Regarding Fleet Warfare

from GalCiv3 Forums

Hi all,

I have been playing GC3 B4 a lot lately and tested the "Battleviewer" and fleet combat in general.
For that matter I would like to share my ideas, how to still keep it simple but make it better in general.
Here are my thoughts:


1. Starship size vs. value for the fleet (Size does not matter enough)

At its current state the difference between the different starship hull sizes does not matter enough.
Even though bigger ships have more HP and available space the difference is not significant enough.
In my opinion each ship size should double the effective firepower and defense capabilities.
This will make the higher hull class four times stronger than its predecessor.


As an example:

A small ship with a tier one shield and a laser would have 20hp / 12 attack / 20 shield
While a large ship with the same equipment would have 80hp / 48 attack / 80 shield
Of course you can also fit more on the bigger ship, due to more space on it, making it even stronger.

The values below are only meant as a simple example and would of course need tweaking and balancing.

Tiny         10hp          10 space      offense x1    defense x1
small       x2 hp         20 space      offense x2    defense x2
medium   x4 hp         40 space      offense x4    defense x4
large        x8 hp        80 space      offense x8    defenes x8
huge      x16 hp        160 space    offense x16    defense x16
Station   x32 hp        Modules       offense x32    defense x32
 

2. Ship Roles

I like the idea of ship roles. (Assault, Escort, Support, Carrier, Fighter, Bomber)
I have seen some role descriptions on ships, but i believe they are not actively used for anything yet.
Below a short summary of the roles how they should be.


Bomber could be replaced by "Assault".
Its funktion is focus on the biggest ship stick to it until it is destroyed.
Priority should be on biggest enemy assault role or carrier. Then go to the next lower hull size.

Fighter could be replaced by "Escort".
Its function is to protect the fleet from enemy bombers. After the enemy bombers are destroyed focus on fighters > small > medium > large and so on.

Escort role:

Escort role should protect the bigger ships aka attack smaller ships in the assault role first, but stay close to the ships you protect.
Escort roles should get weapon modifiers for higher rate of fire, but less dmg per shot. It should also be possible to spread damage over multiple targets if the firepower allows to destroy more than one target per turn.

Assault role:

Add a modifier that increases weapon damage and range, at the cost of rate of fire.
The ships in this role are good at hitting the biggest enemy ships but need protection against smaller targets.


Support role:

Stay behind and use ECM/ECCM, Jammer, Support modules.

Carrier role:

Stay behind and launch fighters and/or bombers to support the fleet as needed.
To keep it simple in ship design you should be able to build two kinds of carrier modules.
Assault Carrier module for bombers, 1 wing of bombers per module (3 bombers)
Escort Carrier module for fighters, 1 wing of fighters per module (5 fighters)


3. Carriers

I understand that currently carrier modules spawn tiny ships with the most recent development in shield and laser technology.
The idea is good, because it takes away the micromanagement from the player or AI to fit individual ships and reproduce them in large quantities like it used to be for Sword of the Stars 2.

However the current implementation is overpowered, because the fighters fit one weapon of the same firepower as any other ship in the fleet.
With the implmentation of the proposed changes in Nr.1 the fighters would still be valuable, but could not inflict as much damage against larger targets.
This task should fall to bombers or assault role craft of any larger size.

I am sure that most have a picture of a carrier with lots of fighter craft in mind. Currently every carrier module supports 5 fighters I believe.
With multiple carriers in battle it can quickly overwhelm the engine.
My proposal would be to create a wing of 5 fighters per carrier module as opposed to 5 individual ships. It is a representation in the battleviewer anyway.
Also to make it feel more realistic you could make the fighter craft return to the carrier after each attack run for reloads. (Look at the fighters/bombers like a weapon system not as ships).

I believe from what I saw in the battleviewer each ship is able to only shoot at one target per turn.
Bigger ships need to be able to shoot at multiple targets (could also add a modifier to the roles eg. escort can hit 4 targets, assault only one).
Currently if you watch one carrier vs. one cruiser you see the cruiser shooting at one fighter per turn. That is also the reason why 10 fighters easily destroy a cruiser.

There is no bleed through of damage vs. defense.
In the example carrier vs. cruiser; the cruiser only shots at one fighter with multiple lasers.
The fighters shields absorbs all damage. Afterwards the shields show a negative value instead of 0.
In my opinion the damage that exceeds the shield should damage the ship immediately, destroying the fighter with one shot.

With the current implementation the cruiser defeats the defense of the fighter in one round and then needs a second round to destroy the target.  
However it should also be possible to spread damage over multiple targets if the firepower allows to destroy more than one target per turn.

4. Fleet creation and Fleet size

Only an idea, but have you ever thought of a fleet creation screen where you could drag ships into role fields?
At creation of the fleet you can assign a fleet name and a role to all the ships participating in the fleet.
For example even if you have two of the same ship you can assign one to the escort and one to the assault role.
This way the roles are not depending on design but on what I want them to do.

The roles are meant only as a behaviour routine and as a combat modifier, simple but efficient.
This would add alot of flexibility without the micromanagement needs.
 

Please feel free to add comments and ideas.





27,857 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

This has been discussed in several places already so I will be brief and say that I fully agree with your ideas at least in concept and I love the idea of Bomber/Fighter Wings, though I'd want an additional class of Assault craft that perform boarding actions on capital ships they land on though that might be rather too complex for how the mechanics work. The most important aspect needed to balance fleet warfare is the hull sizes that should have a hit point and defensive multiplier based on size with medium hulls being the normal unmodified. So small hulls would have 50% of a medium hulls hp and a Tiny Hull would have 50% of a small hulls and a large hull would have double the hit points of a medium etc with that increase the damage reduction/shields by the same amount but obviously reduce there combat speeds and make them easier to hit.

In regards to Carriers should have modules for (5) support craft of a new size hull that's smaller than Tiny, that have increased combat speeds and are very difficult to hit style Fighter interceptors that will be pressed to harm any ship of even medium size but will be almost impossible for such sized ships to hit as this will allow them to carry out there role perfectly (additional weapon damage penalty beyond size and additional defensive buffs) and then you could have Tiny Hulled Bombers in models (3) that have buffed damage but reduced HP and Shields, so that they could inflict crippling damage if they can get to the target but they will be devastated by enemy interceptors. This divide will really help to make a Carriers role a specific one within a fleet and the composition of modules chosen to be critical, yet avoid them being over powered as the interceptors would be useless offensively and the Bombers would be countered by any groups of Interceptors, while the carriers themselves would be getting torn apart by combat focused Medium/large/Huge Ships. I also feel that Beam weapons are a poor choice for Fighters currently and that Interceptors should utilise Solid Projectile weapons (with possible upgrades to beams) and Bombers should use Missiles (with various upgradable effects).

Finally I feel that ships should have multi targeting based on there size that can be upgraded by hardware technologies. So something along the lines of Interceptor/Tiny Craft 1 target base, Small one per weapon system to a max of 3, medium one per weapon system to a max of 5, large to a max of 7 huge to a max of 10 as a base that can be improved upon.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

In addition, lets make fighters and bombers a new hull class: sub-tiny. Adjust weapons range and damage. They do NOT have FTL drives--too small. Tiny ships are large enough for crews of several members that can go long and far--scouts! Fighters and Bombers would not be designed to leave the tile of their base or carrier module, as they do not have the drives or life support for such long missions. They are only large enough for crews of 1-4 members. I hope these ideas will get added into the fighter redesign process. 

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Couldn't agree more with whats beaning said, playing in my game carriers just one up everything, not that they shouldn't be good but there the only thing to build, and yeah large ship targeting is a key problem with that.

It could be fixed with making a module that allows a ship to target more than one thing for each of them you have on, so you could in effect have AA ships.

Also ill just mention it here, there should be a way ships can retreat....

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting outlawcarlcjm, reply 3

Also ill just mention it here, there should be a way ships can retreat....

An out gunned or out numbered ship(s) should attempt to break contact and escape. At least those with faster tactical speeds should.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The way the battles are there will never be a retreat function. It has and always will be 'winner' take all which has been the staple of this series. I have seen smaller fleets that are 'lower' value beat larger higher value fleets. Those were good battles. In this case the augments make a very large difference in the fight. 

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Although a fighter does indeed perform an escort type role I believe that they are separate from the idea of a capital escort.  Primarily, fighters escort bombers.  The role of a space fighter should be space superiority so that you can conduct bomber missions with impunity.  Fighters, unless it is a multi-role fighter should not be killing anything else but bombers and other fighters.  That doesn't mean that a fighter can't put rounds or other ordinance onto a capital ship but, there should be no enemy fighter or bomber threats active when it does. 

That kind of separates fighters from say an destroyer escort.  When you have a destroyer escorting a carrier, for instance, it's primary role is picket defense.  A destroyer escort would be staged on a threat vector at some distance away from the asset it was defending and assigned to engage and destroy incoming threats.  It's distance away from the asset would be far enough that, if it failed, then the defended asset would have time to react to and engage the threat on its own. 

Of course, from what I have seen of the combat so far it is merely a free for all brawl and roles seem trivialized by a lack of proper scale in the battle-space. 

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I Agree With what People are saying here, I also like the idea of keeping the lesser tech weapons and defences useful in some way later game. for example having lasers a bonus to hit  fighters, sort of an AA role. so battleships only armed with BIG guns that is caught by a wing of fighters is in for trouble, as the main big guns wont hit the tiny ships very well.

perhaps attack to hit rolls should be based on weapon type/tech so a ship armed with 3 different beam weapons gets 3 attacks so if a target is destroyed by say lasers then another ship is targeted the same round with the next beam weapon type/tech etc etc

maybe have the lesser tech defences have a added bonus in that the ships they are attached to regain hps much more quickly after a battle. (if they survive).

Give the lesser tech equipped ships the ability to grab salvage after a battle resulting in credits etc. I am sure there are plenty of ideas out there to build diversity and to make lesser tech useful later game

your thoughts would be appreciated