's worst points. (That and Fleet Command sizes are too small) But don't you find it's VERY REPETITIVE?

Ships always flying same direction

Same formation

Same Speed

Same Tactics

3 types of attacks

3 types of defense

Battle Cards do little



Would've much preferred a longer 2d turn based combat system :P (But the idea of streamlining combat is nice, I just don't think they managed to pull that off very well and I'm saying I would've preferred a slower outdated system instead)



This games combat is such a bore I have to auto-resolve to spare myself. Unfortunately I can't always do that early game when I feel that auto-resolve will lose me ships and a battle where if I take the 2 minutes I won't. > WTB option for no Cinematic Battles option, and battles last 15 seconds, where you get 5 seconds to choose a card. You don't see anything just see results of each phase. (Basically all I look at anyways) No dang loading screen either.



If I ever had my way, Space Combat would be a lot like Star Wars: Empire at War.

Is anything known about how the combat system works behind the scenes. After looking through the xml files and poking around with it in game, I thought I had a clear understand of how it should work, but as I adjusted values and tested in game, combat didn't behave as I expected it too.



Test - Create multiple waves of missile fire during the long range phase of combat (increase time of long range phase)



worked time scale adjustment works

9 Increased this value from 4 to 9, in theory it should result in 9 rounds during the long range phase of combat, however it doesn't appear to be the case, as when adjusting weapon values for turnsbeforereach and turnsbeforereload don't occur as expected. Unsure

@ iblise, I see you have started another thread about this, please see my answer there.