Hey guys...it's me, the one who started this discussion.
I'd Quote you all but there's a lot of good stuff mentioned here.
I've played Stars! (gotta include that exclamation
) and I remember the initiative system, and late game you'd have hulls that were all initiative boosters with 1 weapon, and stack massive numbers of those suckers in a fleet, first strike was everything in the late game. I'm not asking for that.
In fact what I was going for was simplicity.
I like the current combat system overall, what I don't like is the ai doesn't seem to understand it. I'd ask for them to code a more tactically brilliant ai, but there's only so much they can code in a given period of time. If they code better ai behavior I'd rather see them code things like overall strategy, diplomatic savvy, and the fact that dumping influence starbases over most of their territory IS effectively an act of war and destroy said bases immediately, not after half their planets have rebelled, etc.
Has anyone here ever played Axis and Allies? Simple WW2 board game from parker bros. The way you did combat in that game is essentially the same as what I suggested here....defenders get a final parting shot. Effectively what happens is that while battle is sequential...( attacker fires...then defender fires just like in GC2) the consequences of battle are simultaneous (pieces aren't removed until both sides have fired and done damage). Then round 2 of combat begins and you do it all over again until one side or both are destroyed.
The point wasn't to completely overhaul the combat system, but rather to make one simple change that allowed defenders to be more than cannon fodder.
Let me walk through a simple attack with the old system and then with the new system that I (and several others) proposed. Though this change would affect fleets that have heavy firepower compared to defense the most, it would still make a huge difference even in early game battles where the firepower isn't sufficient to kill an opponent with one shot, but for simplicties sake lets go over a late game battle
2 fleets, 3 ships in each fleet, both have defensive systems but enough firepower to usually kill the other with one shot.
attacker 1 fires -> defender 1 dies
attacker 2 fires -> defender 2 almost dies ( good defense roll )
attacker 3 fires -> defender 2 dies
defender 3 fires -> attacker 1 dies
attacker 2 fires -> defender 3 dies
battle over...equal fleets and attacker wins with 2 undamaged ships left over
with the system I propose it might go more like this
attacker 1 fires -> defender 1 flagged to die
attacker 2 fires -> defender 2 almost dead ( good defense roll )
attacker 3 fires -> defender 2 flagged to die
defender 1 fires -> attacker 1 dies
defender 2 fires -> attacker 2 dies
defender 3 fires -> attacker 3 dies
defender 1 and defender 2 ships die
battle over and defender wins with one undamaged ship ( because of a lucky roll in this case, but they were equal fleets and without that roll they would both be dead, but at least he'd have killed off the attackers)
The entire point was not to rewrite the ai at all over this issue. There might be more depth to a tactical game of cat and mouse where first strike counts, but if the ai can't play that game well, then it ruins the rest of the challenge.
