Combat idea for smaller ships.

I'd been thinking that it would be neat if there was a maneuverability stat that ships had, which would determine their chances of avoiding an attack completely. The inherent maneuverability of a ship would be decrease as the hull size increased, and of course there'd be components (thrusters, evasive auto-pilot , maybe even teleporters). Increases in hull size would also bring drastic increases in component size, so as to keep huge-hulled vessels from darting around like dragonflies.



On the flip side, the weapon types would have inherent accuracies: mass drivers would be the least accurate, with lasers being a step up (due to the sheer speed of their delivery upon the target), and missiles being most accurate (thanks to their guidance systems).



One of the results would (hopefully) be tiny and small spacefighters that can competently evade enemy fire (but are down for the count when hit), large and huge battleships that compensate for being sitting ducks through their HP and heavy defenses, and medium-sized frigates that are open to either means of survival (or a combination of them, for that matter).



The other intended result (which would additionally require tweaking the weapons) would be the more expensive and sizeable missile weaponry also being the most effective early in the game, with mass drivers being the most economically practical (which obviously is a big plus, considering the turbulent economy and limited manufacturing capacity of the early game); then, as larger and less maneuverable ships start coming into play, the missile's advantage in accuracy becomes less pivotal, and mass drivers become the optimal choice; meanwhile, the beam weapons provide the compromise option.

This obviously entails more strategic planning and descision-making, but it doesn't end there: a fleet with many small and agile ships would hold an advantage over a fleet composed of a few larger ships, since fewer shots fired means fewer hits taken by the fighters, whose greater numbers allow for more shots that whittle away at the larger ships. Thus, as a large ship facing smaller ships, it's absolutely critical that as many shots as possible connect with the target; thus preserves the importance of missile weaponry throughout the entirety of the game (especially if we happen to end up with carriers in the game, or something similar happens). Enough rambling, though--the point in all this, shortly and simply put, is that you're ultimately encouraged to mix and match ships of different sizes in your fleets, which in turn encourages mixing and matching weaponry and defenses on your ships. Just imagine how gorgeous fleet battles would be if the game were then made to consider armament and maneuverability when choosing each ship's target to fire at!



Of course, something that drastic is not likely to be at all plausible until they start making GalCiv III--and even then, it turn out to be a disaster in practice--but it certainly is nice to imagine. Heck, maybe it'll even inspire an idea that's halfway meritable.

It seems to me like small ships do pretty well throughout the game already.
It's been posted before, but I think a carrier mod would be really cool for small ships. Basically have a large module (maybe 50-60 hull points in size) that allows a large ship to lend its engine speed and logistics speed to all tiny ships in the fleet.
Then your small ships can be flying guns and still be able to go on the offensive, if there's a big ship in the fleet to supply them. The trade off would be the weapon space on the big ship you would give up, so you would need good logistics tech to make this worthwhile.

I do quite like this idea. And if done well it wouldn't affect the balance too much. It just looks strange to me to see the small fighter zipping around, only to be hit every single time by the ponderous craft.

The large size of the carrier module would also offset the ability to be able to add defenses to the carrier thus requiring it be protected by offensive fighters (they would not be targeted as they are not the biggest threat and thus need no defenses)

good idea! wish they'd put it in soon though

Smaller ships might survive longer, but it's unlikely that they'd be able to punch through the Defenses of significantly larger ships often enough to make this work particularly well (especially after 1.2 gives players even more incentive to build Defenses).

One possible alternative would be a one-shot or two-shot weapon that could be mounted only on Tiny Ships (think a torpedo bomber). Rather than having an endless number of 1- or 2-strength attacks, allow one or two 6- or 8-strength attacks. This would allow some Tiny ships to get some punishing hits in on larger ships.

This might give the AI a cow in terms of figuring out how to build and employ these types of weapons, but it'd be kind of cool!

I enjoyed using the Inertial Stabilizers in the original MoO game, combined with Racial bonuses to get super-maneuverable ships, but that may not be feasible here. I do wonder if you might be able to create some simple rule such as "All ships get one free shot against any enemy ship at least two sizes larger than they are at the beginning of a battle"?

Can't say I've played enough end-games to know if the small ships always become irrelevant, but in the scenarios I have played, I seldom have use for the smaller ships (could just be related to my style of play, though).

a homeworld-like battle-engine would be a great + to GC2. Even if we do not control our ships, it would include ship's manoeuvrability, blank points, etc...

Why not add a defensive bonus to the smaller ships when larger ships attack them?

Seems like this could be done in a mod, by making a componant that adjusts defensive bonus? Can a componant require a specific hull size? and more importantly, can it be given a high priority for the AI?

It seems to me like small ships do pretty well throughout the game already

Well the thing is that if they take one hit, which obviously they will, they are immediately destroyed by most larger ships. ESPECIALLY later in the game. Sure they do well if they are not targetted first though.

Smaller ships might survive longer, but it's unlikely that they'd be able to punch through the Defenses of significantly larger ships often enough to make this work particularly well

Well i've used them late in the game just for fun before and they do decent damage. All you have to do is give them no defences, which of course in the new version they can't be targetted first. With the no defences thing and the proposed bonus they could last just almost as long as large ships with defences. Of course the first time they fail their roll they will be immediately destroyed.

They can do damage. The easy way to do it is to give them one of those expensive weapons that have huge damage bonses. Like the evil weapons, for example. I dont remember how much space they have off hand but i'm sure you could put 2 weapons on their. I could be wrong though.


That carrier module idea i think is great as well. But heres an alternate idea for it. Why not have a special "carrier fighter" craft that has to be loaded on those modules like civilians are onto troop transports

Or better yet they could be built like regular ships, except you DONT put engines on them. That way you can load them up with weapons and some defences. Then you can put like 5-10 (or whatever amount) attached to that ship and they will move in the fleet as the same speed as the carrier. THAT would definately give them a decent advatage out of the box even without combat bonuses. A cheap, offensive unit that can't move without a large ship with that module. That is a GREAT idea. That would probably solve everything.

The only thing is though with that idea is that you could build a super ship with, say, 20 engines and then have the fighters their. I read that in another post. However if the module is enormous that wouldn't be a problem. However as a result of this I think my first idea, which would work like Master of Orion 2 possibly, would be better and more balanced.

btw, heres my alternative idea to giving "bonuses" to tiny ships that i posted somewhere else

Well obviously, it seems, using the small ships like this would be unbalanced. What you do is have carrier modules work like on Master of Orion 2. Each module has a set number of ships assigned to it. However you design that ship, so you can choose how it looks or whatever, and that is what goes into the modules. If its destroyed it will be replenished automatically after the battle. However it will only be able to have enough spaces for a couple of weapons. OR you just design its looks, and its damage and such is automatically calculated based on your technology. Their would be 3 types of ships, one with beam, one with missile, and one with guns, that come in 3 different modules. To expand on it further they could try this idea off the top of my head. Each module would come with some small ships and some larger ships. The larger ones will do more damage and the smaller ones will "escort" the larger taking damage first when attacked. Or the smaller ones attack the larger "bomber" fighters of the enemy and the bomber ships attack the large fleet ships. I personally think, after reading some posts, that this would work better. Then its working more like a ship weapon and not some seemingly easily exploitable combat bonus.