No tactical combat but more different weapons....

I like to see Ship type specific weapons

e.g.
1) High payload topedo that can rip thru capital ship, but due to their long lock time and slow speed, have only a relatively low chance of hitting a fast fighter.
2) Rapid-firing AA gun that take down small fighter in a breeze but it bullets are only as if insect bites to capital ship.
3) Very destructive weapon (be it laser, missile or mass driver type) that can only be carry on capital ship. These weapon is super effective against other capital ship, but is useless against small, fast fighter (unless a very lucky roll).

This will give another dimension to ship design and combat
I can design a small fighter with topedo to take out a capital ship but is sure to become space dust if meet with another light fighter equiping with light weapon
or equip a small fighter/ mid size escort with light weapon to take down dove of light fighters
or A hugh ship that is able to take out other capital ship in a single shot but is hopeless against swarm of fighters.

will have very interesting fleet combination and battle playout
1) A topedo fleet attaching a lone capital ship
2) 2 small fighter fleet engage in dog fight
3) Bombardment between hugh ships
and more...

I would like to see fighters and bombers as weapon systems (as opposed to hull sizes). You'd have bombers as a weapon, and fighters as a defence. Fighter technology may even go up with every weapon tech you research (so you can build, say, phasor fighter bays).

I can't EDIT my #2 post, continue here

At the start of every fleet battle, let the user either set
1) pirority target for each of his ship.
2) pirority target for the entir fleet
3) default

So, I'm able to set that hugh capital ship for my topedo fighter, and take out the enermy fighter escorts with my mid-class destroyer

This will at least let players have "some" controls over the fleet battle, this might quite some request for "tactical" combat.

Allowing to let the player set the targets as an OPTION would be nice, I know I couldn't be bothered to do that on each and every battle. The AI could probably do that somewhat intelligently just by checking what weapons the ship is carrying and picking targets accordingly.

I do agree here pretty much with what weepy said, different weapon loadouts would greatly emphasize on how you build/fit your ships (ie. "older" tech - smaller guns - to attack fighters/frigates on smaller ships et al) and assemble your fleets, like having support ships for larger cap ships etc.

Eg.
Big guns have slow tracking speeds but do huge damage so they have difficulty in hitting smaller craft but are tremendously more effective against other big ships.
Smaller guns / flak batteries track and hit smaller craft better but have a tough time going through capship armor or do little damage.
Torps against capships, rockets/fast missiles against fighters/frigs etc. etc.

Also, different weapons could have different ranges so that capships with large guns could engage from a longer distance, the flak batteries could be shorter range, torps long range etc. giving more tactical depth to the combat depending on how you would've fitted your ships.

Now I just slap on the biggest guns I can fit on my ships and put all of those in one fleet, with some changes along these lines I would actually have to have some smaller craft or fit smaller guns as well to counter fighter swarms.. or make squadrons of tiny hulled extremely fast fighters to take down lone capships with only large weapons fitted. etc etc ad infinitum

where have you been?
its the same problem with EVERYTHING in galciv.
EVERYTHING is just a smaller/better version of the last thing. farms, weapons, armor, factories, soldiering bonus.. there's nothing special or unique about anything and it makes the entire game dull and drab..
Everything ammounts to a small or big bonus to this stat or that stat, rather than giving unique gameplay functionality to open up new strategies.

stupid game.
But I bought it, what can I do.

Yep, there are a lot of things that haven't bee explored in GC2, but that's what these forums are all about - suggesting and discussing the merits of improvements to the game.

I would love to see more specialized weapons, like beams that are devastating at close range but damage drops off exponentially as the distance to the target increases, weapons that have to be used at a certain minimum range from the target or you risk damaging your own ships, flak that can cause damage to other ships (your own or your enemy's), and so on.

Ship explosions could be less lame too, it's a bit silly for an exploding colony ship to break apart into its primary components (hull, colony module, engines) rather than chunks and shrapnel and clouds of persistent debris.

I don't think I would be as bothered/annoyed with the weapon techs if they added more types and changed the names. Also new components based on a combination of techs would be nice.

Examples - Instead of laser 1 and laser 2 etc they could be renamed: Laser, Tri-optic Laser, Pulsed Laser, etc

Example of combined tech - When research Tech X you get component X and when you research Tech Y you get component Y. When you research them both you get component X, Y, and *Z* Z could be a mixed hybrid or focus on one end with small bonus of another.

This might also be reflected in bonuses. You might focus on missile weapons but if you have a few levels in laser you can get a laser-guided targetting bonus on all missile attacks.

that will add two more factors into the combat equation: Range and chances to hit

Fantastic ideas guys! Keep them coming!

They will definitely spice up the combat in GC2!!!!! The great things about the ideas mentioned in this thread is that it won't drastically change the AI. If we were to add tactical combat...the AI probably needs to be re-written...but these weapon changes will not only make the strategic combat more fun and involved but "should" be easy to implement.

Another changes I would like to see is improvement to planet defence/ship docking.

Right now the only planet defence are fleet in orbit and population to fight off an invasion. It is hard to image a planet does not have some form of self defence against spacecraft, such as near orbit defence satelite, ground based Anti-Space Craft Gun, ICBM etc etc.

My suggestion is to:
1) Attack strength of fleet in planet orbital defence reduced to 50%, due to ships in dock, limitation of defender field of fire etc.
2) Maintainence of ship in orbit also halved to simulate Ships in dock/reserve
3) Planet has some "self defence" relative to it's population/production/research capacity + race overall tech level. In combat this defence is treated like a big capical ship, after combat, it regenerate itself over time.

The above changes will enourage more preemptive type of defence (Am I thinking like Bush?) and to stop Transport rush.

Downside of weapon range + chance to hit addition is that it basically requires throwing out the combat "engine" as it is. on the plus side, not much is required for AI to handle things.

From games with more complicated combat system such as paradox games, it does become apparent it is very very tricky to tweak things right, thought. Especially to get AI to favour reasonable mix of ships (cap ship, carrier, fighter screen, picket ships) ..

So IMO, if more varied combat engine is added in add-on and/or GC3, it would be good to keep things simple as possible.

However, since code already exists to balance the paper scissors rock of energy, kinetic and missile, it should be possible to adjust that to deal with fighter+carrier, capship, frigate. Each is excellent against some enemies and weak against others. (capship nukes frigates + carriers, frigates murder fighters + other frigates, fighters tear through capship + carrier plus can provide CAP to prevent previous.) .

Again, in my opinion, this would give the combat a lot more spice without making it micromanagement nightmare and/or herculean AI programming task.