Making Science Ships More Scientific

posted on July 24th, 2013, 4:21 pm

I agree about all fire being concentrated on one ship at a time all the time. I prefer the look of many ships firing on many different ships unless I tell them all to fire on one target which is why I used the forceinvalidatetarget code I think it is in all my weapons odf's. That way every ship fires on every ship. The only down side is seeing ships turn, fire on one ship, turn and fire on another, turn and so on.

Even though like Fed ships have many firing hard points to cover a large firing arc, they still turn a lot to face their target which does look silly at times.

posted on July 24th, 2013, 4:45 pm

I was about to suggest that solution rifraf. I use that in my mod also Makes fleet combat last longer also, as it's more about the strength of your fleet as a whole than the strength of individual ships.

posted on July 24th, 2013, 5:07 pm

You can prevent ships from turning to fire by using the Craft ODF command turnToFire

Concentrating fire has always been one of those yucky looking things. It's not something we can solve in a clean fashion soon, but we expect players to more willingly focus fire on multiple objects at the same time in our next version

posted on July 24th, 2013, 6:54 pm

I finally found the command in the guide that's awesome DN. So in the specific ship.odf I would put turnToFire = 0 with spaces before and after the =?

What about if the ship has a limited firing arc like a Bird of Prey? They have to face the target to fire on it. How does this command effect that?

Too bad it won't work in stock A2. Will definitely use it in my FO mod though

posted on July 24th, 2013, 8:20 pm

There was an attempt in the episode "Sacrifice of Angels" to have the fleets use recognisable military strategies, although they were drawn more from what may have been seen in the first millennia AD than anything specific for the theatre of space.

When it comes to focussing fire, I don't see that going away. "Destroyed" (or captured, but that is rare especially in large battles) is the best effect to impose on an enemy, and the sooner that gets imposed per unit the sooner the battle's tempo goes your way. I can see 4.0 making changes to a player's preferred order of targets; and, depending on how the area effect damage of Offensive profile ships works, I can also see more interest in fighting on the move.

posted on July 24th, 2013, 10:04 pm

with the movement and targeting with birds of prey..
could they have a toggle able ability. one is to sit still and fire like in generations, the other is to keep flying at full speed and shoot at anything in front of it as it keeps looping round. which could give it a massive avoidance bonus to weapons fire. but spreads its fire against many targets.

this would be useful in particular for late game large fleet battles, or making it a hard target for small fleet battles

posted on July 24th, 2013, 10:24 pm

This is why I think the battles in fleet ops are a lot less spectacular than in star trek. In fleet ops, when two large fleets meet, you don't see each ship firing at ships near it, instead the whole fleet focuses it's fire on one or two ships at a time. It's good strategy wise but it kinda sucks theatrical wise... It would be interesting if the ships didn't always attack what you told them to attack but sometimes went after more immediate threats, like the ships shooting at them. As in clicking the attack button only assigns a weight to attacking that target. As I said it would be interesting but unrealistic etc. etc.

You make a good point. I think that deserves its own thread.

One compromise would be that ships automatically attack enemy fleets in the way you described, unless the player manually right clicks a target to issue an attack order on it, which would switch the fleet to "focus fire" mode. Once the target is destroyed, the fleet would focus fire on a new target. Issuing a move order or some other non-attack order would return firing to "cinematic" mode.

posted on July 25th, 2013, 5:01 pm

This is why I think the battles in fleet ops are a lot less spectacular than in star trek. In fleet ops, when two large fleets meet, you don't see each ship firing at ships near it, instead the whole fleet focuses it's fire on one or two ships at a time. It's good strategy wise but it kinda sucks theatrical wise... It would be interesting if the ships didn't always attack what you told them to attack but sometimes went after more immediate threats, like the ships shooting at them. As in clicking the attack button only assigns a weight to attacking that target. As I said it would be interesting but unrealistic etc. etc.

You make a good point. I think that deserves its own thread.

One compromise would be that ships automatically attack enemy fleets in the way you described, unless the player manually right clicks a target to issue an attack order on it, which would switch the fleet to "focus fire" mode. Once the target is destroyed, the fleet would focus fire on a new target. Issuing a move order or some other non-attack order would return firing to "cinematic" mode.

I think I will start a thread about that, good idea =)
Ships acted as you describe in the original Armada if I remember correctly... It's been too long... Dang I bet I would have owned that game if I knew then what I know now...