A look at Ship Roles

I feel like Ship Roles is a very cool feature of GC that is obliterated by its complexity. For one, its opaque, there is nowhere in game to find info about it, and only if you go to the Wiki can you unlock the mystery.

Second....its very complicated. There are a lot of roles, they all fight and defend differently, and the interactions are so minute that I think the vast majority of players just ignore them.

I think its time to look seriously at ship roles. I believe with simplification the roles will actually see more use and actually have more impact on combats. Fewer roles = better roles. So with that in mind, I propose a very simple 3 role model:

• Assault: The job of this unit is to move in and attack.
• Escort: This unit's job is to guard the Assault ships, and if there are no assault, guard the Support.
• Support: This unit wants to avoid combat at all possible, and stays in the back.

With such a model, everything becomes intuitive and understandable.

• Escorts are always the first targeted if in range. Escort and Assault ships always target them first.
• Support ships do not fire in combat and are the last to be targeted. 

Now its true with this model we give up the benefit of targetting support ships first. But frankly I rarely find that of significant value, because support ships want to stay behind anyway, and so interceptors have to move forward a good distance and are normally hitting other ships before they get to the support, meaning their fire is split anyway. And by removing interceptors and guardians (and capital ships as well), we make the system MUCH simpler and easier to use. Note that even the wiki suggests this, recommending and "Escort + Capital Ship" role focus, which is basically the same as Assault + Escort in my suggestion.

I think the trade off is worth it, as players will be much more inclined to actually use the system for best results.