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[Gothars]

For those of us that play on iron and can't just reload, the disengagement mechanics are quite important - and boy are they punishing! I like the idea of getting a clean disengage by destroying enough enemy ships, and quite often I manage to get to 100%. But afterwards, when I want to actually retreat the ships to the boarder, it's a massacre. By now I order all my ships to stay as close to the lower border as possible, but still, the big slow ships take heavy losses the moment they turn around to flee. It's all but clean!

I would suggest one of the following:
- When 100% "clean disengage" is reached, enable full burn drive from anywhere on the map in any direction.
- Reduce the necessary enemy losses for CD so much that the player can archive them with only light, fast ships deployed.


As it is now, it is quite discouraging to be guaranteed to lose many ships (or a story point) each time a superior fleet catches you off guard.

[KDR_11k]

It also doesn't help that ships will try to fight against the defend order by pushing as far up as they can and that's a fair distance (a defend waypoint at the bottom most position you can put it at gives them a range of 1/3rd of the map).

[SafariJohn]

Trying to retreat in Starsector is awful.

I think the game would be significantly improved even if it swung to the other extreme where escaping was trivial.

[BaBosa]

I don't think I have ever retreated without huge losses so most fights are basically to the death with only fast frigates really being able to retreat.

I don't know what Alex's design intention for it is though. Making it easier to retreat would make high tech and missile heavy fleets more dangerous than low tech fleets and make fast fleets a lot more attractive. It would proberly require a large balance sweep to make it work.

What would be really cool is instead of the clean disengage mechanic, the enemy ships give up and they stop chasing you because they don't want any more damage even though they could clearly win so they slowly retreat (like they reverse, not turn around and run) That's how most real fights stop, not because one side losses but because it is not worth continuing. This would remove the issue of being decimated while retreating.

It would also be cool if the less important the reason the enemy has for attacking you, the easier to make them give up and back away.

[KDR_11k]

I wish you could recover destroyed ships when doing a clean disengage, not realistic but as it is I rarely feel like I should make use of that clean disengage, instead attempting to fight to a victory if possible at all because it's likely that I lost some hard to recover ship at that point.

[Gothars]

I wish you could recover destroyed ships when doing a clean disengage, not realistic but as it is I rarely feel like I should make use of that clean disengage, instead attempting to fight to a victory if possible at all because it's likely that I lost some hard to recover ship at that point.

It would make sense if your disabled ships were salvageable from the debris field after combat, wouldn't it? At least those with officers/reinforced bulkheads. Then you would have this gameplay loop were you sneak to the place of a lost battle afterwards to collect your missing ships.

I don't know what Alex's design intention for it is though. Making it easier to retreat would make high tech and missile heavy fleets more dangerous than low tech fleets and make fast fleets a lot more attractive. It would proberly require a large balance sweep to make it work.

Fast fleets are already better at retreating, if anything it would be more even if retreating gets easier. But I don't think the "retreatability" is a huge factor when designing a fleet, so balance would not change much either way.

What would be really cool is instead of the clean disengage mechanic, the enemy ships give up and they stop chasing you

Or both? Let's say all enemy ships get "timid"  personality the moment you hit "general retreat" (while at 100% clean disengage).

[Princess of Evil]

There's a way to retreat? I thought it was just a button that makes you lose half your fleet.

But seriously, it's so finicky i prefer to either fight it or pay the SP tax if i can't evade it on campaign. Neither of the two ways to retreat ever work unless you have a fleet of only frigates.

[TaLaR]

Fast ships can retreat just fine. You still need to herd ones that are too badly out of position before giving full retreat (usually just 2 move orders to both sides). Otherwise even fastest ships behind the enemy tend to die stupidly.

[Alex]

It would make sense if your disabled ships were salvageable from the debris field after combat, wouldn't it? At least those with officers/reinforced bulkheads. Then you would have this gameplay loop were you sneak to the place of a lost battle afterwards to collect your missing ships.

Ohh, that's a really cool idea, I love it! Made a note, I'll see if I can manage it. Or, heck, they could spawn as derelicts, just to make it more obvious to the player.

Of relevance to this thread in general, I think: I just recently fixed a front shield AI bug that caused it to drop shields ... inadvisably ... when ordered to retreat.

Not too sure on letting the retreat burn start from far away - on the one hand, that's a *really* cool visual. On the other hand, that seems like it'd get real messy with crashing into things (such as, I don't know, your flagship that has 1 point of hull left) and so on...

[SafariJohn]

Not too sure on letting the retreat burn start from far away - on the one hand, that's a *really* cool visual. On the other hand, that seems like it'd get real messy with crashing into things (such as, I don't know, your flagship that has 1 point of hull left) and so on...

After X time or other given conditions they could fade "down" like fighters landing or the emergency phase dive.

[Gothars]

Ohh, that's a really cool idea, I love it! Made a note, I'll see if I can manage it. Or, heck, they could spawn as derelicts, just to make it more obvious to the player.

Neat Maybe a big loss could generate a logbook entry (under Exploration?) so you could easily find your lost ships later (if you get wiped, or if you prefer to come back later with a bigger fleet over sneaking in right after the loss).
Imagining how a total wipe might mean a tense sneaking mission instead of a complwtely new begin with nothing has me excited.

Of relevance to this thread in general, I think: I just recently fixed a front shield AI bug that caused it to drop shields ... inadvisably ... when ordered to retreat.

(I think that's great for retreating single ships, but a general retreat is just an impossible tactical situation - even if all ships were player controlled some would be lost.)

Not too sure on letting the retreat burn start from far away - on the one hand, that's a *really* cool visual. On the other hand, that seems like it'd get real messy with crashing into things (such as, I don't know, your flagship that has 1 point of hull left) and so on...

A cleaner version of this would be to enable retreat from all borders, not just the bottom one. And maybe just somewhat increase the distance from which burning is possible.

[Jaghaimo]

A clean disengage (100% on the progress) for me would be: I order full retreat, and the same is forced on the AI. A cease-fire. All weapons off, all ships fly towards their respective retreat zone.

Or, instead of "Quit campaign" which gets replaced with "Claim Victory", show "Retreat now" when the clean disengage criteria are met.

[Alex]

... but a general retreat is just an impossible tactical situation - even if all ships were player controlled some would be lost.

In theory, what you'd want to do is either get enough space to pull back by winning locally, or try do do a "fighting retreat" (e.g. a "Defend" near the bottom, etc) before pulling back, right? I can see how that would be difficult in a lot of situations, though... it's hard enough to destroy enough enemy ships to get to 100%, to begin with, if you're in a bad enough spot to want to disengage. Hmm.

Or, instead of "Quit campaign" which gets replaced with "Claim Victory", show "Retreat now" when the clean disengage criteria are met.

... that might be the cleanest, actually. Though I wonder if that'd reward weird player behavior, like, I don't know, hyper-aggression and pressing that button right before the ship blows up, or something cheesy.

[BaBosa]

Having a button to immediately retreat would definitely encourage some cheesing.
But having the chance to recover ships afterward would by itself really help the issue. A player could have like a backup hound that they use to run away in and then recover ships so you don't get true wipes and have something.

Getting to 100% disengage without losing the important ships isn't toooo hard if you're aggressive enough, get opportunity kills and make sacrifices. The problem is that the fleet generally has low hull and high flux at that point so the damage you take while moving back makes things fall apart.

The giving enemy ships lower aggression settings while you retreat idea sounds good. Adding in a faction variable to the clean disengage amount and it could give them more character as well.

[Goumindong]

Or, instead of "Quit campaign" which gets replaced with "Claim Victory", show "Retreat now" when the clean disengage criteria are met.

... that might be the cleanest, actually. Though I wonder if that'd reward weird player behavior, like, I don't know, hyper-aggression and pressing that button right before the ship blows up, or something cheesy.

That seems like a pretty big risk regardless.

If the "theory" of the clean disengage is that you have damaged/destroyed enough enemy ships that they no longer want to continue the engagement then the space between "you did something cheesy and used the button to save your ship after going super aggro" and "you actually just won the battle and the enemy didn't want to pursue things any more" is going to be really slim as it is.

So i don't think there is a problem here.