Disengage Button
 

Ok so some times the computer decides that combat has ended -- but I wasn't quite finished yet. So how about this:

Have an "End Combat" button, that starts greyed out. When the computer thinks combat can end because nothing significant is predicted, it lights the EndCombat button. Then the player has the option to immediately quit, or continue.

Re: Disengage Button
 

Yeah, but then this could be exploited, and not allow combat to end when it is supposed to end, like when retreating ships get far enough away to disengage, and such...

Re: Disengage Button
 

One time in combat, the last remaining enemy ship was running away and had a big head start. My ship was slightly faster but it took a really long time to close within weapon range. The combat map kept expanding bigger and bigger, as seen by the view area indicated by the trapezoidal frame in the overview map getting smaller and smaller and planet in the middle getting smaller and smaller, too.

How does the game decide when to end the combat? In that particular battle, eventually my ship did catch up to fight the other ship, even though it took a really long time. What if the two ships have the same speed so they never get within weapon range, is it smart enough to know this?

Re: Disengage Button
 

I've had that happen as well, it's a pain. However I have noticed that if the combat ends and you attack again right away (dont end the turn) you should start in the same positions you ended in, the same distance at any rate.

Re: Disengage Button
 

I think the combat should be run to its time limit unless there is only allies remaining. There should be a border to combat too. The Infinite field sucks in practice.

Re: Disengage Button
 

I disagree regarding the infinite field. One of the big changes from SEIII to SEIV was removing the ability to retreat. I think this is a good compromise between no retreat and being able to just jump over a line. In practice when the enemy is escaping I use 8x time until I'm in weapons range. Maybe viable options would be to allow time acceleration to 16 or 32.

Also as an exploit if combat ends before you catch the guy you can use the sector view to re-position your ships before you re-attack

Re: Disengage Button
 

Except repositioning doesn't work in simultaneous MP games - it doesn't remember the location of where you place ships. So a player can keep running away and eventually get all the way to your homeworld and glass it etc.

Re: Disengage Button
 

Well if he is faster then he should be able to run away. Better put some defense on the planet.

I would like to see a change where running away puts you into the adjacent hex. Right now you can run away and still be in position to blockade. This doesn't make so much sense, the essence of a blockade is engaging and either running off or destroying the enemy's shipping.

Re: Disengage Button
 

If running away at equal speed or better, then there is no chance to catch up -- The faster ship determines the range of the engagement. So in this situation, the proposed EndCombat button would be available as a shortcut instead of waiting for the timer to run out.

I also like the infinite field much better than the previous version. In SEIV, retreating ships would just get stuck in the corner of the map, and be hunted down like fish in a bucket. Space is supposed to be big, and the infinite field does a great job of portraying that.

Re: Disengage Button
 

Movement during combat should cost some supplies. This would usually prevent someone from running away forever. (Of course, if the fleeing ship also had extra supplies, then it could escape for a long time. But then it would have fewer weapons.)

Blockading
 

A simpler change would be to charge supplies for combat movement. Then the blockader eventually runs out of supplies.

An even simpler change would be to change the rules for blockades. Any ship or fleet with a "Don't get hurt" strategy should not be able to blockade. Problem solved.

Re: Disengage Button
 

Running away should be determined something like this: the minimum distance between enemies is calculated periodically, say every second. A critical distance is initally established and reduced slightly every second. At any time, if the separation distance is greater than the critical distance, then the combat ends with disengagement.

The numbers should be chosen so as to ensure that combat won't immediately end due to initial placement, and that a faster ship should be able to catch a slower ship without combat ending first.

This way, ships of equal speed will end up disengaging after some time and immobile ships, no matter how close will eventually meet the criteria.

I also agree that disengagement should result in moving the fleeing ship/fleet to another sector. Which sector it moves to should be random so as not to be exploitable in rushing to an enemy homeoworld with a superfast fleet - the slower fleets, being able to set up defensively ahead of time, would (in a "real" battle) block the faster fleet from "retreating forward". Moving the disengaging ship/fleet to another sector is strategically important so as to prevent blockading planets with superfast ships.

Re: Disengage Button
 

Perhaps there could be an option in Fleet/Ship strategies to specify how far/long to pursue a fleeing ship before automatically acquiring another target or ending combat if there are no other valid targets.

Re: Disengage Button
 

Playing Demo ver 1.00

It seems that the game already has a default for ending battle when nothing can be accomplished.

Had a race that gave +1 to movement. Researched Frigate hull size till I could put a colonizer on the Frigate. Another race �attacked� my colonizer that had 1 more movement that the attacking frigate. �Battle� ended in about 30 seconds on the game battle clock as my colonizer ran away.

Had another battle where I took a fleet across a defended warp point. Destroyed most of the defenders; the remainder of the ships had no weapons left and retreated. After a short chase, the initial battle ended. Since my fleet still had movement remaining, I ordered them to attack. Both sets of ships had the same speed and moved away from the warp point. The "Battle" ended in about 30 "seconds" according to the battle clock. Repeated "Attacks" took the same time, with ship using supplies to move and retreating further from the warp point. At the beginning of the next turn, the original ships left the sector to repair at a nearby planet and the defender brought over some fresh ships to the warp point. My ships started from where they had left off, a distance away from the warp point. The battle was significantly longer than 30 seconds, but played out to conclusion.

It appears that the game does recognize when a battle is futile and will terminate battle, such as trying to land troops on an empty population planet (wish that could be changed), or when the retreating ships have the same speed or better than the pursuers. Entering battle under these circumstances does use supplies, but of course no ordinance.

Re: Disengage Button
 

There is an exploit built in to the current version. You can switch to sector view after that first combat and phsically reposition your ships right next to the enemy ships. Issue the second attack order and the battle will begin with the ships in the positions you just set.

Re: Disengage Button
 

Slick:
Your method falls apart when there are more than two clusters of ships.

Under your system (and also sometimes under SE5's current detection system), you can have battlegroup A smash battlegroup B, and then turn to head for battlegroup C, which was started far off and is charging in. But the combat ends because the distance between enemy ships just went up (B died and C is far away still).

Re: Disengage Button
 

You also have to decide how to charge strategic movement points for retreats.

And what happens if they have none.

Consider mostly simultaneous games, since these issues are most important in multiplayer games.


Running away is realistic, yes, but is it fun?

Re: Disengage Button
 

SJ, I disagree. The initial critical range should be large enough and the decay function slow enough so as to let normal battles play out without having an excessively long futile chase scenario. They only need to address a couple of cases:

- A fleeing from B with A & B traveling at the same speed and out of weapons range,

- 2 or more armed but immobile combatants trying to engage. This could be the last part of a battle which started out with mobile ships on all sides.


These could be chosen so as to make A vs. B vs. C not time out the combat session. It should be slow enough to ensure that any closing ship/fleet will be allowed to engage. Yes, the system would have to account for the worst case which is:

Example with 3 empires, but would apply to > 3.


A, B, C are all enemies of each other

A same speed as B, but faster than C,

A running away from pursuing B; C initially pursuing B but losing ground.

The initial range and decay rate should be chosen so as to allow A to retreat then B turn around to engage C and battle until resolved. There would have to be ranges calculated for A-B, A-C & B-C. Yes, initially this case would look like a draw, because A-B would be constant and A-C & B-C would initially be getting larger. The game should immediately recognize A-B won't get smaller (in simultaneous games the retreat strategy won't suddenly change) and allow A to retreat. Then B will turn around and engage C, decreasing the range B-C. So the rate of decay should be slow enough to allow combat to finsih without timing out too early.

A key to making this would would be that any time weapons are fired while in range with a ToHit % >0, this should extend the range ticker because combat is still occurring and it has the potential to cause damage leading to combat resolution.


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With respect to charging strategic movement points for retreats, if the game is going to allow disengaging, then it must allow that 1 extra strategic retreat movement point, even if it had none before battle. If a ship/fleet has no strategic movement points at the time of battle, there are 2 cases:

1) The ship/fleet used its movement points during the turn and engaged other ships on its last movement point. In this case the ships should be moved to the previous sector prior to engagement. Not very controversial.

2) The ship/fleet started the turn with no movement points. Since the ship/fleet has no movement it is probably due to being out of supplies or having severely damaged engines so it is unlikely that they would then still be able to move (at all) or fast enough for longe enough to disengage, but in this case, yes, if the game will allow disengaging, they should be moved randomly to an adjacent sector. Yes, somewhat controversial. A "free" move? Sort of, but if the ship/fleet moved fast enough and far enough to disengage, then the strategic move can be justified by saying that they actually moved that far during the combat while running away. For the fleeing ship/fleet, it could be beneficial or disadvantageous to get this random movement. The destination sector could contain worse conditions ranging from a larger enemy fleet to a damaging sector to a homeworld sector bristling with with destructive power. Or it could contain a cloaking storm or clear space; just the luck of the draw. Yes, it would be mostly beneficial since most sectors are open space, but they earned it by disengaging. If it was immobile to start, though, it is very unlikely that it would be able to successfully retreat, so if it pulls this off, it deserves that "free" movement point to take its chances in a neighboring sector.


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Is running away fun? That depends on the player and the degree to which you run. The real question is probably unchangeable at this point, but is: Is the game better or worse with the ability to disengage in battle? Personally I think it is a good option. Obviously this one of those "you can't please everyone" issues. Like I said in the post above, the exploits of disengaging need to be addressed or the whole idea spoils the game.


Coding this will obviously be more involved than my example, but combat is such an integral part of the game that it should be well thought out and constructedt so as to prevent exploits.

Re: Disengage Button
 

I wasn't talking about a chase (and flee) scenario... it is moving away from one thing to attack another.
Also, it is extreme-range missile duels.

Your expanded plan looks good, and some simple code optimization should keep it running quickly too.

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The main problem I still have with the infintite running away thing is that nobody has to engage in combat until they want to (such as if they're protecting a slow ship, say, or glassing a homeworld).
You can't intercept anybody that dosen't want to be intercepted in deep space, and even warppoint defenses are nerfed.

Being able to outmanouever someone on the strategic system map is great.
Catching them on the strategic map, and then having degenerate "combats" with runaways is not fun. Basically it means you can't catch them on the strategic map, you can only move into the same sector.

Its like a street "fight" where one guy just keeps jogging away from the other guy... Vs ...A boxing ring where the little guy can still dodge and run around the outside but at least a few punches actually get thrown before the bell rings.

Re: Disengage Button
 

That might have to do with the speed cap in stock SEV. If the game were such that you could design ships that had different speeds, it could be different. like if I could design a ship that had just one gun, but travelled at 18, or another that had no guns but travelled at 24.

As for the way combat ends: I like the idea of ending combat when both parties agree to end it.

Re: Disengage Button
 

QNP dosen't help the situation much, though...
Those fast ships are going to have to be light on armor and guns to get that speed, and will thus get their asses kicked by the warships that are running away http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

What I'd like to see is a circular map limit.
There would be no corners to be caught in, and even if you're heading right towards the wall, your ships will end up randomly turning left or right to escape. Then it becomes a more reasonable chase around the perimeter. Equal speed ships will slowly catch up to the runners, while faster ships do get to stay away.

Re: Disengage Button
 

Being able to pin them in a corner EDIT: or against a side doesn't make much sense either SJ, and having battles so large no one can manuver is just silly.

A faster ship should be able to keep ahead until supplies run out or its boxed in; the only problem with the SEV system IMO is the later isn't really possible.

Re: Disengage Button
 

As I said, in theory yeah, that's what should happen.

But it is not fun in practice. I plan to make my mods fun.
If I have to put the combatants in a steel cage to make it entertaining to watch, so be it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif