FrozenFallout wrote:I also feel the supply system needs a buff as I never care if a ship is going outside of supply range. Having a situation where my supply range no longer reaches my fleet probably shouldnt strand that fleet but should have a major tactical advantage for a fleet fighting you or hinder long range exploration with out a fleet supply ship.Zaimat wrote:Only when the ship is out-of-supplies waiting for the next shipment, it's speed is halved.Fairin wrote:if it reduces speed in horizon. i never really noticed.
Interesting that you didn't notice it. Clearly it's not enough of a hindrance. What's happening is this:
e.g.:
. Ship Supply Range = 10 sectors
. Ship moves 15 sectors away from nearest colony
. For 5 turns every 15 turns movement slows to half + suffers from supply penalties (repairs/refills/etc)
I would suggest a movement penalty to any ship or fleet out side of fleet supply range. Have engines level and type effect this penalty giving engines something to differ from each other, Faster engines within fleet supply should have a bigger penalty for being out side fleet supply. For example make nuclear engines the fastest by level for the first 5 levels but has horrible out of range movement then at the last 5 levels maybe switch it up. Something like 90% movement penalty out side of supply for level 1 and by level 5 it is maybe down to a 75% movement penalty every turn. At level 5 it would be faster then any other engine but have the worst supply penalty. The next 5 levels give bad increases to normal speed but large boosts to out of supply speed making it even out to ok in booth. Fusion could be a speed engine with best the best top speed at level 10 but starts with a good supply range speed stat at the start and over comes Nukes in the last 5 levels. Grav engines could be the best all around fleet supply engine at every level.
This would also help slow down a early game exploration rush with scouts hitting up every planet and mid/endgame could be less effected by supply range if you fit the right engine and if you want to be more restricted in exploration you can equip a Fusion engine to give you the edge in combat but if you end up out side of supply range because you built a supply ship for your fleet and didn't have supply on any ships but that one and it gets destroyed you find yourself at a major disadvantage. Grav engines would allow for ease of movement out side of fleet range.
I was also thinking that turn rate should be different for each type of engine. For example have one that allows for 45 degree turn rate, one that does 60 degree, another that does 90, 180, and 360. The more turn rate you have the slower the engine. This could also be balanced with the speed and out of supply speed. Like give grav engines the 360 but they would be one of the slowest engines over all. Nukes would have a horrible turn rate but be fast, Fusion would have slightly increased turn degree and end up the fastest in the end but end up with the worst out of supply range penalty.
Also weapons having a more pronounced special effect and lower damage out put in return for some. One that effects speed, turn rate, energy damage. Endgame it should be about having weapons that do something for you to help win the fight and less about the damage it does but having high dps weapon types would still be equipped like Lasers in the end game. Also making some weapons like lasers and other high dps weapons eat up a ton of power per shot, so you can put a ton of them on but you will only get couple combat turns of use until you run out of power. Making you balance weapon size and type with your power generator. Some generators should have extreamly high cap but slow recharge while others balance and others push for high recharge. Movement should also take away from power, Doing a full burn should give you a defense bonus but also cost power limiting your ability to fire. While a non moving mothership could use a full assault of weaponry.
Fleet supply could also be tied to power supply maybe which in turn would limit movement and fighting abilities.
So a while back some of us where having a talk about Fleet Supply and tactical combat stuff. I wanted to bring it up again and see what all of you think about making some much needed improvements to the Tactical combat system. The idea behind this thread is to voice your ideas for how to improve tactical combat and make it well... more tactical. In its current state I currently just hit auto battle from almost everything unless I feel the AI is moving ships into odd areas or not doing something right. The reason for this is there really isn't a good reason to control my ships and once you get over 5 or so ships in a combat it just becomes tedious. Also ship design is all about more Lasers or if you are a fan of fighters (I don't use them yet since the AI doesn't use them except the starbase). However the stuff in place currently could be tweaked to really make tactical combat, ship tech and ship design a very interesting aspect of the game.
Above in the quote you can see some of the ideas I have for changing up tactical combat. I have listed these also in the Poll option to see if people like these ideas and also will give a short write up below that details out what I would like to see changed. If you have any ideas please post them below and I will have an option int he Poll that says "I have a good idea (Please see posts below)" and post up your tactical combat ideas.
I really want the tactical combat to shine in this game as I have seen many new 4x space strat games come out since Moo2 but this is the only one I have hopes will give us the tactical combat that we all miss from Moo2 and make it even better!
Ideas for Tactical Combat:
Out side of Supply Range caused major draw back: I would like to see a huge side effect from being outside of supply range. I would like to see something along the lines of major movement penalty each turn and maybe even a major power-supply reduction to recharge. I don't want to have ships stranded if they don't have ship supplies but you should really see a performance hit if you send out a lone scout or if you have a lone ship supply ship and it gets blown up you should see a hit to your fleets performance.
Different Engines have different speeds, power use, and turn radius based on tech level and Engines used: I have this a bit more detailed in the quote but I would love to see the different engines be well very different from each other. Above I give more examples but I would like engines to be tied to how effected you are by ship supply as well, have some engines that preform better outside of ship supply range while others have major pens to being outside of ship supply range but are faster and preform much better when inside ship supply range. Also having their arcs be different from each other, 360 degree for one, 180, 90 60 and 30 degree turn rates for a movement point. The ones with good turn rate would have less move points so you have to pick between maneuverability or strait up speed.
Split Weapons into two types, DPS and Utility: Currently it feels like all weapons are DPS type weapons. Most of them focus on damage and all seem to have about the same damage out put at the same level and all have some sort of Utility but isn't very pronounced and doesn't come until level 5. I would like to see a major change in this area. Each race should start with 1 DPS type weapon and 1 Utility type weapon. DPS types can be Lasers with a High Critical or Partical Beams that have a small chance to shield penetrate or another that gives extra damage to armor. These DPS types should have very high power uses and you cant just slap a ton of them on as it would cost to much power or fitting points. Utility weapons would be low poweruse and low damage but have a very noticeable effect from level 1. Such as greatly slowing the ship, Draining Power and giving it to you, More Drain on power but you dont get the power, a weapon designed to just bring down shields and then disable but not destroy systems (think Ion weapon here), One that jams a target preventing it from firing for 1 turn of combat but has a high miss chance, One that makes it easier for all ships to hit the targeted ship (think Target painter). One that heals shields and another that heals armor. These utility weapons are more like special things you do during combat then just blowing up your target. Also an Area effect weapon for both utility and DPS would be cool or a line weapon where everything in the path of the weapon gets hit. Also Utility weapons wouldn't be stopped by shields, they would still damage shields and the effects would take place on the ship.
Give Ships specials (maybe tied to leveling system): Give each ship something they can do maybe once per combat or the like. Having played a few games as of late with turned based combat like Shadow Run or XCOM its really nice to have different units do different things during the combat that are unique and have a limited use. When I play Shadow Run I don't get to auto play the battle and even if I could I wouldn't because thats the fun part of the game. I have all these options and where I move and what I do is very important to my tactical abilities in the combat. Something like a full heal to armor or partial heal, defense mode where you get extra hit points and shield points.
Cover: Allow for ships to cover other ships or even have planets and other celestial objects give you a higher miss chance with in orbit. The main idea here is you cant shoot a ship that is behind another ship. This makes your front line very important and allows for you to have ships that fly cover for you. Think Bablyon 5, they use their fighters as screens for their bigger ships allowing them to protect the bigger ship.
Power supply should have a major impact on your fitting and power use ability: Under the current system Power supplys are a joke and mean nothing. I don't care to level them or try to acquire different tec from them. I can see though how they will become very important once they get worked out. Each power supply should be very different from each other. I also think you should get a limit to what you can put on your ship based on your power supply. Think fitting points, Eve online does a good system of this with a power stat and a cpu stat that makes it so you need to think about your fitting options instead of just throwing the most DPS and best Tank on your ship. Power supplies should also be about if you want high recharge or if you want high max power and movement should be a big factor in using up power. High DPS weapons should use a ton of power making it not possible to just put on super high dps weapons and thats it as you will just run out of power.
The more you move in a turn the more your defense moves up: This is a simple one, if you move during the turn you get a defense bonus and the more you move the more you defense goes up. However movement should take up a good amount of power and you shouldn't be able to move and shoot a ton dps weapons in the same turn.
Sensors linked to a fog of war system: Sensors should be important and allow you to see farther from the ship. In its current state if you move into a sector you see the full sector no matter what sensors you have. This should be changed to only seeing x number of movement points away from your ship depending on your sensors.
Random Chance for a Random encounter per uncharted system you visit: This is more about making early game still have fun tactical combat. When you enter an unexplored uninhabited system you should have a chance to run into some kinda space monster or pirates or aliens from anther dimension. These shouldn't be Over powered by any means and by Mid game shouldn't be much of a problem to defeat if you still exploring, but give us some fun little combats at the start of the game when we head out to explore. Currently I just send 1 unarmed scout to every system in the game and by mid game have all the explorations and missions basically done with 0 combats. Sure the crystals always kill my ships or some other empire that doesn't like me scouting around but tactical combat doesn't come up until very late into the game and even then its boring in its current state.
Tech that boosts how much each ship can fit: Simple make a new tech where if you boost this in level you get more fitting points for your ship. (maybe have this tied into power supply instead)