Salivating for Combat

Just a couple o’ questions:

Will the combat system be grid based (like the mining grid) and moveable (a la CEs Mech Arena) with multiple-target locking (also like the mining grid)? If not, may I suggest that?

And if Target is far away it can be attacked by rockets, one have to close down to use guns :slight_smile:

yeah…i had a few ideas if they were going to use a system like that: it would make sense if they did use the same (graphical) engine as mining/CE Mech Arena

Piko has got the idea: Guns for close range, rockets and missiles for long range. Damage modifiers can also be added (or subtracted!) by type of weapon used. Certain enemies may be susceptible to one damage from a certain weapon type but be resistant to another

Example:

Enemy: Redneck Bubbas
Close Range Damage Modifiers:
Kinetic: - 15%
Energy: 0
Cheap Beer Cannon: +10%

It would be cool to add orientation modifiers if the graphic could reflect which way the ship is pointing and which section is getting hit

Attacking NPC or Player Ship (if Two Weapons are mounted to ship):

Bow Attack - damage dealt from bow turret(s) only
Broadside Attack - damage dealt from bow and stern turrets (or additional turrets in mid section)
Stern Attack: damage dealt from Stern Weapon(s) Only

Defending Ship:

Hit in Bow/Bridge: possible roll for a direct hit to bridge causing many failures including weapons failures for x-amount of turns
Hit in Broadside: no modifiers
Hit in Stern: possible roll for direct hit to engines restricting movement for x-amount of turns

Long Range Damage Modifiers: against Redneck Bubbas
Torpedoes: 0
Missiles: 0
Rockets: +25%

Torpedoes require targert locking and can do a LOT of damage but are slow moving and have a high miss ratio
Rockets are faster and can do moderate damage but can only move in a straight line (do not require Target Locking)
Missiles do the least amount of long-range damage but are fast and accurate

lol, this is a 2D browser game…

Don’t hold your breath on these ideas, unless everyone digs deep to hire a programmer specifically for this job :stuck_out_tongue:

how about an NPC ship that looks like a pinata and explodes with candy?

Are you thinking of a turn-based combat system, or a real-time system? Have you decided yet? I’d like a turn-based system, myself - there are enough real-time combat games, and I like being able to stop and think about my next move. Also, it’d be in keeping with the rest of the game which doesn’t have anything else that relies on speed, and I’d suspect that if a real-time combat system was introduced, it’d make everything else seem slow by comparison and everyone would be drawn away to the combat side - even though, without that comparison, the other activities are fine. Funny these psychological things.

I think it should be kept pretty simple to avoid overshadowing the rest of the game too much. A combat system as complicated as RexxShredd’s suggestion, or even more so, would be vastly more developed than any of the other activities, and they’d end up feeling like adjuncts to the combat.

That said, I’m puzzled by Prevuk’s remark. Are you sure it would be that difficult? I mean, I’m no expert, I’m just puzzled. The rules themselves look like the kind of thing they use for exercises in beginner programming books for kids - I think I could program a gamelet using those rules myself in a couple of afternoons. Is it the way this game is put together, or sorting out the networking with the other player, that makes it more complicated?

Judging by existing functionality - and especially comparing to CE if you’ve played it - I think your assumption is not correct. Currently nothing “relies on speed” indeed - but the game is real-time already - the best example being the mining, but also inter-system jumps or shield regeneration over time (also there are repair systems doing the same for armor/hull). Also, all kinds of random events are happening “live” without additional player’s input. Also, there are few pieces of actual info on combat, stating that you might be “drawn into it” while doing other activities, e.g. mining. I can’t imagine the whole universe stopping for you in this moment - and the enemy waiting for you to make your move.

And if combat is real-time, it is of course a limiting factor on the complexity of decisions you should be confronted with. It can even be slow-paced real-time with something like “auto-turn” every X seconds, so you don’t “hack-n-slash”, but have time to select an action out of a list or something like that. The point is, in my opinion, “endless turn time” would be very wrong as it would kill the very soul of combat action. While I’m a huge fan of TBS, we’re not playing chess here, that Pirate actually tries to kill you - and it should feel that way :slight_smile: IMO

Something in what you say. So it’s going to be a definite change of pace, either way. They’ll just have to be very careful to arrange things to keep it from swallowing up the rest of the game. The game has so many other detailed and interesting mechanisms in it, it would be a shame if combat ended up taking it over and those being reduced to afterthoughts.

(I get worried about this because I played Star Trek Online for a long time! Not that it ever really HAD that much in the way of mechanisms for other things besides combat, so maybe they’re not really comparable. It does try to have non-combat things from time to time, bless it, but the infrastructure just isn’t there.)