In the absence of a deeper combat system, I think that giving the attackers the initiative is perfectly fine. My preference would be for a simulated tactical combat system. It'd have all the depth of what games like Master of Orion had, but like Stars! it wouldn't have any player input during the battle itself. The player's control is limited to ship design, fleet composition, and perhaps a set of operational directives for the fleet.

True, I'd prefer to have some more control over ship combat, like Ostsol said - nothing direct, but rather general operational stuff, maybe even just being able to tell your ships which ennemy ship to fire at first - instead of always being "Easiest to kill, most dangerous ships first"

But on the side of attacker's advantage, I don't see why not - a good deffense is a good offense

Besides, if the deffending fleet has the proper deffense, you ain't getting through!<

On the other hand, giving the ships initiative based on their experience level/speed rating would make lots of sense.

Initiative should go to the quickest ship first.  "Quickest" is a combination of hull size and advanced technology.  See MOO2's "ship initiative" option for how to do it right.

The defender should get first shot. The attacker has to "get into position" while under fire. Think of Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. The attacker sure as hell didn't get the first shot! But, for gameplay purposes, attacking should be a big decision. Do I have a decisive advantage? If so, I might be able to safely attack. If not, better wait for help.

However. I loved the ship initiative feature in Moo2. In the Moo2 end game weapons were kind of imbalanced and the fleet that didn't get the first shot often didn't get any shot. Ship initiative ensured that the most advanced fleet moved first.

Ok, seriously. This forum software is completely unpredictible. Sorry for the double post.

xentac to counter that you could easily say the attacker gets the advantage becuase he can choose to attack from an angle thats harder to defend from; and then the defender would have to get into position.

agree with Tototot. There should either be initiative rolls at the beginning of the battle. There should be tech tree options perhaps for modifiers to combat initiative such as stealth systems, pilot training, enhanced ship targetting computers, Oh and while I'm at it, what about manually setting target priorities?

The player's control is limited to ship design, fleet composition, and perhaps a set of operational directives for the fleet.

What these guys have described is the limited combat feature of "Birth of the Federation." You could assign targets by ship class, or manually for individual ships and assign 1 of 3, or 4, maneuvers also by ship class or manually for individual ships. You hit start and the battle played out before you a turn at a time. It even recognized that forward facing weapons would not be able to fire if the target wasn't in their firing arc. If you didn't want to oversee the battle, you simply selected the auto feature and you'd receive a message telling you if you won or lost the battle.

It wasn't a perfect setup, but did allow some control of the battles and allowed that an overmatched squad/fleet could win against a more powerful opponent because it had superior strategy.

I believe something in that vein, with the option to have everything automatically decided, would please most people looking for more combat interaction.

Attacker should have the initiative unless combat takes place in a square that is in the defender's zone of influence, then I would give initiative to the defender.

I almost passed up buying this game over the lack of tactical combat, but I have found it to be much more satisfying than I thought it would be, the tactical part is all the big map manuever. Still, what the system lacks is a real effectual change in the play directly related to your techs. In MOO2, you would research transporters, or boarding assault ships, and then change your actions by trying to board and take over their ships. In this game, you have only the rock/paper/siscors system of guessing what weapon/shield to tech.

Adding just a few more options would help, such as tech that let your ships fire first.

Intiative can be highly relative. How does the hyperdrive work? if it behaved like in star control's Melee mode (for an analogy) and ships poped out of nowhere after warping for several seconds, it could catch the enemy off-guard even if it noticed the enemy ship away, it just jumped in too fast...

'Realistically', what Djohaal said makes a lot of sense. Sure, you can see each other on sensors, but this is at HUGE distance, while both fleets are still (theoretically) light-hours (at the least) apart, either stopped or moving at FTL speeds. Combat obviously occurs once one fleet jumps to regular space near the opposing fleet, and logically the fleet jumping in should know the best position to jump in from to get the first shot.

While i agree somewhat with this, what about the other way around. Since ships can detect enemy ships lightyears away, can they be able to suspect an incoming attack and be prepared as soon as the Attacks appear?

I do like the current system. If the AI is taught the value of attacking first & how to utilize speed (engines), it would be a very balanced system.

However, here's an idea that would lead to more strategic decisions:

How about a (very) high level Starbase Module (Battlestation only) that allows all the friendly ships/fleets in its influence to ALWAYS have the first attack (whether they initiated the combat or not). If the enemy were to also have such a Starbase/Module in a overlapping range, it would revert to the default (Attacker goes first).

the way MOO3 did it was simulaneous fire, with reload/recharge time, damage, and maximum range that depended not only on weapon type but also on the size of the weapon mount.

so when installing lasers, should they be light or maybe point defense mount, which take up less space, do less damage, have less range, but a faster recharge rate?

or should a heavy or maybe spinal mount be used? slower recharge, much larger so fewer go on the ship, but able to hit from great range and deliver higher damage per shot?

further, there was no concept of "rounds"... everything was real time, and not only did distance limit accuracy, but also visibility (once the .exe patched), especially with cloaking.

the controls for actually controlling combat weren't great, but in "watch" mode it was something like the full battles in GC2... except that the ships didn't just wander around... they actually advanced towards each other (if they were direct fire ships) or kept their distance (missile and carrier ships), and even used map features like planets and moons to attempt to hide or to escape from fire.

of course, in MOO3, the visual designs of ships were static and (unpatched) the ships were effectively little featureless blobs on black velvet during combat.

but anyway, the key to making the whole initiative-less thing work was the concept of positions on the battle map, or at least range, which as far as i can tell, GC2 doesn't have.

perhaps, some day, GC3 will be able to meld the ship design choices (e.g. weapon mounts and enhancements like armor-piercing etc) from MOO3 with the superb visual editor of GC2, and the beautiful combat rendering of GC2 with MOO3's map-based tactical combat?

i don't think civilization could handle the waves of pleasure that would result.