Suggestions for New Combat Mechanics

from GalCiv2 Forums
This is a thread for posting ideas for changes you'd like to see made to the combat system in TA. Here are a couple of mine to get things started:


I've been noticing lately how useless smaller ships become at a certain point in the game; they simply can't compete with the superior loadout of larger hull sizes. So, I'm suggesting this mechanic as a way to make fighter squads more of an effective option against larger ships.

The idea is that each hull type would have an additional stat, an "Evasion" value, with smaller hulls having much higher Evasion. You could also increase a ship's Evasion, either with a dedicated module, or perhaps based on the speed of the ship (again, smaller ships should get more effect from Evasion-boosting modules).

The effect of Evasion would be that for every weapon fired against the ship (it should roll for each weapon individually, even when an enemy is firing more than one weapon at the ship), there is a % chance based on the Evasion that the weapon will do 0 damage, regardless of the actual weapon roll.

To truly act as a balancing factor, Evasion should be affected by the comparative sizes of the ships: A Tiny ship firing on a Medium ship should ignore most of the Medium ship's Evasion, while a Huge ship firing on a Small ship should have a much harder time hitting it than another Small ship would.


The other thing I would like to see is a weapon (either very hard to research or only attainable through a Mega Event, and in any case with a max damage much lower than existing high level weapons) that does "non-elemental" damage, that is ALL defenses are ineffective against it. A weapon like this would make a very good "Precursor weapon", and a Mega Event that gives one race or another access to this special kind of weapon would be a nice way of shaking things up.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I do like the evasion idea. I agree that a swarm of small ships should be dangerous, instead of free experience. Perhaps a continuation of the ECM techs could produce modules that would increase evasion. Jammers, or something. Having all these new modules to put on a ship makes ship design much more interesting. It's no longer just a matter of cramming as many lasers as you can on the hull.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd do it a little differently:
*Each ship has a targeting and evasion value, expressed as a percentage
*Components may be added to increase these values. Tiny ships attain their advantage here via the size mod, which would be punishing on larger hulls.
*Tiny and small hulls have an evasion bonus
*In combat, minimum damage is calculated by (maxDamage * (attackerTargeting - defenderEvasion)), where rolls below 0 count as an outright miss. Ships with huge targeting advantages could roll maximum damage with every shot. Given equal evasion and targeting, the roll is from the default 0 to maxDamage
*Luck no longer has an effect on minimum damage. Instead, new evasion and targeting racial abilities are added.

I've suggested the above before, for the same reasons you bring up.

Other things I'd like to see that I've argued for in the past:
*Changes to the leveling system that stop ships from taking damage and coming out of the battle with HIGHER hp
*Battles that may not have clear victors (ie, limited rounds in a battle, both fleets may come away alive)
*Instead of targeting the most powerful ship in a fleet, make it random so that all ships feel the burn and things are more interesting. To still allow escorting of transports and such, make the likelyhood of targeting be proportional to a ship's maximum HP (ie, in a fleet with 100 HP, a 1 hp transport only has a 1% chance of being targeted in any given enemy ship's salvo)
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