Combat Revisions

[Leedot]

Hi folks -

So we've been discussing the combat system internally along with taking player feedback on the game's balance into account and thought it would be good to get your feedback as obviously any large changes to combat are going to have a big impact on you.

First let me state some of the goals of this design.

1 - Keep it simple while allowing for a variety of strategic unit configurations.
2 - It should be easy to make adjustments to the balance without changing the system itself.
3 - Strong forces should be able to be whittled down over many battles if reinforcements aren't brought in.

Simplified Combat System to preserve the sanity of players and developers.

Stats -
ATK - Damage done per round
ATKSPD - Number of targets a ship can attack per round
DEF - Amount of damage a ship can attack in a single battle. DEF is completely regenerated at the end of combat.
INIT - (Initiative) used to determine the attack order. Highest initiative attacks first.
*Whenever I say 'ship' I'm referring to any unit that would be involved in combat so include ships, orbitals, and planets.

Step 1 - Calculate Bonuses
Assign ATK / DEF / etc. bonuses from all technologies to each players ships.

Step 2 - Determine initiative / Assign attack order
For each ship ( or orbital/planet) generate a random number 1 - 20 and add their initiative value. Ships belonging to the planets owner get an additional +5 if they're at war with the attacker. If the attacker is currently at peace with the attacker the attackers ships gain +5 initiative. These bonuses only apply to the first round of combat.
Highest number attacks first. In the event of a tie generate a random number for each ship. The ship with the higher number wins and has an earlier attack.

Step 3 Resolve Combat
(these steps are repeated for every ship)
Step 3a - Determine Target
(ATKSPD - If an attacker has an ATKSPD greater than 1 steps 3a/b are repeated the number of times equal to the ATKSPD value.)
Ships are attacked first, then orbitals, then planets. Within those categories target is assigned randomly. Yes, this means that attackers aren't choosing the optimal targets but since all ships are making the same less than optimal choices it should remain balanced and it saves us from having to worry about AI.
Step 3b - Apply Damage
Damage = Targets DEF - Attackers ATK. If target's DEF is reduced to 0 or lower it's destroyed and removed from combat. It does not get to attack this round if it has not already done so.


Repeat steps 2&3 until all ship from one side are destroyed.

Step 4 - Wrap up combat
Make diplomacy status adjustments if any between players and assign any capture colonies to the victor if necessary. The diplomatic status of the two players goes down by one step automatically, so a peaceful player is now embargoed, or an embargoed player is now at war.

Step 5 - Send out combat reports
(should be self explanatory)

Other considerations -
How long does combat last? Combat resolves instantly. (or as fast as the computer can do the math anyhow.) The combat animation playback should be roughly 3 seconds per attack.
What happens is Player's A&B are in combat and Player C attacks player A or Player A sends in reinforcements? Player C will enter into combat after Player & B's combat has been resolved. Player's A's reinforcements will be treated as a separate battle that will take place as soon as the current one is resolved.

Let us know what you think!

[AntiHaze]

DEF - Amount of damage a ship can attack in a single battle.

Damage = Targets DEF - Attackers ATK.

So DEF is now HP? You don't have you multiply it by 2?

[Leedot]

This isn't something that's currently in the game but a proposed system but yes, DEF = HP, so no multiplying by 2 to help keep things as straightforward as possible.

[catswift]

Could you explain the purpose of the randomized initiative? You also don't speculate ranges for possible initiative values for ships (other than the +5 for diplomatic status), so I don't know if 1-20 is supposed to be a small difference or if it could be a really big difference.

I like the addition of ATKSPD. Should introduce a good variance in ships if assigned well.

[edit] Oh, wait. Are you saying all ships have a random initiative and there is no base value per ship? [/edit]

[VanderLegion]

Could you explain the purpose of the randomized initiative? You also don't speculate ranges for possible initiative values for ships (other than the +5 for diplomatic status), so I don't know if 1-20 is supposed to be a small difference or if it could be a really big difference.

I like the addition of ATKSPD. Should introduce a good variance in ships if assigned well.

[edit] Oh, wait. Are you saying all ships have a random initiative and there is no base value per ship? [/edit]

It says it rolls the 1-20 then adds the ship's initiative value, so makes it sound to me like each ship (class I'm assuming) will have it's own initiative modifier that gets added to the roll.

[zarkwizard]

It says it rolls the 1-20 then adds the ship's initiative value, so makes it sound to me like each ship (class I'm assuming) will have it's own initiative modifier that gets added to the roll.

Yes, it would be along those lines. For instance something like a Planet Killer would have a lower initiative since it is a bigger ship and takes longer to fire it's weapon, and would have an attack speed of 1. Where as something like a fighter would have an initiative of 20, since it's smaller and faster and doesn't require it's weapons to charge.

We'll come up with some numbers and post them when we get some basics working and we'll look for feedback for everyone to see what their thoughts are.

[JetJaguar2000]

Two obvious issues related to randomness:

1. How is order resolved when multiple ships end up with the same initiative? Can we guarantee that the resolution order is evenly distributed between the the two combatants?

2. Random target assignment. The fact that all ships are making sub-optimal choices does not remove bias in the event of lopsided ship attack ratings. If one fleet is made up entirely of ships that can one-shot any ship in the other fleet, random target assignment isn't a problem, but if a fleet of smaller ships is going against a fleet of larger ones, random assignment will distribute their damage in a way that will destroy the minimum number of ships possible. This seems problematic, since you'd expect smaller ships to focus fire on larger ones to maximize their effectiveness.

[Supamand]

1.What happens if the combat between two players at war is at the sun or at non-colonized planet? Does initiative bonus set to 0 for player A & B?

2.Will the skills be revamped to give boosts to ATKSPD and Initiative?

3. What happens if a player B has a large fleet at player A's colony (both players at peace) and than player C's fleet arrives to the colony (player C is at war with player A and B). Will player C fight with player A and B simultaneously or will they take turns? What will determine turns?

4. Are targets selected at random at each turn of combat or will the system allow to pick a ship/orbital with lowest DEF?

5. How much ATKSPD are you planing to give a planet and will it vary on population?

6. How will a planets ATK/DEF play a role in the new combat? And will the population reset to the max if the attacker failed?

7. Incentive for victory: what happens when a players fleet is destroyed? Does anyone benefit from it?
Would it be possible to let's say award the winning player with 50% of CO/RO from the total sum of destroyed ships/orbitals (the value would be determined by the build coast of each unit).

8. I know there is a skill that lets you stealth your fleets and/or orbitals. Would that skill have a bonus impact on the initiative for two players at war?

[Supamand]

Left out one thing...
What happens if player A ship attacks first with ATKSPD of 4:
1. Would it fire up to 4 times at player B ship?
2. What will happen if player B ship is destroyed from the first attack? Would the other 3 attacks be voided for the round or will player A's ship find new target to use up all attacks?


*Thoughts about Initiative*
I'm honestly not too crazy about 1d20 dice for initiative. But let me break out the way I understand the system with simple example:
Player A (2cruiser) attacks player B (2 cruiser).

Player A stats:
ATKSPD: 2
Initiative: 3+1d20
Surprise Initiative: +5

Player B stats:
ATKSPD: 2
Initiative: 3+1d20
Surprise initiative: +0

Combat begins:
Player A initiative = 3+1(random 20)+5=9
Player B initiative =3+20(random 20)+0=23

Player B attacks first (for both cruisers) and targeting same same ship of Player A. Players A cruiser destroyed.

Player A attacks second, non of player B ships. Are destroyed.

Round 2:
Player A initiative roll < player B = player A dead.


Combat report:
Player A got owned by d20 dice! Lol

Conclusion, if any type of dice is introduced to trigger initiative, the max dice value should be no more than 25% of max initiative. I honestly think its better not to have this random effect or have it only apply in stalemate of initiative.

[Leedot]

Jet - Resolution between to ships with the same initiative is random.

Assignment - after talking about it internally a bit more we'll most likely do a priority list where each ship type has it's own set of priorities for which ships to attack first. In the event of there being more than one of the highest priority ship the attacker will choose the one that's taken the most damage.

Supamand -
1 - If the battle is at the sun or empty space no one receives an initiative bonus.

2 - Probably at some point but not necessarily right away.

3 - That depends on how elaborate Zark / Tsagoth want to get but I'm arguing for keeping it simple in which case they take turns. My initial thought for order is that visitors fight first (determined randomly if there's more than one player with ships at that planet who are at war with the new comer.) and if the new comer survives that then they fight the planet owner. My reasoning for that is the assumption that if you've got peaceful ships hanging out at your planet that belong to someone else it's because they're an ally who's there to help protect your planet. It would also suck if the planet owner lost and then the former planet owner's friend had to then fight the planet.

4 - See the comment to Jet above about target assignment.

5 - We haven't decided yet but my current thought is that Planets and Super Capital Class ships have high ATK but an ATKSPD of 1.

6 - My current thought is that the planet's DEF (which is linked to population) is fully restored if it survives the battle. It's ATK is the same as any other ship although pretty high and attackers can't target the planet until everything else has been cleared away.

7 - The main incentive for victory is to claim or protect territory. I'm not opposed to a co/ro bonus but I'd have to think about the balance implications a bit more. It would certainly be a boon for more aggressive players and I could see it being a Warlord specific trait. My main fear is that in a game like this there's already plenty of motivation to be aggressive so adding more might push things into the realm of that being viewed as the only viable option.

8 - More likely there would be a stealth check each round (compare the two players knowledge of stealth tech and then roll a die), if the attacker fails then they cannot target the stealth orbital that round. In the case of stealth ships and initiative bonus probably makes more sense since entering combat pulls them out of stealth.

ATKSPD - The number of attacks that ship has per round. If a ship has an ATKSPD of 4 and there's only one available target it will attack that target 4 times. If an attacker has 4 attacks and kills it's current target after 2 attacks it then moves onto the next priority target.

On initiative - I personally enjoy some randomness because it's more true to life. (someone wins against the odds due to mistakes made by the other side, inopportune equipment malfunction, etc..) It's important to note that initiative is determined - per ship - not per player so that reduces the odds that your example would happen. Also ships will have a base initiative value as well so that adds some additional weighting to the scenario as well.

That said I could see reducing the range of the random initiative to say 1-10 if 1-20 just winds up feeling too random or even pulling it out if it's something that drives everyone nuts.