Multi-Ship Attacks

[sven]

The latest stable build (r13783) changes the way ship attacks are handled in the tactical UI.

If you have multiple ships selected, weapons now default to firing in batches, rather than one at a time. I'm hoping that the UI and associated behaviors for this are relatively intuitive and easy to figure out, but, the underlying mechanics can get a bit complicated.

For example, batches of beam and kinetic weapons will fire as a group, but, if you have, say, 6 ion cannon mounts selected, and attacking with the first 4 is sufficient to destroy your target, only weapons 1-4 will fire -- you'll be able to use the last 2 on some other target. (Point-blank missile attacks work the same way.)

Experienced beta testers should be aware that some of the core tactical mechanics have changed in subtle ways as well. For one thing, it is no longer possible to fine-tune the number of attacks used by a given mount. Given the new hardpoint setups, this feature isn't as useful as it once was -- and I think specifying attacks on a per-mount basis is already a sufficiently fine degree of control.

EDIT: As or r13794 (now on stable), you can cycle through weapon groups using TAB.

[Captainspire]

If they could make the combat sequences more live than turned based it be easier, but on the same token, it's still an I go you go and who ever has the better numbers wins, It's a difficult balance.

[Unbroken]

If they could make the combat sequences more live than turned based it be easier, but on the same token, it's still an I go you go and who ever has the better numbers wins, It's a difficult balance.

I've thought about this a bit, and it's a pretty tough problem to solve.

There's a few different ways to handle initiative in combat. The current method is simple and scales well, although it lacks some strategic depth. Moving to a system where each individual ship is assigned its own initiative value would work fine for small battles, but becomes ridiculously unwieldly the larger the battles become.

Trying to move to a pseudo-real time system as seen in many BioWare RPGs would lead to the same problem surrounding scalability, not factoring in the issue that some players enjoy taking their time and analyzing their choices before deciding on a course of action.

About the only reasonable change I can think of is moving to a 'block' initiative system, where ships are grouped in their movement order by their hull class/some assigned value, and move based upon that. For example, all destroyers would go first, followed by cruisers, then battlecruisers, etc. etc. Ship systems could be implemented that enable larger ships to move up in the order at the cost of firepower (otherwise big ships can be designed to serve as init-hogging glass cannons). You'd be able to move all your ships in a particular class at once, helping overcome battle scaling issues. Defenders would still get the first move, although it'd be a much smaller advantage that it currently is since only their smallest ships would benefit from that; if they had no destroyers for example, they'd end up forfeiting that move.

Another possibility would be to break movement and shooting into two separate phases - everyone moves their ships first (attacker here gains the first move, giving the defending player the advantage by allowing them to counter those moves), then both sides fire.

[bjg]

If you fire by a group, does the system pay attention which ship can do more damage? For example, the closest ship usually should fire first. It does not seem like it, but I could be mistaken.

[sven]

If you fire by a group, does the system pay attention which ship can do more damage? For example, the closest ship usually should fire first. It does not seem like it, but I could be mistaken.

Direct fire weapons should fire in order of the highest hit chance. Which means, often, that closer weapons will fire first.

Missiles and fighters don't obey this rule -- (as they don't really have a comparable hit-chance stat).