Combat Discussion

[Iceman]

Please let us know if there's any other ship model that causes any issues in the 3D combat engine.
We're going to look into this.
Thanks!

[Misfire]

Any opinions on how to deal with ship weapon count? For example, Fed tactical cruiser has 10 phaser banks. A fleet of 10, all firing 10 phasers would make the scene very busy. Probably less of a concern for torpedoes or pulse weapons.

Phasers could be setup as a cool down based weapon (refire stat already exists in the game). Say you set it up so that of those 10, only 2 are firing at a time. This would probably mean ships with only 1 phaser bank spend a lot of time not firing. Makes sense from a balance perspective though I guess.

Other option would be have each ship fire 1 beam (or 2 in the case of ships that have phasers as primary and secondary weapon) and use the weapon count as a damage multiplier.

Not sure which approach is best. First would have a lot more stopping and starting of phasers, second would be more continuous, only stopping if a friendly target is in the way.

[Iceman]

Would it be possible to only show the beams that actually hit?

Maybe also reducing the beam animation from 5 secs (I think?) to 2 or 3?


The 2nd option has the disadvantage that unlucky rolls (and lucky rolls) might totally skew the result of a battle.

In the 1st option we could revisit the energy distribution (Operations) panel in the original design, so that each ship could only fire a few weapons at a time, and as energy becomes available (and refire rate permits), more weapons can be fired?


Did you manage to figure out the issue with the Romulan Colony Ship II model in combat?

[Misfire]

Right now phasers are continuous, unless there is a friendly target in the way, then they cease firing. Damage calculation isn't turn based (ie: roll, if hit then damage = some value, else: no damage), but it is tick based for the duration of the turn. So say the phaser weapon damage is .5. At say 100 physics frames per second, turn lasts 5 seconds, if the phaser landed a successful hit for 2 of the 5 seconds, then damage would be 100.

Yes issue with rom colony II has been taken care of. Here is one about to get blown up by the Kingons:

s1.png (1.05 MiB) Viewed 1115 times

[Iceman]

Oh, and stations are in

It's looking amazing!

Right now phasers are continuous, unless there is a friendly target in the way, then they cease firing. Damage calculation isn't turn based (ie: roll, if hit then damage = some value, else: no damage), but it is tick based for the duration of the turn. So say the phaser weapon damage is .5. At say 100 physics frames per second, turn lasts 5 seconds, if the phaser landed a successful hit for 2 of the 5 seconds, then damage would be 100.

Given that a lvl 1 beam is supposed to do 15 damage (per hit, in "round based" combat), 100 seems a awful lot

[Misfire]

Was just an example to show how the current mechanics work, not actual values. Could make it truly turn based I guess, with turn outcome calculated immediately after the turn button is clicked. Seems a bit boring that way though. Actual ship movement and torpedo/weapon hits during the turn would just be a show with no real relation to damage done, and the physics engine handling ship movement and damage would be pointless.

[Lakotavar]

This topic is new to me but I dare to mention my though

I would hope that reducing the GPU load would not force something like a total re-balancing so probably in best case I think graphics load and power balancing should be an independent issues.
So if it's just about graphics couldn't everything shown be scaled down a bit in amount? The minimum count should then still be one (otherwise the ship is visually doing nothing) but personally I wouldn't mind to see just like e.g. 30% (rounded) of the phaser beams especially if I have 10 ships (actually I rather have fleets of 50) and the screen is anyways full of beams (same for torpedos count).

[Misfire]

I wasn't really speaking in terms of performance, rather do we really want a single ship firing 10 phaser beams at once? Performace may be an issue on lower end machines, but it's really not at a point where that is a consideration right now. Nothing has been evaluated or optimized in that regard.

[Lakotavar]

Alright, I see. But also if it's mostly about visiual aspects I guess it would still help. With my usual late-game fleet the screen would be basically entirely blue (Fed).
A symbolic indication would be enough for me and I would think with a more or less independent calculation of the actual combat in the background - I guess nobody will count the beams. However one should still see the difference between a scout I and a heavy escort IV. So e.g. the amount of phaser arrays x 0,3(?) + 1 rounded might be visually aceptable.

Also thanks a lot for your efforts. The game is already pretty nice and the CE will make it even better

[Misfire]

Yes that sounds like it would make sense. The weapons count isn't taken into account at all in the preview version, so getting that functional will definitely be an improvement.

[Iceman]

Was just an example to show how the current mechanics work, not actual values. Could make it truly turn based I guess, with turn outcome calculated immediately after the turn button is clicked. Seems a bit boring that way though. Actual ship movement and torpedo/weapon hits during the turn would just be a show with no real relation to damage done, and the physics engine handling ship movement and damage would be pointless.

It's fine the way it is.
What about shield recharge, how is that handled?

[Iceman]

A symbolic indication would be enough for me and I would think with a more or less independent calculation of the actual combat in the background - I guess nobody will count the beams. However one should still see the difference between a scout I and a heavy escort IV. So e.g. the amount of phaser arrays x 0,3(?) + 1 rounded might be visually aceptable.

I'd say it should also depend on the battle. If it's a small battle, we could show all beams; if not, then such a formula would kick in.

[Misfire]

Was just an example to show how the current mechanics work, not actual values. Could make it truly turn based I guess, with turn outcome calculated immediately after the turn button is clicked. Seems a bit boring that way though. Actual ship movement and torpedo/weapon hits during the turn would just be a show with no real relation to damage done, and the physics engine handling ship movement and damage would be pointless.

It's fine the way it is.
What about shield recharge, how is that handled?

Don't think there was anything in the preview. Think it should be handled the same way (continuous, per frame). Shields jumping up at the beginning of a turn would be a bit weird.

[Lakotavar]

Don't think there was anything in the preview. Think it should be handled the same way (continuous, per frame). Shields jumping up at the beginning of a turn would be a bit weird.

Mosty from a players perspective, I would aggree that some visual reduction is perfectly fine while anything jerky/jumpy would kind of defeat the purpose of an animated combat. As smooth as possible would be great in all departments