OFFICIAL: Combat Discussion

[Deathwatch]

A bunch of AWINGs destroyed my TBs utterly there. It saved KySoto's ESC from destruction. (and grr, another EIDLN? )

 

Destroyed Ships:
VULTRE Gamma 3
VULTRE Gamma 13
VULTRE Gamma 15
VULTRE Gamma 1
VULTRE Gamma 18
VULTRE Gamma 5
VULTRE Gamma 2
VULTRE Gamma 14
VULTRE Gamma 10
VULTRE Gamma 9
VULTRE Gamma 11
VULTRE Gamma 7
KWING Gamma 15
VULTRE Gamma 6
VULTRE Gamma 17
VULTRE Gamma 8
TUFTR Alpha 28
TUFTR Alpha 2
TUFTR Alpha 5
VULTRE Gamma 4
TUFTR Alpha 23
VULTRE Gamma 16
VULTRE Gamma 12
TUFTR Alpha 9
TUFTR Alpha 30
TUFTR Alpha 20
TUFTR Alpha 22
TUFTR Alpha 24
TUFTR Alpha 17
TUFTR Alpha 13
NFRG Putrid (own)
TB Sigma 27 (own)
TB Kappa 4 (own)
NFRG Twisted (own)
TB Kappa 21 (own)
TB Rho 18 (own)
TB Rho 5 (own)
TB Epsilon 33 (own)
TB Rho 10 (own)
TB Sigma 1 (own)
TB Rho 17 (own)
TB Kappa 34 (own)
TB Epsilon 34 (own)
TB Sigma 20 (own)
TB Epsilon 28 (own)
TB Kappa 15 (own)
TB Rho 11 (own)
TB Kappa 11 (own)
TB Sigma 32 (own)
TB Sigma 8 (own)
TB Epsilon 6 (own)
TB Kappa 35 (own)
TB Sigma 14 (own)
TB Sigma 7 (own)
TB Sigma 34 (own)
TB Kappa 7 (own)
TB Kappa 29 (own)
TB Rho 8 (own)
TB Kappa 10 (own)
TB Sigma 11 (own)
TB Epsilon 9 (own)
TB Rho 30 (own)
TB Rho 9 (own)
TUFTR Alpha 15
TB Rho 13 (own)
TB Rho 21 (own)
TB Rho 22 (own)
TB Epsilon 27 (own)
TB Kappa 17 (own)
TB Kappa 23 (own)
TB Sigma 5 (own)
TB Epsilon 14 (own)
TB Rho 34 (own)
TB Rho 1 (own)
TB Rho 23 (own)
TB Kappa 9 (own)
TB Kappa 31 (own)
TB Epsilon 1 (own)
TB Sigma 15 (own)
TB Sigma 26 (own)
TB Epsilon 16 (own)
TB Kappa 25 (own)
TB Kappa 18 (own)
TB Kappa 33 (own)
TB Rho 12 (own)
TB Epsilon 3 (own)
TB Sigma 35 (own)
TB Kappa 1 (own)
TB Sigma 17 (own)
TB Kappa 26 (own)
TB Sigma 9 (own)
TB Kappa 27 (own)
TB Epsilon 31 (own)
TB Kappa 8 (own)
TB Sigma 10 (own)
TB Epsilon 17 (own)
TB Rho 3 (own)
TB Epsilon 5 (own)
TB Sigma 23 (own)
TB Epsilon 24 (own)
TB Epsilon 35 (own)
TB Rho 35 (own)
TB Kappa 14 (own)
TB Kappa 2 (own)
TB Epsilon 26 (own)
TB Sigma 36 (own)
TB Epsilon 7 (own)
TB Sigma 19 (own)
TB Sigma 4 (own)
TB Epsilon 8 (own)
TB Kappa 13 (own)
TB Rho 28 (own)
TB Kappa 24 (own)
TB Sigma 22 (own)
TB Kappa 30 (own)
TB Epsilon 32 (own)
TB Kappa 32 (own)
TB Epsilon 25 (own)
TB Kappa 22 (own)
TB Epsilon 30 (own)
TB Epsilon 13 (own)
TB Kappa 12 (own)
TB Kappa 20 (own)
TB Kappa 5 (own)
TB Epsilon 10 (own)
TB Sigma 31 (own)
TB Sigma 25 (own)
TB Epsilon 4 (own)
TB Epsilon 22 (own)
TB Rho 14 (own)
TB Epsilon 19 (own)
TB Epsilon 2 (own)
TB Kappa 36 (own)
TB Sigma 28 (own)
TB Sigma 13 (own)
TB Rho 16 (own)
TB Rho 33 (own)
TB Epsilon 21 (own)
TB Rho 6 (own)
TB Rho 24 (own)
TB Epsilon 20 (own)
TB Epsilon 11 (own)
TB Kappa 3 (own)
TB Sigma 21 (own)
TB Kappa 16 (own)
TB Kappa 19 (own)
TB Epsilon 12 (own)
MNFRG Tom Fool
TUFTR Alpha 4
TUFTR Alpha 3
TUFTR Alpha 14
TUFTR Alpha 18
AWING New AWING
NFRG Cursed (own)
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
AWING New AWING
NFRG Warped (own)

Jumped Ships:

[markb50k]

I could prevent ships from exchanging UPWARD in missile potency, meaning CM couldnt go to PT

 

OR

 

I could make switching to PT reduce the magazine capacity to half or something

 

thoughts?

[markb50k]

I also am concerned that I dont understand the 'tedious' nature of the fuel limits.

 

if you can upon creation, simply add a set of orders to your fighters that you never have to edit, that puts them on constant sortie, harsh fuel limits or not, its no-maintenance on your part, isnt it?

 

i can lower fuel usage for full engage status from 0.5 to 0.4 i guess, that would give you 20% more mission time before it needs to refuel.

 

also with the fleet thing it will go a little easier to with mission management i think

[Kobra_warlords]

One of the main problems is that, to change the orders of a group of fighters, and make sure they're not each doing their own thing, it's often necessary to Clear All Orders. It's a pain to have to re-enter the whole break/refuel thing every time this happens.

 

Anyway, if all fighters should receive these orders at creation, and they should never need to be edited... why can't they be built in? All the user would need to see is the BREAK% setting - all else would be transparent. Of course, the fighter would also need to be assigned to a home ship, or at least be able to navigate to the nearest one. But like DW and I said, that should probably be enforced anyway (which would also avoid things such as TD swarms).

 

About warheads, downgrade-only would be the better option I think.

[Deathwatch]

Keep the magazines intact, just don't allow CM tubes to have PTs (but PT tubes can have CMs) - that would work.

[Deathwatch]

As for the fuel thing - it requires too much of a micro management of the fleets. Even if you set break & refuel orders, you still have no choice but to watch out for the "base" ship from being destroyed. While it's ok to micro things right now as it's a test of the combat system, in the long run you'll probably end up having several fleets about, and with limit time to manage it, I fear it'll cause too much of a hassle.

 

Besides that, what Kob said. A very much simplified system would do - set a mother ship and then a break level and there would be no need to further micro this. Maybe set a secondary ship to dock on as well. (oh, and a out-of-warheads break too please )

[markb50k]

yup, im adding an out of warheads break

 

and i will look into adding a SORTIE order, after I get the fleet order stuff down.

[Idle_Scholar]

What would be nice is to have a set of orders that will let; you dock some craft, have them fly out and fight if anything appears, but only within a certain radius and only certain classes. And then when everythings calmed down they dock again

 

Would the following set of orders do this:

 

DOCK

REARM/REFUEL

REPAIR

DEFEND (30km)

BREAK FUEL (10%)

BREAK NO WARHEADS

BREAK HULL DAMAGE (25%)

 

Priority Targets:

TB

B Wings

K Wings

Any small craft

No Target

 

Also I agree with Kobra and DW about PT's.

[Deathwatch]

I agree with being able to set conditions for launching fighters, but still having to set them specifically to dock would still interfere when you do want them to change orders. In the fight I had with the TBs, I actually had to re-issue the orders twice as they switched targets to random ones. This was very tedious.

 

What I would like to see, which would greatly simplify handling fighters, is to be able to set them to one given ship as their base, and set their break rates. Once these are set, you don't have to enter them anymore unless you want to change them and they persist even through "Clear Orders". And then you can just set the other orders which they will follow.

 

As a side note, which has to do with managing fleets, I had organised my fighters into seperate sub fleets. But when docked, these fleets did empty themselves and the fighters were listed under the ship they were docked as onboard craft. But when they launched, they ended up in the main fleet. This can be quite a mess with 144 fighters there.

[markb50k]

What would be nice is to have a set of orders that will let; you dock some craft, have them fly out and fight if anything appears, but only within a certain radius and only certain classes. And then when everythings calmed down they dock again

 

Would the following set of orders do this:

 

DOCK

REARM/REFUEL

REPAIR

DEFEND (30km)

BREAK FUEL (10%)

BREAK NO WARHEADS

BREAK HULL DAMAGE (25%)

 

Priority Targets:

TB

B Wings

K Wings

Any small craft

No Target

 

Also I agree with Kobra and DW about PT's.

 

yes, those orders would do that, as long as the orders are set on repeat 'Y'

[markb50k]

I agree with being able to set conditions for launching fighters, but still having to set them specifically to dock would still interfere when you do want them to change orders. In the fight I had with the TBs, I actually had to re-issue the orders twice as they switched targets to random ones. This was very tedious.

 

What I would like to see, which would greatly simplify handling fighters, is to be able to set them to one given ship as their base, and set their break rates. Once these are set, you don't have to enter them anymore unless you want to change them and they persist even through "Clear Orders". And then you can just set the other orders which they will follow.

 

As a side note, which has to do with managing fleets, I had organised my fighters into seperate sub fleets. But when docked, these fleets did empty themselves and the fighters were listed under the ship they were docked as onboard craft. But when they launched, they ended up in the main fleet. This can be quite a mess with 144 fighters there.

 

the behavior of them going against random stuff is a bug IF you had the priority target set correctly. Like i told Kobra, the moment that happens show me the ship they are going against and show me their current priority target list.

 

I dont see me setting up that hard-coded relationship between fighters and a home base.  Just not something I like.  The order list Idle Scholar listed above (or a simplified SORTIE order) would do the same thing and could be cancelled.  I like making things easier on people but I dont want to take all the responsibility into the codes hands.  Just a philosophy of mine.

 

the fighter leaving its fleet once it lands is a bug and I am fixing it with this whole fleet order thing

Edited June 14, 2008 by markb50k

[Deathwatch]

What happens if a ship is attacking one ship (red line) and you change priority targets, do you have to reissue the attack orders?

 

BTW, someone be nice and kill the TDs from KySoto - they appear to be out of fuel.

[Idle_Scholar]

But would the fighters return to base and dock once there were no more enemies within 30km (in that example)? Would they stay docked provided no enemies enter the 30km around the ship. Oh and can the DEFEND order position be a ship (quite important for that all to work).

[Idle_Scholar]

What happens if a ship is attacking one ship (red line) and you change priority targets, do you have to reissue the attack orders?

 

BTW, someone be nice and kill the TDs from KySoto - they appear to be out of fuel.

 

Once he logs in again he can jump them all to some rendevous point with his carrier. The Kwings are a differnet matter.

[markb50k]

Deathwatch:  no you dont have to reissue the order, just "clear the current target".  its an option when you are viewing the order on the orders list

 

But would the fighters return to base and dock once there were no more enemies within 30km (in that example)? Would they stay docked provided no enemies enter the 30km around the ship. Oh and can the DEFEND order position be a ship (quite important for that all to work).

 

oh yeah, one change to your order strategy

 

set these first:

BREAK FUEL (10%)

BREAK NO WARHEADS

BREAK HULL DAMAGE (25%)

 

 

then put these on REPEAT

 

DOCK

REARM/REFUEL

REPAIR

ESCORT the mothership

DEFEND (30km) (by having the escort above this, the 'defend point' will always be the escort position, wherever you have set it.

 

if you DONT have the ESCORT order first, then PRO:  your fighters wont burn fuel while there is no enemy but CON:  when they do detect enemy and start their defend order, their defense position will be the point in space that was originally assigned..

 

its not a perfect setup yet until i create an order that allow ships to run operations off of a ship, which I am planning to add, but it will work for now.  Plus the fuel burn rate will only be like .2 a cycle while they are just escorting with no enemy

[Deathwatch]

Unfortunately, I've been very busy (and it looks like I will be busy for the new few weeks still as well I fear) - has there any combat happened in my absense?

 

I'm currently awaiting the new updates to GalSim before putting more time into it again. I definately hope that, especially due to reduced spare time, that the game will go more towards the strategic side as the micromanaging requires still is a bit on the high side at the moment.