earlier i posted about a way to change the combat system so that people would want to mix up the weapons more and make the defenses more useful... Idea for how weapons and defenses should work » Forum Post by Basilisk83 (galciv4.com) added a few things after the first post too that really makes it work well i think and still makes people want to change their weapon and defense setup to counter their opponents. i've been thinking more about this idea and how it would affect combat, and i really think that this could add a lot to the different fleet tactics that could be used and the different types of fleets that people could make while still allowing people to use basically the same fleet building tactics they do now if they want to and not adding too much complexity for those that dont want to deal with it. but since many people like the more complicated and involved combat, here are some different fleet setup options that would work well in this combat system, which includes all the different possible mixes of weapon types in one fleet along with good usages for the different ship roles. sry about the length and complexity of the post, but i just really think i've got something good here and want to share all the reasons why...
first, summary of weapon/def changes in this system:
-Missiles have longest range and do more dmg, lasers med range, kinetic short range.
-Point defense gives a % chance to destroy missiles and negate dmg
-Shields absorb a certain amount of dmg. gets high resistance vs missile dmg, and lower resistance vs beam dmg.
-Armor gives a % dmg reduction against the hull once the shields are down, with higher dmg reduction vs kinetic.
-First defense tech gives more defenses to all. maybe have bigger hulls get bigger starting defenses.
Different fleet setup options:
-Missile & kinetic- Kinetic are best at taking down shields, and missiles will to the most dmg when the shields are down, so this would be a great combo esp when having something like small interceptor fighters with high kinetic dmg go in first and take out the shields, while larger ships fired missiles from behind.
-Missile & beam- beam arent as good at taking down shields as kinetic, but still the same tactics as above could be used, and the beams would do more dmg vs the hull than kinetic once the shields are down, making both missile fleet builds useful and able to adjust to defenses.
-Beam % kinetic- go in quick and have kinetic take down the shields quickly and beam cut through the hull. this would be an esp good option for people who dont like having a % chance that their missiles will be destroyed and want something that involves a little less luck.
-Beam, kinetic, & missile- if you want to go through the trouble of researching all 3, you'll be rewarded will a good mix that can take down shields and hulls quickly even if the enemy has good defenses.
-Any one by itself- currently how things usually work. easiest to research. can get high % boosts to help counter defenses. more simple and easier to do for those who dont like the complexity of mixing the types, but still very effective with those % boosts until higher defenses against that weapon type are used, at which point you could just switch to a different weapon type like in the current system.
With a ranged system like this too, ships with longer range could try to stay out of range of the shorter range ships, making it possible to have things like bigger carrier and missile ships sitting behind with med beam ships in the mid and small kinetic fighters to get into close range fast. or having big ships with multiple kinds of weapons so they can stay more in the back but still have some good extra weapons for when ships get too close. or any kind of combo that people can come up with that they like. the smaller ships could have decent defenses for survivability, or they could just be packed with something like beams and/or kinetic and just worry about taking down shields and/or hulls. and with shields and armor being useful against everything more people will want to use them because people wont have to worry about the fact that those defenses might be useless for them. the point defense still might be useless, but point defense is all about that % chance in this system anyway and missiles hit hard when the shields are down...
some other ideas for this system include weapons and defenses that are a little stronger than regular, but are only 1 per ship. includes mixing the different types too, so, for example, you could have a 1 per ship item that adds to both your shields and point defense, which would give that ship really good extra protection vs missiles, a bit vs beams, and a little vs kinetic too. there could be all kinds of different combos that could work very well for many kinds of different ships. and with them being 1 per ship it shouldnt get too op, but should help more at the start for making more complex ships if ppl want to.
the main hope of this system is that it appeals to as many different types of people as possible, making the game more fun for as many different people as possible. simple for the people who want it simple, and more complex for everyone who's more into that, and everything in between. a system that really rewards players for researching different weapon/defense types, but still makes it viable to make basically the same types of fleets they're making already if they're already happy doing that and dont want to change things. but a system that also adds another layer of use to all the ship roles already in the game too, esp if longer range ships are trying to stay out of the range of shorter range ships and people are trying to do things like take down shields before missile volleys hit.
I hope any of this helps, love the game so far and ty to everyone who's been working on it, you guys rock!
Maybe? This is such a radical change to how combat works that I don't see how it could possibly be considered as part of 1.0. I'd like to see it deferred to an expansion so that it could be evaluated fairly without the urgency to getting the game released.
Thank you right now the ships and fleets seem more simple to me than in gal civ 3. i really think a bigger change like this would be very helpful in giving people a more complex system, which they're prob expecting, than something very similar or even less complex, which would prob disappoint many people. gotta remember, a lot of approval is based off of expectation i know it might take a while to implement and perfect, but i really think it would be worth it in the long run.
maybe the point defense could give like a 10% or 20% chance per point to destroy one incoming missile. this would make a small number of missiles per volley easier to destroy, but a lot of missiles could overwhelm a small amount of defenses. could have each ship in your fleet able to target any enemy missile within range, 1 chance per volley (or once every couple secs or so) per point of point defense. that way a fleet that all has a lot of point defense would be able to help protect each other. this would also make ships like guardians much better at protecting the bigger ships. later missile research tech could make stronger missiles that also give the missiles a better chance to avoid the point defense to help balance things out.
updated these posts a couple times...
I thought I'd add a few comments to what you're describing.
I was under the impression this was the case in GC3. Regardless, this makes sense as long as it is balanced right.
I actually agree with this, it makes point defenses feel like an actual point defense system.
This actually is a good idea as well if you want to make shields more similar to how we think of them in the movies. It always kind of bugged me shields only prevent one type of damage.
Again makes armor work much more similar to how it does in real life.
This is good because it sets larger ships apart however I don't think it really goes far enough.
Things I like about your proposed system:
- The weapons and especially defense systems while more complicated act more like they would in the movies/real life.
- There is more variability than the mostly rock/paper/scissors dynamic that currently exists.
- Fleet design has the potential to be more interesting when choosing what types of ships and weapons to field.
What I don't like about the system:
- Unfortunately a lot of Gal Civ players use the predesigned ships listed to them rather than building out their own. The A.I. that creates and lists predesigned ships needs to get much more complicated.
- Information about how each of the defense types work will need to be easily determined by the player.
- Balancing will be extremely difficult. The goal is to make sure that no single fleet design is the best. As soon as I could research carriers I had won the game in GC3. So much so that I had to stop using them because they just ruined the game for me. Even against Incredible A.I.
Overall I understand where you want to go with this, but I think it is pretty complicated. I also don't think it achieves the goal I want to see. I have stated this in a couple places, but the biggest problem I have with the GC3 is that I really don't have a reason to build fleets with variable hull types. Tiny and small ships die too quickly and large and huge ships can't fire fast enough to destroy carrier swarms so I end up building medium combat ships with a supporting large or huge ship.
This makes battles pretty bland after I've watched the first few because they all play out the same way. If you haven't seen it, I gave my thoughts on how I would adjust ship roles to make each ship size unique in this forum post.
https://forums.galciv4.com/509104/page/1/#3830841
I'll admit it can use some work, and it was just a first stab. I think elements of this plus some elements of your system could drastically improve ship combat. That or make things so complicated to figure out that the A.I. can't put up a fight because it doesn't know what ships to build.
thank you for the feedback. first, i really like your ideas to change ships roles more. all that dmg against different kinds of ships might be a little complex though, maybe instead a similar effect could be achieved by adjusting that dodge change and accuracy more. smaller ships could have higher dodge chances, accuracy could be changed so that hull size also effects accuracy, smaller ships could be more accurate. missiles are very accurate, beams are med accuracy, and kenetic is less accurate. this would make things like smaller ships better at being kenetic and being more accurate while being able to dodge larger kenetic ships better and be more effective than them, giving people a reason to want to have small kinetic fighters more than med ones.
and i totally get what you're saying about the complexity of my system. hopefully though, people will still be able to use basic strategies if they want to without learning everything, but those extra layers of stuff will still be there for those who want it.
as for the AI, maybe we can have players routinely submit their fav ship and fleet designs, and turn those into the default fleet designs for the AI to use, maybe even make it a contest for the gal civ community or something. and yeah, balancing is always hard, usually some op things will be found until the next big patch comes out to balance it, but that's also part of the fun of the game, is finding those ways that things work best for the style that you want to play and using it. updates that change it might also make people want to play more so that they can find new tactics that they like once theirs aren't quite so good anymore. the complexity of the system would also make it pretty easy to go in and just make small changes once things are found to be too op. gotta have a system complex enough where u can make small changes here and there to balance rather than big ones that totally change the game more. it might be very simple and easy for everyone to understand if all weapons and defenses are basically the same, but judging from what other games can do, i think that a lot of people are really looking for something a little more in-depth. the expectation of people to have combat be "upgraded" from gal civ 3 seems to be fairly high...
another thing i like about that whole "smaller ships are more accurate and have better dodge" thing is that people would want to use the smaller and even tiny ships more in general, esp against the larger ships since those tiny ships would be so small that they're avoiding their turbo lasers, and stuff, so they'll want to destroy them ship to ship, with bigger ships providing cover, bonuses, and using missiles and maybe beams to try to target the small fighters, or all 3 types to target the other bigger ships. would be a good counter to carriers to have a fleet include some small ships with decent defenses that could use their accuracy to help quickly take out those interceptors before they can do too much dmg. lots of good ways to mix up the different ship sizes and types in a fleet with a system like that. bigger ships could be very useful for adding point defense to help defend the smaller ships against high accuracy missiles.
i just wanted to point out that i also think that the accuracy/dodge changes along with the point defense % chance change would really play into the whole aspect this game is trying to go for right now of trying to make it so that no two games are ever alike even more than before. with these changes almost no 2 battles would ever be alike! which would be really nice for the battle viewer viewers.
I get that my system would be complex and would probably need to be added in an expansion. You're right that your system could probably be ignored by more casual players who don't want to dive into the mechanics and find the best fleet. Hopefully more the intelligent A.I. will have better ship building skills (or use player made ones submitted to stardock) rather than massive bonus's to it's research and manufacturing.
To restate what you laid out on the last couple posts from my understanding what you're implying with the dodge system is that smaller ships would have a higher chance to dodge damage from larger ships. This does make smaller ships more viable but really doesn't solve the problem overall. It will just regulate large ships to being carriers to counter swarms which is what I wanted to avoid. I also don't like the idea of making it so certain hull sizes are best with certain weapons a because it limits my options vs stronger A.I.
The problem that I am trying to highlight here is that in GC3 the combat system was very skewed towards a swarm of tiny ships.
This is caused by the fact that a ship can only target one ship at a time. If a huge ship has 6 powerful lasers, it can still only fire at one ship before recharging. If it is fighting a swarm it can only take down one ship at a time which is far to slow and it is often annihilated in two volley's from the swarm. There was no way to give a huge ship enough armor to even give it a chance.
You could build a swarm of your own tiny ships, but carriers where by far the most effective means because building that many small ships could become tedious.
You could make it so large ships fire faster, or tiny ships do less damage to them, but it is easy to skew the battle to either side. However this would probably be the easiest and quickest way to provide some balance to this dynamic. The system I proposed gives a lot more depth to this idea.
The goal of the player in combat is to maximize ship survivability and logistic points per weapon/armor/other. Currently large and huge hulls fail to come close to achieving any of these goals.
i think that the way to make large hulls more useful is to base their starting defenses off of the hull size. that would make a swarm of tiny ships not as useful since it would take a lot more time for them to take down each target. it would be hard for the large ships to target the tiny ships with the accuracy/dodge changes so the large ships wouldnt be too op either though, but might encourage people to do a mix of ships, like maybe those smaller swarms could do a lot more dmg if they had a few support ships in the back boosting their attack, and/or healing them, and/or providing them with extra point defense against high accuracy missiles. but the large ships could provide an equal force by having smaller ships that could be designed to protect them from swarms by using high accuracy to quickly target the tiny swarm ships that have low defenses. mixes of all hull sizes could be used to best counter other hull sizes. tiny ships to help target smaller, hard to hit ships or dodge attacks from bigger hulls while still inflicting dmg. mid ships that could do ok, but not best by itself, against all hull sizes, kinda the jack of all trades. and large hulls could be best for survivability with lg hp and defenses, supporting the fleet, and best at damaging other med and larger hulls.
this would also make it so that any type of weapon could be used on any hull and still be useful in the right fleet. huge hulls could still have kinetic weapons that would do really well against other large hulls, and pretty good against med hulls, but would not be very good vs a bunch of tiny ships that can dodge them really well. in a fleet that has a bunch of swarm defense these ships would still be very useful for support and against any other bigger ships supporting the swarms
My thoughts would also require a change in the tactical settings one could assign to ships in the designer.Missiles: Slow firing. Long range High damage *High damage in cases of unarmored vessels*Beam: Ave fire, med range, med damage No change in damage against unarmored vessels Kinetic: Very fast firing, short range, low damage per shot. **Very high damage in cases of unarmored vessels**Point Defenses have no effect on Beam weapons, however they CAN attack small vessels and fighters X% chance of destroying Missiles X/2% chance of destroying kinetics Armor: Good against all types of damage. Can have different types like Laminar: Stronger against missiles and kinetic, Mirror: Weak against Kinetic but very strong against Beam etc. Shields: Limited effect on Kinetic, med effect on Missiles, and High effect against Beam. All ships should start with Armor.. add shields and PD as they desire. But the point is by changing how ships behave in the designer you can have a missile ship that says far out of range lobbing very slow missiles, or a very fast kinetic ship that closes as fast as it can to machine gun the enemy.Different strats would come into play and it would not simply be rock/paper/scissors.
nice, overall i like it, lots of counters to diff things and defenses affecting multiple things. few possible issues i see though...
the problem i think that there might be with a rate of fire change (even though it does make sense) is that there are a lot of things that add base dmg and % dmg, and with that rate of fire change i think the kinetic would become op since kinetic dmg increases would benefit them most, esp if defenses were better and thus made it easier for ships to get into kinetic range. i think all the other increases in the game would have to be adjusted to compensate, and that's a lot of time and work in addition to everything else. maybe for the expansion
the defenses are also a little more complex than mine i think, and dont have the added benefit of trying to have the tactic of taking down shields so that missiles can do more dmg. if defenses are better then missiles need to have another tactic besides just outranging the enemy, or else close-range ships will just swoop in and win with higher sustained close-range dmg every time.
the whole point of my idea of having shields and point defense both being used against missiles is to make the missile actually detonate far away from the hull. once it actually reaches the hull i think that it should do a large amount of dmg.
if some, more complex fleets, end up being better than more simple ones, then the hardest AI difficulty settings could use the best ships/fleets. the easiest difficulty settings could use the simpler fleets, and med difficulties could use the in-between ones. this would gradually show players that best way to maximize fleet effectiveness and maybe give them new ideas on how to build their own fleets.
and i already posted this in the battle viewer section but it works so well for this system i wanted to post it here too...
maybe there could be different "targeting patterns" so your fleet could choose what order to target the different types of ships before battles if you want to. you could order your ships to go after their support ships first, or capital, or maybe try to target the early interceptors and assault fighters first before moving on to their bigger ships. you could have a default targeting pattern set up and only change it when you think that specific battle calls for it, making it much less tedious since most battles you'll prob be using your default.
i also think that the firing rate of weapons should be equalized for now (considering all the base and % boosts, this is easier and makes sense for now). this way you can think of the dmg as total dmg each weapon can do in the few secs it takes to fire and reload a missile. i think this would simplify things nicely without taking anything away from combat.
i really think that the current "tactical speed" stat makes no sense to anyone. if it was replaced with accuracy and dodge bonuses based on hull sizes it would be much simpler and easier for everyone to understand what it does.
To your last post.... thrusters were pointless in GCIII if tactical speed helped in closing with the enemy.. or keeping away from the enemy.. or significantly affected hit rates. They would matter.
the problem i think that there might be with a rate of fire change (even though it does make sense) is that there are a lot of things that add base dmg and % dmg, and with that rate of fire change i think the kinetic would become op since kinetic dmg increases would benefit them most, esp if defenses were better and thus made it easier for ships to get into kinetic range. i think all the other increases in the game would have to be adjusted to compensate, and that's a lot of time and work in addition to everything else. maybe for the expansion the defenses are also a little more complex than mine i think, and dont have the added benefit of trying to have the tactic of taking down shields so that missiles can do more dmg. if defenses are better then missiles need to have another tactic besides just outraging the enemy, or else close-range ships will just swoop in and win with higher sustained close-range dmg every time.
If we are making defenses more effective across the board then my assumption would be that no one would be single weapon.
my idea was that missiles should be a little better than beam and kinetic. highest dmg to hull, longest range, best accuracy. making missiles have a very different feel than beam and kinetic, and would also give them a very interesting feel when combined with beam and/or kinetic. to counter all the benefits they have, i was thinking that defenses should be more effective against them. this stops the whole r/p/s feel and gives missiles a much more unique feel. Best accuracy, and if they can get through the defenses they do max dmg. much more based on luck than the other 2 types unless there is a big accuracy/dodge difference, but with the potential to do the most dmg to the hull.
it would work just fine with all the ships roles already currently in the game.
but that would give kinetic no chance and make it no fun for anyone using kinetic who has that tactic used against them. accuracy and dodge changes based on hull type would still give every type a chance. huge kinetic ships would still have a small chance to hit tiny fighters, for example.
How beam and kinetic weapons could be more diverse and unique under this system...
Kinetic: make kinetic cost less to build than the other types to help offset the lower accuracy and range. thullium is also arguably easier to mine and more common than elerium so it's already easier to produce a bunch of upgraded kinetic ships than beam ones. also easier to find than elerium or antimatter since u can see the star color from far away. kinetic weapons are something we already have, unlike beams. they should be cheaper and faster to make but close range and lower accuracy for balance.
Beam: beam weapons have a little more accuracy and longer range than kinetic, so they should cost more to make to compensate for that. elerium is also the hardest resource to mine since they're usually not bunched up together like the other types, so you should get the benefit of a slightly more powerful weapon overall, but takes longer to build such an advanced weapon and uses rarer resources to make.
and yeah, maybe replace most of those base dmg bonuses with higher % bonuses. this would make tiny swarm ships less OP, which seems to be a problem. that idea came from the discussion on this thread btw... GalCiv IV Dev Journal #16 - The Battle Viewer » Forum Post by Frogboy (galciv4.com)
The sequel thread. I'll ask someone from the team to take a look but again no promsies as major reworks would be a lot of time investment.
You are right. Im going to normalize rate of fire and accuracy. It's so tough for people to accurately gauge what is best (or what is causing them to win or lose battles) with so much variance. Rate of fire and range was so much more important than attack that it was misleading when players were trying to figure out which ship to build or which fleet will win the battle.
thank you both very much. i really hope some of this helps
Hi,
Just to clarify and correct some assertions (missiles have the best range, large and huge hull are useless due to one target system, swarm of little ships crushes everything, carriers are unavoidable to get the best fleet). Kynetic weapons and medium hull carrier is the best combo I found in GC3 because it combines the best range and rate of fire, the biggest swarn of little kynetic fighters and the best moves on strategic map.
Some pics to give evidences and explain
As you can see, missiles don't have the best range, even if you add bonuses from modules. I don't know how it is in GC4.
Huge and large ships aren't useless in every case. A swarm of beam or missile ships or kynetic fighter without enough support modules are not a threat vs large ships with modules to slow down opponents in battle and with kynetic weapons and related support modules due to the rate of fire of kynetic weapons, even in one target system.
Another point is that it's easier, faster and cheapier for player with few good shipyards to build a fleet composed by 9 large or 4 huge ships than 20 medium ships due to one ship build per turn system (per shipyard).
A swarm of little ships crushes everything in my case because it's provided by a fleet of carriers giving enough bonuses to make them invincible (range and rate of fire + damage + number of fighters). The same swarm without bonuses from carriers would be easy to defeat and would have a little move on map what is easy to flee or to bypass if needed.
In the current state, in GC3, carriers are unavoidable to get the best fleet like shown above.
For the rest, Basilisk83, I think you suggested a good idea by making different defense's types interactive rather than just coexistent (edited) (as it is currently).
But I disagree with your idea to normalize rate of fire because it's not just about an amount of damage in a period of time. Making that, you put reactivity aside. I mean ability to change of target quicker with some weapons than anothers (and it's ultra important in a one target system). For example: 2sec to reload and fire a missile; 0.5sec to shoot a bullet. While you reload and fire a missile in 2sec on one target, you can shoot bullet on 4 targets at 0.5sec. In my opinion, it's important to not normalize rate of fire.
Halicide, I agree with you that "one target at a time system" asks to be replaced. I have an idea for that, but it's late here so I'll come tomorrow to develop it.
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