Hot posts in thread: ISG Dev Diary #4: Space Combat

In MOO 2 if I had 30+ ships in combat I would just hit 'auto' until the number of ships was whittled down to 10 or so and then take manual control again. Seriously I dont see the problem of scaling in a TB game, especially with the tools that MOO 2 made available to manage it. I think the ISG devs were 100% right to go down the TB-for-everything path.

Especially when the alternative is RT combat where you just sit there and watch one colored blob eat another slightly smaller blob either with minimal input or frantically clicking like a maniac to try (and fail) to gain some semblance of control. Now *that's* frustrating.

 

To me the issue with turn based combat is scaling.It is great fun early game but ust become unfun with massive fleets mid to late game.Clicking on 30 ships pre turn might be fun to some but I believe not for most these days.

 

I liked Ascendancy, too bad the ai was never implemented. It was horrid on expansion. You could have techs that took a long time to research in that game as the game took a long time anyway. Mostly due to the star lanes.

 

A suggestion of How Battlefield could take Place look at The old game Ascendancy

 

Agreed, despite the admittedly pretty graphics it doesn't get much more boring in terms of tactical complexity to just sit there and watch one giant ameboid blob engulfing a slightly smaller, different colored giant ameboid blob. Over and over again. Hopefully PSS will manage to avoid that particular pitfall at all costs.

 

SotS2 also has the feature that you can have up to 3 battles per turn in a system, and that you can choose to fight with 3 different fleets in each one of them, somewhat compensating for the hard CP limit.
This can be tricky to deal with, even if done on the strategic side of things, an example where things break down in the late game despite the support costs is StarDrive 2 :


As for various kinds of autoresolves, there's also the HoMM5 system where you can play the autoresolve first, and if you don't like the results, you can choose to replay the same battle manually!
I should really give MoO2 another chance, it deserves it despite its age!

 

Extremely hard to argue with that. Moo2 allowed a balance and degree of comfort with fleet sizes and what could be handled in battle. There, a dozen ships manually was quite easy and you could double that number and still handle it in reasonable fashion. I agree with this very much.

 

I agree with Mark, that Moo2 gives you plenty of ways to deal with the so called too many ships issue. The problem for me on the idea that you will have a small numbers of ships. is the larger maps.

If I play with say 8 races on a large map, I cannot be limited by CP to a dozen ships. I may have to fight 3 or more races at once. 10 to 12 ships is not going to work.

 

I was never a fan of SOTS1's reserve system, it seemed like a very gamey and hard-to-believe way of solving the "too many ships" problem. It worked but it really stretched credibility to the breaking point.

On the other hand I thought SOTS2's unique fleet system, limited solely by CP's worked extremely well and although the precise limits were a little hard to swallow, I never had much trouble suspending my disbelief. IMO SOST2 still has the best tactical combat system of any 4x ever created including MOO2.

Ive also heard people say that MOO2 suffered from a "too many ships" problem but I honestly dont get it. The MOO2 devs really bent over backwards to give the player as many options as they possibly could and it would be hard to imagine any way to give greater flexibility.

1/ You could manually fight the entire battle turn by turn.
2/ You could hit the "auto" button while manually playing to watch the battle play out and re-take control again at any point. This is the obvious fix for "too many ships", just auto-play the battle until the number of ships is whittled down to what you consider a manageable level and then resume control again. Personally I never did this because I so much enjoyed managing even huge battles, but each to their own.
3/ If you are manually resolving and wish to immediately finish the combat then just hit the "X" button and the entire combat - no matter how large - will be resolved in just a second or two.
4/ Auto resolve the battle immediately without any tactical combat at all.

To me this would seem to effectively cover all the bases, too many ships? just use option #2, outcome is certain? Auto resolve or 'X', Down to the wire? Manual all the way. As long as PSS has at least an equally varied selection of combat options I really cant see a problem, this is one of the many design areas where MOO2 did it 100% right and really should be copied.

 

Hi Blue Templar,

Not speaking for the Devs but I'm fairly certain you will see a command point type of system (or variation) that reflects high enough maintenance costs that will keep "less but more important ships" (quoting the Devs). All the posts I can recall suggest it will be dealt with on the strategic level so I would think that fielding large number of units in a battle, even late game will not be probable. Two dozen might be all that you have empire wide (plus or minus a bit)
I'm fairly sure that it will also be looked at in the battle screen as regards managing ships.

 

Hello,

What Possibility describes, is a lot like what Sword of the Stars 1 (and 2) has :

Here, I use an asteroid to physically block a particle beam shot aimed at my tanker, then retreat using the nodeline exit.

Another, arguably it's not the best combat example to show off terrain effects, as the missile-jamming asteroids were randomly placed out of the way in this specific fight, and while I do give ships the order to move to the nodepoint entry/exit in order to retreat, I don't give the order in the end.

But the last one also shows off something that I'm concerned about that hasn't been talked about in (at least this) diary entry :
It's great to have a detailed combat system, but how are you going to deal with the "too many ships on the battlefield at the same time" syndrome that plagues most 4X (including MOO2 or so I've heard) in the mid and late game? (SotS1 has the command points/reserve system.)
Especially considering that grid-based turn-based combat makes it worse, and with too many ships might present pathfinding problems too.

EDIT : forum was messing up my youtube timed links

 

Nothing wrong with a little self-promotion good sir,

Yes, that's the idea. I would envision something more like this

Sun occupying more hexes of the field, planets also.
Ships occupy one hex, so does a squadron of fighters.
Satellites I guess could be flexible on size and same for asteroid belts or other objects (terrain)

The whole thing has to be large enough to depict a solar system and ideally stay on one screen, no scrolling or zooming required.
Then I would make the hexes or squares invisible to the player.

And that would be my "board" for a fight in a solar system.

I know if I were really out there, fighting a battle, I would want a tactical display and not care about how pretty the solar system looks, I would be there to make things go "boom", I wouldn't be sightseeing.

But that's me, others might be turned off by a tactical map, I just feel it is the only way to execute the type of combat Possibility describes (very well might I add) and stay within the Moo2 groove.

It would also fit well with the whole philosophy of fewer ships as they would be effective on a map like this. It would make a dozen ships seem like an Armada.

 

Shameless plug (hobby project more prealpha then PSS):

 

There is no denying that what you describe would be pretty awesome but I could see that many liberties would have to be taken to achieve anything remotely close to it.

I am not going to go point by point with you as that would not suffice, I prefer to discuss this in general, humour me a bit.

To effect most of what you describe you need tactical solar system maps (oh I would love that!) and they cannot be to scale either, some things would need to be abstracted, quite a lot in fact but scale between solar system objects and ships must be discarded. You could certainly add a variety of "terrain" to these maps but if you want this "terrain" to play a role in combat, then you must accept even more "liberties", particularly with reality.

I have no experience in space other than some interesting programs I experienced in the 80s which tried to simulate combat in the solar system but I do have some slight knowledge and experience with naval operations, in particular surface actions.

For the most part, there is no terrain at sea, or to say it in more earthly terms, you are not fighting in woods with a hill or river to anchor your flank. There is no ridge to obscure your movements or rally behind, fighting here is similar to North Africa in WWII. This means you are fighting a battle of maneuver where the speed of your units combined with their firepower and range is going to shape the battle. Once you add in the 3d aspects of azimuth and altitude, terrain in space becomes even less valuable. (I don't have to go around that asteroid, I can go over it or under it just as well). A moon or planet would offer more value as terrain obviously as certain assets could be hidden behind such a body but at the end of the day I could still go over or under it too and hiding only works if I'm coming from the correct direction in relation to the defender.

I still feel that what you have described could add some levels of excitement seldom found in 4x games but the only way to get it working right would be to forget about reality to a degree and concentrate on making it fun. This subject fascinates me obviously but I feel like what you describe could be a game in and of itself. In order to integrate this into a 4x game I believe you may be better served by toning it down somewhat.

Start with tactical solar system view, fill in terrain that makes some sense (even if not very realistic) and take it from there. (Needless to say, stay 2d)

Should you decide to create a seperate thread on this, I would be quite happy to support it

 

List of some things that came to my mind on some of the points that you have listed.

3D
I hope we can have a fight in true 3D, but if done well it could not be bad anyway.
I am intrigued by the idea of what you will invent.

Heat System
Already seen in some past game. I do not jump out of the chair as an idea, but it is plausible.
Please, among the possible technologies included many types of "thermal dissipation" ;P


Overload Actions
The idea is nice, although it seems more suited to clashes with a very limited number of ships (micromanagement).
Having the opportunity to select a group of ships and set common parameters can help.

Ship Actions (action credits)

The number of actions per turn may be calculated in relation to engine power, the ability to maneuver and the degree of integration
of weapons systems. This may well reflect technological progress.

- Move: ok

- Rotate: The rotation could be free within an angle calculated by relating mass and maneuverability (directional or similar rockets).
Spending an entire additional action could allow any rotation (you can also consider a multiple of the free rotation).

- Flee: Ok, If the motors are still functioning or not captured by a radius tractor or other device.

- Scan: Scan an enemy ship could provide a bonus in combat or allow to disable key components.

- Salvage: Yes please.

- Board: Yes please.

The only exception is fire, which can be done at any time during the turn. : Ok


Crew

Ok the bonus relative to the overall experience of the crew,
but What about considering it for the creation of the official or specific characters to be used on the same ship or reuse elsewhere.

I would love that you include of escape modules in the game. They may be recovered from another friend or enemy ship (during a fight) or be selected at a subsequent rescue mission. This would allow to have a crew (or part of it) already at a higher level of experience and ready to be re-loaded onto another ship. It could open exchange of prisoners scenarios, or use the recovery of a crew to improve relations with another species (or become aware of a new race not yet met).

Thank you

 

WEGO would make it play out more fair and give it added realism in that aspect. I would definitely prefer WEGO versus IGOUGO, and would still prefer RTS to either of these. However lining up the ships would still 'look' artificial. Battles should be chaotic, have terrain, line of sight, maneuvering and flanking, and surprises because you dont know where your enemy is coming from. Battles should not be, "Hey you guys line up in nice rows over there and we will line up in nice rows over here, and when I say 'go' we all move towards each other and start firing. Everyone agree? ok, now GO!"

That sounds like a bunch of elementary kids getting together to play dodge ball. Not real combat where you will actually die. There are living people on those ships and I assume they actually value their lives. When the battle looks artificial and all the ships line up and you are the first ship and move into range of the enemy line to get instantly blown to smithereens, who in their right mind would pilot their ship to do that. Maybe 100 yrs ago the uneducated masses may have been willing to do that in war, but people know better nowadays. Modern soldiers arent going to do that. This is why Stars in Shadows ultimately disappointed me. The game was 85% geared towards war, but the combat just looked too artificial and it played out in an ultimately unsatisfying way.

This is what I want from combat:

• Battle maps would be huge, with 5 planets and their moons to defend spaced out around a star, all present during the combat.
• If all the planets are lined up on one side of the star they are easier to defend then if spread out on opposite sides. So the attacker could pick the right year to attack when the planets are spaced out in their orbits. Spying a planet before hand could determine the orbital positions and the battle field map (ie. location of planets, moons, asteroids, and orbital defenses)
• Attacker can pick an area of the map to exit warp, and his ships are scattered about into that small area at the start of combat.
• The defender doesnt know where into the system the attack will exit warp.
• Ships should have limited line of sight (radar scanning range) like in a RTS game. Thus if the attacker warps in at the fringe of the battle map, the defenders and attackers can not see each other at the start of combat. They will have to explore the combat map and find each other and reveal the fog of war.
• There should be asteroids and asteroid belts, and comets, (and hell, even though not realistic, throw in some nebula clouds as terrain.)
• With the limited line of sight and fog of war, cloaked ships become actually usable, you can sneak around the battle map and find out where the defender has placed their ships.
• Defenders could deploy cloaked mine fields.
• Defender can place their ships into orbit above 1 planet, and send a mine deployer to another planet and surround it with cloaked mine fields. Attacker warps in at the edge and then scouts out the area and sees one planet heavily defended and another undefended so goes for the undefended planet and falls into the minefield trap.
• Attackers and Defenders could have scout ships that have extra scanning range in the combat map to find where the enemy is hiding.
• Attackers could warp in at the edges and assemble their fleet, and hunt down the defenders.
• Or attackers could warp in right on top of the choicest planet and hopefully catch the defenders off guard before they can deploy defenses, or maybe the defenders put their fleet above one of the other planets and then have to scramble to move their fleet across the battle map to defend the undefended planet (if planet is on other side of the star it will take a while to get there).
• With advanced tech planets could build warp interdictors that prevent the attacker from warping in right on top of the planet, forcing them to warp in on the fringes of the battle map thus giving the defenders time to deploy defenses.
• Combat would have a set limited amount of time or turns, and then pause until the next game turn. Other fleets that arrive on the next game turn would then warp into the battle.

There is just so much that can be done with the combat other than the tiny battle maps with 2 fleets lined up facing each other.

 

Possibility, can I ask you a question
Regarding lining up like it's the civil war.
What if the system was WEGO turn based instead of IGOUGO, how would you feel about this?

 

One idea I have been floating around in my head is letting the attacker decide where they exit warp on the combat map and having the ships scattered about that area due to inaccurate navigation when exiting warp.

The way I picture the current Moo2 combat is that the attacking fleet exits warp well out of range of the planet, they then fly into formation and then approach the planet in formation where then combat starts. The defenders having seen the attackers exit warp far away and taking time to get into formation allows the defenders time to get prepared and also enter into formation above the planet.

But, what if when attacking a planet or system you can have a choice of standard attack or surprise attack. If you chose surprise attack, you dont exit warp far away and get into formation, instead you exit warp right on top of the planet. The tech level of your computers and navigation determining how tightly bundled or how scattered about your ships are. With more advanced tech you have better accuracy exiting warp. With the surprise attack though, the defenders also dont get time to line up into formation and they could also be slight scattered about the planet.

The benefits of this type of attack is that you would start very close the planet you are attacking, and could then hopefully drop bombs or death spores on it during the first combat turn. The downside is that your ships arent in a good formation and maybe scattered about and could be easier pickings for the defender, but the defenders would also be scattered around a little too.

 

I have taken an extreme linking to this, both for the tactical and strategic aspects. This should be seriously considered regardless

 

Objects have mass and momentum, and that applies equally to movement AND rotation. Rotating a large object will take a lot more thrust from the maneuvering thrusters then rotating a light object. So light ships should be able to rotate more per turn then a large ship. However, the maneuvering thrusters are separate from the main engines, so you should be able to both rotate and move at the same time, but not rotate an unlimited amount, that would look silly to see a star destroyer spinning in circles.

I would suggest replacing the word "broken" with "disabled".

The heat system along with overloading sounds interesting and I look forward to seeing it. But this could result in a lot of mouse clicking to have to tell a dozen or 2 dozen ships to all overload their shields and/or the their main beam weapon. My suggestion is to allow the selection of multiple ships at once by drawing a box around them or ctrl-clicking to select them and then overload them all with one click.

Dont tie experience to the killing blow, then all the 10 ships that weakened the enemy first wont get any experience. Maybe tie experience to successful actions, such as hitting the target, or a boarding raid, or defending against a boarding raid, or a successful scan.

Please dont make the combat look like a civil war era battle with both sides all lined up in neat rows just outside of weapons range. Moo2, and the new Stars in Shadow did this and its a bit boring and NuMoo was also has boring combat like that. The battle field needs to have more than just ships on 2 sides and planet. Maybe make it the entire solar system, with the sun, planets and moons and asteroids and asteroid belts, and space bases, and commercial transports flying between planets that you can loot from if you capture or destroy. When your fleet gets near a planet to attack it, you could see civilian transports start fleeing the planet like refugees leaving a war zone ahead of the invading armies, and your fleet can attempt to shoot them down (with diplomatic repercussions, or repercussions to your own empires moral for being evil). A large battle map with lots of targets to attack and lots of things to defend makes for a more interesting battle. And also makes ship cloaking more valuable, then the defender doesn't really know which planet on the battle map you are attacking, or conversely if the defender is cloaked then you as the attacker dont know where they are or which planet they are defending.

Maybe limit the number of turns you can do in combat to something like 10 or 20 turns, then the battle pauses until the next game turn, where then the battle resumes where you left off but new reinforcements warp in at the edge of the battle map.

Please allow planets to have an absolute shit ton of defenses. Moo1 could build unlimited missile bases, do allow that again with unlimited fighter bases, and moon bases, and orbital defenses, and crazy numbers or space stations. The new Independence Day movie, although not the best movie, it did do some excellent world building, with the earth building a network or satellites in orbit with beam weapons and a moon bases with a large beam weapon. I see these things in movies and I want to build them in my games, but then the game says, no way hozay, you can only build 1 single missile base on this ultra huge planet, well just because, and then i get all pissed (double pissed) because i cant live out my sci-fi fantasies and its also completely unrealistic.

A couple of questions. Does 1 player move all of their ships, and then the next player? Or is it one ship at a time based on individual ship initiative?

So far your progress looks good, keep up the great work.