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!
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 additive (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.
Thank you for the feedback. while i agree that rate of fire is def fun to play around with (i really liked using kinetic in gal civ III for the rate of fire aspect too) it's also very hard for both programmers and players to understand and balance correctly, as you can see since kinetic is best for you in gal civ III due to rate of fire. all the base bonuses that everything gives would have to be played around with a lot to get it to work right, which would take a lot of time and work, and if it was balanced right then the only real bonus it would give you in combat is the ability to do better against small ships, which is also the main benefit of creating a system to target multiple ships. since this can already be achieved much easier i think by modifying the current system to have smaller ships just do less dmg and/or giving bigger hulls better defenses, i dont think that it makes sense for them to put the extra time and effort into making and perfecting such complex systems now along with everything else when time is of the essence.
if it helps you can think of that extra 1 to 1.5 secs as the time it takes to acquire and start to track a new target
Hi,
From the moment you use different kinds of weapons with different stats, you have trouble to balance. How more you have stats, how more you have sources of modificator, how more it will be tricky to balance but on the other hand brings depth to the system.
Do you think bringing more discrimination between weapon types with your defense system rework (what I like) won't bring more difficulties to understand and balance weapons that what firing rate already does?
Your example with 1.5 sec to acquire and track new target is wrong because if I keep the same target (do not spend time to acquire and track a new one), with your normalized firing rate, a kinectic weapon would be as slow as fire a missile. The normalization could be accepted imagining that a kinetic weapon shoots in bursts of projectiles. But once again, you lose reactivity you have currently.
Here is the idea:
Currently, in GC space battles, ships are defined by their:
Bonuses from modules can apply modificators on many of these aspects writen above (decreasing ennemies' tactical speed, providing shield to the fleet, increasing range of a weapon type...).
Identical modules can be found as well on board smallest ship as on board tallest ones.
Each ship deals all its damages to one target in range for this kind of weapon.
What could be changed:
1. in range/out of range, nothing to say.
2. Ship role could lean on three aspects: own ship role automatically given by modules used on board or manually given, a target priority list predefined by your own ship role or manually set similarly to civ's priorities list and finally, a balance between "opportunity" and "threat" overriden by an "absolute priority" marker in the target priority list.
some examples:
A. I've got a ship with target priority list (1. support - 2. interceptor - 3. assault - 4. escort - 5. guardian - 6. capital), in front of three ships, one support, two assaults. the support and an assault ships are in range of my ship, they are "opportunities". The last assault (out of range) is not an opportinity. My ship is in range of the assault ship but not of the support one. Then, the assault ship is a threat in addition to be an opportunity. In this case, my ship will first shoot on the assault that can shoot on me instead of the support even if this last is higher in my priority list.
B. Same configuration but support has an "absolute priority" in addition in my list. So my ship will ignore the threat in the person of the assault ship and will focus his weapons against the support, even if it's not a threat.
C. We can imagine an deeper "absolute priority". Here the two assaults are in range of mine and mine is in range of them. The support one stays out of my range. Because I defined in my priority list support being "absolute absolute priority" and because there's an support ship in the battle space, even out of range, my ship will shoot on its ennemies in range but keeping moving to its main target and will focus its weapons on it as soon as it reach it. A behaviour interresting for ship with high dodge value, for example or to create a diversion.
A last point about ship role. It could be nice to have possibility to assign order to stay out of range or close of some other ships for some roles like support or guardian, for example.
3. About hull size nothing to say expect that for me, the number of modules (in GC4) or mass (in GC3) would define the hull size. The contents define the container, not the opposite. We invent and produce containers for specific contents, and not produce random containers because maybe we'll need these kinds of containers in the future. Maybe it could help with the problem that AI doesn't get big hulls techs if hull size doesn't depend of techs.
4. tactical speed is a little bit tricky because, currently, small ships are faster than big ones. This way, small ships rush first letting big ones behind, in place to stay in formation and start to rush when big ships are close or already able to shoot and bring fire support.
You'd think you're watching a Game of Thrones battle here.
5. as tactical speed is already affected by hull size and modules on board, we can imagine to use it to define a basic dodge value (making smallest ships having the biggest basic dodge value) which could be still affected by events, civilization's traits, techs, support modules and so on.
6. About weapons, Halicide wrote: "My first idea was to make two versions of every weapon. One that targets tiny/small hulls and one that does more damage to large/huge hulls. In retrospect this doesn't really help and drastically increases the amount of customization the player and the A.I. do so it wasn't a great idea." In my opinion, it was a good idea, just it has to be adapted to be easy to implement and use. So here is the solution: scale the weapons in relation with hull size. Only one version of each weapon with (some) specs scaled. For example, tiny module factor 1, small factor 1.2, medium 1.5, large 2, huge 2.5.
Do you think possible to find the same weapon on any hull size like if we could mount a 76mm canon on a speedboat or launch a Tomahawk missile from a jet ski? Or see a frigate only equiped with .50 machine guns?
7. Something similar to what you wrote Basilisk83, with a scale factor like for weapons.
We can also imagine that weapons and defenses are dimmed in relation with hull state. How more ship is damaged, how less operational and effective are weapons and defenses.
About one target system, Halicide wrote also about that: each onboard weapon would have to be able to select independently a target. It's already partly true. With a ship with a mix of weapons, weapon types are activated dependently to its own range.
To go further, it requires to discriminate each weapon module, check the range for each type of them (as already done) and attribute enough of those activated modules to reach hull points of the target (or HP + x%) following the priority list with "opportunity-threat" balance.
For example:
I have a ship with 5 modules (3 missiles, 2 kinetic) each dealing 6 damages. Against me, three ships, all in range of my 5 weapons, each of them with 10 HP and considered as threats.
It gives:
First threat. At range of all my weapons. I need 10 +50% => 15 Damages => 3 weapons: 1 missile + 1 kinetic (because with Basilisk83's defense system mixing type of damages is more efficient) + 1 missile (because more missiles left available than kinetics).
Second threat. At range of all my weapons. I need 10+50% => 15 damages => not enough weapons: I use all the rest available.
Voilà for the space battle. I've got more about ships, hull size and so on, but it's for another thread.
Have a good day
Looking forward to diving in GC4 when it will be released on Steam
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