How does a starship battle works? Suggestion

from Stardock Forums
Attack vs defense rolling till the end
or (my suggestion)....
>Attack vs defense then defender's attack vs attacker's defence< cycling till the end?

The later has the merit that unbalanced ships (a lot attack but miserable defenses) could not wipe out all the others. This also would mean that in a clash both ships have the opportunity (like in reality ;) ) to fight back if they survive the first shot.
This would give some value to defense and not only to indiscriminate attacks like now.
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
One of the changes we put in last week is:

IF a ship's defense > attack then IF it is attacked it's "return fire" will be its attack + defense.

This will give ships with little or no attack value a fighting chance when they are actually attacked and opens up game design possibilities of having super nasty star bases that are very slow, can't really attack but have a super nasty defense so attacking them becomes problematic.

Of course, this also gets back to a feature I want to put in after release and that is for ships to be able to be equipped with interdiction fields:

An interdiction field is where an enemy ship can't move to an adjacent square of a ship with this ability. You would have to destroy the ship with it rather than try to go around it. So then you could have interdiction probes surrounded by nasty defense platforms that you slowly ease into enemy sectors.

It won't be in 1.0 though since it would require considerable AI work for the AI to come up with effective strategies to work aroundp otentila cheese tactics but it gives you an exaple of something we want to put in (for free) after 1.0 is rleased that isn't some trivial tweak.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Quote: "IF a ship's defense > attack then IF it is attacked it's "return fire" will be its attack + defense."
To me looks an unbalance the other way around but we'd need to play it and to carefully design ships so that none can have intentionally defense -1 than attack (7-8 or 14-15, ...) but with attack good enough to make victims.

BTW, what then would be the full battle?

Re the interdiction field look like adding a new tool to asymmetric battles to kill and retreat with fast ships.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad,
is there any chance for fleet battles in the first release? Or at least some form of support? It is still very old civ style for a single battleship to systematically defeat 15 defenders sitting on the same tile.

Paul.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
The new build only allows you to attack 1 ship at a time.

Fleets won't be in 1.0 (if they are ever in). We want to discourage the kind of "mega fleet" game mechanics that other games end up having (i.e. where each side ends up with just one massive fleet/army that goes around the map).
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
One thing I would like to see is to have a ship retreat if it has lost a significant portion of its hitpoints.

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
hmm.. retreating would be good.

I think that was brought up in a thread a lil while ago.. something about how it could be based on the speed difference between the ships? If you add to the speed difference a bit of luck, the current level of the ship, and how damaged it is, you should have a pretty good formula for determining whether the ship managed to retreat or not.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
A "fleet retreat" would be even nicer. I am not quite sure how the mechanics would work, but the concept of one or more ships below a threshold damage level would cause the entire fleet to attempt to make an orderly withdrawal. Defense penalties should probably apply. I think Robert A. Heinlein (or was it Jerry Pournelle?) remarked that many battles that would have been won were lost by not holding the line. A retreat should incur a reasonable probability that it is not the best strategy to use.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad.
You say you want to avoid "mega fleets".
One way this can be done is to have a movement penalty depending on how may ships there are in the fleet.
5 ships ore more: movement -1
10 ships ore more: movement -2
15 ships ore more: movement -3
20 ships ore more: movement -4
25 ships ore more: movement -5
This would simulate the problems of staying in formation etc. It also would make huge Avatar fleets WERY slow, since the base movement of the fleet would be equal to the slowest ship in the fleet.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
one nice complexity would be weapons ranges - unless these are already simulated.
This could involve selection of a weapon that did a check against the other ships' loadout and if the ship had longer range then the chance of fire being returned that round would be reduced by x whhich is greater the longer the range.
Also i am interested to know how weapons that are better at penetrating shields have damage calculated.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad,
avoiding mega fleets is good, but there needs to be some way for a player to defeat that level 6 avatar. Throwing individual ships at it is not going to work!

Maybe not allowing fleets, but increasing the attack value of each subsequent attacking vessel in the same turn? 1st attacking ship is normal, second is at level +1, third is at level +2, etc... This could achieve the same effect and be fairly easy to program. It may not even require a change to the AI.

I like the movement suggestion. It allows big fleets, but they become useless for anything but defense. Only problem is, what's to stop someone splitting the fleet, flying to a desination, reforming and then attacking?

Paul.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
There is merit in fleets, retreats and others, but it possibly won't mean better gaming.... but more option to manage for us and for Brad to code in AI.
:notsure:
Isn't it?

What if (to avoid mass kills) we add something like the silver bullet so that every ship can be killed in every combat, even the most powerfull? It could be like an additional roll (for each combat) between 1 and NNN (make your choice of number). If you get 1 then attacking ship is destroyed. If you get NNN then defending ship is destroyed.
It wouldn't add complexity to game mechanics or AI routines, except prevent undiscriminated/unneeded extermination of minor ships. :)
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Gherardo

good idea - like the licky hit on the engine plasma outlets? Why not make The silver bullet throw value NNN smaller for more powerful ships and bigger for weaker ships?
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
...and link to experience which I believe is already recorded (i.e. more experienced ships have more accurate gunnery and can better target critical points)
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
Gherardo,

Us system design programmers know all about the "silver bullet". It doesn't exist. There was even an article written explaining why it doesn't exist. ;)

BTW, I see no reason to avoid massive fleets. If fleets are limited in size someone will manage to get around that by bringing many fleets to attack on one small fleet.

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Jack, the silver bullet is just a way to visualize why something could happen. Practically it's just a way to limit unlimited killing. I got the idea from a game called King Maker (Avalon Hill) where in each battle, beside the result, nobles were called (killed) by battle resolution cards. This avoids a powerfull noble to clean up the board.

Steve, NNN should be the same for all otherwise you'll be going building scouts and attacking avatars just to try for the silver shot ;)

Instead of fleets, I'd like more mine layer/sweepers.
Intellingent mine fields do add to naval games and so should be for space ones.

Always interest in your toughts. :)
Gherardo
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
I think the silver bullet idea is good, but it should only work for the defender. A ship that is attacked should have a very small chance of winning (say 1/(Attack + Defense + Hitpoints)) The silver bullet should only work after a kill of the defender has been calculated, and should the silver bullet work, the surviving defender should have 1 hit point. (BTW when I say "defender" I mean any defending ship, not simply ships of type defender)

But attackers should not have such a silver bullet unless they are at least level 2 in experience -- that way a newly minted scout can't kill an avatar.

Frank
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
I like the silver bullet idea, provided it is not given too much freedom. An attacking 'mega' fleet should lose at least a third to half of their ships in a foray into the interior of another empire unless they are really far ahead of their opponent.......mines would also be really cool......it lends itself to alot of depth.