Combat mechanics change?

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that sounds good to me can't say i've ever noticed though because I only got the game on wednesday

The problem is that individual weapon don't do anywhere near that damage except at very high technologhy levels. I can't speak for others, but it is rare for me to use a weapon that does more than 3 damage. Your suggestion would make the results insufficiently random, making it nearly impossible for small ships to defeat large ones. This would decrease strategic flexibility.

I'd say no. Call me a fundamentalist if you want, but that's how it was designed. I think its a pretty good system.. there's parts of it thats complex (the formulas to calculate damage or not for example ) and there's parts thats simple, 3 weapon types and 3 corresponding defence types. What matters most to the player is how many can you jam on a ship.

As for modders. It's hard to say what they will need since possibilities are many. However, they can re-name or redesign the tech tree. In addition, rename or redesign components, hulls, etc.

I quite like the combat system as it is... however its an interesting idea, maybe work out a combat sim to see what difference it would make.

The change I would like to see to the combat system, would be to allow an option at the start of the game:

Defensive advantage: If checked, this option means that the defending fleet (or ship) fires first, instead of the attacking fleet.

This would mean that there would be a slight advantage to being on the defensive, which, while it may not seem as realistic from a tactical point of view, means that the player who decides when a fight happens needs to have slightly more of an advantage at that fight.
Without a defensive advanatage (and worse, with an offensive advantage) game balance can suffer slightly, as once someone starts attacking they will gain more and more advantages from it.

I'm really not sure how it works, but it would make more sense if a roll to hit was made for each weapon. So, a ship with 3x 2-attack weapons could hit 0,2,4 or 6 in a round, while a ship with 2x 3-attack weapons might hit 0, 3 or 6. Err... or something.

The change I would like to see to the combat system, would be to allow an option at the start of the game: Defensive advantage: If checked, this option means that the defending fleet (or ship) fires first, instead of the attacking fleet. This would mean that there would be a slight advantage to being on the defensive, which, while it may not seem as realistic from a tactical point of view, means that the player who decides when a fight happens needs to have slightly more of an advantage at that fight. Without a defensive advanatage (and worse, with an offensive advantage) game balance can suffer slightly, as once someone starts attacking they will gain more and more advantages from it.

There is a historical precident for the attack advantage. It's called Blitzkrieg.

"Blitzkrieg means "lightening war". Blitzkrieg was a German tactic used in World War Two based on speed and surprise and needed a military force to be based around light tank units supported by planes and infantry (foot soldiers). The tactic was developed in Germany by an army officer called Hans Guderian. He had written a military pamphlet called "Achtung Panzer" which got into the hands of Hitler. As a tactic it was used to devastating effect in the first years of World War Two and resulted in the British and French armies being pushed back in just a few weeks to the beaches of Dunkirk and the Russian army being devastated in the attack on Russia in June 1941."

So, in theory, the attack advantage (especially in space as opposed to entrenched ground forces in a solid defensive position) is a reasonable idea. Of course, I have no problem with SD adding a switch such as you describe. I would not use it, though.

Hi!
After seing the 24 missile attack from my frigates being blocked twice in a row with a SINGLE (1) armor, dealing 0 damage to the drengin's heavy fighter, and in the return fire receiving 5 mass-driver damage from the same 6 attack fighter through 21 ARMOR defense , I vote for a change.

Since there are already used square roots in defense, I'd propose that weapons roll from int(sqrt(nominal_damage) to nominal_damage, and defenses from int(sqrt(nominal_defense)-1 to nominal_defense.

So in my case my frigates would roll and attack from 4 to 24, and the fighter would defend with 0 to 1, assuring at least 3 points of missile damage. When the fighter would fire back, it would roll from 2 to 6 against the defense of 3 to 21, thus giving at least some 100% reliable protection.

BR, Iztok

The problem is that the roll is done at the start of the battle and is kept for all of the battle no matter how many time you hit. This is not fun when you get a bad roll! I can understand your pain with being beaten by a small fighter because he got a high roll with his +5 attack lazer while you got a bad roll with your +24 attack missile which was annihilated by his armor (1 defense).

This is insane! It' like saying you have 1 lucky shot and you keep having this lucky shot over and over and over all through the rest of the fight. Not realistic and certainly not fun.

What should be changed is simple enough: For each round of the fight, for each weapon, you roll the dice again. This will make variable damage and will generally let the +24 weapon win over the +5 weapon unless you are really unlucky, which will happen very rarely and will be far less frustrating.

Like the other person said earlier, why spending so much cash on a +20 weapon when you can have a lot of +3 weapons that are going to do close to what you expect all the time? The +20 weapon becomes a very big risk, especially if not in a fleet. I don't understand the kind of thinking that was sure this was a good idea to roll once at the start of the fight and keep the same roll all through the fight.

Maybe there is a good explanation for this bad (in my opinion) behavior? And don't tell me it take a lot of processor to roll the dices each round!

The change I would like to see to the combat system, would be to allow an option at the start of the game: Defensive advantage: If checked, this option means that the defending fleet (or ship) fires first, instead of the attacking fleet. This would mean that there would be a slight advantage to being on the defensive, which, while it may not seem as realistic from a tactical point of view, means that the player who decides when a fight happens needs to have slightly more of an advantage at that fight. Without a defensive advanatage (and worse, with an offensive advantage) game balance can suffer slightly, as once someone starts attacking they will gain more and more advantages from it.

What I would rather see is simultaneous combat rounds. You could have some kind of advantage from a tech, such as a type of sensors or long range targeting, that would allow you to take the first shot (but only in the first combat round). I think the current system gives too much advantage to whomever attacks first and changing this to defender doesn't really make the system fairer.

There is a historical precident for the attack advantage. It's called Blitzkrieg. "Blitzkrieg means "lightening war". Blitzkrieg was a German tactic used in World War Two based on speed and surprise and needed a military force to be based around light tank units supported by planes and infantry (foot soldiers). The tactic was developed in Germany by an army officer called Hans Guderian. He had written a military pamphlet called "Achtung Panzer" which got into the hands of Hitler. As a tactic it was used to devastating effect in the first years of World War Two and resulted in the British and French armies being pushed back in just a few weeks to the beaches of Dunkirk and the Russian army being devastated in the attack on Russia in June 1941." So, in theory, the attack advantage (especially in space as opposed to entrenched ground forces in a solid defensive position) is a reasonable idea. Of course, I have no problem with SD adding a switch such as you describe. I would not use it, though.

Not really a good comparison. The GC2 equivalent of blitzkrieg would be to have a fleet of hard-hitting fastmoving ships move past the defenders slow ships and strike at weakly protected planets and starbases they were supposed to be defending. Blitzkrieg is used at a strategic and tactical level, not operational.

In fact when it comes down the operational level the defender often benefitted more from his tanks since they would be positioned in the best spots covering the aproach angles the enemy would be coming from. They would also be standing still and firing which at the time meant they had much higher accuracy than the attacking tanks. Something the german army used fully in the later years of the war when they were on the defense.

But all of this is based on the advantages that surprise or terrain can give, and the question is whether that has any relevance in outer space where a big open space and both sides can see each other many lightyears away?

I was wondering if anyone felt the same as me in that combat should be changed somehow. Right now, you roll a number between 1 and your total attack. The defender rolls between 1 and it's total defense. (I've been trying to find the details for multiple types of attack vs multiple defenses, but that's the basic combat system). This leads to some really random results, especially when the values are very large. Would you want this system changed? One simple way I would possibly change this would be to take the number of weapons and defense modules into account. A ship with 5 lasers that do 5 damage each would roll from 5-25 (or roll 1-5 for each laser). A ship with 3 shields with 3 defense each would roll from 3-9 (or 1-3 for each shield). One benefit of this would be that modders (doing complete mods primarily) would have better control of combat by adjusting weapon and defense sizes and values.

Correction, the roll is from 0 to (max damage), and 0 to (max defense). In otherwords, if you are luckly or unlucky, the ship is completely useless, it doesn't matter if you had 3 billion attack and defense. This is a system that was designed to mimic a 'miss' or a scrape shot, however, I do think it is a bit flawed, but I can't agree with you completely. Since:

The problem is that individual weapon don't do anywhere near that damage except at very high technologhy levels. I can't speak for others, but it is rare for me to use a weapon that does more than 3 damage. Your suggestion would make the results insufficiently random, making it nearly impossible for small ships to defeat large ones. This would decrease strategic flexibility.

This is the problem. In the beginning all your weapon starts out as 1 attack, so in your 1-(max) of each weapon and defenses example, you will always hit and do 1 damage or will always block 1 damage. If what you propose goes through, people will fill their ships with 1 attack and 1 defense modules and be completely invulnerable. Needlesstosay, this,is not a good thing.

On the other hand, a 0-(max) of each weapon and defenses WILL work. For example, if you have 5 weapons that can do 5 damage each, the game instead of adding all the damages together for 25, and do 0-25, it basically rolls a 6 sided dice (6 because one side should be zero) 5 times (for 5 weapons). Essentially, since each weapon is firing once, although one can miss, and one can scrape, another can be a direct hit. In game numbers, this would be rolling 0-5, 0-5, 0-5, 0-5, 0-5, and adding the result. What essentially happens is you SIGNIFICANTLY average out the numbers, the more rolls you make (the more weapon you add). So it nearly elliminates the problem of your 3 billion attack dreadnought from doing 0 damage, because all 600 million of it's laser beams missed at the same time. I'm not saying that it still can't happen under what I propose, but it should be MUCH less likely, since you would have to roll 600 million bad rolls at the same time.

Similarly, defenses should work the same way. That is, it should roll 0-(max) if it's the correct type, 0-(sqrt of max) if it's not the correct type, and then add all of them together for the total defese. This essentially does the same for defenses and stops your 6 million shielded dreadnought from being killed by one tiny beam fighter because of ONE bad roll.

I firmly believe that this would resolve all those wierd quirks that we've been seeing in space battles. While the random element is nice, it makes things a little too random. The propose changed I listed still allow for it to occur, but at a much less frequency, if you add more weapons. That is, if you use one blackhole erruptor, you could still do 0-25 damage. But if you use 4 nanoripers, although it's possible to do 0-24 damage, you are much more likely to end up with 12 because you use four rolls instead of one. This not only cost you in BC, but also in ship space, and is a completely fair alternative IMO.

I'm really not sure how it works, but it would make more sense if a roll to hit was made for each weapon. So, a ship with 3x 2-attack weapons could hit 0,2,4 or 6 in a round, while a ship with 2x 3-attack weapons might hit 0, 3 or 6. Err... or something.

The 'hit' or 'miss' roll isn't nearly as nice as, 'direct hit', 'scrape', 'miss', and all the goodies in between system. I believe it would be better to do 0-(max) as opposed to 0 or max.

The change I would like to see to the combat system, would be to allow an option at the start of the game: Defensive advantage: If checked, this option means that the defending fleet (or ship) fires first, instead of the attacking fleet. This would mean that there would be a slight advantage to being on the defensive, which, while it may not seem as realistic from a tactical point of view, means that the player who decides when a fight happens needs to have slightly more of an advantage at that fight. Without a defensive advanatage (and worse, with an offensive advantage) game balance can suffer slightly, as once someone starts attacking they will gain more and more advantages from it.

No comment on the "defense fire first" option, since it's just an option, but if you want to limit the power of the offensive advantage, you can do that right now. Go edit your GCtypes.xml, and double, triple, or hell, make the HP of your ships 10x as much as before. As long as your ships can survive the first assault, the all offense, no defense designs are all out of the window. I've been playing around with it, and have been very satisfied with the result. The only thing you have to balance out afterwards is the HP bonuses for racial abilities and tradegoods.

What I would rather see is simultaneous combat rounds. You could have some kind of advantage from a tech, such as a type of sensors or long range targeting, that would allow you to take the first shot (but only in the first combat round). I think the current system gives too much advantage to whomever attacks first and changing this to defender doesn't really make the system fairer.

Ship initiative would be a nice addition indeed, however, I'm not sure how easy that would be to implement, especially since the way I think of it, each ship would have to be separate. It would probably have to be speed based for attackers, and sensor based for defenders, with whoever has the highest value going first, then the second, etc... but like I said, that seems a lot more complicated that it appears, and might take a while to get into the game.

However, like I mentioned above, if you are just looking for a fairer system, just play around with the HP of your ships.

The propose changed I listed still allow for it to occur, but at a much less frequency, if you add more weapons. That is, if you use one blackhole erruptor, you could still do 0-25 damage. But if you use 4 nanoripers, although it's possible to do 0-24 damage, you are much more likely to end up with 12 because you use four rolls instead of one. This not only cost you in BC, but also in ship space, and is a completely fair alternative IMO.

You're still talking about rebalancing combat to compensate for this. That's probably not something that they're willing to do.

Plus, you're making the disadvantage of using the wrong defense even more disadvantageous.

Let's say you have a ship with (using D&D terminology) 4d4 - 4 laser damage. And let's say you have an enemy vessel with 1d13 - 1 armor.

The armor is effectively reduced to 1d4 - 1 (3 defense). Under the old rules, the 12 laser damage would have had a 3/4 chance of hitting. Under the new rules, the 4d4 - 4 laser damage would have almost a 100% chance of hitting. In order for the 1d4-1 defense to work, the 4d4-4 roll must, in the best case, come up with 2 1's and 2 2's on the d4 rolls. The average (which is the predominant value on 4d4-4) is 2.5*4 - 4, or 6. My armor is made almost entirely useless.

The game currently let you get away with having mismatched defenses to some degree. It allows you time to research the other defense tree (or to just accept the lack of defenses and work on using your attacker advantage to kill their ships faster). Your version would effectively take that away.

To me, the only thing that should be changed with combat is that missles/beam/gun weapons need to all be the same thing for the same tech level. None of this nonsense about missiles doing 2 damage, but being bigger and more expensive, etc. That creates unnecessary imbalances; you can use a laser to fill in a small hole in a large ship, but there's never a missile system small enough to do the same. Beam weapons have an inhierent advantage over the other two kinds of weapons in that they are smaller, so you can use them if you happen to have spare room. Plus, it's much harder to fit missiles onto a tiny hull (not that I ever use such a thing) than it is to fit lasers onto one.

Plus, your system would penalize non-laser weapons even more because of the above point I just made. Lasers would always be low-damge dice, but more of them, while larger weapons would be high-damage dice but less of them. Any D&D player knows that a 2d6 weapon is better than a 1d12 weapon, since it selects its average more often, thus having more consistent damage. Consistent damage for lasers would make them an even better choice over the other weapons.

However, like I mentioned above, if you are just looking for a fairer system, just play around with the HP of your ships.

I don't understand why people want a "fairer" system. The attacker advantage is very important to the balance of the game. It dictates exactly how you should fight, and it works very well for how the combat system works overall.

Defense should be offense. That's the way the game was designed. If you don't like that, you can do something like what was suggested, but don't expect that to become the game's overall design.

Hi. Sorry for my bad english.

If i understand well, the math of the defense is (def x 100%)+(def x 33%)+(def x 33%).

I propose to replace these percentages by the content of a new tags, call them "useagainst_X" contained in the definition of the weapon.

Example, for the Miniballs, you can have that :
*useagainst_armor*100*/useagainst_armor*
*useagainst_shield*80*/useagainst_shield*
*useagainst_pd*0*/useagainst_pd*

And the new math for the Miniballs is now :

(def_armor x 100%)+(def_shield x 80%)+(def_pd x 0%).

=> 100 % against Armor because an armor can always stop (or try to stop) a little bullet of aluminium.
=> 80 % against shield because an aluminium bullet can be rather easily affected by an magnetic shield (i think).
=> 0 % against Point-Defense because you can't even DREAM to shoot an incoming bullet.

A stinger missile can be :

(def_armor x 100%)+(def_shield x 10%)+(def_pd x 100%).

=> 100 % against Armor because the missile need to pass the armor, don't you think ?
=> 10 % against shield because a shield can tryt to deviate an incoming missile, but the missile have engine and computer to compensate for the deviation.
=> 100 % against Point-Defense because a big, luminous and slow missile is a perfect target for PD.


Don't you think it's an open door for modding really different weapons ?
Imagine the Stinger 2 : Shield piercing warhead (100% => 90 or 80% against armor), or perhaps bigger engine (10%=>5% against shields), or maybe a little shield-generator (100% =>90 or 80% against PD).
That or the standard Stinger 2 tech + a tech called "armor piercing warhead", maybe ?

My first race, the Foxies, have the Shock Rocket has main weapon. For the game, it's a Mass-driver, and only Armor can stop it.
But in fact, it's a self-propelled bullet : A missile without explosive. It attack by sheer mass (at high speed, it's more dangerous than even an anti-matter reaction)
Lot of degats. Way more a missile or a bullet.
But, don't you think a PD can't shoot these weapons ? It has the size of a missile, is visible as a missile, atc. Sure, PD have difficulties for stop him (it's basicaly a bigger bullet), but PD can try, and perhaps shields, too.

Eh... what can I say. I like the system as it stands right now. It allows for strategies anywhere from small fast attack craft (my preference) to large capital ship battles. And I get a kick out of watching those zeroes roll past when my defenses are perfect for their weapons. Especially when it is a fleet of 9 small craft up against a fleet of *Frigates* and *Heavy Fighters*. Those 9 ships can waste most of the larger ships in the first volley if they all get pretty good rolls. This is probably why I like the current system so much. Each ship is rolling a 0-6 for attack. Since most of the time this results in a hit of 2-4 then I've done anywhere from 18-36 points of damage. Not bad for a bunch of small fighters each armed with a single Nano Ripper

Hi!

The problem is that the roll is done at the start of the battle and is kept for all of the battle no matter how many time you hit.

Sorry, just looking at the battle report will show you you're wrong. Ships do separate rolls for each turn, and inflict different amount of damage.

WRT MY ships: in described battle they wiped out that fighter in the next round. They actually had only 3 photon torpedoes and ~12 shields, the rest of attack/defense was from 2 starbases mining military resources.
BR, Iztok

An interesting range of replies (no I didn't forget about this thread that I started, just didn't have any comments). It seems a lot of people like the way it works, and it's balanced around that system (for the most part). Thanks for the feedback and discussion on it. The solution for my mod with the current system is probably just some adjustments of components.

Plus, you're making the disadvantage of using the wrong defense even more disadvantageous. Let's say you have a ship with (using D&D terminology) 4d4 - 4 laser damage. And let's say you have an enemy vessel with 1d13 - 1 armor. The armor is effectively reduced to 1d4 - 1 (3 defense). Under the old rules, the 12 laser damage would have had a 3/4 chance of hitting. Under the new rules, the 4d4 - 4 laser damage would have almost a 100% chance of hitting. In order for the 1d4-1 defense to work, the 4d4-4 roll must, in the best case, come up with 2 1's and 2 2's on the d4 rolls. The average (which is the predominant value on 4d4-4) is 2.5*4 - 4, or 6. My armor is made almost entirely useless.

I'm sorry to say, but your example, using 4d4-4 and 1d13-1 is like getting 4 vertically challenged people to shoot a giant with a bazooka, it makes no sense. Even worse, you say in the paragraph right afterwards that more dice is better, in D&D. If you realize that, then at least have the decency to compare 4d4-4 lasers versus 4d4-4 defenses.

Now, to take it a bit further, I disagree completely with your point simply because there are 1d26 - 1 weapons and only 1d11 - 1 defenses. I'm pretty sure since you have pulled out the D&D math that you would realize that defenses would benefits more than weapons, simply because you will put more defenses on a ship than weapons (because they are smaller as well) due to averaging. If you can't design your ship right and it blows up, that's not my fault.

As for wrong type of defense, I'm not sure how you can come up with that conclusion. 2 x squareroot of (4) is always better than the squareroot of (8). In this case, you end up with 4 versus ~ 2.8, granted, that's the maximum, but I don't know about you, but that seems to me to be an advantage for wrong defense types. Smaller, in this case, really is better.

Plus, your system would penalize non-laser weapons even more because of the above point I just made. Lasers would always be low-damge dice, but more of them, while larger weapons would be high-damage dice but less of them. Any D&D player knows that a 2d6 weapon is better than a 1d12 weapon, since it selects its average more often, thus having more consistent damage. Consistent damage for lasers would make them an even better choice over the other weapons.

Okay, let's say if you could fit a tiny ship with a 1d25 - 1 Blackhole Erruptor, or 2d13 - 2 Positronic Torpedo (wrong stat, I know, but it's for comparison only), what would you put? In a D&D sense, a natural response would be, Positronic Torpedoes, simply because they average better (even if less powerful). But this isn't D&D! For example, let's say you go up against someone with 24 PD in a 3d9 - 3 setup, NOW which one would you chose? If you're playing the averaging game, then you wouldn't be able to scratch the opponent with your 2d13-2 Positronic Torpedo, so you have to get "lucky". So, is it easier to get lucky with 1 dice or with 2 dice? In a case like this, where the ship is small, it is better to have fewer dices, simply because your tiny ship will die in the next round anyways, so you want to be lucky. Plus, with fewer dices, your "lucky" would be luckier than if you use more dices. Where as, in bigger ships that can survive, you will want many dices to take advantage of averaging.

This is why I don't think my suggestion puts missiles in any disadvantage to beams, it's all a matter of when and how to use it. Although I do recognize that this introduces an interesting game play mechanic, between "lucky" design for tiny ships and "average" design for capital ships, I find it making sense because tiny ships tend to be suicidal against large fleet and really does have to rely on that "lucky" factor.

I don't understand why people want a "fairer" system. The attacker advantage is very important to the balance of the game. It dictates exactly how you should fight, and it works very well for how the combat system works overall. Defense should be offense. That's the way the game was designed. If you don't like that, you can do something like what was suggested, but don't expect that to become the game's overall design.

You may like it, some people don't. The problem isn't whether it's "fair" or not if everyone uses it well, but when the game is singleplayer only (don't get me wrong, I don't like multiplayer either), and the AI just doesn't realize that you have to strike first to win, or just can't compete with your 20 speed ships, and you can pummel the AI with this offensive first strike all game like a punching bag, it doesn't seem right. This is why people will refer to it as "not fair", at least I do anyways. So yes, I don't like how the AI can't take advantage of how the game dictates you should fight and always lose, so I give everyone more HP in the hopes that it will have some chance. I never said that I expect it to be the game's overall design, because this is easily moddable, so I couldn't care less (unlike combat mechanics). I was only offering suggestions to those who feels the same way I do about pummeling the AI senselessly using gameplay mechanics that the AI doesn't have a clue about.

The current system works OK. I just have a few gripes with it:

1. For the early & mid game, the Military bonus is essentially worthless because of the low Attack/Defense value, since the bonus got round down to zero anyway (e.g. 6 Attack + 15% Attack bonus = 6.9 round down to 6). I think all Attack/Defense/Hit Point value should be scaled up by the factor of 10 or 100 for the fractional Military bonus to matter. The unmatched defense calculation would have to be adjusted to compensate for this (i.e. multiply by the square root of the scale up factor).

2. There is no immediate benefit to research better weapon technology (i.e. going from Laser I tech to Laser II tech). The weapon got slightly smaller but often you can’t squeeze another weapon on your existing design without drastic changes. It forces you to micromanage your ship designs. I posted a suggestion on how to handle this here .

3. The system penalizes ship or fleet with more than one weapon type (i.e. fleets with mass driver & beam). Different weapon type count as separate attacks against the combine defense. All MASS DRIVERS attack against ARMOR + sqrt(SHIELD) + sqrt(ECM), then all BEAMS attack against sqrt(ARMOR) + SHIELD + sqrt(ECM). Since the damage done is the difference between the Attack roll and the Defense roll, the defense essentially got counted twice. To be fair, the defense have to be proportionally divided against different attacks. If the attack fleet has 7 MD & 3 BEAM, the defense value against MD would be (ARMOR + sqrt(SHIELD) + sqrt(ECM)) * 0.7, and the defense value against BEAM would be (sqrt(ARMOR) + SHIELD + sqrt(ECM) ) * 0.3.