Improving fun in combat

[Zogu]

Hi! I play Weird Worlds almost on a daily basis. While I deeply enjoy the game, even in its simplest form (without the mods), there are still a few things that I don't appreciate as much in it. The aspect of the game in which players seem to want some improvement is the combat system. While the current system works fine and is well calibrated, there is still some room for improvement. In this message, I will try to explore a few of the possible improvements.

1. Too few effective tactics

Because most ships move slowly and are not very manoeuvrable, the frontal assault with superior fire power seems to be dominant.

Another tactic that is currently effecive is the "bait". Send a fast fighter around the enemy to divert fire. It works fine with single enemies.

A third tactic is to cloak a ship. That way, you can pop up behind the enemy and fry his ***.

One way to add some variety in the available tactics would be to have a new parameter to the ship's Thrusters: the TURN RATE. Simply put, we could have a very very fast thruster which makes a ship turn very slowly. Imagine a ship zipping through the combat zone, then sloooowly turning around. Then, imagine another ship that's moving very slowly, but which can turn on its heels like a CD platter, and fire 'round.

It would add some depth to the tactics. The turn rate could become a decisive factor when choosing a thruster. Would my ship be better off with more speed or with more manoeuverability?

2. Combat environment is too simple

Currently, the combat environment is made of empty space. There is never any surprise.

Now imagine sectors wich would contain a bunch of asteroids. You'd break the biggest ones apart, sending smaller fragments in all directions. Asteroids would be a liability to the weakest ships, such as fighters. Luring a Garthan carrier into a small asteroid field would render its fighters unusable.

Next, how about including a planet from time to time. Some combat zones whould then have a gravitation source, which would pull ships and modify their trajectory. Massive ships could even use a slingshot effect... or crash miserably.

There could also be a star in the zone. Since stars emit radiation, when you get close to a star your shields start draining. Otherwise it would act like a planet.

Free-floating objects would need to be NEUTRAL (ie, not part of the player's fleet, not an ally and not an enemy). With a neutral class of ships/objects, we could even have innocent bystanders or deep-space exotic animals in the combat zone.

3. Single goal

Combats are always about annihilating the enemy. How about some variety there?

For instance, the booty you currently get after a combat (ie, the object you find) could be in a cargo ship instead. Think about this: you've intercepted a convoy around a colony world, and they defend their cargo. Basically, if you can get to the cargo ship, you get the object. If you accidentally destroy the cargo ship, you destroy the object. And if you flee during combat, you get nothing when you return to that zone!

You could also steal the booty, while cloaked. But it wouldn't make the planet accessible (ie, the enemy fleet still blocks the way).

4. Too many collisions

While it is a good idea to have some ship ramming into others, random collisions can make things annoying.

One thing that could solve this problem, and make things very fun, would be to have a parameter in the Shield object: REPULSION FACTOR. Thus, some of the shields would repulse incoming physical objects with more or less efficiency. The bigger the object, the bigger the repulsion factor (thus, projectiles on a direct collision course would get through, but projectiles passing near would be slightly deviated outward).

5. No concept of combat initiative

Right now, no matter where a combat takes place, there is no real concept of initiative. Thus, most fleets face you, while the Urluquai always surround you.

To spice things up, we could have 3 types of initiative:
- HOMEWORLD: When fighting in a homeworld system, the defending fleet would have the initiative. Thus, they would have the best configuration (and possibly add some floating turrets to protect their ***).
- NEBULA: The incoming fleet (the player) is surprised by the enemy fleet. The enemy fleet gets the initiative and positions itself in an efficient configuration (surrounding the player's fleet, or sandwiching it).
- "CLEAR" SPACE: The player's fleet gets the initiative. It can choose from a few configurations (if he has many ships): surrounding, sandwich, grouped, etc. The Urluquai wouldn't be in a surrounding configuration in that case, they would rather be grouped in a defensive position.

6. Unlimited weapons and ammo

What if it were possible to limit the number of shots that some of the weapons fire. For instance, the PVC could be limited to 10 shots per combat. We could also have some very powerful torpedos, which would be limited to 5. A doomsday laser would have 1 shot only. Etc.

The way the Fury (Chromium Gong) works could also give an insight. For instance, for each weapon system that has a limited number of shots during combat, an icon (at the top of the screen) and a keyboard shortcut would be provided. Clicking the icon would fire the weapon (from the ship on which it is installed). The icon would also display the remaining number of shots for this combat (in the case of the Gong, it would be "1").

7. Weapon's damage is always limited in time

Currently, there is no weapon which can inflict continuous damage to a ship. We could imagine a radioactive cloud; as long as a ship is in the cloud, it gets damage. Or maybe a goo gun: ships that are hit slow down considerably. Maybe even a "dizzy bomb" which makes the enemy's tactical computer go banana and fire missiles at its own fleet. Etc.

8. You can't really break a ship's system

It's true! Even if the system is totally messed up during combat, it is always possible to repair it after. How about having two levels of damage:
- repearable onboard (After combat): the way it works right now, with the "wrench cursor"
- repearable in a shipyard: ship has to reach any homeworld/outpost to have his ship's systems repaired (it would cost a fraction of the damaged systems' value to repair, say 50% of the value, minimum 1 coin)

If your star drive is broken, the Klakar could even tow you to their homeworld for the repairs!

9. Not enough special features

It would be nice if some ship hulls would come with interesting features. For instance, one would be able to move forward and backwards. Another would have a constant turning motion (useful for turrets, laser mines, or space stations). Another would be able to "attach" to similar ships, in order to concentrate firepower and to increase shield. Another would absorb any beam/electric weapon shot and inject it in its shields (!) Etc.

10. Can't board enemy ships in/after combat

Some players have proposed that "disabled" ships could be boardable. It would require some specific functionalities though; for instance a "Board" command would appear over an enemy ship if its hull is below 15%. Clicking on it would make the player's ship stop shooting as soon as the enemy ship is disabled (so that it doesn't blow up). However, if the enemy ship regenerates its hull (with Hyperfoam for instance) over 15%, the "Board" command is canceled for this time.

Remaining enemies would probably prefer shooting their disabled ship, in order to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. Boarding a ship would allow the player to acquire between 1 and 3 of the ship's system, at random.

11. No physics

While it is complicated to include "real" physics into a game, it is always possible to add some nice effets.

Some of the weapons should definitely have a recoil effect (pushing the ship backwards).

As discussed earlier in this message, some gravitation (ie, a planet in the combat zone) could have an interesting effect.

A repulsion field, included with some of the shields, would gently push an incoming ship away, thus avoiding collisions (unless the other ship's trajectory is fast and direct).

12. No combat in interstellar space

We would expect to meet some enemies between star systems. For instance, pirates and weird organic species could infest the nebulas. (Yet another reason for assessing the "environmental damage" of the Nebular Plow). From time to time, it would be logical to meet some hostile "space thugs" or invading species. In some cases, the player could negociate his way out of the situation (by offering an object to the thug, for instance). In other cases, it's an ambush and there's no way out (except the way of the gun).

[Ace_Garp]

Nice ideas!
Currently, the combat system seems to be dominated too much by the "Biggest guns win!" idea.
There doesn't seem to be much that good tactics/strategy can do to influence the outcome of a battle.
I particularly like the idea of having features in the battlefield, this could lead to more planning and strategy in combat. Small fighters hiding amongst the debris, taking pot shots at the larger, less manoeuvrable ships.
Could be very cool indeed!
The gravitation idea also brings to mind Space War - the first ever computer game.

[Fingers]

We aren't planning to make any more major changes to Weird Worlds... Instead, we'll be thinking of a new project of some kind.

A lot of these same ideas were bounced around during the development but we just didn't end up doing them for one reason or another.

For example, planets and stars are on a totally different scale from our ship combat (the combat map is about 5km to a side) so they couldn't really make an appearance in a meaningful way. Permanently breaking ship systems was merely frustrating... Imagine just barely winning a spectacular and challenging battle, only to find out that your "reward" is the game basically ending because your star drive was destroyed by random chance and you can't go anywhere.

We considered boarding and taking over enemy ships but realized it would quickly unbalance the game (if you thought it was easy with five ships in your fleet, try thirty!). You can actually do this in a mod, but you should try to limit it so that you'll only ever have five ships, ie. place just four special "boardable" enemies on the map in quests instead of having regular allies and mercenaries.

More things you can do in a mod:

The turn rate/movement speed is defined per ship hull. E.g. the Garthans move fast but turn slow. You could easily make these more "extreme".

The homeworld fleets are defined separately, so you could add defense turrets that are only included in those.

Guns can have ammo. See the fusion rocket launcher for example (it shoots three, then reloads for a while before it can shoot another three). You could set the "clip" reload time really long so once it's out of ammo it'll stay out.

The particle vortex cannon is essentially a "radioactive cloud" effect. If you made one that didn't move, looked a bit different and used an invisible effect rather than the lightning beam to do its damage, you're there

Constantly turning ship hulls are in the game; see Primordius station & Damocles drones.

[Zogu]

Thanks for the hints, Fingers! I've just realized that there is much potential to be explored in mods. But first, I'll definitely try messing with the PVC as a "radioactive cloud", it looks fun!

One question though: is there any way of having neutral (not allies and not enemies) objects or ships in combat? Things that neither the player's fleet nor the enemies would automatically attack.

The thing with the turn rate is also very interesting. I have explored the ".ini" file format, but not thoroughly.

Will there be a "Weird Worlds 3" in the works someday?

[Fingers]

Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to do neutral ship-like objects.. That'd be for the asteroids, I suppose. The space hulk is kind of like that but you'll board them if you click them

Right, the "Weird Worlds 2: Return to Infinite Space for the Third Time: Ever Stranger Adventures in the Fourth Dimension" question... We haven't started anything yet, and there's no telling what we might do, and I kind of like that.

Weird Worlds does its thing pretty well so it's not likely we'll do the exact same kind of gameplay again soon. We could do something different in the Infinite Space universe, or something else entirely... I myself want to experiment with stuff like 3D and network programming when I have some free time.

[Jamiri]

A 30-minutes 4X (exploxe, expand, exploit, exterminate) variant in the WW/SAIS universe would be really cool, where players could chose a race and then build their small empire, expand and then interact with the other races.

Could be run multiplayer over the Internet with some people meeting during their lunch break to fight it out.

[Zogu]

Jamiri, your proposal would require a whole redesign of the game engine (not to mention multiplayer support)! I'd say it would be a good idea for a WW spinoff (a mini galactic empire game with 3D action, for instance).

Too bad we can't have neutral ships or objects in combat zones. This is something I would have liked. For instance, a civilian ship caught in the crossfire, a totally hostile life form (which would attack every ship in the battlefield), or inanimate objects (such as asteroids or debris).

About the boarding of ships: I think there is a misunderstanding. I was only talking about boarding a ship for salvaging some parts (just like when we board an alien hulk). I was not talking about "stealing" ships. I can only imagine what I could do with a Vent Mother in my fleet... but as you said, that would make things too complicated.

About the presence of planets or stars: I think i had a "StarControl-centric view" on that topic. I understand that ships are in proportion in WW, so yes, planets wouldn't fit in the grid.

About broken ship systems: I was talking about damage that you can't repair onboard. You'd have to have your ship serviced in a homeworld (for a minimal fee). But that's ok, it's not a very important topic anyway.

Now I'll have to finish my "French translation" Mod for WW... or maybe go to sleep...

[Jamiri]

Zogu said:
Jamiri, your proposal would require a whole redesign of the game engine (not to mention multiplayer support)! I'd say it would be a good idea for a WW spinoff (a mini galactic empire game with 3D action, for instance).

Yep, that's what I also had in mind, as Fingers said something about network programming and 3D support as one of his possible future experiments.