yes, yes it will.

i think that might be cool, maybe just have it work against the base repair though, so repair ships are still worth it and the onyx can still heal when they need to. and yeah, like tid said, being able to leave a tracker with beams and/or increase sensors for ships with beams would be a good, fun unique thing for them i think.

That is the type of creative thinking that would make each weapon more interesting.  Here are my suggestions:

• Missiles keep their current ranged attack ability
• Beam weapons can blind any targeted ship(s) within 3 hexes (i.e. reduce their visibility range to 0 for 3 months)
  • Or maybe Beam weapons can disable all defenses of the targeted ship(s) for 1, 2, or 3 turns
• Kinetic weapons gain the ability to destroy anything within a range of 1 hex (ships, shipyards, starbases, worlds, resources, artifacts, etc.)
  • If you think that is a bit extreme, how about Kinetic weapons can disable the ability of any ships within 3 hexes to move for 1, 2, or 3 turns (i.e. the Kinetic weapon damages their ship drive) or the number of hexes the targeted ship can move while their drive is repaired is reduced by some percentage (50%?)

was just thinking maybe beams can use their "good accuracy" to target engines and reduce the movement speed of any ships they attack but don't destroy

yeah, the more i think about it the more i really like the idea of kinetic stopping base repair for a bit and beams slowing down opponents for a turn or 2.

people could have fun new tactics like using cheap beam scoutships that can slow down the enemy, and maybe throw a 25% chance to escape battle thruster on there so the ship can still survive after slowing down an enemy fleet, giving your fleets a better chance to intercept them, or giving you more time to gather a fleet and prepare defenses for an oncoming invasion. def a very good defensive tactic.

the kinetic base repair debuff would be a perfect offensive tool to counter the beam's good defense. if base repair is affected by being in your territory and being stantioned somewhere, then the kinetic weapon debuff would be more effective when you're in enemy territory because it would take away their extra defensive repair.

this would give offensive and defensive players a weapon type that focuses on what they each want to do, which should make things more fun for them both will still be good offensive and defensively, but they'll each have that little extra boost towards playstyle that might make things more fun

I like the idea, but repair isn't going to make-or-break between multiple rounds of battle.  Healing 4hp or not isn't going to swing a huge series of fleet battles.  Which is why I settled on the idea of armor (ie defense) shred instead - because losing defense between rounds of battle could/would.

I actually like/liked having missiles special be ranged attack and beam/kinetic getting something different.  The only reason I brought up the "everyone gets a ranged thing" was because Frog was leaning toward this as his pref. (or at least that was my impression from his discord off-the-cuff comments (he's busy enough that I don't expect him to be hyper-specific when he swings through)).

I personally like my original idea better where missile gets ranged, beam gets sensor, kinetic gets armor shred.  Where each weapon type gets a different thing that's useful situationally for higher-level playstyles, but if these abilities can be completely ignored by less intensive players with no loss of game function/enjoyment.

I'm looking fwd to see what you guys do with all of this.  I don't envy attempting to balance the strong player emotions tied up in this.

hahah

-tid242

edit: "sensor" is the appropriate term vs vision

Although *vision.  If beam attack greater than some % ship HP at build, maybe beam weapons get tag attribute also.

Well,  I would have to predict that the defense system will be changed so that it'll be a terrible idea to go into a fight without appropriate defenses.  The days of it being better to build no defense vs defense are numbered (because why do defenses exist if it's not worth it to have them?).

As Derek mentioned, off-brand defense has already been reduced from 50% to 10% (which is lower than the hard-defense system of GC2 where it was square-root).

Cumulative armor shred would be vicious in such scenarios - however would be contingent on fighting long wars of attrition.  Both Missiles and Beams (under what I was brainstorming) would counterplay by attempting to out-manuver and hit & run tactics.

I hope they move to a hard-counter defense mechanic, vs the 'extra hp' mechanic.  The ship HP bump indicates this direction, if you think about it.

-tid242

this is actually prob what the devs are planning. (range is equal for all weapon types in battle now though btw)

the thing i dont like about it though is it just keeps the trend they've been doing lately of just making all the weapon types the same. they already equalized range, accuracy, and rate of fire. i think making all the weapon types the same takes away from the fun of the game. weapon types that each enhance different playstyles would be more fun for lots of ppl i think.

+1

I agree with this sentiment.

And I suspect that's why people are more interested in missiles having a ranged attack be "their thing", with beams & kinetic getting something different.

Combat and the various strategies involved in optimizing it (what ship or star base I build, what kind of layout I use, which modules is most optimal, what combat research do I go after in my current situation, how do I use it all in my grand strategy, how do I counter my enemies move, etc.) is an important part of the genre for a lot of players. There's so much potential for fun there, its worth taking the time to make it interesting while not over simplifying it or over complicate things. It would be a shame to not get this right.

We're all just shooting from the hip here. If Stardock would tell us what the current mechanic is, it would be a lot easier for us to propose an improved mechanic. There are some good ideas in this thread, but the ideas are all over the place and there is no telling which if any are compatible with the existing mechanic.

I also see no evidence that Stardock wants our input on low-level mechanical details. The lack of feedback is frustrating. If they were to tell me to stay in my lane and tell me what that lane is, I would comply. It makes me wonder why I'm even here. Perhaps I really need to step away for awhile.

For me, the only suggestion I have pulls back focus a bit- keep the relatively rock/paper/scissors relationship- perhaps even simplify it and focus it. BUT two things:

1: TIE weapon types even more strongly to their particular resources required to build them. Only weaker versions require no special resources.

2: The counter defense for each weapon type is NOT tied to the same resource as it is now (Elerium for lasers/shields) but to another.

Lasers and Armor (Anti Kinetics): Elerium

Missiles and Shields (Anti laser): Antimatter

Kinetics and Flak (Anti Missile): Durantium

or put another way:

Laser/Shields: Elerium/Antimatter

Missile/Flak: Antimatter/Durantium

Kinetics/Armor: Durantium/Elerium

This would bring the strategic world of the game down into the tactical outfitting of your ships, and allow you to read the map (resources which race has) and make tactical plans based on your strategic situation.

I'm thinking that definitively changing the tactical combat itself is a near impossible task without losing the strategic input Brad clearly wants tactical combat to have been derived from.

If Stardock is smart, they will, like Tynan did with Rimworld, expose as much of this as possible to XML and allow us to mod the living daylights out of it. that would make me very happy.

Edit:

I know we can right now (GC3), but just keep it that way.