IMO this sort of stuff (not speaking to your ideas specifically; I remember reading a number of threads on similar topics) too easily shades into "cure worse than disease" territory. That is, it gets complicated, has unintended consequences, is awkward to explain to the player/provide proper UI support for the mechanic/for the player to actually interact with, and so on. All this stuff sounds great in theory but consider how much of a pain it is to just get a relatively-very-simple "retreat scenario" to work well. Until/unless that's sorted, anything more complicated seems like asking for trouble just in principle.
Deathballs generally tend to... not actually be deathballs, anyway. That is, unless it's mostly carriers. Other ships are more effective spread out in a line, and that's what they tend to do, so *to some extent* the spreading-out that objectives are meant to encourage (and, yes, aren't very successful at) happens naturally.
perhaps you and I have a different idea of what a deathball is? what i mean by deathball is that both sides generally ignore any sort of larger strategic maneuvering or terrain holding, go to the center of the map and determine the victor by shooting at each other in a tight a ball as possible (respecting the fact that you can't have nonfighters on top of each other) in current SS, the ideal formation is just the tightest possible formation that concentrates the most possible firepower forward (as you never have to fear any sort of strategic flanking maneuver) gunboats are strictly superior because you can count on the fact that you will be in your element in 99% of battles and those who trade firepower for maneuverability or strategic redeployment speed always lose the trade in the line fights as speed (under a certain value) is mostly useless in actual combat. guns are accurate that anything bigger than a certain size and under a certain speed will be hit 99.99..% of the time.
there are no weapons or tactics that force the player(s) or AI to actually spread itself out and control territory. this is what i mean by "deathball" in this particular situation, there is no role for any type of ship who's primary purpose is NOT maximizing firepower on target, which is why frigates are not good- that shouldn't be a frigate's primary purpose and indeed in the game it isn't. it's primary purpose is objective capping (currently mostly ineffective at providing any sort of benefit) force concentration (AI just doesn't maneuver well enough for this to happen reliably) and strategic support (there are many reasons this doesn't really work and the list is too long to go into here)
i guess perhaps our philosophy is different. when i ask the question "should the optimal battlefield strategy to be "hold W, select autofire, win/lose based on firepower disparity"? my answer is no. you have this entire layer of real time strategy in the game that's effectively pointless right now as 1) you never have to actually give orders to anything to win, and giving orders generally doesn't noticeably improve AI effectiveness or behavior anyway and 2) there is no reason to really distribute your forces in any actual formation or distribution. the ad hoc deathball that forms is enough to do the job and there's no ability or even point to forming any sort of actual strategy.
which seems to me to be a waste of the game's potential personally. the SHMUP aspects of the game have improved noticeably in the last couple patches, but the tactical gameplay has advanced not at all (or even gone in reverse i would argue in several ways with the addition of skills/officers)
for me personally, some novel deployments to spice up the battles is important so the battle(s) do not feel exactly the same every time. how about some mixed up deployments or battlefield hazards?
if i had to name the primary reason that battles in the game take on this form, i would probably say it's the lack of a sensor model that can support more ambiguity and make scouting a little more beneficial. the reason you have picket ships in the first place is that you actually don't know where the enemy is the majority of the time. you want screens (smaller, faster ships) to make sure your heavy stuff doesn't blunder directly into torpedo boats, destroyers or submarines that will imperil you and take advantage of their close range / speed advantages to wreck you.
if you create a WWII naval battle, and assume that everyone can see each other all the time, what you get is exactly what happens in game: everything below a battleship is at best second (third, fourth, fifth etc) fiddle as the battleship's advantages (impenetrable armor, huge displacement, large reserves of ammo, complicated over-the-horizon targeting, big ass guns) melt everything else who's purpose ISN'T just throwing the biggest amount of lead humanly possible.
anyway, the possibilities for improvement are endless in this area. i just hope it gets attention as nobody but me seems to care about it, rip.
