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Suggestions / Raiding/Ground Combat Suggestions
« on: April 14, 2021, 05:36:44 PM »
Just finished my first playthrough for .95a, and I have to say I had an absolute blast be being a pirate privateer for the Hegemony. Raiding almost every planet in the core worlds, whether it was sneaking in under a station, or committing to a full siege. I enjoyed the mechanics, they were lightweight but well intertwined with the rest of the game. That being I have a couple of suggestions:
1. Implement an engagement Cap. It feels odd that I can send 1000 marines on a Size 3 station in the same time that I could drop them on a Size 7 Planet. There is also the issue with casualties being a percentage of marines in your cargo, meaning that after a certain point of diminishing returns your going to be losing quite an abnormally high amount of marines for what should be an easy mission.
By implementing a Cap that determines how many marines can actually fight you can make some targets more appealing in the earlier game by lowering the threshold from which you could mount a raid whilst mitigating the mass of marines you can bring to bear during the mid and late game. This cap could be modified by a couple of things, like colony size rating and if an active station is still in orbit. I feel it would also be interesting to allow the player to select ships to increase this cap at the cost of CR if there are no enemy patrols in orbit (in the same diminishing returns style of phase ships and sensor profile reduction). This mechanic would also naturally build into more... sustained ground operations that might require several waves of assault as well.
2. Explain how much EXP the marines get.
I love the idea of slowly building a team of elite marines after several dangerous raids - but please explain how they are accruing XP. Right now it feels like a mixture of the difficulty of the raid, the number of marines I have total, and the amount of loot they get. But I have no honest idea. The only way I found to actually get elite marines was to buy a massive batch and whittle them down, which would be cool if the marines I bought to replace my losses didn't immediately scramble all that hard work. It might be time to revive the old crewman EXP mechanic for marines...
3. Add building/relics for training marines in colony storage.
There should definitely be a way for the player to train marines in a colony. I like the idea of a training industry (making it an expensive investment) that trains marines up to experienced. Gamma/Beta/Alpha cores would speed the rate of training along, but a relic - similar to the one for commerce except killier focused - would allow them to be trained up to veteran rank.
Just a couple of thoughts I had after having a really raid-focused playthrough.
1. Implement an engagement Cap. It feels odd that I can send 1000 marines on a Size 3 station in the same time that I could drop them on a Size 7 Planet. There is also the issue with casualties being a percentage of marines in your cargo, meaning that after a certain point of diminishing returns your going to be losing quite an abnormally high amount of marines for what should be an easy mission.
By implementing a Cap that determines how many marines can actually fight you can make some targets more appealing in the earlier game by lowering the threshold from which you could mount a raid whilst mitigating the mass of marines you can bring to bear during the mid and late game. This cap could be modified by a couple of things, like colony size rating and if an active station is still in orbit. I feel it would also be interesting to allow the player to select ships to increase this cap at the cost of CR if there are no enemy patrols in orbit (in the same diminishing returns style of phase ships and sensor profile reduction). This mechanic would also naturally build into more... sustained ground operations that might require several waves of assault as well.
2. Explain how much EXP the marines get.
I love the idea of slowly building a team of elite marines after several dangerous raids - but please explain how they are accruing XP. Right now it feels like a mixture of the difficulty of the raid, the number of marines I have total, and the amount of loot they get. But I have no honest idea. The only way I found to actually get elite marines was to buy a massive batch and whittle them down, which would be cool if the marines I bought to replace my losses didn't immediately scramble all that hard work. It might be time to revive the old crewman EXP mechanic for marines...
3. Add building/relics for training marines in colony storage.
There should definitely be a way for the player to train marines in a colony. I like the idea of a training industry (making it an expensive investment) that trains marines up to experienced. Gamma/Beta/Alpha cores would speed the rate of training along, but a relic - similar to the one for commerce except killier focused - would allow them to be trained up to veteran rank.
Just a couple of thoughts I had after having a really raid-focused playthrough.