Gripe About weaponry and defenses

They nade alot of new stuff like range accuracy rates of fires for weapons...but as far as I know they only apply to each weapon. Sad.

it would make a way better and more interesting game AND ship designer if we could adjust the rate of fire on lasers or the range of mass drivers. Because the the specialized techs seem over and done, its good but its not the same being interactive in a shipyard making the weapons like I suggested choosing something.

DARCA

It all comes down to how effective those adjustments are though. I will use Endless Space as an example. It has a large number of attributes, damage per shot, number of shots, accuracy, range. But when everything was boiled down all of that complexity was just obfuscation, you still made the same decisions and the same counters throughout the game.

I'm fine with making laser, missiles, and rails distinct from each other in some way shape or form....but it doesn't need to be crazy complicated. If I have to pull out a calculator to understand how my ships are firing...we have gone too far.

Yes! ^

but what we have is weak and doesn't connect as well as it can IMO.

We have a good amount of combat factors but they all apply to one thing, so it doesn't amount to that much more in combat. So when I look at the three specialized techs the three defenses the three weapons and the three factors I think there is potential for a really fun AND unique ship builder, but the new features are to weak/isolated to make it "more different" from galciv2.

so a gun that has a tech bonuses for better accuracy, range, and rate of fire makes a better experience than making it have just the rate of fire. This is good.

the current build has one for each type so the level of tactical impact and potential fun is smaller, its good but it can be better if those factors were added to specialization techs. IMHO.

DARCA.

The only reason the counter system exists is to give value to preparation/intelligence and to some degree, production.

A powerful standing army is nothing if your opponent can scout it's weaknesses and build a counter army, which means you need to scout if they are doing just that and be prepared.  Production capacity is obviously helpful because if you lose your fleet to a counter you can produce an adapted fleet quicker.

I think the system works pretty well in those terms.  Now whether or not the AI uses the system properly or just defaults to "I am x race so I always tech/build x weapons" is a whole other story.  Hopefully the AI adapts to what it sees.

Endless space tried to make the weapons unique but when you boil the system down it's still *mostly* paper rock scissors just like gal-civ. Once the basic system is understood the cards and range factor in pretty significantly, more so against another player then the AI but the basic scout/counter/reproduce principle applies.  Though they had some balance issues with that system, particularly melee range kinetics were wayyy too strong, though the last patch I believe tried to correct this, I haven't experimented enough to comment.  Overall I think endless space had a fantastic combat system, the cards really become interesting against a player, the AI is pretty terrible at identifying and adapting to strategy.

I'm not sure there's a good way to make the weapon/defence techs more unique without allowing the player significantly more control over the tactical combat.  I think we'll have to get a good look and understanding of their combat simulator to see what the options are before being able to make any reasonable suggestions.

The AI is basically non-existent at this stage, and ship design isn't in either. It'll be smarter once it is actually implemented

I think that although weapon fire rate, range and accuracy should be adjustable, each weapon tyoe should have a favoured stat which can be adjusted with minimal disadvantage.

So for example, mass drivers could have rate of fire as their favoured stat (you could fire more bullets without any penalty) but increasing range would result in a drop-of in accuracy.

On top of that though, you could have a mounting type which provides a fixed trade-off (mutator).  So taking mass drivers as an example again, you could mount them as a sort of buckshot battery, sacrificing range to pepper a nearby ship with bullets.  There is no Accuracy stat for this mount type because you're bound to hit something, but as you research new technologiies you might uncover modifiers for this mount type, like nano-ripper rounds which weaken the target's armour.  The counter to nano-ripper rounds of course, is that the enemy ship tries to get out of range of your short-range weapon mount.

Nope.

I've had the AI adapt strategy in GC2, changing which weapon and defense types they use, based on what their greatest threats at the time were using. I've also encouraged use of one weapon or defense type over others by trading back and forth between races, even ones that were theoretically my "enemy" at the time, just so I'd have a better idea of what weapon and defense types to favor.

I don't want a game just like every other space game ever where every weapon type just has to eat away at the shields, then the armor, then finally the hull itself, and the only differences between weapons is how much bonus damage each type gets against each health bar. That not only sounds drawn out and tedious, but it also means you're basically required to sink huge amounts of in-game time into boosting all your weapon and defense types at once or you're a sitting duck in a fight.

I think that GalCiv 2 did well by making Hitpoints an ability.  If you research techs which grant bonuses to that ability, your ships are tougher.  Having armour which absorbs damage from all sources (like in Master of Orion 2) is a bit redundant if ships can already take more punishment.

So the weapon and armor system is still the same as Gal Civ 2?

There will be more variation to weapons in GC3, in the beta we will be introducing weapons augments. Which should adress most of these issues. More details to come. 

Theoretically speaking, if you were to tell us details you're not supposed to tell us... what would happen?

Theoretically of course.

well you see they actually need to build the weapons at SD in order to get the best idea of how they work; to get the footage of these weapons firing they go out into space and test them on old satellites and such..

now if he told us the details that we weren't supposed to know then he would be the next satellite

Are there going to be any weapons that have special abilities? In MOOII there are weapons that serve certain purposes and they might do less damage, but they damage all shield's sides for example. I am hoping to find a  4x game with that kind of depth.

We have fleet combat already, and until there's a real Tactical Combat mode, the combat will essentially be a statistical comparison.

There's very few "special abilities" that I can think of that would make any difference in such a combat. And even fewer that would make the game more fun, and not bog us down in minutiae.

It's like worrying about weapon placement on a ship, for consideration of arcs of fire, etc.  It sounds real cool, and in a RTS game (such as Homeworld) this is a major concern. In a 4X game where combat isn't the main reason for the game existing, it's a distraction, because it requires micromanagement.  Which doesn't scale. Which hurts the playability overall.

It's interesting to hear all the different ideas going on here, but I do think that everyone needs to keep their eye on the ultimate goal:  building a game that is fundamentally about empire-creation/running. Focusing too much energy and detail on any one component of the game detracts from the others, if for no other reason that it unbalances the axes in terms of benefits provided by each.  There's a fine line to be walked when we talk of "improvements", because such changes don't happen in a vacuum, but in the context of the game as a whole.

Game balance is a tricky thing to get right.

Every weapon (or ship) should have a number of points in the ship designer advanced mode. You could spend these points to "configure" your weapon, on bonuses to accuracy, range, damage, fire speed, etc. Negative bonuses could also be a thing ofc for the die hard min-maxer. i.e. +10% x for 1 point, +20% for 2, +30% for 3, -10% for -1. Some research could increase the amount of points you get to spent. 

This could be balanced against people who do not use the advanced mode by making the non-advanced weapons slightly better overall (better then all bonus points spent evenly), but the weapons with points could be better in 1 area, or 2 with negative points spent. The bonus points should either come from the overall amounts of weapons research you did, or from some research that makes weapons better in general in normal mode, but gives extra points in advanced mode.

a similar system could be made for other components too ofc. This would add a major element to the non-cosmetic ship design, altho weapon augments sound like they could be a simple version of this. which makes me think, if were getting weapon augments, will we get defense and engine augments too?

Nice to see this is being looked it, though it will require a good bit of balancing.  

I was hoping for some racial weirdo weapons, but that might not fit the engine well.

I think the whole 'rock paper scissors' thing is fine and serves to add some decision making into the ship design and production process.  The issue the AI's ability to change and adapt as needed.  If the AI is changing designs as the need to do so presents itself, things will not be so predictable.

Also, an option should be provided to randomize a races preferred tech and ship designs so it is not predictable.  Problem solved. 

I didn't really have an issue with ai weapon predictability in II.  I waited (or, wait) until the last moment to build any armed ships and check those civs I can for their builds.  I prefer missiles, for the obvious reason, and often the someone is already using them. So, off to something else.

Also, I have noted many times the ai reacting to what I build and countering with the proper defense.  To my anger.  (Mostly immense, maso games.)

I have never understood the comparisons between the game "rock paper scissors" and the attack and defense types in these games. Have I been playing the wrong version of GC2? Or worse, is there a version of RPS where you use both hands, one for your defense type and one for your attack type, that I've been woefully ignorant of this whole time?

It's a reference to a circular dominance strategy common in most video games, but especially RTS and 4X.

You have 3 technologies/things, arranged such that for each thing, it is superior to one of the others, and inferior to the other one.

In the more general sense, a Rock/Paper/Scissors design indicates that for each technology/technique, there is an effective counter, but that counter in turn is vulnerable to being overcome by some other tech.  It's a way to insure that no single tech is overly strong.

In the case of GC, for each weapons tech, there's a strong defense counter, but two other defenses that are weak.

Given the 3 attack vs 3 defense matrix of possibilities, it's closer to a Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock-setup, than a plain Rock-Paper-Scissors.

(\B):vulcan:(\B)

Yeah, I don't even see that, frankly. RPS in any of its forms is typically A > B > C > .... > A, and repeat. There's no cycle to GC2. There's specific weapons and specific defenses, but weapon A doesn't do 100% damage to defense A, 50% damage to defense B, and 150% to defense C.

You can try to force GC2's weapon-defense dynamic to fit into a cycle, but that quickly falls apart because you only ever need four out of six: I use lasers, he brings out shields, so I switch to guns, so he switches to armor, so I switch back to lasers, and so on... And note that at no point do lasers combat guns, nor shields combat armor. It's all one way - attack type vs. defense type.

It's much closer to RPGs and action games where different attack "elements" make it prudent to have two or more weapons. This sword does fire damage, but that enemy's strong to fire, so I switch to the lightning hammer and carry on. I could use the ice gun but either one bypasses the enemy defense type so it's down to personal preference.

There is still a cycle : you actually have 9 designs : laser/shields, guns/shields, missile/shields, laser/armor, etc.

Each of these 9 designs is strong against two others, weak against two, and balanced against 5. For example, L/S is strong against L/A and L/PD, and weak against G/S and M/S.

It's more complicated than RPS, but it is the same core mechanic. Many RPG attack and defense types are also variations of RPS.

And I'd still say you're forcing things into a cycle when one doesn't apply.

What weapon do lasers beat? What defense do shields beat?

These questions are meaningless because they don't work that way. It's weapon vs. defense. If your weapon ignores their defense, you do damage. If your defense guards against their weapon, you take reduced damage.

And it's not even a surefire thing. Depending on the numbers, you might take reduced damage, but still end up losing the fight because their damage values outdid your defense values. You might ignore their defense type, but still do scratch damage, because your guns are too primitive. How heavily you invest in military tech matters at least as much as the weapon and defense types you choose.

Fire Emblem has a good example of RPS. Swords hit more often against axes, axes hit more often against spears, and spears hit more often against swords.

You cannot do this comparison in GC2 or GC3. Lasers do not provide a defense bonus against missiles by shooting them down. Missiles don't help defend against guns by hitting the bullets mid-flight. Bullets don't help block lasers by deflecting the beams as they fly.

Shields don't provide a way to reduce armor by projecting waves of radiation to boil off monomolecular layers at a time. ECM can't be used to scramble shield frequencies. Armor never causes unexpected scattering of hostile ECM signals.

These would all be neat ideas and ways to make the game's combat more RPS-like. But as it stands, it's not.

I disagree, I think it is pretty strongly RPS, but its two games of it in one.

In game 1, I attempt to adjust my weapons to counter your armor.
In game 2, I attempt to adjust my armor to counter your weapons.

Winning 1 or both of the games gives my fleet a sizable advantage over yours.

While the amount of tech you have does make a difference, I would say that the RPS elements of GC combat are weighed heavily. A fleet that has the RPS advantage will do extremely well against the other....even if the other fleet has a strong tech advantage. That is in fact what many consider the strength of GCs combat system.

For me personally, I can take or leave the RPS system that GC has now. It is not my favorite combat system in a 4x game, but its functional, accomplishes its goal, and is pretty easy to understand.

I think that "rock, paper, scissors" is not accurate for GC2's weapons/defense scheme.  But I do have to say that whatever you call it, I love it.  It is interesting and fun for me.  I am curious to see how it gets translated going forward, but I am in the camp of those who are hoping that something that is working doesn't get broken in the name of progress.