Combat Thoughts

Project Terran PT Suggestions
1

This is suggestion/moaning, not bug report :wink: .

I have problem with “pulled into Combat” events.

What is a point in events, which cannot hurt you, but takes minute from you? (30’’ retreat, plus loading time, plus lost mining session/movement), like attack by ships which, at best, eat quater of my shields for all 30’’ combat?

I thing there is something wrong with those events In General. You cannot make it too hard, because loss of ship is a big deal. And too easy are annoying. Partly because, in fact, all you can do is just click “Retreat” and stare into screen.

My ideas:

  1. Reduce too easy Combats - If Pirate cannot hurt me in 30’’ he won’t attack me***

  2. *** But he waits. If you roll out next attack event, his colleague will join in, and I’ll have to face more than one enemy… if they are strong enough. (You should run check after each bad event too).

  3. When dragged into Combat, could you spawn my ship next to aggresive pirate? If it starts on other end of battlefield there is 30’’ of slow movement without one Shot…

  4. Introduce light defeat - If my ship have intact Hull I could surrender, and lost only All Cargo Bay/Some Fuel/Ransom/something. Make loss big, but not overwhelming.

  5. Extend Combat to 2-4 minutes. But allow use of Chaffs* and Flares** to shorten time significally.
    *Detonate part of Cargo bay, loss of some resources and Hull. Resources acts as distraction, Hull parts works like Smoke Screen
    **Pump out and ignite some Fuel, further decrease Enemy scanners capabilities, but some Armour is damaged as well.
    Note - if miner loose all loot in such event, he won’t mine in such area…

  6. I hate situations, when I mine, Attack, Retreat, Enter Mining, Select Ores, Fire Lasers… I even didn’t gather any ore and another attack starts… Could you make 1-3min of CoolDown? Or, time of next attack is rolled just after retreat. If it falls into CoolDown time, it is made right after previous one. Or next attack is made by two Ships. Or something, just give us some time of uninterrupted mining :slight_smile:

  7. Make Retreat from combat more demanding, in terms of interaction with game, tactics. 30’’ of doing something is more interesting that 30’’ of doing nothing.

Hope I wrote my feelings clear :slight_smile:
pika

2

8.What if you increase damage made by Pirates four times and reduce HP four times? For fighters, combat would be as dangerous as it is, but faster (Loot and salvage adjustments, I guess). But for haulers, with 30’’ retreat and better pirates positioning - it would be more… interesting :slight_smile:

3

Just few humble comments, @prevuk will correct me if I’m wrong

You can never know if it will hurt you or not. Though, as already mentioned in another thread, we’re looking into ways of adjusting drag-in frequency based on relative stats/condition of player/enemy. Also, it prevents you from going afk in unsafe locations.

Easy or hard is extremely LL-dependent. In LL1 chances you won’t survive the 30s retreat timeout are pretty high. And if you’re afk and don’t notice it immediately…

Chance for that will probably be reduced. Not disabled completely.

Well, even now others are very likely to join after a delay. Making them attack all at once sounds interesting. We’ll investigate this possibility.

Sounds logical. Possibly.

Interesting idea. But I’m pretty sure you’re intended to lose everything :wink:

If I get it right, you mean set initial retreat timer to 2-4 minutes. And the let players reduce it significantly by sacrificing their cargo, parts of ship and fuel? That surely sounds interesting, though balancing the whole thing (you have nothing = you’re dead) would be hell.

That may sound harsh, but if miner’s whole ship explodes, he probably won’t go there again anytime soon too :wink:

Again, we’re currently trying to get the frequency right. And some params are likely to affect the chance as well. Artificial absolute protection is rather unlikely. It should probably be balanced in a way that (depending on location etc.) either you can mine quite comfortably (as enemies are “afraid” to attack you) or are overwhelmed and annihilated :slight_smile:

While I agree that retreating from just another encounter with weak enemies can be boring (and we’ll try to reduce chances for that^^), those 30s can be very long time if you’re caught by couple of dreadnoughts somewhere in low LL :slight_smile: That where you’ll be busy maneuvering your ship, staying as far away from enemies as possible and counting every second.

Stats are likely to be adjusted a lot. Though I think general chassis sizes / HP / weapon stats should stay at least in the same order of magnitude with player ships.

Most of the proposals can be reduced to a single complaint: If you’re in a relatively safe zone, nothing interesting can happen in those 30s you have to wait for retreat. One enemy simply doesn’t manage to get through your shields. Well, we’ll see what can be done about it.

4

I’d add that If you are in Marauder with basic shields (100 units) you are quite safe up to LL5, possibly LL4. If you are in Tier 2 Ship with 2 Shield Slots, you are really safe there.
You suggested that in LL 3 and lower things could go pretty hard (didn’t check that), but so many “marauder safe” places looks… not well planned.

If you need excuse: Player Ships have interstellar drive (huge structure, which require big hull (A lot of HP)) and extensive life support systems (which leaves little space for guns). Pirates have System Ships, not able to jump, smaller, but with plenty of weapons (less HP, much more guns). :slight_smile:

5

I think these comments fall in line with my thoughts, nothing more to add really…[quote=“pikolinianita, post:4, topic:680”]
I’d add that If you are in Marauder with basic shields (100 units) you are quite safe up to LL5, possibly LL4.
[/quote]

Absolutely not. A basic ship with a civilian shield would absolutely NOT be safe in a LL 5 or 4. You need to be in a bigger ship with much bigger shields, and perhaps even some offensive capabilities (if a miner or hauler) before venturing this low.

In a Marauder with a small shield I would not venture below LL 10 without company :wink:

I am not quite sure on the logic of this suggestion. It would surely make venturing into lower LL areas impossible for miners and haulers, just to make combat pilots experience more “interesting”, though FAR more likely that they will lose a ship?

6

I’m speaking about current situation on Game (NOT TEST) server. Lowest Shield have 100 HP. I fought some battles in LL5 (with Deepcore, 250 Shield), and I think once I get more damage than 100 (in 30’‘). but not much more. Maybe I was given easy enemies… On the other hand, to kill marauder (300 HP) in 30’’ you need ship with more than 70 damage per shot…

To kill my Deepcore, (two civilian shileds mk2, 910 HP) in 30’’ I need pirate with 200 damage… to remove Shield + Armour - above 100. Didn’t find anything like that in LL5. There is even Kracken with one digit damage (Centaurus system, Asteroid 6)

Absolutely not true ATM. You cannot scratch Pirate shield in 30’'. And you cannot decrease Enemy Efficiency by shooting at him. Guns for non-combatants are useless now.

All my discussion was about “make attack on haulers more intersting” (as current situation is boring and no risk at most LL (up to LL5, perhaps lower). I forget about Combat pilots (partly because I have no idea about HP of Pirates). For haulers, your task (as Evil Gamemaster :wink: ) is to provide enemies who can remove shields (and perhaps more) in 30’’ (in “Retreat Time”). But you have hard task, because you have same Combat mechanism for Fighters and Haulers, and those two have quite similar HPs. Let’s assume it is Combatant have 4x more HP than Hauler (same tier), and Hauler have 50% (Option:30%) HP in Shields. If Hauler survive an attack and loose all shields in 30’‘, Combatant would be killed in 4’ (6’) by same enemy. Short. If second enemy joins in (which is almost sure), it will be 2’ (3’). With current Ship stats, it would be awkward, as single Miner would survive many mining sessions, but single Combatant would not be able to kill two enemies in one go…

7

On the open bridge, Captain Rodgers watched the fall of a Jap salvo close aboard and spoke to the officer of the deck, Lieutenant (jg) R. B. Hale, “Fifteen degrees right rudder, Mr. Hale.” The helmsman moved the wheel, and the ship, traveling at full speed, heeled hard to port, laboring under the pull of centrifugal forces, then righted herself slowly as she straightened out of the turn. Another Jap salvo fell. Captain Rodgers judged angle and distance, and said, “Ten degrees left rudder, Mr. Hale.” He was calling on all his seamanship and knowledge of gunnery to outguess the Jap gunners. He watched the salvos, estimated how the Jap spotters would correct the errors, and conned his ship with a sure timing and skill which nullified every Jap correction. Commander Worthington S. Bitler, the executive office, described it:

"The skipper zigzagged the ship…We talked normally in between times.
…The skipper would ask, “well, Worthy, which way shall we turn next? I’d answer, “your guesses have been perfect so far, Captain. Guess again.” He’d swing right or left, and the spot we would have been in had we gone the other way would be plowed up with ten or fifteen eight inch shells. The skipper would then look at me with a grin on his face a yard wide and say, just like a schoolboy that’s got away with something in school, “Fooled them again, Worthy,” He did too. It was uncanny.”

(Sorry, Just like this quotation)

In game terms, it was useful to carry gun IF my fire would decrease enemy Rate Of Fire/Damage/Accuracy. Which would add some tactics to battles - Should I aim all firepower to one enemy, and suffer more damage from others? or aim few at same time, which would make battle longer?

And in reverse, I could choose one of few movement options, Straight run, light zig-zag, heavy Zig-Zag. Chance to hit and to being hit decreased from left to right. A lot of thinking if fighting along friend. (Salvagers have to be set on Straight run, or , even worse, Full Stop).

Different movements could be shown on tactical maps, like arrows under/on side of ships :slight_smile:

8

Shall we concentrate on getting the current combat “working” before throwing in loads more ideas ?

Making suggestions is great, but please start a new thread for those, rather than muddying current threads, as it makes it impossible to keep track of what is happening :wink:

9

I mined a little here and there, also Haul/Trade a little. Combat Frequency seems ok. Still too easy (I guess it is next thing to balance out). But:

  1. Can we see information about LL in Combat Screen? Not important for miners (as they usually knows where they mine), but for haulers it is interesting information :slight_smile:) There is a lot of space next to location’s name.

  2. Would be nice if you write LL of Jump Gate on Map (unless there is some kind of rule (which I don’t know), like JumpGate LL > Any LL in System)

  3. When I dock to Jump Gate and I’m choosing destination (page http://project-terran.com/terran/jdn.php ) I can be attacked! I think it should be safe place, as it is like landing on planet…

  4. If I fly from Jump Gate to Planet and get attacked, After Combat I end back near Jump Gate. I’d prefer to be near destination.

10

Yes. Included into upcoming patch.

Good question :slight_smile: I’ll take a look at it :wink:

Nope. You can’t docking at JDN, Fuel depot etc. Therefore you’re not safe. If it still doesn’t sound convincing: If you’re reading your mails, browsing through your cargo or selecting a skill to train next while undocked you can still be attacked. And JDN screen is just a visual interface on your ship’s navigational computer that lets you select a destination (just as fuel depot lets your transfer fuel) - it does nothing to “protect” you :wink:

Now that is very strange. Meaning combat actually started near Jump Gate Nexus. And you, for some reason, could still start moving. Investigating…

11

I did a few Trading runs. It seems to me that Combat frequency is bit low. I had system travels at least 50 times, perhaps 70, maybe more, and I was attacked once. A bit too low, I think.
Can you somehow create chance of attack for each “undock” event (from planet, asteroid or from Jump Gate)? 3-5% would be nice, I think. Right now Hauler/trader spend most time in safe interstellar travel or safely docked on planet, system travels are short and take little time (comparing to other activities), so have little chance for combat.

12

Well, in general you’re right: Both fighters and miners are staying the “high-risk zones” most of the time. While haulers are mostly either docked or in JDN transit. Though if we introduce an additional attack chance on “undock” for everyone, the situation does get any fairer. It has to be something specific to haulers. Like, “undocking” and “having lots of cargo” at the same time attracting pirates.

13

There was discussion on chat about that, One question - we talk about haulers, full hold, etc, but you should also take into consideration amount of “day trader items”, not only Dumont&Co