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[Killer of Fate]

the way I feel it works now, it just removes one of the types of combat engagements in the game. I understand the concept of being able to wipe out a fleet easily, if they are running away. But isn't it just kinda weird? The issue I have with it is that for some reason you are able to destroy a bunch of significantly faster ships with a slower one, cause the game calculates that they should win. But in reality that's not what would happen. Instead, you would need a faster group of ships to corner the enemy from the sides, and then conclude them with a larger follow-up.

And also, the way how this works is that with order second-in-command makes all the other options useless. You don't have to let them go, cause you will usually always catch them and murder all of them. You don't have to pursue them on your own, cause you might not catch them. Whereas with second-in-command it's just KILL. And you do not do hail their retreat, cause why bother, when you can just KILL.

It also removes the important part of the game of slaughtering civilian ships and escaping enemies. Greatly reducing the theme of "war=bad", and it also encourages the player to instead of picking their enemies that are of their size, cause you won't be able to catch them anyway, or it's going to take too much effort. You just walk up to any small fleet, order second in command, and then they die...

Maybe just remove this thing altogether. Just remove the second-in-command. If a player wants to catch someone and kill them, then maybe it should be just a manual thing. Rather than a quick combat thing like in heroes of might and magic. And if they don't feel like doing it, then they can just not do it. Why kill the weak for no reason other than that it is easy?

Eh, this is a very minor complaint. Please put this at the very end of the list of possible gameplay mechanics changes. As it's not really a big deal at all... Tbh... As a player you can just choose not to use it, and I kinda started doing that from now on. Cause it's way more exciting to actually try to corner enemies then just "press this button to kill everyone".

[Nettle]

the way I feel it works now, it just removes one of the types of combat engagements in the game. I understand the concept of being able to wipe out a fleet easily, if they are running away. But isn't it just kinda weird? The issue I have with it is that for some reason you are able to destroy a bunch of significantly faster ships with a slower one, cause the game calculates that they should win. But in reality that's not what would happen. Instead, you would need a faster group of ships to corner the enemy from the sides, and then conclude them with a larger follow-up.

And also, the way how this works is that with order second-in-command makes all the other options useless. You don't have to let them go, cause you will usually always catch them and murder all of them.

Auto-resolving chases often fails to completely wipe out enemy fleet, regardless of how many ships you actually assign. If you want to gurantee complete fleet wipe, you will have to do manual chases. It also takes CR, so doing the auto-resolve when all is left of enemy fleet is 2-3 frigates can be utterly worthless, you have to consider what you stand to gain.

It also removes the important part of the game of slaughtering civilian ships and escaping enemies. Greatly reducing the theme of "war=bad"

When "war bad" was ever a topic in Starsector?

Maybe just remove this thing altogether. Just remove the second-in-command. If a player wants to catch someone and kill them, then maybe it should be just a manual thing.Rather than a quick combat thing like in heroes of might and magic. And if they don't feel like doing it, then they can just not do it.

Doing it manually can get tedious really quick, and ultimately you could consider your own suggestion here and just not engage with the auto-resolve if you don't want to. Why remove a completely optional, situationally useful feature? Who stands to benefit from this?

[Killer of Fate]

the issue with second-in-command is that it removes cool mechanics from the game on accident, and steers the player psychologically into boring gameplay. Here's what is supposed to happen. The player has a choice, is the player going to pursue stupid pirates and waste time hunting down nobodies? Or is the player going to spend time meticulously hunting down nobodies to earn additional supplies?

And then a second set of player choices arise. That help the player express their roleplay. Is the player going to get better at pursuing enemies, making this process more reliable and more fast? Or is the player going to ignore this mechanic and be more merciful towards their enemies by allowing them to simply get away?

Now, both sets of these questions are totally negated, because retreating of the enemy, and pursuing them, is no longer a mechanic. Instead, it's just a button. Or rather a chore. Instead of it being an active process, it's just a "make sure to press 2 and 1 to get more stuff". Pursuing enemies is actually fun, as you get to plan around how are you going to corner and executing them. And the fact that so many players may completely omit the fun of that due to the mechanic behind it being cancelled by an anti-mechanic that is "let second-in-command handle it" is kinda sad.

Obviously, it's not a big issue. But I did just want to express this, cause I felt like it was kinda... Odd... That it worked that way...

[SafariJohn]

I think it exists because fighting the exact same enemy twice in a row, once that matters and then cleanup, gets tedious fast. Normal pursuit battles were collateral damage.

[Killer of Fate]

I think it exists because fighting the exact same enemy twice in a row, once that matters and then cleanup, gets tedious fast. Normal pursuit battles were collateral damage.

I guess, but that kinda renders retreat mechanics useless for the enemy. Breaking the game's immersion to some extent. By allowing the player to transcend the game's mechanics. The thing that should actually happen, is that the enemy gets away. But you get paid for say, taking down the capital ship the bounty is on, and you don't feel like chasing them down, so you just hail their retreat and leave. There is no real need for cleanup. You can leave your patrols or local military forces to handle the remains of a fleet. And only if you want to kill someone, really badly, or need stuff... Or feel like it, you can engage in a pursuit.

[Megas]

I like auto-resolve for saving time by not playing and dragging out the many fights I cannot lose, despite the occasional silliness such as slow ship eating fast ships and/or minimally armed civilians (Colossus3 with mining gear or similar freighter) or broken (recently recovered) clunkers with low CR and random weapons killing armed military ships with normal CR.

In the 0.5x releases with skills and levels, it was possible to auto-resolve every fight in seconds instead of minutes, including Hegemony System Defense Fleet with three Onslaughts, and that was degenerate because the game encouraged to auto-resolve everything for faster XP gain, which defeated the entire point of the combat engine or the game.  Then by 0.6a, auto-resolve was limited to pursuit battles and has been that way since.

Aside, taking losses used to give XP, but that could be abused by shooting your own ships to death for XP (I remember shooting my small ships down with my Odyssey's plasma cannons), or recovering enemy ships then send them in (without repairing them first) to die for XP gain.  That was removed and enemy ships just gave more XP than they were originally worth.

Starsector is a cRPG, where war, theft, and murder means gold and XP!  Embrace the power fantasy of committing atrocities in the game for character power and reward.

[Killer of Fate]

but you said auto resolve defeated the point of the game being a combat engine... I just see it the same way for pursuing... An auto resolve still defeats the point of the game being a combat engine... Pursuits are no longer really necessary, unless you purposefully want to gimp yourself for gameplay aspects...

But to me pursuing enemies is fun... I guess, the point of this post isn't "REMOVE THE AUTO RESOLVE FOR RETREATS, EVERYONE MUST FEEL PAIN", but maybe "hey, pursuing mechanics are actually cool, maybe you should try playing without auto resolve on them"... Cause, yeah... I already see that Starsector players usually play with 8 times combat speed, and probably quick combat too... People just enjoy wiping out hordes of useless enemies without any thought put into it, and then reserving their brain only for more challenging stuff...

But eh... I just feel like stupid *** getting in a way adds to the atmosphere of the game. I was recently playing Red Dead Redemption 2, and the way how that game worked, it had a cool, custom weather presenting loading screen every time you quick traveled. You had cooking animations that were mandatory, rather than a menu. Buying stuff always involved walking to a guy... I know those things sound stupid, but they really made the world feel alive. The same kinda goes with how auto resolve works. Having enemies just disappear, whilst you go take a dump in-lore feels like anti gameplay... Especially considering how fun pursuits can be... And how easy it is to just not pursue, cause after all you usually have enough money, supplies and xp to achieve everything you want. And killing off remnants of a fleet doesn't give you that much anyway. And pursuing civilian vessels should feel like a game on its own, rather than just "okay, they're all dead, thanks Jimmy, I'm going to go play video games on my phone now".

[Voyager I]

The feature was added as a response to user feedback that playing out trivial pursuit battles became tedious. Please take my word for it that, for many people, this is true! As it doesn't have broadly superior outcomes to manual resolution, there's no perverse incentive to auto resolve a fight that you want to play out.

If you enjoy manually ensuring that every last Dram gets hunted down, you are free to continue doing so.

[SCC]

The main difference between regular battles and pursuits is that you can lose a regular battle. A pursuit you might not win hard enough for you to be satisfied, but that's about it. Since I play the game for the challenge, I am fine with resolving a pursuit in the background, if I don't care to make sure certain ships are destroyed. Not everything has to be optimised.

[Nettle]

But to me pursuing enemies is fun... I guess, the point of this post isn't "REMOVE THE AUTO RESOLVE FOR RETREATS, EVERYONE MUST FEEL PAIN", but maybe "hey, pursuing mechanics are actually cool, maybe you should try playing without auto resolve on them"...

Maybe just remove this thing altogether. Just remove the second-in-command. If a player wants to catch someone and kill them, then maybe it should be just a manual thing. Rather than a quick combat thing like in heroes of might and magic. And if they don't feel like doing it, then they can just not do it. Why kill the weak for no reason other than that it is easy?

You have to make up your mind here.

[mark.sucka]

Obligatory point out:

Within settings.json, "maxDisengageSize" and "maxDisengageFraction" set values that limit when a disengage style battle can occur.

By default, maxDisengageSize is set at 150, meaning that if the enemy's fleet takes more than 150 supplies to recover if it were all deployed, then it cannot be killed by a 2nd in command disengage-type battle, but will rather fight normally.  You can of course set this lower to your preference, even down to zero, so you can watch the enemy pathetically try to kick your ass with its drams and buffalos and other logistics ships for that immersive "fight to the last man" type battle desperation.  It also forces you to field more ships than you might otherwise with the 2nd in command option, because while I half-jokingly said pathetically fight you with drams and buffalos, depending on the kitting, large amounts of logistical ships can actually be a threat if you weren't prepared for it.

[Megas]

but you said auto resolve defeated the point of the game being a combat engine... I just see it the same way for pursuing... An auto resolve still defeats the point of the game being a combat engine... Pursuits are no longer really necessary, unless you purposefully want to gimp yourself for gameplay aspects...

There is the scenario of the player getting chased.  So even if player auto-resolves all pursuits when chasing the enemy, there still needs pursuit mechanics when the player is the one chased instead.

Aside, old Starfarer had different chase mechanics.  I do not remember for sure, but it was either run the gauntlet through enemies between you and the top of the screen (and probably die) or turn around and roll the dice whether your ships retreat or get captured.  (Turn around and gamble was safer.)

[WhisperDSP]

With the caveat that I’ve not yet checked out version 0.97 etc…

Decision tree to answer the question re is it worth killing the last fragments of a fleet (say, a kite that’s retreated and a dram held in reserve):

Question:
* Do I need the fuel bad enough that it makes up for the supplies to deploy?

No:
* Let them go

Yes:
* Send in three captained brawlers on auto-resolve (maxxed captains with elite skills)
** The dram gets away

How in Holy Ludd’s Name did they get away from my captains? Time to hire more competent captains.

*starts throwing captains out the airlock*

More seriously. In certain cases, the auto-resolve needs to be re-looked-at. With overwhelmingly crushing firepower and speed, I still wonder how the above manages to happen - both of the opponent ships in the example should have been erased from space, especially the dram.

Irritating in a “I am the scourge of space, there must be no survivors” playthrough. We are forced to play in nit-picking detail every single minor skirmish, going in from the sides, etc. Having to catch up with escapees and waste time with two more auto-resolve/second-in-command attacks (because they slipped away from the first one) is very odd.

[cake]

after your 50th butchered fleet, mopping up gets exhausting. honestly sometimes I just want an auto-resolve for battles too

[Zsar]

FWIW: It seems impossible to lose your own ships this way - I sent <10% hull ships without shields on pursuit several times, and they managed to kill several ships without ever dying themselves.

That may alleviate the lack of killing power somewhat, though admittedly it makes the mechanic somewhat boring: It's just an additional loot roll for the price of a few supplies.

... Though, I myself am firmly in the "more auto-resolve" camp. These are issues that should be fixed, not reasons to remove a QoL feature.