Can we be honest about the combat please?

[Mirador]

At this point i think everyone has to admit that the combat in this game is a barely functioning joke. The UI is obnoxious at best, malicious and intentionally bad at worst. The fact that THIS is the control scheme they released as playable, really doesn't give me much hope for it ever getting any better, as it shows their fundamental way of thinking of the combat is wrong.

I know the fanboys, devs and other smooth brains will say its realism over fun, but you're wrong. Its not in the least bit realistic and here's why.

Ship design - Why are all the ships long and thin? Once we are making ships in space they can literally be any shape. Rockets are long and thin to cut through the air and limit atmospheric resistance. Once you're in space this no longer matters and allows for more interesting shapes. This shows either a lack of understanding by the devs or a lack of imagination.

Thrust Vectoring - Why dont we have any? IF we were in a war like this, the first thing any person with an IQ larger than a goldfish would do, is put thrust vents on ALL sides of the ship. Front and back absolute minimum. If i need to slow down i DONT want to turn my armour / guns away from the enemy. The fact we are limited to only having one source of directional thrust and then sticking main weapons on a linear track is dumb.

Forward firing locked weapons. WHY? Just Why? In reality that would be the first thing to get junked. I would rather have engines on the front so i can adjust my speed without adjusting my heading. In space / naval combat, the turret is king.

These are all really obvious things, so i can't understand why the devs didn't fix this before release. Either they don't care, have a distinct lack of intelligence or imagination, or lack the talent / skill to make anything better. But judging by the rest of the game, this shouldn't be the case. the rest of the game is solid and really engaging and addictive. But the combat sucks. Like really really SUCKS. The only reason i can logically think of is that if they gave us a usable control scheme and UI in the combat, with functional ship configurations and movement, then it would just emphasise how awful their attempt at combat AI is.

[onyhow]

Publicado originalmente por Pineapple:

Publicado originalmente por ulzgoroth:

The UI is marginally usable, but that's the most I can say in its defense.

The realism argument though? Poorly played.


Why are ships long and thin? Because you want a narrow nose to present to the enemy. It's true that for a non-combat ship (unless it's going at extreme speeds where hitting debris in its path is a concern) can quite reasonably take on all sorts of shapes - especially if it doesn't operate under particularly high thrust. But assuming armor is at all useful, you make it much more useful by presenting a tiny profile that you can economically layer extremely thick armor on. (See also the front armor of tanks.)

Why no thrust vectoring: How are you proposing to do it?? Engines that can generate the kind of thrust you need to maneuver in TI combat aren't small. And you can't pipe their output through a sharp corner like a Harrier either, the exhaust is too energetic. I would readily believe a modest amount of pivot on the engine assembly, giving you a valuable few degrees of control, but setting up your engine to deliver full main thrust in all directions just doesn't work.

Forward-mount weapons: For some of them I'm not too sure it's entirely necessary but for the spinal accelerators it's sort of obvious why. But the argument for why not is kinda flimsy. What's good about turrets, really? Your ship, being a long cylinder with an armored nose cap, desperately wants to never expose its broadside. Also, it must be said that large turret mountings are rather costly installations, likely to outmass the weapons they house.

Sorry but....

You could easily thrust vector and in space.. ships combat ships would have reverse thrusters as well as forward thursters... how else do you stop... apparently... in this game.. you just.. dont stop LMAO

RL rockets don't have forward braking thruster either. They turn and burn.

Also braking rockets huh. How much weight are we talking about again to put all those extra engines in? And the plumbing required for the engines?

[Badger BrownCoat]

Publicado originalmente por IronSides:

I find it extremely hilarious that you would even try and compare arguing over online to actual fist fighting. And for you to even think that anyone here would even bring it that far makes you a complete moron, we are arguing about a game that either love it or hate it we are all passionate about. Deal with it.

I am a complete moron.
I would.. I have.
and i always hope someone will again. You game? You think you as toughas the frigate you named after? SHOW ME

But- I think you missed the point: but read number two and i think you'll get more what I'm saying-
whether or not YOU'd agree with stomping osmoen's ass for being impolite-
read #2 - the inability of people to disagree civilly;
does have long-range consequences.

Hopefully you'll agree with that even if you consider my "methods" of enforcing discipline- moronic.

also- if you're NOT willing to fight- maybe don't go sa far as to call someone YOU disagree with a "moron" ina public space. AT that point; you're as bad a sthe people YOU were chiding.

Just a word of wisdom. You might say doin so ..is ... almost moronic.

[Badger BrownCoat]

Publicado originalmente por onyhow:

RL rockets don't have forward braking thruster either. They turn and burn.

Also braking rockets huh. How much weight are we talking about again to put all those extra engines in? And the plumbing required for the engines?

ah- this is more polite, interesting, and up my alley.
we always calle dthat the "turn-over point" when discussing spacetravel-
for actual rockets,, uhhh outta my ken.

may i ask you a CONCEPTUAL? - if if if- some of the drives - could the fields doing the "thrust"- could they reverse the field-polarity ( etc, technobabble) ?
and nullify the need for a turn-over?
also- onyhow- i just caught the name.

THANK YO SO MUCH FOR POINTING OUT THE GUIDE.
( i findthe discord... super great but super overwhelming )

[Barleyman]

I recently started messing with space combat. Now I'm familiar with Kerbal and newtonian motion in general but the directional controls are just plain bad, no two ways about it.

If you try to drag the waypoints around, you will just get into trouble. The "correct" way to do it is to use the hotkeys Z/X/C to rotate the ship in x/y/z planes to point your nose at the direction you want and then either use E hotkey to apply the burn you want or try to drag the waypoint now that the nose it pointed in the correct direction.

I suggested using autocad-like ball control where you have circles in x/y/z direction and you drag at those instead of trying to coax waypoint where you want with mouse moves alone.

There's also Q hotkey for Z (dive/climb) movement and lets not forget the padlock command hidden away behind "special manouvers" button. That will keep your nose pointed at enemy so your cannons and main armour are pointed at the enemy. Once the flyover happens when the xenos fly behind you, your nose is already pointed at the right direction so you can pursue.

Perun used ramming control at this point to get the correct pursuit without having to do it manually.

[MrFailSauce]

Publicado originalmente por Zuul:

Publicado originalmente por corisai:

Yes but they ALSO forced to withstand air resistance. So for spaceship 4G is more like a nothing (especially as 4G combat acceleration ships are usually made near end of tech tree).

Also, a 30k pound plane accelerating is NOTHING like a 10 million pound spaceship (and that’s not even big by the games ship sizes) accelerating at multiple G’s. Hanging 10% of that mass off to the side of the center of thrust in some bizarre attempt to create splendidly “interesting” shapes would snap it off in a heart beat.

This. The reason I compared it to building construction is that the masses of these ships are closer to buildings than fighter jets. The same limitations that prevent crazily shaped buildings experiencing 1g continuous acceleration will apply to spacecraft of similar mass

[Badger BrownCoat]

Publicado originalmente por Ohramies:

I recently started messing with space combat. Now I'm familiar with Kerbal and newtonian motion in general but the directional controls are just plain bad, no two ways about it.
Perun used ramming control at this point to get the correct pursuit without having to do it manually.

edit: I love perun for his other channel, only watched a little of his play - that''s a HILARIOUS workaround. but to NEED a workaround says something
I'm not arguing;
but i am asking- so by comparison-

Publicado originalmente por something posted in wrong place:

ok- just for comapriosn-
how did people feel about the BattleStart Galactica space combat movement?
for comparison

for me the newtonian movement was a huge selling point / what i wanted- i love it conceptually- but in execution...
uhm... ah.. well.

[ArcticISAF]

I know it's probably lame, but I just let the AI do whatever it wants. Set to full auto, and watch the battle play out. It's still pretty cool to watch, and I figure they're doing basically what I want anyway. Fly at the enemy, go pew pew. I'm not really sure what I could contribute to it really.

[Badger BrownCoat]

Publicado originalmente por ArcticISAF:

I know it's probably lame, but I just let the AI do whatever it wants. Set to full auto, and watch the battle play out. It's still pretty cool to watch, and I figure they're doing basically what I want anyway. Fly at the enemy, go pew pew. I'm not really sure what I could contribute to it really.

i do too, too often.
i run a lot of sims tho and ma getting the hang of it-
AND tbf, it was a while before i had ships that COULD manuever ( you know what trap i fell for- bet we all do )
but in case it was lost in wall of text- could u address:
Originally posted by something posted in wrong place:
ok- just for comparison-
how did people feel about the BattleStart Galactica space combat movement?

i love me some space combat & 4x, but so few have this.
Nebulous?
i've not played enough aurora 4x to have an opinion. but yeah - just curious how other games struck people to see why this one is.. so often not ( this aspect )
me- i like but find it very fiddly

[Barleyman]

Publicado originalmente por Badger BrownCoat:

Publicado originalmente por Ohramies:

I recently started messing with space combat. Now I'm familiar with Kerbal and newtonian motion in general but the directional controls are just plain bad, no two ways about it.
Perun used ramming control at this point to get the correct pursuit without having to do it manually.

edit: I love perun for his other channel, only watched a little of his play - that''s a HILARIOUS workaround. but to NEED a workaround says something
I'm not arguing;
but i am asking- so by comparison-

Publicado originalmente por something posted in wrong place:

ok- just for comapriosn-
how did people feel about the BattleStart Galactica space combat movement?
for comparison

for me the newtonian movement was a huge selling point / what i wanted- i love it conceptually- in execution...
uhm... ah.. well.

BSG control had big annoyances of not having rotate along axis or point nose abilities. That'd get into annoying dive/climb tactics due to turret placement, but I guess nonsensical rules worked well enough there.

[Barleyman]

Publicado originalmente por ArcticISAF:

I know it's probably lame, but I just let the AI do whatever it wants. Set to full auto, and watch the battle play out. It's still pretty cool to watch, and I figure they're doing basically what I want anyway. Fly at the enemy, go pew pew. I'm not really sure what I could contribute to it really.

If only. AI tends to point ship butt at enemies, which would be fine if we had torch drive with a million kilometer exhaust in this game but we don't. AI also exposes your sides to the enemy.

You can do better by just using the padlock command to keep nose pointed at the enemy and not changing direction until the xenos pass your battle line. At that point you can use ram-command to easily order pursuit.

Now minor course corrections may avoid kinetic weapons, but aliens are mostly about missiles and beams anyways.

[Badger BrownCoat]

Publicado originalmente por Ohramies:

BSG control had big annoyances of not having rotate along axis or point nose abilities. That'd get into annoying dive/climb tactics due to turret placement, but I guess nonsensical rules worked well enough there.

sure, "realism" was hardly a selling point lol
yeah to me it felt more like aero-craft manuevering - which was still intereresting - but yeah the whole- i'm still drifting x direction, now im rotating to point at you - eat this; wasnt in that at all
-- big over simplification but it was easy to run, and at least didn't feel like i'm spending x move points- you had to ut your velocity not just magic-stop.
I dunno, just curious- def a different trade-off of logic vs play
- feel like you were flying big fat planes to you too?

[Mistfox]

Publicado originalmente por corisai:

Publicado originalmente por Mirador:

But other shapes can be useful too.

Other shape suitable for space combat is sphere. Everything else is inferior to it or current "needles".

And the sphere would have an increased surface area exposed to the enemy that you need to armor at greater weight cost. Sphere gives very good usable surface area at an insanely high exposure cost. A better option is a dagger like shape where you have an armored leading edge. Narrow profile to reduce exposure to enemy fire, more usable weapons area along the armored leading edge, inferior armoring cost compared to needles but much much better than sphere.

[Badger BrownCoat]

Publicado originalmente por Ohramies:

If only. AI tends to point ship butt at enemies, which would be fine if we had torch drive with a million kilometer exhaust in this game but we don't. AI also exposes your sides to the enemy.

Did someone read Niven's " the warriors" XD
jokes aisde, yes, yes, and also +1 - with rare exceptions.
the OMFGWTAF U DOIN ai has stressed em a few times- the "turn over" in range of my guns remains my most...smh

[onyhow]

Publicado originalmente por Badger BrownCoat:

Publicado originalmente por Ohramies:

BSG control had big annoyances of not having rotate along axis or point nose abilities. That'd get into annoying dive/climb tactics due to turret placement, but I guess nonsensical rules worked well enough there.

sure, "realism" was hardly a selling point lol
yeah to me it felt more like aero-craft manuevering - which was still intereresting - but yeah the whole- i'm still drifting x direction, now im rotating to point at you - eat this; wasnt in that at all
-- big over simplification but it was easy to run, and at least didn't feel like i'm spending x move points- you had to ut your velocity not just magic-stop.
I dunno, just curious- def a different trade-off of logic vs play
- feel like you were flying big fat planes to you too?

It does happen, but it depends on circumstance, I suppose. Even Perun does that burn then turn to face other direction too.

Publicado originalmente por Badger BrownCoat:

Publicado originalmente por onyhow:

RL rockets don't have forward braking thruster either. They turn and burn.

Also braking rockets huh. How much weight are we talking about again to put all those extra engines in? And the plumbing required for the engines?

ah- this is more polite, interesting, and up my alley.
we always calle dthat the "turn-over point" when discussing spacetravel-
for actual rockets,, uhhh outta my ken.

may i ask you a CONCEPTUAL? - if if if- some of the drives - could the fields doing the "thrust"- could they reverse the field-polarity ( etc, technobabble) ?
and nullify the need for a turn-over?
also- onyhow- i just caught the name.

THANK YO SO MUCH FOR POINTING OUT THE GUIDE.
( i findthe discord... super great but super overwhelming )

This...I dunno. Maybe mount the engines on the side that have 180 degree range gimbal? Not sure how practical that is.

Also no problem on that. I was very curious on how the armor works too. That Reddit guide just drops at the right time.

[Mistfox]

Publicado originalmente por Badger BrownCoat:

Publicado originalmente por Ohramies:

If only. AI tends to point ship butt at enemies, which would be fine if we had torch drive with a million kilometer exhaust in this game but we don't. AI also exposes your sides to the enemy.

Did someone read Niven's " the warriors" XD
jokes aisde, yes, yes, and also +1 - with rare exceptions.
the OMFGWTAF U DOIN ai has stressed em a few times- the "turn over" in range of my guns remains my most...smh

Yes, I got my 2nd alien kill in the game when an idiot corvette decided to moon my hab's defence module and ate a 6 inch shell in the engine lol. Killed the engine and committed the stupid xenos into a death charge at my hab with all the weapons pointing away lol.

Publicado originalmente por onyhow:

This...I dunno. Maybe mount the engines on the side that have 180 degree range gimbal? Not sure how practical that is.

Won't work. The engines are huge things about 1/4 the size of the ship for the smaller frigates and the like. You can even cluster multiples of them, making the engine block huge in comparison to the ship. You can see this in the ship graphic when you add engines, the engine cluster expands in size.