Simultaneous Fire in Combat

[mac5732]

SJ, Puke, Atrocities, and other modders,

In reading varios threads, there it seems like who moves/shoots first in combat is one of the topics or in discussions. I'm no modder or programer but how about the possiblity of the following.

Simultaneous fire in combat. In other words, in each combat round, both sides, AI/human or Human/human, each ship within range sets their targets, then when you hit end turn, both sides fire at the same time, this way damage would be assessed evenly (at the same time) and it wouldn't matter who fired first or who took damage lst. I know range would be a factor but all ships within range would target and then fire similiar to what is currently done except in this case both sides fire at the same time. PD's would still fire in defense as seekers etc came within range.

What do you and everyone else think??

just some ideas mac

[Mark Walton]

Change the sequence of combat so that all ships move, then all ships fire - and each ship simply gathers a "damage number". The damage is then applied simultaneously at the end of each turn. That way it doesn't matter which order anyone moves in, as no compononents will be offlined until the end of the turn.

[Suicide Junkie]

Note that that would have to be a damage list, since a ship could be hit by different types of damage.

How would you arrange that your shield depleters hit before the normal damage weapons?

Also, it could cause a problem with targetting decisions:
It would really suck if your fleet of 10 baseships, full of WMGs unloaded all their shots into a single escort, simply because it hasn't blown up yet.
With sequential firing, the AI is forced to keep choosing new targets when the first ones are dead.

[Magnum357]

I think what SE4 should do is something similar to the old Task Force Game called "Starfire". In that game, a random role was used to see who had advantage during a particular turn (I think it was turn, or maybe for the entire game). The player that had advantage would move one ship (of his choice) first, then the next player would move one ship of his choice, then it would go back to the other player and he would again move one ship and so on.

What SE4 could do is something similar. Have one ship (or fleet formation) move then fire, then have another ship on the other team able to move and fire, then back to the original player. But then again, this system might make problems similar to what SJ had mentioned about problems with damage. Etheir way, I doubt we will see a different way of Tactical combat. It would be too hard to implement program code now in my opinion.

[mac5732]

in regards to different damage from different weapons, what if you set up a list where weapons fire according to type, example, all shield depleters fire first, follwed by seekers, followed by beam weapons, etc,

or in the order that you have them set up on your ship/wp/base, etc, example, depleters first position, followed by seeker, followed by hellbore, etc, they would fire in the sequence you set them up in
damage would be assessed just like it is now, the only difference would be that all ships fire at the same time, when you fire now damage is assessed when the weapons hit, I don't see why that would change, It would take a little more computation for the computer then it does now, but we already have simultaneous movement, why not simultaneous fire?

In tactical combat, you would still target each of your ships just like you do now before you end the turn, the AI could give msg, targets acquired and you wouldn't be able to hit the end turn button until both you/other human/Ai were completed.

I don't know, it just seems that it could be possible, but like I said, i'm not a modder or programer that's why I'm asking the veterans and experts. If its possible, you are the ones who will know..

just some ideas mac

[PsychoTechFreak]

What about Allegiance Subverters, Boarding Parties, Tractor/Repulser Beams ?

[mac5732]

PTF, good pts, I'll have to give them some thought, Never thought of these, tks for feedback, that's why this forum is great, discussions make for a better game.

just some ideas mac