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[Sy]

This would help one of the weaknesses of using d-hulls, there are skills to mitigate crew losses from damage, but not from destroyed ships.

just a quick note here, both the Blast Doors hullmod and the Safety Procedures rank 1 perk reduce crew casualties from disabled/destroyed ships -- at least when you win the battle, as the saved crew is recovered afterwards.

the descriptions of these should probably be made more clear, since many people seem to assume they don't apply to ship losses.


as for the actual topic, i'd also quite like to see something to make deploying auxiliary ships into combat (situationally) worthwhile -- and not just in "OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE, might as well deploy everything and hope that the freighters can distract them long enough for a few ships to escape" scenarios. ^^

and i agree the ECM and Nav Relay hullmods don't fulfill that role.

[Pushover]

Part of the problem is that there's simply not enough benefit to having the option of a pseudo-combat freighter like the Mule to purchase it. You would much rather stick with the 'spreadsheet entry' Buffalo and never deploy it, since the +4 supplies/mo for 50 less cargo capacity will really add up

One change would be to remove/nerf the effect of the ECM skill, but buff the maximum effect from hullmods. If you deploy a super heavy ECM fleet, the enemy range could be reduced by up to 50%, and all their guided missiles are basically useless. As is, it seems like it's just trying to punish the chain-flagship style of combat, since otherwise whoever deploys the bigger fleet gets a slight advantage.

The supply shuttle idea could work, but it should only work if the ship is outside combat (no enemy presence). Then in a larger fight, the ships would have to pull off the line to regain CR. AI would have to know to do this, though...

[xenoargh]

1.  Fewer combat-useless ships in general would be nice, in a game where combat is pretty much mandatory.

2.  Instead of a "magical" buff, why not repair shuttles, or shuttles that can actively capture hulks and bring them back to service during combat, or shuttles that can re-arm stuff or etc., etc., on that theme?  All that was in Vacuum and it was fun to see shuttles coming to heal your ship, etc.

3.  I still think that combat-useless ships should be forced onto the battlefield pretty much every time, so that protecting them is an important part of gameplay.  I never ever see these ships in my personal fleet, because I'm never going to attempt Escape unless playing Iron Mode, frankly, which I don't.

[Hussar]

@Gothars: Imagine fielding a fleet of phase frigates that you can keep resupplying over and over to a point they'll out-cr an onslaught for example.

OK, we are really thinking of quite different things here.

Yep. I also forgot but I guess since the ability would be called an resupply, it should also replenish the ammo stocks on missle launchers too. Even more reasons why the whole process should be constrained and risky as I proposed I think.

But in general what do you (& others ofc) think? I think that would be a relatively easy ability to program in, and despite the constraining prerequisites it would be a really powerful/useful one as well. Plus we already have "combat freighters" in game and they could get even more character & usefulness (since joking aside, but player will be using civilian ships [even "combat" ones] only in the early game really or when they're on a retreat) with the "resupply shuttles" hullmod. But the bigger, less "combat" ones could turn out useful too if we would to allow resupply not just frigates but also destroyers and cruisers.

The Mule for example, would be quite useful in this role - for sure less fragile than a buffalo I've used on the example picture.

[Megas]

Civilians have some use for auto-resolve.  When I need more ships to support my disposables, and I cannot afford to deploy my main battle ships, I deploy the tanker (and sometimes the freighter if I have one)!

[Gothars]

Do we really need civilian ships in battles?

I like how they only show up when someone is retreating. It makes sense. If you start introducing them as "corner buffs", they are just going to be that pain in the ass you have to manage every engagement.

-Battle Starts
-Hit "Deploy All" twice
-Rally civie ships in the corner
-Baby sit them the whole fight

I'd almost rather have freighters and tankers have built in weapons and hull mods only since, let's face it, we all don't put any weapons and the same three hullmods on them anyway.

Civilians still cost supplies to deploy. I would not use them in every battle, only in hard ones where I could really need a bonus to win. If they can be chased away, OK, a tactical victory for the enemy. When the enemy also deploys civilians, great, one more objective for you to archive.

I think it's good to have have this meaningful scalability in combat, and encouragement to give just as little as necessary, but with the option to give much more when needed. That's what I like about deployment cost's, too.
In video games it's so easy to hit a button for "full power" and your character gives his very best every time. But in reality it's hard to give your very best, nobody can always be at 100% (without consequences). It's nice to see that reflected in a game for once.


Another way to get to see auxiliaries are new engagement scenarios ("raid", "ambush") where you outmaneuvered an enemy's combat forces to attack his supply ships. But that's another suggestion altogether.

But in general what do you (& others ofc) think?

Well, it sounds nice on paper. But something very similar to this was already planned for the game. You can still see the sprites of a munition's ship&drone in the ships folder, that was supposed to resupply ships during battle in just the way you describe. The Odyssey has a munitions drone bay, too. The idea was canned because, IIRC, it would have been a confusing mess that were hard to control for both players and AI, and had distracted from the fight proper.

[Hussar]

But in general what do you (& others ofc) think?

Well, it sounds nice on paper. But something very similar to this was already planned for the game. You can still see the sprites of a munition's ship&drone in the ships folder, that was supposed to resupply ships during battle in just the way you describe. The Odyssey has a munitions drone bay, too. The idea was canned because, IIRC, it would have been a confusing mess that were hard to control for both players and AI, and had distracted from the fight proper.

Tru, I almost used the munitions carrier which one of the mods brought "back" as an example. But one thing, the gameplay changed significantly with 0.8. Battles are generally longer and slower, plus players spent more time on the tactical map view than before (otherwise we wouldn't have a thread like this right?). I don't think this would be much of a distraction anymore, more of an asset that can be used if situation is right.

Also bonus points for bringing back purpose to unused ships (now) I guess. Though still - yeah.

[Megas]

If things start getting a little too "hot" in the corner, you can immediately have all of those ships retreat. No real risk, and if they broke through your lines you are probably getting your butt handed to you already.

Not necessarily, the AI kites and turtles much more than they used to.  It is like playing against an annoying turtle player in a fighting game, waiting for you to attack, then punish you heavily if they block your move.  I see AI, on both sides, routinely trying to goad ships to approach, then swarm it.  When that does not happen, the AI drifts and stalls for a while.  I have seen AI drift too close to my civilians by accident while engaged with my combat ships.

[Aratoop]

There was a http://fractalsoftworks.com/2014/05/16/let-me-draw-you-a-starsector-ship/ cut ship that would resupply ammunition during battles, but I really like the idea of a hospital ship that's being brought up, since if you think about it some of the larger fleets have upwards of 2k crew who get spaced and killed when you destroy them, and something akin to the Black cats (link below) would be pretty cool, especially if you expect to take losses.

Spoiler

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[Wyvern]

Mm.  Personally, I'd be in favor of just plain upping the combat ability of freighters/transports/tankers in general.  Let ships like the Venture, Mule, Gemini, Shepherd and Kite be the baseline for combat ability of a 'civilian' vessel, and have actual purpose-built Q-ships and combat freighters that perform on the level of the Apogee.

I don't think it's likely to happen, but I'd be in favor of it none the less.

[Destructively Phased]

Actually I think a far simple solution would be that if frigates retreat and given enough time off the battle field they should be able to redeploy, albeit with lower combat readiness than their initial deployment.

It stops a case of "having these ships on the field as otherwise half my fleet becomes useless", which, when you look at it is just forcing the player to always do something, in this case deploying either crippled combat ships or nice squishy frieghters. And it could create interesting moments when a fleets frigate support has to disengage to recover, creating opportunities to get at the larger ships they were escorting.

Would it work? I don't know, but a frigate tends to have a deployment time of 3 minutes, 4 - 4 and a half if you want to risk malfunctions. Battles at late game can run much longer than that, so I think there'd be plenty of times that frigates to disengage to recover before re-engaging.