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Author Topic: In-Combat Logistics  (Read 1832 times)

Pushover

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In-Combat Logistics
« on: March 27, 2015, 06:22:10 PM »

Somewhat inspired by the discussions people are having about regenerating ammo/missiles. I liked the idea ballistic weapons be limited by magazine size. However, just like everyone else, I did not like running out of ammo and trying to ram things to death or retreating from a 'winnable' fight.

The idea is to have a non-combat ship, or lightly armed ship serve as a rearming point in the middle of a battle. Rather than having regenerating missile ammo, (or perhaps in addition to), ships can rearm their weapons by being near this ship for a period of time. The logistic ship is either its own ship (Ship system of reloading drones?), or a high OP hullmod. This would allow ammo to be limited again (I like the gameplay that comes with trying to disengage to reload guns).

Possible things that could come along with the ship:
-Large explosion on death. This ship is packed with missiles and ammo, after all.
-Higher supply costs on deployment if it is a hullmod. It's carrying supplies for other ships.
-Supply cost for everything that needs reloads. Reloading a missile rack might be 1 supply, reloading a magazine of ammo is 0.5 supplies or something like that, or it could vary by weapon system.
-Stopping/Increasing the CR timer. It would not add CR back, but it could delay things.
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Taizo Puckett

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Re: In-Combat Logistics
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2015, 12:43:49 AM »

I don't expect forcing bombers' shuttling behaviour be extended to all ships would be fun or even usable. It will also require a lot of work to implement and fine-tune AI for that.

Let's just make reloading cost supplies. But not reloading everything, just medium and large ballistic weapons. This would be enough IMHO.
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Taizo Puckett

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Re: In-Combat Logistics
« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2015, 01:03:53 AM »

We can also consider energy weapons in this aspect. Firing most powerful of them requires vast amounts of energy. Where all this energy come from? I guess from generators inside the ship, where it is being transformed from some conserved form... a fuel! Thus reloading large energy weapons should cost fuel.
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Pushover

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Re: In-Combat Logistics
« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2015, 01:28:43 AM »

In my head, this wouldn't require as much shuttling as a bomber has to do, unless you really planned to spam the crap out of missiles, which the supply cost would at least reduce. Think back to before there was unlimited ammo. Ballistic weapons did run out of ammo, but usually after you had taken on several ships with them. You would only need logistic ships for longer engagements. Rather than retreating and reengaging, logistic ships would provide your fleet with an in-fight rearm, if you can spare the time to pull ships from the fight.
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Debido

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Re: In-Combat Logistics
« Reply #4 on: March 28, 2015, 02:14:04 AM »

Fairly sure Alex has been over this idea. In fact the ammo resupply ship sprite assets are still in the game folder, but currently not used in the game.

I have no idea if he tested it internally or not, or what the result was, but either way the are not in the game.
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