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[Gothars]

A thought: It would be nice if the game would support not-all-out combat. As in, "we caused x% damage to your fleet, now you may retreat unhindered".

The "total annihilation" agenda both the AI and player have in every battle does not reflect the more nuanced intentions that now exist on the campaign level. Would a patrol that caught you with deactivated sensors really want to wipe you out completely for that? Maybe shooting down one or two of your ships would suffice. Do you want to wipe them out completely, or maybe just show them that they can't stop you from getting away? Is every pirate really a bloodthirsty maniac who doesn't stop until all his prey is wiped out?

The way I imagine it the game would indicate how much of your total FP (or % of total fleet HP) an enemy wants to destroy. When you destroy any of his ships that number rises, though. In turn, you can offer the enemy a unhindered retreat once you took out a certain percentage of his fleet. The sooner you let him retreat, the less negative reputation you get. Maybe, if you were attacked without provocation (pirates), sparing your attacker could even get you positive rep.


Some advantages:

- It would make the early game easier, since getting caught by a stronger fleet =/= total wipe-out. Also, less quick loads.
- It allows you to handle your relation with AI factions more delicately
- If you want you can cut the boring "mop up" phase of combat
- You'd have a better time role-playing a "good" character
- It could reflect on the grade of civilization of various factions. Maybe the Church oGR would punish you lightly for trespassing, while the Diktat would be far more severe
- It could also correspond to the distance from the core worlds, I imagine fleets in the fringe of the Sector would act much less civilized

[Sy]

sounds good to me. i does feel strange that faction patrols always want to completely wipe out any fleet that refuses to allow a cargo scan, even though most fleets who would do that are mostly just civilian smugglers. and similarly, it feels strange that pirate captains keep fighting a battle while taking major losses left and right, just for the chance of a little loot. you'd think they would value their own lives more than the chance for a little bit of cash and glory.

if this also allows role-playing as a more peaceful character and/or improving reputation with a hostile faction by consistently showing lenience and mercy to their attacking fleets, that would also be appreciated! :]

[borgrel]

thats what open comlink is eventually going to become for??

"give me the dram and the rest of u can go"
fight begins
opponent surrenders
dram obtained

other fleet leaves in peace
?

[Gothars]

opponent surrenders

I'm basically suggesting this option, as it doesn't exist.

[PCCL]

On a related note, I think battles in general should be a lot less lethal than they currently are. Even without being offered a chance to surrender, I think the enemy fleet should see that the battle is lost after losing say 30 percent of their forces and start working towards an organised retreat. Hell, this is probably too much work, but it would be nice if comm links can be established mid battle to discuss terms of surrender with the opposing admiral

[TaLaR]

Well, since I already know I've committed CR cost of deploying my fleet (or part of it), I'd better make it worthwhile. And that means wiping out every enemy for more xp, loot and ship capture chances. So I don't think this will change player's ultimate goal in combat unless rewards are involved.

Having some dynamic form of surrender might be interesting though. Surrender system could be based on score for current in-battle situation (some combination of ships destroyed, hp lost, CR lost, missiles used up, objectives held, etc) applied like this:
- Player can surrender at any time with different cost based on score (from whole fleet loss when enemy has overwhelming advantage to some minor loot, if advantage is small).
- AI will be ready to surrender when player accumulates sufficient advantage, giving several options of loot/ships based on score (or just *shop* for score points, though that feels too synthetic).
- If player gets big score advantage, but doesn't request surrender, AI tries to run.
- If neither side gets advantage after a while, truce is also possible.
- All of the above is affected by relations and affects relations.
- There may be additional circumstances making AI more or less willing to compromise (Traders being easily scared, Patrols willing to let you go for modest fine unless hated, etc).
- Pre-battle surrender may also be possible if one side has overwhelming advantage (though obviously this shouldn't be too rewarding).

[TJJ]

Morale would be an amazing addition to combat; just think of the tactical depth it could bring.
It's no small task to balance & make intuitive & fun though.

It's a miracle they got it to work so well in the Total War franchise.

[Cik]

it along with better deployment options needs to happen

only the most disciplined and fanatical forces are willing to fight to the death, and generally they still don't unless they are forced to.

in most combats, the first priority is preserving your strength, the distant second is destroying the enemy.

[Gothars]

Well, since I already know I've committed CR cost of deploying my fleet (or part of it), I'd better make it worthwhile. And that means wiping out every enemy for more xp, loot and ship capture chances. So I don't think this will change player's ultimate goal in combat unless rewards are involved.

Most of the time the value in combat isn't in the loot you pick up, though. That is barely enough to restore your CR. The value is in circumstances outside the combat, be it a bounty, your ability to continue a trade run unhindered or a declaration of war against a faction to get on another's good side. And from what I hear this trend will only increase, eventually you might fight to defend your outposts, gain technologies or strategically weaken a faction.
As long as a mercy system doesn't negate those real objectives, its influence on loot is pretty negligible.

[ChaseBears]

Maybe for some cases.   But 'civilized combat' doesnt' really jive with creating satisfying combat scenarios with the pay off of the other guys going KABOOM.

[Deshara]

sounds like something to come with the expansion of the fleet tree.
Things to look for in particular; A) reasons for the AI attack a player it isn't aiming to kill

Spoiler

(them attacking in pursuit of freight, if an economically driven enemy, or attacking to disable the player's military capacity, if say a system defense fleet)

[close]

,
B) reasons for an AI to want to do that instead of just a massacre

Spoiler

(maybe it analyzing the likely cost of a all-out assault over attempting to secure a tactical victory and pulling out once they have what they need, or to avoid drastic diplomatic impact from a massacre on a faction that they are at war with but are otherwise on good terms with when a simple supply train wipe would have sufficed)

[close]

, and
C) IT NEEDS TO BE FUN TO LOSE.

Spoiler

This is why I don't think SS could support non-wipe combat unless it gets a big overhaul-- at its core, SS contains a simulator of economies that accounts for the reason that major corporations stomp out small independents (and in the process makes smaller scale play less viable and fun than larger scale play). If you have a trader fleet of 20 destroyer-sized combat frigates and you lose all your destroyers and get left with a handful of frigates, you've essentially been bumped back to the worst part of the game; grinding up to a scale that's fun to play. So this idea would need some very heavy-handed introduction of multi-scale content that leads to emergent play. It needs to be fun to go from a huge fleet to a medium fleet, and fun to go from a medium fleet with a healthy stream of supplies and credits to field your war-cruiser flagship to a lone flagship left with no infrastructure left to float on the breeze. This is doable, but at the moment it's not really something starsector Does. I could come up with a thousand potential examples of emergent gameplay but the fact is is that the game runs on systemic gameplay, so it's not like Alex could just script in that the game needs to see that a player went from late-game content to mid-game content in a loss and needs to check to see if there are fun gameplay opportunities nearby for the player to catch a handhold on their way down the un-fun pit and regain some momentum, but that'd be a huge change in design philosophy methinks.

[close]

And, a brief example of one of those emergent gameplay opportunities;

Spoiler

You take your massive end-game fleet and you drive it into an enemy starsystem and engage over their homeworld. The enemy musters up fleet after fleet of warships to slam into you, and you win each time but because you're over their homeworld and their faction (as a whole) hasn't been crippled, the enemy has reserves and you lose your front-line composition every time until finally the line breaks and you're forced to retreat your flagship while your warfleet burns so it can take an escort of heavily laden freighters and flee for your life. There the game closes a chapter on late-game content (invade this market or save this planet) to mid-game content (assault this fleet or delay this food shipment) and the content would need to reflect that. My example continues as thus;
the reason they broke your line and then allowed anything that chose to retreat to retreat is because you, despite losing in the end, ruined their military. Every single ship capable of patrolling to keep the system's lively pirate activity in check is now in ruins. The fleet that came from elsewhere in the sector and delivered the final blow is a warfleet and thus not spec'd for running down pirates and smugglers so they take up position on the hyperspace jump points and shut down interstellar travel while the system recovers. In this way, the game essentially tells the player explicitly that they must recover and survive a cool-down period before they're allowed to go to hyperspace (safely) in order to prevent the player from just jumping out into the open in their now-ruined fleet and get run down by interstellar pirate syndicates or high-stability enemy factions (who can't get to you because of the self-imposed blockade).
To this effect, the game continues by allowing you to witness the immediate aftermath of the wreckage of this system; pirate activity booms but because you were directly responsible for the destruction of the system patrols that once hounded them, your relationship with them here is pretty decent-- now you are just one of them as far as they're concerned, except that you have a huge supply fleet and a powerful warship as a flagship which the bigger bands of pirates see as an opportunity. This gives the player a choice; hold onto their freighters and the heavy load of supplies and try to outlast the blockade, staving off waves of pirate assaults as they try to get at your freighters, hoping to destroy a freighter or two and force you to flee leaving them their pickings, or you could burn to a nearby market, pick a freighter or two to keep (to lower the potential gain anyone would have for assaulting your warcruiser to discourage constant harassment from the local gangs) but, because you also in the process wind up losing your hefty stockpile of supplies your hungry beast of a warcruiser forces you to join the pirates in sacking and looting the ruined system, running down independent trade fleets being allowed through the blockade with supplies meant for the homeworld just to feed your men and keep the engines burning and competing against the pirates over the salvage leavings of your devastating war effort, throwing yourself whole-heartedly into the mess of the system to scrape by a survival until the military relief fleets that the system's faction scrounged up from their other systems shows up and the blockade is able to step down as order begins to get restored and the player is able to safely escape to hyperspace and the Aftermath 'chapter' comes to an official end-- not with the player escaping the system in exactly the condition they ended the ruinous battle in (and probably dying a slow boring death in the cold reaches of space) but with several days or a few weeks under their belt to have steadied themselves, maybe a few new ships added to the roster of survivors and with the ships that no longer suit the player's play scale (god forbid you escape with an atlas in a system now left to be torn apart by pirates) having had a chance to be pawned off and replaced with something more suitable.

[close]

[Cik]

the other thing that may need to happen is make damage a little more granular, ie a critical system that is more permanent, at least on a one-battle basis.

so that harpoon salvo smashes into your left side mangles the left side ammo feeder system which puts all of your ballistics on a limited ammo count. if it happens to a few of your ships withdrawing sooner rather than later starts to seem like a good idea.

destroying, rather than crippling probably takes less force than it should, and most ships that are "destroyed" should probably just become (D) ships instead of being completely lost. (D) ships should also be repairable to standards with some time, money and effort.

the way the current system works out, destroying enemies once you have a slight upper hand is a no brainer. more loot the more you kill (in reality, probably not considering boarding and securing cargo/fuel/personnel would be way more profitable than looting a wreck that just went through a supernova) and little risk because of playerskills and the lack of time elapse while in combat.

you should probably also be able to unlock additional commlink options after-battles. if you do well, you can extort them for cargo, money, or ships, and then let them go; use them as bait for other patrols, take prisoners, hostages, whatever.

i don't mind smashing warfleets into each other as far as it goes but a little nuance would be pretty neat

[King Alfonzo]

Why not have something like in FTL? Where if you're winning, and the enemy is losing, they'll send you a message saying 'we'll surrender x if you let us go!'. You can either say Yes, get the loot, and let them go, OR you can say no, and just wipe them.

[borgrel]

hey, thats what i said ........

except that i said the aggressor determine the surrender cost before the battle started.
as gothars pointed out, the objective of the combat is seldom to wipe every ship out of existence.

if a patrol asks for a cargo scan, a surrender means ur allowing a cargo scan and losing all the illegal cargo. (uve already taken a rep hit for saying no)
if ur hunting an IBB, once the ship in question is dead uve earned ur money, any more fighting is just increased costs.
once uve destroyed (or confiscated) the troop transports, an invasion fleet is basically toothless.

[Gothars]

Maybe for some cases.   But 'civilized combat' doesnt' really jive with creating satisfying combat scenarios with the pay off of the other guys going KABOOM.

And that's really the best argument against a dilution of the current "kill everything" system. If I had to choose to always be considerate or always be gung-ho, I'd choose the latter. It means simple, direct fun.

It's just for the long term variety and for immersion that I'd like alternatives.

Why not have something like in FTL? Where if you're winning, and the enemy is losing, they'll send you a message saying 'we'll surrender x if you let us go!'. You can either say Yes, get the loot, and let them go, OR you can say no, and just wipe them.

Because the system has to work both ways. Do you really want to think about what exactly you'd offer an enemy if you're losing? And then maybe enter re-negotiations? I would't want by battles to degrade into a business meeting.