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[Ghoti]

In this situation I'm hostile to both factions, and I have more than enough firepower to beat both factions...



but I can't attack them because they are attacking each other.

I know Alex has said he's not going to be implementing 3 way combat, so I have a (somewhat complicated, but i think reasonable) solution to this. Give the player the option to interrupt the enemy fleets in combat, then the both fleets get to make a choice:



... or you can be a little more nuanced and give the player the option to interrupt both, or go after just either one, which looks like this:



This feature is also important because of bounty hunting. If I am after a bounty and another fleets gets to my target first, this allows me to chase them off. It also creates a situation where disputes between neutral or hostile factions crop up over a target. ("That's MY bounty!!!")

Personally I think it would be better to let 3 way or even 4 way fights happen, but if the game isn't amiable to it, or if you figure it would be too much of a mess, then, meh. Here's an alternative.

[Alex]

Right, yeah. I were to implement something, I'd probably go for the "break up the battle and pick one side as an opponent" option, since that's simplest all around and gets the job done. But since the use case for this is currently "avoid occasional mild annoyance", this hasn't exactly been a priority. Still, it's definitely on my radar as a potential thing to do.

[Histidine]

For the "attack one fleet" scenario, it could be nice to have an option where the second fleet temporarily allies with the player (the "enemy mine" outcome). Aside from the symmetry, this would be useful for modded games where the first fleet is from an enemy-of-all-humanity faction (e.g. Templars).

(Though it'd need reputation mechanics to incentivize against friendly fire "accidents")

[Sy]

if you're already hostile to that fleet, i don't think reputation hits would be enough to incentivize against shooting up your 'allies', in most cases.

if all three factions are involved in the ensuing battle, i'd prefer them temporarily allying against the player, simply because it's the scenario that creates the most challenging battle. if the player fleet is more powerful than the other two combined, fighting only one of them is likely gonna be rather boring. having the other side as allies would make that even worse.
if the player doesn't command a fleet of overwhelming power, they can either wait for the AI battle to end, then pick of whoever is left. or they can risk going against both enemies at once. the later is faster, and could be used to keep other fleets from stealing your bounties, but comes at the cost of a potentially much tougher fight.

that way, there also doesn't need to be an arbitrary rule like "you can only break up hostile battles if your fleet is this strong, relative to theirs". rather, you can always choose that option, but whether it's a good idea to do so simply depends on your ability (through fleet power + player skill) to come out on top of the ensuing battle, which i think would make it a much more interesting option.
although it might need some kind of warning-popup to make sure the player understands what they're about to do, so they don't accidentally choose to fight a battle against a much more powerful enemy force than they intended.

[TaLaR]

if you're already hostile to that fleet, i don't think reputation hits would be enough to incentivize against shooting up your 'allies', in most cases.

You could lose reputation with everyone (for dishonorable conduct).
Or after your new "honor" stat falls too low for behavior like this, all consequent 3-side battles will be 2 against you.

if all three factions are involved in the ensuing battle, i'd prefer them temporarily allying against the player, simply because it's the scenario that creates the most challenging battle.

This also works for me.

[Gothars]

(What program did you use for the flow-charts, Ghoti? I rather like the simple design.)


On topic, I'd hope that we eventually get to exploit these kind of situations, EG by attacking a factions undeployed and unprotected cargo ships while the main fleet is distracted. If those tactics were restricted to small player fleets it could make the small fleet playstile more viable in late game.

[Megas]

Given how easy it is to get Vengeful with enemies, everyone hostile to me is usually Vengeful when this occurs, and reputation hits do not matter since Vengeful is final (aside from one possible event).

[Ghoti]

(What program did you use for the flow-charts, Ghoti? I rather like the simple design.)

Dia. It's a quirky unreliable strange little program that has a bunch of warts. But it's small, fast, free, open source, and works pretty much everywhere. If you know what you're doing with it you can work pretty quick, and it's simple enough to learn quickly. Save often.

For the "attack one fleet" scenario, it could be nice to have an option where the second fleet temporarily allies with the player (the "enemy mine" outcome).

If I'm hostile to an enemy faction and they're jumping my bounty, then the last thing I'd tolerate is them "helping" me. If they're neutral then this flowchart offers the option to muscle them out of my bounty, because otherwise I can just join them in combat like normal.

The only scenario this plays out is where my target is larger than me to the point where I need the other fleets help to win, and honestly I think I'd prefer to let them all die and eat the targets CR. 

[Weltall]

On topic, I'd hope that we eventually get to exploit these kind of situations, EG by attacking a factions undeployed and unprotected cargo ships while the main fleet is distracted. If those tactics were restricted to small player fleets it could make the small fleet playstile more viable in late game.

Would that mean that if the player has some merchant ships that will not enter in a battle, that after he finished his current battle an event can happen, for other ships to be attacking his undeployed and unprotected cargo ships?

Afar from that though, I feel if the ability to break up ships appear, it should eat reputation points from both factions that break up, except if the player is under commission with one of them. That way people that do not care about reputation will plunge in and kick some uhhh thrusters, but people that try to raise reputation with either of them, will go in a dilemma about what is worth more.

But no like jump in and shoot your allies (which if you turn off your transponder might be viable?) but more like request from your friendly fleet to get out of the way, cause you are just a cocky captain with a huge fleet and the other captain would just frown and move out of the way, wishing you will crash and burn.

That way you will only battle enemies and have some unhappy allies. Definitely though the ability to use that should be limited, not by an invisible wall, but by the fear of making any kind of friendly or neutral faction instantly vengeful. So the play would have to either hold back from using the skill too much, or make sure he/she can take on the whole galaxy~

[FooF]

If faction fleets were a bit more permanent, the whole mechanic of losing reputation with a particular captain would be a good way of penalizing the player for forcing them out of the action. If the reputation was hit was local (i.e. just with that particular fleet) rather than with the faction as a whole, then break-ups wouldn't cause undue harm to the player but it would make particular captains hate you and perhaps go rogue (in which you get to kill them anyway!)

As it is, though, taking a reputation hit from a particular patrol fleet has no lasting effect and really isn't a punishment at all.

I'd also give a +1 to the idea of the "enemy mine" scenario. If I'm the biggest kid on the block, they better call a quick truce to take me out. Or of there was a mutually hated faction (i.e. Templars), everyone can agree that they are the biggest threat.

[Megas]

Given that player can get Vengeful (easily), but factions are static to each other on Hostile at worst (aside from mod stuff like Luddic Church vs. Knights Templar), the AI would probably deem the player the worst threat.

[Ghoti]

... Or of there was a mutually hated faction (i.e. Templars), everyone can agree that they are the biggest threat.

I'm against this specifically. As I see it. There's going to be two scenarios that enemy fleets will get into.

• If they're attacking an enemy fleet deliberately, then they don't want help from a hostile faction.
• If they're being attacked by an enemy fleet, then they wouldn't ally with someone interrupting them, they would take advantage of the opportunity to flee.

[Weltall]

• If they're attacking an enemy fleet deliberately, then they don't want help from a hostile faction.
• If they're being attacked by an enemy fleet, then they wouldn't ally with someone interrupting them, they would take advantage of the opportunity to flee.

Actually, at least in movies and stories, enemies do team up again greater evil, but of course it depends on the enemy. But I doubt this roleplaying element can get inside the game easy. I do though too agree, that if I had to choose between any faction teaming up against a common enemy and no such team up between enemies, I would go with the latter. For example I could see Hegemony and Imperium teaming up temporarily, against a faction like Diable Avionics, but I can't imagine Hegemony teaming up with Sindrian Diktat, against anyone.

[Sy]

it would probably depend entirely on the faction whether they would ever team up with anyone. i'm pretty sure Luddic Pathers wouldn't ever team up with anyone (except other luddites.. i think?), whereas Tri-Tachyon high-command would probably not hesitate to team up with their worst enemy, if they thought it would be beneficial to them in the long run.

having that represented in actual gameplay could be really cool from a lore/rp perspective, but would probably be confusing as hell to new players. and as it stands now, SS really doesn't need anything that'll make it even more unwelcoming to newbies than it already is. ^^ might be much less of a problem closer to full release, of course, when all the big features are in place, balancing is improved, and there are proper tutorials for everything important.

[Weltall]

Well there could be a table that would have percentages with each faction, as in what are the chances the faction would fight along or not. Like Hegemony would have 80% chance to fight along with Imperials, 50% with Tri-Tachyon and 5% with Sindria Diktat. The dialogue should vary, as in higher percentage factions would get a more friendly dialogue, while lower percentage factions would get a "I wish there was another way you scums" dialogue.

Also before battle there should be a dialogue, deciding whether after battle there should be a short cease-fire between the fleets or if they would fight it out.After battle there should be another roll of a dice,deciding whether the faction that fought along would just leave for now quietly or engage in a backstabbing way, if cease-fire was chosen.

All that could be very hard to program, or very easy, sadly I would not know. But I am sure each faction should have a file with the % of chances for each faction, to represent what are the possibilities to fight along.

Sounds like so much work to me.... but I would love it =)