As many of us are aware, Starsector is inspired by a variety of games, a main one being Mount & Blade. Most of us also desire battles to be less isolated from the system/hyperspace maps where fleets move around. This has been common enough on the forum to earn a place in the Frequently Made Suggestions thread (FMS), however, upon looking at the two links provided in the FMS, I have found those previous suggestions to be fundamentally flawed.
M&B (maybe just some mods for it, can't remember atm) tried to have these battles that took strategic levels of time, but always maintained an irreconcilable difference between the time it took for a player-involved battle and an AI battle. Player battles were instantaneous, or nearly; while AI battles could last in-game days.
For clarity, I will define what I mean when I say certain things now:
Strategic - The system and hyperspace level. Where fleets move.
Tactical - The level where ships actually shoot at each other.
Battle - Two fleets meet on the strategic level. Lasts until one side is destroyed or successfully disengages.
Engagement - The frantic few minutes where ships shoot at each other. The tactical level.
Please point out if I misuse one of my own terms. If you feel something else should also have a set definition in this discussion, or one of the existing definitions can be improved, feel free to say so.
Currently, battles in Starsector take the same strategic amount of time for both players and AIs, which is highly desirable. However, they are instantaneous. As brought up in previous threads, the time on the strategic level and the tactical level are not compatible. One measures in days and quarter-days (6 hours
), while the other measures in minutes and seconds. Therefore, I propose no interaction between the strategic map and the tactical map. Once an engagement has come to (laser) blows, any reinforcements are either already there or not going to arrive in time.
So, how are we going to bring the strategic level into battles? Easy! The in-battle options that are given before and after an engagement will take up strategic time. For example, the "engage" option is not so simple as "fly up and shoot them". Both fleets will be maneuvering to try to start the engagement at a favorable location/angle/whatever. This is already evidenced because parts of fleets, such as freighters, can stay out of normal engagements completely. This maneuvering period will take at least an hour or two, and that's even if one side has a total speed and firepower advantage and just charges. Particularly massive and slow fleets might maneuver for a day or two before finally moving into an actual engagement. The engagement itself would be instantaneous at the strategic level, as it only lasts a few minutes. Then if one side doesn't try to disengage they might maneuver for another day before beginning a second engagement. None of this maneuvering involves any movement at the strategic level, mind you.
Pursuing and harrying foes would take hours before any actual engagement occurred, as evidenced by parts of the pursuing fleet being ahead of the retreating fleet at the beginning of the pursuit engagement. (For those people who haven't discovered this: if you click on a ship twice in the deployment screen of a pursuit action it will say deploy left. A third time and it says deploy right. Four times is back to not deploying. These left and right deployments are ahead of the fleeing fleet.) When a retreating fleet successfully disengages it gets to leave, of course, but the "battle" isn't over yet, as the winning side has to, at the very least, reform, which could take hours for a large fleet. And if they decide to salvage it will take
much longer. Salvaging even a couple of destroyers would take hours, and large fleets could take days. Both of which would take time on the strategic level.
The battle is only over once both sides have left. It is entirely possible that one side (perhaps a Hegemony freighter fleet) could be completely destroyed, but while the pirates (or you) are looting the wrecks, a Hegemony patrol arrives and interrupts the salvaging, leading to more engagements in the battle just when you thought it was over. This could possibly lead to more salvaging for the pirates, if the patrol misjudged their strength, which could potentially lead to another patrol arriving... hope you packed enough supplies.
The situation will arise where a slower fleet catches a faster one on the strategic level and starts a battle. How would an engagement ever come to pass if the faster fleet didn't want it? Well, it's simple enough, the slower fleet, by catching the faster fleet, has achieved some strategic advantage that allows them to negate the opposition's speed advantage at least long enough to engage, even if the faster fleet tries to disengage and turns it into a pursuit engagement.
Optional: Pursuit maneuvers could involve strategic movement with the actual pursuit engagement happening some distance away from where the battle started.
Optional: Partial salvaging due to interrupted salvaging operations. I'm not sure how it would be determined what had already been salvaged. A linear materials/time function would be simplest, but presumably most of the salvageable material is buried in the wrecks, which would imply an exponential function. Or perhaps an even more "arcane" function to determine this, if it's worth the time to figure one out.
I'm sure I've forgotten something in this wall of text, and if I remember it I'll edit it in, but if you post something that should be in this OP, I'll try to notice and add it.
Sidenote1: This is actually kinda already in-game with hyperspace jump points. You select the option then it shows the strategic map as you finish moving and make the jump.
Sidenote2: In-transit refits should probably also take strategic time. As well as station options. Not related to this discussion, though.
tl:dr The menu options around the pew-pew parts of battles take time on the system/hyperspace map.
Edit: removed an extra "would"