I seem to recall burn drive is stated to be travel mode engaged while in combat. Will burn drive be synchronized with travel drive?
(Currently, fighters can’t be boarded. Need to reconsider some mechanics around fighters anyway; stay tuned.)Only with this game can a nebulous statement fill me with such hope for AWESOME :)
One disabled enemy ship may be randomly picked for boarding after combat.
Need to reconsider some mechanics around fighters anyway; stay tuned.
Would that make it too easy, though? To get a ship you want I mean.QuoteOne disabled enemy ship may be randomly picked for boarding after combat.
Why make that random and not let the player choose which of the re-activating ships to board? You also said "boarding should be a way to get new ships rather than a way to get more ships", isn't randomizing the ship choice counteracting that intention?
Would that make it too easy, though? To get a ship you want I mean.
boarding should be a way to get new ships rather than a way to get more ships. Thus, there’ll be a very high cost to successful boarding.How can you get "new" ships with increased probability if the selection is completely random?
This all looks really good! I remember quite a lot about of discussion about boarding a while back - I'm glad that you decided to keep it. Does choosing which ships try and board (and that determining allowed boarding composition) mean we will be manually assigning crew and marines?
Also, will ships be able to fight past the 'travel drive' edge? I'm imagining fleeing ships accelerating quickly into a cloud of fighters that I'd stationed for ambush or something.
That stuff about ships reactivating and having a chance of getting away sounds good, but:QuoteOne disabled enemy ship may be randomly picked for boarding after combat.
Why make that random and not let the player choose which of the re-activating ships to board? You also said "boarding should be a way to get new ships rather than a way to get more ships", isn't randomizing the ship choice counteracting that intention?
In principle I also like the choice between "risk for the fleet but high boarding chance" vs "no risk for the fleet but low boarding chance and more crew losses". But...
If you choose a lot of (utility?) ships for a boarding task force and have a lot of marines, and you choose to launch assault teams, are there really high enough costs/risks? What if the target is a destroyer with 20 crew and you have 200 marines launching from your cargo ships? How could the costs of such a tactic balance out with or even surpass the cost of purchasing that destroyer? Are marines that expansive now?
(btw there's missing a space behind "HSS Tuat" in the boarding message)
Just a question: You said before that there can be only one escape scenario in an engagement. What happens if a retreating fleet destroys most pursuers and the remaining ones have to flee now? Do the pursuers still win?
Spoilerreally enjoy the development of the pursuit and board edge.
My only concern on the boarding is that the value of boarding attempts (one) is arbitrary.
Isn't there a better limiting factor(s)?
I completely understand the means by which getting a new free ship is something that should be avoided; but i feel like limiting the number of boarding actions to one, no matter the size of the fleet is a somewhat glaring gamey-mechanic. That is - to recall a previous blog post, breaks the game's immersion.
I feel by
- controlling the amount of repairable damage while in transit
- the cost of those repairs both in space and at a dock
- the viability of towing near-scrap ships
that boarding a ship for only vessel-gain would be nearly prohibitive in a similar fashion. Additionally, I really enjoy the options to assault other ships - but following the logic just stated, making those options tied to specific hullmods would also limit the opportunities you can attempt to board. (eg. adding "Boarding Craft" or "Assault Dock" tied to those relative actions.
That way players have the choice to board as many ships as they can, even if in the end, its a negative gain.
Other options like making boarding for special cargo/information/people are too far off to mention here.
Still, loved what your giving us Alex, thanks for taking the time to break it down.
[edit: to clean up my points][close]
Another element to test against boarding cost:reward would be to have derelict ships classified as "refurbished xxxx," being a version of the same ship but has ever so slightly lowered stats. That way the player is motivated to actually by a ship once in a while!
I seem to recall burn drive is stated to be travel mode engaged while in combat. Will burn drive be synchronized with travel drive?
No - travel drive is a much more extreme version. Might rename it to something cooler, though - "full burn", perhaps.
As a question, do the drives have a significant chargeup or effect like deactivation of weapons/shields to be used?
Not sure what you mean, could you explain in a little more detail?
It may or may not be a good thing to allow choice here (i.e. pick one, the rest get away!). Perhaps the "engage" option would even engage all of them, while board meant all but the one being boarded got away... hmm.
Another element to test against boarding cost:reward would be to have derelict ships classified as "refurbished xxxx," being a version of the same ship but has ever so slightly lowered stats. That way the player is motivated to actually by a ship once in a while!Hmm, neat idea. I like it! Will keep it in mind as a potential solution for any boarding related problems that may develop down the line.
What about infernium drive? Assuming the battle drive is something else (conventional drive?)
wait, you don't?
then what does infernium do?
I don't like this idea - it makes boarding feel useless as an option to get any sort of warship. (Note: Not actually useless - even a permanently low CR Paragon would still be a capital ship - but feel useless, as in, why should I spend resources trying to board when it's not going to be as good as the real thing anyway?)Another element to test against boarding cost:reward would be to have derelict ships classified as "refurbished xxxx," being a version of the same ship but has ever so slightly lowered stats. That way the player is motivated to actually by a ship once in a while!
Hmm, neat idea. I like it! Will keep it in mind as a potential solution for any boarding related problems that may develop down the line.
It's for interstellar travel.
As a question, do the drives have a significant chargeup or effect like deactivation of weapons/shields to be used?
Not sure what you mean, could you explain in a little more detail?
So how far does this rabbit hole go? If someone captures a ship, then you capture it, is it doubly hit with the refurb cost?Another element to test against boarding cost:reward would be to have derelict ships classified as "refurbished xxxx," being a version of the same ship but has ever so slightly lowered stats. That way the player is motivated to actually by a ship once in a while!
Hmm, neat idea. I like it! Will keep it in mind as a potential solution for any boarding related problems that may develop down the line.
I agree, if a ship that got repaired (from disable or low health) doesn't get permanent stat decrease, I don't think a boarded one shouldMaybe reduced (greatly reduced?) CR until you get to a specific type of station? You could make the station not cheap. Thus making sure the captured ships still cost a lot, and they'd be risky lugged out in space. Not sure if another layered mechanic is really called for, though.
maybe they should start out at %0 CR with a few weeks of CR grow rate debuff as the crew gets used to the ship and iron out the kinks though
As a question, do the drives have a significant chargeup or effect like deactivation of weapons/shields to be used?
Not sure what you mean, could you explain in a little more detail?
It might just of been my own misinterpretation that ships enter AND exit the battlefield with the travel drive, so iwas under the assumption
that when say the retreating ships reach the border and use the drive to escape, it would have to shut off other ship systems in a period of brief defenceless to activate it for the getaway,
@ Wyvern: Fully agree.
Another thought about the marines/crew slider (those are sliders, right?): Is there any scenario where you'd want to send in crew before exhausting your marine reserves? Can't think of one right now. If not: You could just make it one slider that selects all marines first and only if you keep dragging it to the right selects crew, too. Bit simpler.
Will ships whose combat engines are damaged be able to engage their travel drives?
Had a read through the latest blog. So far, it seems pretty fun and it gave me a few ideas.
Maybe instead of a random chance to board one ship, boarding could be one of the options after winning a battle (being mutually exclusive with salvage and that other stuff). You'd thenget to choose which ship you want to board, and you may pick one that can't actually be repairedpick one or more of the disabled ships you want to board (could display estimated odds of repairing the ship). EDIT: I should clarify, it would pretty much work the way you described what with random chances and all that, it would just be worked into the existing framework a little differently. It would also add a little more risk/reward (do I choose guaranteed extra loot, or a chance at a "shiny" new ship?).
Lore reason could be that the surviving crew on all the disabled ships do their best to bring their systems back online. If they're successful, they can break away while you're boarding the other craft. If they fail, they may sabotage whatever's still usable out of spite for you. In both cases, it means less salvaged loot than if you choose to scrap them before they have the opportunity to do either.
I also couldn't help but notice that you mentioned something about looking into fighter mechanics... so I'm going to shamelessly *** out this thread here: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5910.0 (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5910.0). I quite like the idea I came up with about fighters costing CR to be repaired and, most importantly, rebuilt. To summarize my idea, a destroyed fighter wing isn't necessarily gone. As long as it has enough CR, it can be replaced. However if the fighter wing is destroyed and its CR is too low, it's permanently gone.
I dunno, I just feel like it's too easy to completely destroy fighters. And frankly, it doesn't make sense that I can have 1 Wasp remaining and have it be restored to full strength, but the moment that last Wasp is destroyed it's gone for good. With CR, though, you could make each individual fighter have a specific CR cost to rebuild/repair it. For example, reconstructing Wasps could cost 4 or 5% of its CR per fighter. Reconstructing Xyphos(es?) could cost 15% of its CR per fighter. Lots of fun stuff you can do with it.
EDIT: Lore reason could be that as long as you have one full fighter, you can use that to make copies up to whatever the DRM allows you to keep in storage. Once the last one's gone, no more copies since there's nothing to copy. How many you're allowed to have deployed at one time is also constrained by the DRM. It's a bit contrived, but it makes a bit more sense than what we have now =p
As always Alex, you have awesome ideas when it comes to game mechanics, i am looking forward to these changes!
Would it be possible in the future to think about incorporating the idea of leveling up marines like we do with crew? successful boarding missions will promote some marines to be better in boarding actions? Veterans? Sargents? Captains? Combat Engineers?
I am a huge fan of Warhammer 40k books, and always have one in the process of being read (from time to time they have really great ship to ship battles and boarding assaults), space sims always seem to be lacking in depth boarding mechanics.
Ill stop dreaming now, but seriously, keep up the awesome work!
So how far does this rabbit hole go? If someone captures a ship, then you capture it, is it doubly hit with the refurb cost?Another element to test against boarding cost:reward would be to have derelict ships classified as "refurbished xxxx," being a version of the same ship but has ever so slightly lowered stats. That way the player is motivated to actually by a ship once in a while!
Hmm, neat idea. I like it! Will keep it in mind as a potential solution for any boarding related problems that may develop down the line.
Had a read through the latest blog. So far, it seems pretty fun and it gave me a few ideas.
Maybe instead of a random chance to board one ship, boarding could be one of the options after winning a battle (being mutually exclusive with salvage and that other stuff). You'd thenget to choose which ship you want to board, and you may pick one that can't actually be repairedpick one or more of the disabled ships you want to board (could display estimated odds of repairing the ship). EDIT: I should clarify, it would pretty much work the way you described what with random chances and all that, it would just be worked into the existing framework a little differently. It would also add a little more risk/reward (do I choose guaranteed extra loot, or a chance at a "shiny" new ship?).
Lore reason could be that the surviving crew on all the disabled ships do their best to bring their systems back online. If they're successful, they can break away while you're boarding the other craft. If they fail, they may sabotage whatever's still usable out of spite for you. In both cases, it means less salvaged loot than if you choose to scrap them before they have the opportunity to do either.
I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure that's actually *better*. Not sure it's worse, either, but it definitely doesn't fit in as nicely code-wise, because now you've got different cases fo the "after engagement" choice, depending on whether it's the last engagement in the encounter and whether boarding is going to occur...
It may or may not be a good thing to allow choice here (i.e. pick one, the rest get away!). Perhaps the "engage" option would even engage all of them, while board meant all but the one being boarded got away... hmm.
I'm going to break with the mold here and suggest the perfect lore handwave for the battlefields -- disruptor missiles.
...
*disruptor missiles*
I think the boarding mechanics encourage players to grind. Player will fight many easy battles for small reward because in one hard battle he will lose 2/3 of his ships and MAYBE get one ship in return. I think game should bring an equally strong battles to player for equal reward.
It may or may not be a good thing to allow choice here (i.e. pick one, the rest get away!). Perhaps the "engage" option would even engage all of them, while board meant all but the one being boarded got away... hmm.
One problem I could imagine without this is this: If you know in advance that you are not going to capture any enemy ships you have reason to destroy all their disabled ships during the fight. That way there is no chance of them getting away and opposing you later.
That would require you to artificially prolong the battle, a boring tactic.
Being able to automatically engage all enemies after battle would help, but if there's no 100% success rate (which I assume since the player might be able to escape) it's still not perfect, you'd still have reason to destroy all hulls near the end of battle.
Mhhh... Maybe give only disabled ships that floated away from the battlefield a chance to reactive and get away (if you choose "engage")? You could even influence your survival chances that way by pushing disabled allies over the border.
@ only one ship boarding issue: Why not allow a second dice throw after boarding is finished? Some reactivating ships might have been able to get away, some not, so you have another chance with worse cards.
I do agree that hardcoded limits in a no-real-limits environment sound a bit weird. We'll see how it plays out.
This is an excellent idea. It really does cover all the bases. Thoughts, Alex?I'm going to break with the mold here and suggest the perfect lore handwave for the battlefields -- disruptor missiles.
...
Now on to boarding... to be honest, I don't see why boarding should be more expensive than buying ships. I think the cost should approach that of buying a new ship, but if the entire universe is all about "making do with what you've got", then boarding seems like it'd be *the* way to obtain "new" ships, not something to be discouraged.
I'd like the option to loot a ship when boarding instead of capturing it, this would cost less to do than a proper boarding (you just pick targets of opportunity instead of trying to breach the fortified bridge or something) but would only result in additional items being looted rather than actually taking the ship. That way it's a way to play the boarding game with lower stakes when you're just looking for something to sell to vendors.That's already a general option, though. You can either choose looting everything or boarding one shop, right?
2. Destroyed ships grant significantly less loot. Ships you "engage" before they can repair and get away become disabled. So, you'd lose a lot of material by blowing up the wrecks.
It's already safer to attack weaker fleets. I don't think boarding specifically encourages grinding, though, since it should be the more expensive way to get ships. That is to say, if getting more ships is your goal, in the long run you'd be better off not boarding, unless you're perhaps super-specialized in it. Even if you're doing risk-free boarding, such as with an Onslaught against a Hound - it's still more expensive than buying a Hound.
Was wondering about the two boarding options, why you would end up picking the 'ships at a safe distance option', it seems that when you have smaller ships you probably couldn't afford to throw expensive marines away and risk them getting lost in space, so you'd want to dock up closer.
When you do have marines to throw away, you would probably be in a state where you have lots of money and bigger ships, which would nullify the risk of boarding due to the ship size/armor, or even the cost of losing a ship by the target exploding. I have a feeling option two will be underutilized. But either way seems like the numbers are probably tweakable to make it more so, but at first read it feels like the tradeoffs might hurt too much and you will always want to hard dock.
Also, could you leave some hooks in the API so someone can write a boarding combat game as detailed as the current space combat portion of the game? ;) ;)
I can think of a few reasons
Oh, btw, what about boarding of not combat ready ships that fly around alone? At the moment you get them for free just by catching them (they surrender), will they get the new boarding mechanics, too?
I would like to see boardable ships have a battle element. Like say you must induce a flamout and disable a ship without destroying it and then it will be boardable. Or maybe you need special weapons like ion lasers which are extremely weak against shields and armor. I have a feeling this has been discussed but making boarding chances tied to the player sounds more fun.
I'd like to see less boarding and more carrying the wrecks back to a shipyard for refurbishing or scrapping instead. I've always thought the reactor going off like that when a ship suffers enough damage to be a pretty cataclysmic event in terms of the foundational superstructure being intact enough to allow you to repair the thing without expensive facilities and basically replacing everything.
What can you salvage from a ship like that really? I grab a ship that says it has 2% hull which I assume is 2% from being absolute irrecoverable junk, and then I spend about 1000 credits worth of supplies fixing it, in an otherwise total rebuild of something barely distinguishable from the wrecks that I evidently blew 2% more holes in to repair.
Also, could you leave some hooks in the API so someone can write a boarding combat game as detailed as the current space combat portion of the game? ;) ;)
Oh, btw, what about boarding of not combat ready ships that fly around alone? At the moment you get them for free just by catching them (they surrender), will they get the new boarding mechanics, too?
They can still attempt to disengage, and will be deployed in the escape scenario. So, no more free caps there - you have to chase them down and disabled them. They'll be easier to board if they have a lot less crew/marines, though.
Oh, btw, what about boarding of not combat ready ships that fly around alone? At the moment you get them for free just by catching them (they surrender), will they get the new boarding mechanics, too?
They can still attempt to disengage, and will be deployed in the escape scenario. So, no more free caps there - you have to chase them down and disabled them. They'll be easier to board if they have a lot less crew/marines, though.
Am I correct in taking from this that there will no longer be made any difference between engagements sizes? Small fleets will have all the options? I like that.
I would like to see boardable ships have a battle element. Like say you must induce a flamout and disable a ship without destroying it and then it will be boardable. Or maybe you need special weapons like ion lasers which are extremely weak against shields and armor. I have a feeling this has been discussed but making boarding chances tied to the player sounds more fun.Hmm. It was discussed before, but the reason I didn't like it is it'd make boarding too strong. However, if boarding is still an expensive, not-automatically-good choice, then that's something worth considering again.
Advantages of boarding (I know of) are:
- gives access to ships that can't be purchased
That particular advantage will probably be a big deal once the campaign gets fleshed out, and getting destroyer (and above) class ships isn't as simple as stopping in to a station to purchase one.
I don't see how people can complain about only being able to board a single ship after combat. A few things to think about:
1. Getting to board any ship at all is unlikely right now.
2. If there is a boardable ship, there likely isn't going to be a second one anyway.
The new mechanics looks good, but being forced to board a random ship? Nonsense. If I want to board a Paragon with nothing more than 4 Marines in a Hound, then I should be given the choice to board that Paragon with 4 marines in a Hound. Let the player decide and not a random dice roll. It only encourages save-scumming and serves little purpose aside from annoying the player.
Once that ship is picked, the winner has these options:
Organize a boarding task force
Select ships that will participate in the boarding action. The ships need to be combat-ready and will lose additional CR. The ship selection determines the maximum number of crew and marines that can be sent in a boarding party, but also exposes these ships to danger if the enemy ship self-destructs.
Order nearby ships to engage
Do not board, shoot the ship down instead. Requires some ready ships, but there’s no risk, though the enemy ship might get away. The AI always picks this option if it’s available. Note that this leaves the player a chance to escape with a single ship, even after a total defeat!
How will the mechanics for small skirmishes be affected by this?
It would make for a nice and dramatic effect to have a small fleet move in on travel drive all at once from the map border in a formation of some sort.
Can you please finally stop working on the Combat System...you said 2 patches ago Combat is very very finished and now we still have no Content to play.
So my question is why the whole boarding mechanic is not done in combat?
So my question is why the whole boarding mechanic is not done in combat?
Simply put, because it would just overload the combat with stuff to do/consider/defend against. A capture would have to be very difficult to pull off if it is balanced, and during combat your attention is already spread very thin between piloting your ship and managing your fleet.
Can you please finally stop working on the Combat System...you said 2 patches ago Combat is very very finished and now we still have no Content to play.
Is it not possible to whittle down all the supporting ships surrounding a paragon, if you want to capture it, disengage leaving the paragon mostly intact, then re-engage the paragon? In the second engagement it will be the only ship present and thus capturable. or have I misunderstood the mechanics somewhere along the line
Can you please finally stop working on the Combat System...you said 2 patches ago Combat is very very finished and now we still have no Content to play.
Just chiming in to say not everyone feels this way, Love new campaign options don't get me wrong, and hungry for extra content, but I'll not object to additional time spent on extra combat features/polish
Also when a ship is disabled the reactor core explodes, how does it self-destruct twice?I believe the idea was that ships are really durable and designed to take the reactor exploding, but not without loss of life and infrastructure damage. So even though the ship is disabled, there's still plenty of ship left to destroy. So you rig up some explosives and blow the rest of the ship into shrapnel.
What if the disengaging fleet is huge? Fleets beyond a certain fraction of the battle size can’t attempt to disengage – not maneuverable enough, let’s say – and have to fight. They can then attempt to disengage if they take enough losses.
QuoteWhat if the disengaging fleet is huge? Fleets beyond a certain fraction of the battle size can’t attempt to disengage – not maneuverable enough, let’s say – and have to fight. They can then attempt to disengage if they take enough losses.
I would think a hound vs a hound + a wing is too big to retreat
I have one question:
In the blog post, during the fleeing phase,
what is to stop us from turning around and trying to fight off the other fleet?
IE: I have just re-spawned in a hound after a crushing loss. a pirate fleet with a hound and a talon fighter chase after me. I want to escape to my storage base to get my reserve ships, and crew, and not waste time here, so I select flee. they decided to chase.
Rather then bother with disengaging damage/further CR costs from fleeing, what if I decide to turn and fight the hound and fighter? any experienced Starsector player could easily win that, provided his luck wasn't horrible/had a weakend ship. What happens if I win? what if I drive the AI to fleeing? is that even possible? if not, wouldn't that mean some fleets would go intoflee mode, just so the AI wouldn't consider fleeing?
I'm really not looking forward to CR, it's overly difficult to understand for me. Too much micro management for me. I'm gonna try and mod it out as soon as possible
Just try not to think of it as micro? It's just something to be mindful of. Not something you really manage directly.Okay*snuffles* I'll....I'll try.... :)
I would like to see boardable ships have a battle element. Like say you must induce a flamout and disable a ship without destroying it and then it will be boardable. Or maybe you need special weapons like ion lasers which are extremely weak against shields and armor. I have a feeling this has been discussed but making boarding chances tied to the player sounds more fun.Hmm. It was discussed before, but the reason I didn't like it is it'd make boarding too strong. However, if boarding is still an expensive, not-automatically-good choice, then that's something worth considering again.
Simply leaving which ship i get the opportunity to board completely random means that boarding is relegated to a random treat i might get once in awhile.I did think that was kind of the point.