It seems oddly assymetrical that NPC fleets can't join in progress while the player can. Maybe it could be done without needing to pass time in campaign (which is obviously an enourmous can of worms)? Have fleets that are far away but still close enough to interact arrive with a delay, maybe some fleets delay engaging until a later point in the battle (see if it's going their way before commiting). I think it would make things more interesting and intuitive, and it seems a lot more doable than running the campaign in the background.
I'm happy with the current conceit to keeping the cans o' worms manageable, but I'd also like to see this if possible.
Also, rounds of a full day sound rather imprecise when battles are supposed to take "a couple of days or so" - any chance they could be updated every half-day?
Yeah, I (probably not unexpectedly) considered doing something like this. Didn't go for it just due to the complexity it adds.
I do see the potential for some nice dramatic moments here, though - can you take out that merchant convoy before the Hegemony patrol shows up? But then, just trying to think through how that would work, it gets weird. Would the merchant actually engage you if, say, the patrol wouldn't show for 3 minutes? The "right" move would be to engage and then deploy nothing until 3 minutes elapse, so some mechanics would need to be in place to prevent that. What if the merchant decides to disengage instead, where would reinforcing ships come from? Probably the top border, but that's not a handled case right now. There's more stuff like that that I'm not thinking through right now; as much as it seems interesting I think it also gets really, really messy in trying to connect up to all the different ways battles can end.
Sorry if this was asked/answered and I glazed over it in excitement, presumably the relations of the player and the factions have a part in who the player can join, I assume this will also positively effect the relations of the faction we team up with?
Yep, with the gain depending on how much of a help you were - i.e. helping a patrol stomp a single Hound isn't going to give you much reputation.
If both fleets are hostile to the player, will the player be prevented from engaging until the fight is broken up?
Right.
I am so hyped for this. Will we be able to see the orders our allies have issued? I assume we benefit from them holding nav buoys etc., but it'd be nice to know which ones they're going for.
You don't see their orders - it'd be hard to make that look right when you can give the same orders, or different orders on the same objective. But you can tell where they're going based on, well, where they're going. It's pretty clear right from the start.
I also guess we can only repair/rearm fighters on our own carriers?
Correct! (Man, all the fun edge cases of having allies.)
Also, what happens if the side with the most FP changes over the course of a battle- say, you arrive late and the original Hegemony trade fleet gets its teeth kicked in but your ships are still in fighting condition. Do you seize control of the engagement and have the option to continue (because you know you can outfly the remaining enemy despite their FP advantage), or will the Hegemony AI decide to retreat and force you to come along?
If you join a battle, your allies will make the decisions as long as they exist. If all your allies are destroyed, then it goes back to you making decisions (all the fun edge cases!). It's like, if the allies only have freighters left, *they* want to get away, and they don't know for certain what you'll do.
Hope you can get to those "long term late-game plans" you mentioned, the game really needs something there.
Same, it definitely does. After 0.7a (and the hotfix) dev should be much more focused on that. Just need all (or, at least, most) of the building blocks in place, and they're getting there.
Oh? I guess this goes in hand with the officers feature too, right? I saw some portraits belonging to third party fleets in those screenshots, are NPC fleets finally using officers? IIRC you mentioned they weren't using it yet back in that blog post.
Yeah, NPC fleets have officers now! Quantity and quality varies by faction, with larger fleets generally having more and higher level officers.
I've mentioned it in a suggestion many moons ago, but the way I would handle campaign time passing for player battles would be to have it pass between when they choose their option (battle, retreat, etc.) and when the battle, escape battle, etc. actually begin.
You click battle, a day or two goes by, giving nearby fleets a chance to join, then the battle happens instantly campaign-time-wise.
Yeah, thought about that. "A day or two" is 10-20 seconds, which imo is far too long in terms of game flow. Could fast forward it but there's a limit to how much the engine can do that. Plus it just gets a lot messier in terms of implementation; think the current customs inspection "flow" which (rightly) has generated some, ah, complaints. And which is quite a pain code-wise.
^ Good question about third party joiners above - can we swoop in and kill everyone? Similarly, will there be repercussions for destroying allied forces in battle? We don't want to see people fighting alongside their "allies", then ruthlessly backstabbing them without consequence.
You can't join unless you're hostile to only one side and/or friendly to to only one side.
(also, please let this give us a rep boost when we assist a faction!)
Right, it does that.
Last thing: do AI fleets consider the strength of nearby fleets when deciding to initiate combat? If so, several small fleets could gang up on large ones. They probably shouldn't consider the player fleet, though - sometimes the player will be just passing through and not willing to lend a hand. Also, I could see players 'joining battle with allies', only to let them deploy first and get horribly murdered before deploying in force. =P
They do consider nearby allied strength, yes.
I do have a small concern though. What's stopping pirate fleets from over-estimating and attacking a small trade fleet, and then having several hegemony patrols crush it merclessly?
Nobody said being a pirate is a safe occupation
Hmm, retreat is "I can't win this, so I have to escape with as much of my fleet as I can", whereas I would see scrambling as "I can only win against the foe I'm currently facing, and am willing to fight them at a disadvantage to do so before their allies arrive". Retreating would be best for fast fleets, scrambling for powerful ones. Right now a slow fleet is dead if they have to run from an opponent they can't defeat, and that will become more common once fleets can gang up on you. This would give them an option that allows survival.
If scrambling your fleet also blocks retreat for your side (lore-wise it could be explained as attempting to punch through the enemy fleet before their allies arrive, so you're effectively surrounded once battle starts), the two options become even more distinct.
Hmm, yeah, that makes sense. I like the "can't retreat" bit, also. But it does also mean that you have a way of ignoring all that business about nearby fleets being able to support each other, for a price - but "price" tends to mean less in the later game. All in all, I think I'd like to see how a base version of this plays out before adding more onto it.
I'm going to be that guy and ask: What happens if I start shooting at allied ships in combat? Will they turn hostile to your fleet, or will they take it like a champ, just like ships from the player's fleet?
And what's the situation with friendly fire? My allies wouldn't turn and start shooting at me if one of my stray bullets hit one of their ships... would they...?
Right now, nothing. Of note: salvage and bounty split is based on fleet sizes pre combat, so at least that's not a reason to shove anti-matter blasters up a firendly ship's tailpipe.
Will enemy fleets retreat independently, so that it makes sense to concentrate your efforts against one enemy first until they retreat? Can you even distinguish enemy forces?
They don't, and you can't.
Can my fighters use allied carriers and vise versa?
Can't.
What about objective bonuses, are they shared or is there internal competition?
Can I issue escort orders on allied ships?
*checks* Apparently, yes
Mh, if that range isn't visible it might lead to situations were you thought your target fleet was out of range. And then get frustrated when you find yourself unexpectedly in an unwinnable fight.
An indicator which fleets are in range of a set target might help. Or the delayed entry thing.
Hmm, yeah. Maybe just something that briefly shows the range when you click on the target - it's never going to be a sure thing whether someone will join or not, as whether they're just in or out of range could change last second, but some way of showing that range might be a good thing. You do, of course, have the option to try to disengage in these circumstances, and in some sense it's a punishment for cutting things too close, but, right.
So... I'd imagine there is some kind of rep hit if you decide to retreat from battle while your allies are engaged? I wouldn't imagine they'd like you helping out just to duck out and let them get demolished.
There's no penalty right now. Aside from losing CR and not getting any salvage. I still need to work through the case where you engage, allies join in, and then you leave first, though.
And one more thing, someone above said something about escort missions. Are there now more missions than just the procurement contract now or nah?
Not at the moment.