Dev Progress: Combat Update Part I

[Ny]

 

Over the last weeks, we've been working hard on the Combat Update, and it's taking great shape! We did realize though, that there's a lot of content that we want to add, and it would take us a lot longer than anticipated to finish everything that we had in mind. Since we told you before that we want to do more frequent, but smaller updates, we're going to split this update into two parts:

 

Combat Update Part I

Along with the usual bugfixes and QoL changes, this part will be containing one big new feature: Torpedoes! Since the purpose of this update is mainly to make combat more interesting and engaging, you (and the AI as well!) will be able to equip your ships with this high range, high damage but also high price weaponry. Torpedoes can be shot down, if you react fast enough, but if you don't, prepare yourself for some serious damage.

 

Alongside torpedoes, we're adding the specialized ships that we already announced in the last update. There will be ships that are especially strong against shields, hull, fighters, and so on. In order to be successful in combat you'll have to make sure that your strategy includes getting rid of these specialists first, before they take advantage of your weak points.

 

The last big features with this update will be more specialized weapons, giving weapons more specific roles, as well as improved control over your ships that are far away. You'll be able to travel into sectors where you have stationed ships, so that you can give orders more effectively and don't have to warp all the way back to just tell your miner to change sectors.

 

Combat Update Part II

In part II we're going to address more visual issues. You can, amongst other things, look forward to coaxial weaponry and player-created turret visuals!

 

Have fun!

 

[screenshot: All of the reworked weapons firing. (Workshop ship by TESLA)]

---

[German Version]

 

In den letzten Wochen haben wir hart am Combat Update gearbeitet, und es nimmt eine großartige Form an! Wir haben jedoch festgestellt, dass es eine Menge Inhalte gibt, die wir hinzufügen wollen, und es würde länger dauern als erwartet um alles, was wir uns vorstellen, fertigzustellen. Da wir euch versprochen haben häufiger kleinere Updates zu machen, werden wir dieses Update in zwei Teile aufteilen:

 

Combat Update Teil I

Neben den üblichen Bugfixes und QoL-Änderungen wird dieser Teil ein großes neues Feature enthalten: Torpedos! Da der Zweck dieses Updates hauptsächlich darin besteht, den Kampf interessanter und fesselnder zu gestalten, werdet ihr (und auch die KI!) in der Lage sein, eure Schiffe mit dieser Waffe mit hoher Reichweite, hohem Schaden, aber dafür auch hohem Preis, auszustatten. Torpedos, die auf euch geschossen werden, können zerstört werden, wenn ihr schnell genug reagiert, aber wenn ihr es nicht tut, bereitet euch auf ernsthaften Schaden vor.

 

Neben den Torpedos kommen die Spezialschiffe hinzu, die wir bereits letzte Woche angekündigt haben. Es wird Schiffe geben, die besonders stark gegen Schilde, Hülle, Raumjäger und so weiter sind. Um im Kampf erfolgreich zu sein, müsst ihr eure Strategie so anpassen, dass ihr diese Spezialisten loszuwerdet, bevor sie eure Schwachstellen ausnutzen.

 

Die letzten großen Features in diesem Update werden spezialisiertere Waffen und sowie eine verbesserte Kontrolle über eure weit entfernten Schiffe sein. Ihr werdet in Sektoren reisen können, in denen ihr Schiffe stationiert habt, um effektiver Befehle erteilen zu können und nicht den ganzen Weg zurückreisen zu müssen, um euren Berbauschiffen zu sagen, dass sie den Sektor wechseln sollen.

 

Combat Update Teil II

In Teil II werden wir uns mehr mit visuellen Themen beschäftigen. Freut euch unter anderem auf koaxiale Waffen und selbstdesigneteTurm!

 

Viel Spaß!

 

[screenshot: Schiff feuert alle überarbeiteten Waffen. (Workshopschiff von TESLA)]

[NITROtbomb]

Amazing!! so pumped for Part 2 especially,

torpedos sounds super fun tho :O

[Romual]

Good Lord! Coax and player disigned turrets? That sounds awesome! Does this include us choosing size of our turrets?

[Wancott]

Can't wait to construct a giant cannon and build a spaceship around it, hell yeah!

I hope the AI will be capable of viably using torpedoes or at least obey some sort of disable switch. (Imagine AI controlled ships firing on fighters for example. Not to mention friendly fire >:D)

[Hellatze]

No hype until i see what kind of feature i recive.

[Meesmaalt]

Controlling your ships from other sector - man that thing has been long time coming.

Thanks!

[Wancott]

I wonder if it will be like giving remote orders or actually "jumping" (more like clone jumping from eve lol) to the pilot seat of a ship.

[Ulrich_Rüstungjäger]

Can't wait for part two, I'm hopingthat there isnt a block limit for the custom turret visuals, or if there is let it be a reasonable amount.

[Charless]

Any info on how anti fighter weapons will work? Will they be a seperate kind of turret so you can have more of them than normal weapons?

[Soulpiercer]

Any info on how anti fighter weapons will work? Will they be a seperate kind of turret so you can have more of them than normal weapons?

 

I would prefer if they are normal turrets. Make the use of them a choice, not something you put on all ships for free.

[Kanna]

Any info on how anti fighter weapons will work? Will they be a seperate kind of turret so you can have more of them than normal weapons?

 

I would prefer if they are normal turrets. Make the use of them a choice, not something you put on all ships for free.

 

This is something i agree with. Fighters aren't the strongest to begin with, so making the anti fighter weapons separate from normal turrets would kind of make the fighters obsolete as they wouldnt be able to approach any enemy ships with these weapons anymore, while the main ship still takes the full force from the main weapons.

[Novatosh]

Any info on how anti fighter weapons will work? Will they be a seperate kind of turret so you can have more of them than normal weapons?

 

I would prefer if they are normal turrets. Make the use of them a choice, not something you put on all ships for free.

 

Actually, I would want Anti-Fighter turrets to be separate from the other turrets. Warships from around the time of WW2 had the main armament and the anti-aircraft armament, which usually wasn't used on other ships, but on the fighters and bombers that were becoming more and more of a threat (kind of what we are seeing in Avorion). Also, there were many more AA-guns on almost all warships than main guns. I just think it would be awesome to have many, small, close range auto-turrets that are purely for fighter defense besides the main turrets. It could make combat look more chaotic and exiting.

[Romual]

But, considering you CAN kill them with main guns and are FAR less powerfull then bombers in WW2 - they need HUGE buff to be viable, if every ship gets dedicated AA turrets. What I saw somewhere here was the best option - make turret slots a huge number and make turrets take SEVERAL slots, depending on their power and scale. Maybe allow to SCALE ANY TURRET, increasing it's stats, but make it occupy more slots. I REALLY want some capital cannon expirience, with some COAX railguns as well.

[Ravien]

But, considering you CAN kill them with main guns and are FAR less powerfull then bombers in WW2 - they need HUGE buff to be viable, if every ship gets dedicated AA turrets. What I saw somewhere here was the best option - make turret slots a huge number and make turrets take SEVERAL slots, depending on their power and scale. Maybe allow to SCALE ANY TURRET, increasing it's stats, but make it occupy more slots. I REALLY want some capital cannon expirience, with some COAX railguns as well.

 

I really like this idea.

[Fenrir]

But, considering you CAN kill them with main guns and are FAR less powerfull then bombers in WW2 - they need HUGE buff to be viable, if every ship gets dedicated AA turrets. What I saw somewhere here was the best option - make turret slots a huge number and make turrets take SEVERAL slots, depending on their power and scale. Maybe allow to SCALE ANY TURRET, increasing it's stats, but make it occupy more slots. I REALLY want some capital cannon expirience, with some COAX railguns as well.

 

This Idea sounds quite good.

[timethatswasted]

Very confused by what is meant here by coaxial weapons.... by definition those are weapons that are mounted to, and fired independent of a main fixed gun.  Such as a machine gun mounted on a tank.

 

There are no fixed weapons in the game right now..... (Fixed turret mount doesn’t count)

 

So what are we actually talking about here?

[Romual]

Coaxial is easy to understand. They are fixed to an axis, on a tank - that is axis of a TURRET, but on a ship that is basically on the hull, or inside it. Imagine ship-long railgun or huge laser on the ship front. Or battery of cannons on the side. That's coax.

 

On a tank you mentioned they are "coax" to main gun, in this game they will be "coax" to a whole ship.

[timethatswasted]

Coaxial is easy to understand. They are fixed to an axis, on a tank - that is axis of a TURRET, but on a ship that is basically on the hull, or inside it. Imagine ship-long railgun or huge laser on the ship front. Or battery of cannons on the side. That's coax.

 

On a tank you mentioned they are "coax" to main gun, in this game they will be "coax" to a whole ship.

 

 

 

Well I hope that’s what they are talking about....  maybe it’s a translation issue, by English definition that is not what a coaxial weapon is, to say the axial is the ship itself is stretching the definiation a bit. You use terms like fixed mount, static mount or spine mount to describe what I think they are talking about.

 

Whatever it is I am excited to have more weapon options =D

[Charless]

But, considering you CAN kill them with main guns and are FAR less powerfull then bombers in WW2 - they need HUGE buff to be viable, if every ship gets dedicated AA turrets. What I saw somewhere here was the best option - make turret slots a huge number and make turrets take SEVERAL slots, depending on their power and scale. Maybe allow to SCALE ANY TURRET, increasing it's stats, but make it occupy more slots. I REALLY want some capital cannon expirience, with some COAX railguns as well.

 

I agree, that way you could have say 300 max slots, with AA weapons only taking up half a slot. However you also have a new modification call it FCS (fire control system) this would increase the reaction time, accuracy and range of AA weapons, but at the higher end be very energy intensive. Fighters would also get a buff, say different sizes, bombers would be larger fighters that are slower and less menuverable by nature. But they also have shields and more health/fire power. Fighters would be fast and nimble but also fragile. You could give orders to your fighters to say attack AA weaponry so your bombers can move in. All weapons that are not Anti fighter would have a massive decrease in accuracy, hit probability when fighting fighters. The closer the enemy fighter is the stronger the effect. Or these turrets could ignore fighters and focus on enemy ships.

 

There would be different types of anti fighter weaponry under each weapon type.

 

1. CIWS: targets incoming missiles and torpeadoes. Can target fighters but they nearly do any damage.

Pros: Insane fire rate, accuracy and reaction time, good against torpeodoes, and missiles and light fighters.

Cons: Short range, and low damage. Bad against bombers. Can over heat

 

2. Flack cannons: good at taking down bombers and fighters at a medium range.

pros: decent fire rate, AEO, medium range, good against bombers and fighters

Cons: slower reaction time and bad accuracy, can damage allied fighters with flack AOE

 

3. missile battery: placed in line with hull in vls configuration: Amazing at long range ant bomber and slow moving missiles

pros: Long range, tracking, fires in salvoes of 2-6, good reaction time. Good against bombers

Cons: bad at close range, can be rendered useless by jamming. Terrible reload.

 

4: Lazers: Perfict accuracy, however does poor damage

 

Now for coaxile weapons:

Here's several Ideas I have:

 

Missiles: go in vls into the hull of your ship larger the block is bigger the missile meaning larger range.

Pros and cons: amazing damage and range (almost all the way acros the sector) at larger end but slow and easy to shoot down At smaller end short range but awsom speed.

 

Railgun: Long charge up to shoot but once fired near infinite range and massive kinetic damage capable of tearing a hole clean through a ship in one shot. But massive energy range from shooting may temporarily take down the shields and leave a ship drifting. Projectile  is very fast but at longer range it can be dodged.

 

Lazer: A massive super lazer that can deal massive amounts of damage against a hull in a short period of time. However bad against shields and has a massive energy drain, limiting the fire time. Medium range

 

Ion: Much like plasma this is amazing against shield but does nothing to the hull. when hitting a target it drains their energy for a short period of time, completly disabling the ship. Rendering its weapons useless. Has a short effective range, is increadibly energy consumptive and requires a very long charge up.

 

 

[eduty]

Since we're update speculating, here are some ideas on how new weapons and combat may be balanced/implemented:

• Overheat and cool down times on defensive weaponry and large coax guns
  
• Crew, energy, and/or slot scarcity
  
• AA cannons may chew through fighters, but assemblies have improved fighter construction time, reduced resource costs, pilots are more readily available, and hangars can hold/launch more craft
  
• Crew losses. Hard to operate all those weapons when the gunners keep dying.
  
• Ammunition. When fired, turrets utilize a small amount of resources (probably corresponding to their material). You could put a couple Avorion chain guns on your ship to battle fighters, but that's going to be an expensive encounter.
  
• Turrets get dedicated block mounts and can no longer be placed willy-nilly all over a ship. Turret blocks have moderate HP compared to hull and armor, and weapons are easier to blow off during prolonged battles.
  
• Directional or limited shield areas. Your ship is no longer a big flying chunk of shield HP. Each shield generator only projects a force field in a certain direction or a certain area, making ship facing and maneuverability more critical to long fights.
  
• Weapon status effects. In addition to increased hull, range, shield damage, etc. Guns can also slow enemy ships, deplete power, deal damage over time, add time to hyperspace recharge, and disable auto-turrets for a brief period of time.
  
• Electronic warfare. Decreases the accuracy of auto-fire turrets and fighters.
  
• Cloaking technology. Get the drop on your enemies and disappear after a hit and run.
  

[Charless]

Since we're update speculating, here are some ideas on how new weapons and combat may be balanced/implemented:

• Overheat and cool down times on defensive weaponry and large coax guns
  
• Crew, energy, and/or slot scarcity
  
• AA cannons may chew through fighters, but assemblies have improved fighter construction time, reduced resource costs, pilots are more readily available, and hangars can hold/launch more craft
  
• Crew losses. Hard to operate all those weapons when the gunners keep dying.
  
• Ammunition. When fired, turrets utilize a small amount of resources (probably corresponding to their material). You could put a couple Avorion chain guns on your ship to battle fighters, but that's going to be an expensive encounter.
  
• Turrets get dedicated block mounts and can no longer be placed willy-nilly all over a ship. Turret blocks have moderate HP compared to hull and armor, and weapons are easier to blow off during prolonged battles.
  
• Directional or limited shield areas. Your ship is no longer a big flying chunk of shield HP. Each shield generator only projects a force field in a certain direction or a certain area, making ship facing and maneuverability more critical to long fights.
  
• Weapon status effects. In addition to increased hull, range, shield damage, etc. Guns can also slow enemy ships, deplete power, deal damage over time, add time to hyperspace recharge, and disable auto-turrets for a brief period of time.
  
• Electronic warfare. Decreases the accuracy of auto-fire turrets and fighters.
  
• Cloaking technology. Get the drop on your enemies and disappear after a hit and run.
  

I'm not for the ammunition one, I'm all for more fighters, I believe if we are going to have more weapons the overheat and weapons desplay needs to be fixed, it takes up some of the screen and is ugly AF

[Wanderer]

Since we're update speculating, here are some ideas on how new weapons and combat may be balanced/implemented:

• Overheat and cool down times on defensive weaponry and large coax guns
  
• Crew, energy, and/or slot scarcity
  
• AA cannons may chew through fighters, but assemblies have improved fighter construction time, reduced resource costs, pilots are more readily available, and hangars can hold/launch more craft
  
• Crew losses. Hard to operate all those weapons when the gunners keep dying.
  
• Ammunition. When fired, turrets utilize a small amount of resources (probably corresponding to their material). You could put a couple Avorion chain guns on your ship to battle fighters, but that's going to be an expensive encounter.
  
• Turrets get dedicated block mounts and can no longer be placed willy-nilly all over a ship. Turret blocks have moderate HP compared to hull and armor, and weapons are easier to blow off during prolonged battles.
  
• Directional or limited shield areas. Your ship is no longer a big flying chunk of shield HP. Each shield generator only projects a force field in a certain direction or a certain area, making ship facing and maneuverability more critical to long fights.
  
• Weapon status effects. In addition to increased hull, range, shield damage, etc. Guns can also slow enemy ships, deplete power, deal damage over time, add time to hyperspace recharge, and disable auto-turrets for a brief period of time.
  
• Electronic warfare. Decreases the accuracy of auto-fire turrets and fighters.
  
• Cloaking technology. Get the drop on your enemies and disappear after a hit and run.
  

I'm not for the ammunition one, I'm all for more fighters, I believe if we are going to have more weapons the overheat and weapons desplay needs to be fixed, it takes up some of the screen and is ugly AF

 

Honestly, more fighters? Be honest, they are already overpowerd and will stay that, because you have 120 fighters and they will all have 3 dodges. The point is, how much health does a ship have? I got 120 tesla fighters that, together, do 300000 dps on 3,9 km (one does 2600 dps) More would be fun for me, but then its gonna be insane against other enemys, antifighter or not... They would fire on a fighter, then another one, and maybe they will hit the same fighter 4 times and have a chance of destroying it. If it is still alive after 3 seconds... And then the next 119 fighters!

 

The ammo part? Well, it might work, but then like this: a turret gets 2 new stats: ammo usage/second and ammo production/second, with ammo not transferable between turrets or something like that. This would mean that your turret might be really powerfull, but if you got a really high ammo usage and a low production, its not gonna be OP, but more of a burst fire weapon. But after all with the overheating, i think that it's fine like it is now.

 

Capital weapons: i dont see them being coaxial weaponry, those i think coax weapons would be more for cruisers/ destroyers. I think that a whole new weapon would be nice for this. I would like weapons that are for real long distances, for battleship against battleship, and easy to counter with manouverable and lots of ships, so indep. Tar. Turrets would be needed for that. I would like some huge cannons, shooting long range shells, and (ok, it makes no sense because no gravity etc, but ey, its a game :-)) fly towards the enemy in an ark (a parabolic ark). It would be nice to see huge shells flying in an ark over the battlefield, before raining down hell on the enemy. Because of this trajectory, a min. Range of 4/5 km would be nice, and also hindering it being OP as hell (wich i think is the problem of creating capital guns, because they should have insane damage, high range and low rate of fire, but also easy to dodge and hard hit other ships with and thus being really affective against big, slow moving targets (if trying to dodge, just make sure your'e not in the ark of the shots by going left, right and wait for the shells to pass by), but a cruiser that can come into the minimum range is gonna have a good time.

 

If wanting to compare it to something visual, compare it to some shots being fired during the encounter between the uss enterprise and the bigger, darkgrey warship (wich looks almost the same) and you'll notice there are some (or one, i dont really know) shots that hit it with an ark. It would be nice, because now its just always a line, and capital guns should be really good, but also have the danger of finding an ally ship within the ark of the shell.

 

If balancing enemy's and weapons, there are some points i would like to point on:

-make the shipp live up to its class name: im a bit sad if i can kill dreadnoughts in just 2 more seconds than a destroyer or freighter, where are the big ass ships with somewhat like 5 milion shield/hull hp and huge omicron numbers?

-make the classes do something else: now they're all coming towards you and sit in front of you whilst fighting, but why not make destroyers long range ships, trying to stay at 10 km or something, cruisers trying to support a dreadnought wich is raining down hell on you with capital cannons and battleships trying to get close to you (so basicly what every ship does right now)

-where are the medics? Why are there no ai ships that can heal their allies? If i can do it, why wont they?

-if calling in reinforcements, try to match the reinforcements with your ship: if im in my flying behemoth and raiding a station, im not impressed by those 3 ships that attack me, its more annoying to get my ship turned to fight them than a challenge. However, don't spawn in a huge fleet with lots of battleships and destroyers supporting 2 dreadnoughts (wich would be giant ships with an incredible shield/hull hp amount and a huge omicron number for their area) if im in a small ship. Lets say my ship is worth 3 powerpoints(PP, i know, butifull name;-)) (calculate it, maybe something like firepower x 1/10 shield + hull hp) try to spawn a fleet wich has 4 PP, and if im in a ship that has 100 PP, try spawning a fleet of 125 PP, like multiplying the points you have with a ranom number between 1 and 1,25 maybe? Im missing strategy, i wanna fight for evert sector! Not sit there and shoot my guns 4 times and be done. Ofcourse, the point where you are is also important: in my starting sector they wont have ships that match my PP, so they would spawn hundreds of ships... So maybe the max amount of PP should be depending on your position in the galaxy, to prevent giant fleets from a faction in iron belt.

-railguns: im sad because they have no travel time, and (relatively)low range... I would like railguns shooting shells 5/7 times faster than cannon rounds, but not instant. And with high damage, low rate of fire and quick overheating, i think they deserve more range.

-can the turret have the amount of shots being equal to the amount of barrels? A normal 1 barrel railgun that shoots 2 projectiles and a four barrel railgun shooting 1 projectile is weird.

-where are those "infinite xsotan reinforcements? It would be amazing if the xsotan would OR attack in a small scouting group OR have a huge fleet either in one wave or multiple. But maybe this is more for the late game, so only inside of the xanion and higher belts?

 

Maybe a nice thing for after the guardian: after killing him, you get a mission to attack a sector with an enemy fleet, after that, continue to the next sector, wich is harder etc. etc

 

For bigger guns (wich quite a lot of people want :-)), why not change the turret system a bit, by making a turret blueprint wich you need 1/turret (so if you want 5 you still need to make 5) and give them stats that are multiplied by The size of the turret (except for range, that needs to have a less big increase, maybe for every 1 size extra multiplying the range by 1,5 instead of dubbeling and maybe remove 0,1 fire rate for every turret size point?) and the max turret size depending on the turret material (trinium max 4 and avorion max 7), but also increasing the energy drainage, recoil etc. by the same factor and maybe giving you 0,2 accuracy increase for every size point (with maybe a slightly bigger increase for turrets that were really inacurate in the first place) So then you spam those on your ship? Well, to counter that, i would say the guns take the same amount of turret slots as they have size points with a min. of 1 and a max. of 7.

 

Sorry for grammar mistakes :-) and for the really long post, maybe not entirely relevant, but everything after the artillery/arkcannons just popped in my mind, but anyways, i hope you didn't fall asleep reading it :-)

 

 

[eduty]

The ammo part? Well, it might work, but then like this: a turret gets 2 new stats: ammo usage/second and ammo production/second, with ammo not transferable between turrets or something like that. This would mean that your turret might be really powerfull, but if you got a really high ammo usage and a low production, its not gonna be OP, but more of a burst fire weapon. But after all with the overheating, i think that it's fine like it is now.

 

My thought would be to just abstract ammunition production and have a weapon decrease your ore reserves as it fires.

 

Example: Firing an iron chain gun uses 1 iron ore / second.

 

This incentivizes weapon diversification and leads to more tactical choices.

• What resources can you devote to this encounter?
  
• Do you have enough resources to see the fight to completion?
  
• Should you keep one or two common material turrets mounted to deal with lesser threats?
  
• What combination of mining/salvage is necessary to keep your fleet fight ready?
  

[eduty]

On another note, I'd like to see the gradual repair of a ship require materials.

 

As it stands, if my ship doesn't lose any blocks, it can go from next to no HP to full HP without any material input. If the repair crew is patching holes in titanium armor, I'd think they'd use up some titanium in doing so.

[Hellatze]

I dont like that.

 

My ship are really big