Sounds nice, but I think, combat system needs to be built up from scratch. Yes I know ... it's difficult to realize. But we know there ARE huge differences between DL and DA in combat, why not changing it another time?
Here's my suggestion:
1. Remove that rounds-of-fire-thing. It might be easy to realize to have ships firing in rounds, but this results in a not-very-realistic combat behavior.
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2. Instead of using "rounds" introduce RoF for each weapon. Cheaper Weapons might have a better RoF than later (and more expensive) weapons, so they will not become totally useless in midgame fights (endgame is huge weaponry only). For example: I am often using Phasors as long as possible, because they're cool and "startrekish", even if later weapons are allready avaiable.
Also my typical strategy is to have "mass produced" ships with cheaper weaponry (for example Phasors instead of Disruptors) and some "top notch" ships with best weaponry avaiable. Why not give older weaponry a longer stay on the battlefield by increasing their RoF?
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3. Heavy weaponry should miss a lot often smaller targets. For example a Disruptor might be a mighty weapon against a Battleship, but not against a nimble Fighter - it may miss. Introducing some kind of "Weapon's Accuracy" would give the player opportunity to use fighters against big ships.
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4. When introducing a "Weapon's Accuracy", a "RoF" and a difference between light, medium and heavy weaponry, we also should check if its possible to restrict some weapons to a specific class. Example?
A nimble fighter may be equipped with weapons up to "medium" size (Energy-Weapons: Phasors), but it's mainreactor is too small to support any bigger weapon. So you can't have a Fighter with huge damageoutput but too low profile (can't be hit by Battleshipweaponry) - it will not be "uber" vs Battleships.
"Big Example" for Weaponry (beam-weapons):
Read this way: Name of weapon, Type, Efficiency (Chance to hit and Chance to damage without any defense).
Laser | Light Weapon | Tiny (90%/95%) | Small (90%/90%) | Medium (95%/75%) | Large (100%/55%) | Huge (100%|33%) | Civilian Hull same as Large
Plasma | Light Weapon | Tiny (85%/100%) | Small (90%/95%] | Medium (95%/85%) | Large (100%/80%) | Huge (100%/80%)
Phasor (I - III) | Medium Weapon | Tiny 70%/100%) | Small (80%/100%) | Medium (90%/100%) | Large (95%/90%) | Huge (95%/80%)
Phasor (IV - VII) | Medium Weapon | Tiny 50%/125%) | Small (65%/100%) | Medium (80%/100%) | Large (90%/95%) | Huge (95%/85%)
Disruptors | Large Weapon | Tiny (33%/125%) | Small (45%/100%) | Medium (66%/100%) | Large (85%/95%) | Huge (95%/95%)
Subspace Blaster etc | Huge Weapon | Tiny (5%/150%) | Small (25%/125%) | Medium (35%/100) | Large (75%/100%) | Huge (95%/100%)
Okay, thats it. You see - bigger weapons are not as usefull against small targets as smaller weaponry, but IF they hit, they might destroy their target with one salvo. Light weapons are very good against smaller targets, but they're not very dangerous vs bigger targets. Medium weapons are fairly good against anything.
Also interesting: beam-weapons are most accurate, but do lesser damage against large and huge targets. Projectil-weapons do more damage against everything, but are less accurate (and even totally useless against smaller targets if too large).
Missile-Weapons are sometimes more accurate than beam-weapons, against same sized targets, but miss often / everytime when used against too small targets. For example: a heavy and slow torpedo of a Battleship will never hit a Fighter, because it's able to evade.
Second "Big Example" for Classes and their equipment:
Read this way: Class (Size), smallest allowed weapon-class, best weapon-class, biggest allowed weapon-class
Fighter - Antifighter (Tiny) | Light | Light | Medium
Fighter - Anticapital (Tiny) | Light | Medium | Medium
Corvette - Antifighter (Small) | Light | Light | Large
Corvette - Anticapital (Small) | Light | Large | Large
Corvette - Anticorvette (Small) | Light | Medium | Large
Frigate - Antifighter/-corvette (Medium) | Light | Light-Medium | Large
Frigate - Anticapital (Medium) | Light | Large | Large
Cruiser - Antifighter/-corvette (Large) | Medium | Medium | Large
Cruiser - Anticapital (Large) | Medium | Large | Large
Battleship - Anticaptial (Huge) | Large | Huge | Huge
Lets check: Smaller ships can use smaller weaponry, bigger ships bigger weaponry (easy to understand). Now its funny: you can NOT use any weaponry with any ship, so you have to use smaller ships to defend your Battleship against a threat like a Fighter. If you throw in a dozen Fighters, you can easily destroy a Battleship, if you're using medium weaponry, because YOU can hit AND damage the Battleship, but the Battleship with its large / huge weaponry will miss your fighters very often. Also, if introducing RoF, your medium weapons will fire more often than a large gun of the Battleship, so you can do more damage in same time.
Finally:
To get rid of that inaccurate and unrealistic rounds-system, we need to add following:
Weapon Rate of Fire (RoF) - Smaller weapons do fire more often
Weapon's Accuracy (Acc) - Smaller weapons might hit bigger targets more often, but larger weapons will miss smaller targets if they're too small.
Damage per Shot (DpSh) - How much damage does a weapon per salvo?
Damage per Second (DpS) - How much damage does a weapon per second?
To calculate DpS you need to know:
- What damage is done per salvo and how many salvos are executed per second
Example 1: A Laser I is firing 3 times in a second, doing 1 damage per shot (3 DpS)
Example 2: A Phasor I is firing 1 times in a second, doing 4 damage per shot (4 DpS)
- What weapon-class is used against what target-class (Accuracy and effective damage)
Example 1: A Laser I is hitting a Fighter with accuracy of 95% (95 out of 100 will hit), meaning it does a maximum of 95 Damage in 31.7 seconds when firing 3 times in a second and 100 times.
Example 2: A Laser I is hitting a Battleship with accuracy of 95%. Efficency is 33%, meaning a Laser will do 10.45 Damage in 31.7 seconds when firing 3 times in a second and 100 times.
You see, the Laser will destroy a Fighter with ease, but it's almost useless against a Battleship.
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5. If we have a realistic weaponbehavior, its more usefull to have mixed fleets instead of using just the biggest ships avaiable. A player with Fighters and Corvettes (tiny & small) will win most battles because of their sheer number (you can have three times more Fighters and Corvettes than Battleships) if the enemy is using just Battleships. So everyone has to mix his fleet - and most battles will be more interesting to watch, because (if even fleets are battling each other) its not sure who's winning.
Also, its now possible to add / remove following features:
- remove "one-must-survive-rule"
- remove "dying-ship-shots-last-time"
- add "ship-shots-multiple-targets"
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6. Now the battlesystem is ready for Starstriker's Idea: Introduce a "retreat-button" if your fleet is loosing the battle. This way, you can save yor fleet instead of watching it to get squished by a superior enemy fleet.
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I know, it's VERY difficult to realize, because it would require to do the battlesystem right from scratch. It might be even too big for a small patch, so I would recommend to use this feature either for a second Expansionpack OR for GalCiv3. I really want to see a more realistic (but still NOT interactive) battle and I am pretty sure, this suggestion might help you, if you're using it.
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Thanks @ Starstriker1: without your suggestion, I never would have posted my concept.
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