Question to the devs about escaping battles:

[Bummer6]

I just wanna know why you removed the ability to escape from battles from Star Control 2? You may have had a legit reason, but that functionality was important for getting out of impossible situations as well as strategically retreating and re-engaging to switch which ship you're using to fight. I definitely don't think it was an overpowered ability considering how long it took to escape and how vulnerable it made you.
It just seems like an odd mechanic to remove.

[[ELR] EZKarn]

Originally posted by Bummer6:

I just wanna know why you removed the ability to escape from battles from Star Control 2? You may have had a legit reason, but that functionality was important for getting out of impossible situations as well as strategically retreating and re-engaging to switch which ship you're using to fight. I definitely don't think it was an overpowered ability considering how long it took to escape and how vulnerable it made you.
It just seems like an odd mechanic to remove.

I concur there are good moments for running away to live to fight another day.

[Frogboy]

How would you like this to work here?

[Guynemer]

Just the way it worked in SC2, presumably. Hit escape, that ship goes into hyperwarp (but is stationary and extremely vulnerable for a few seconds), and then it is out of the battle for the duration. If you do it with your flagship, then the battle ends, and you have a few seconds to move away from the opponent before they start to chase you again.

[je bent een appel]

Either exactly like in Star Control 2 (withdraw from the battle completely if you escape with your flagship), or at least switch out the ships that are heavily damaged to avoid losing them (without being able to withdraw completely).

[neuralnetwork]

Originally posted by umopus:

Just the way it worked in SC2, presumably. Hit escape, that ship goes into hyperwarp (but is stationary and extremely vulnerable for a few seconds), and then it is out of the battle for the duration. If you do it with your flagship, then the battle ends, and you have a few seconds to move away from the opponent before they start to chase you again.

This.

While autosave and load game works wonders, this would be a welcome addition and I'd think not too hard to implement either.

I can imagine a lot of people stumbling into Measured territory too early or venturing unprepared into Phamyst space and getting a truckload of problems along with chain-aggro. Simple escape tool like in the classic would go a long way in mitigating the frustration.

An even more elegant solution would be to add an extra button on hostile encounter. Hail, fire at will, escape (-20 fuel).
This would prevent chain combat if you're surrounded by multiple foes.

[DarkRed]

+1 to this feature. And in terms of the time it took for the player to disengage, IIRC it was just slightly longer than the time it took for the victory animations to play and the new enemy ship to warp in.

That dynamic meant that warping away mid battle from a strong enemy was almost suicide, and even if you waited till after you killed an enemy, there would still be a risk that the new enemy warping in might be able to take out a weakened ship.

There is an example of the player ship warping away in this old SC2 vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2zjSt3rHOI

Not saying that this may be the best way to implement the mechanic - other ways could be to sacrifice some crew and RU to keep them busy ('captain, we could launch a troop pod to distract them but you know that would be suicide mission') etc.

However, having an option would be welcome because it would be a strategic risk that players would take to protect their favourite / irreplaceable ships.

[neuralnetwork]

Originally posted by DarkRed:

Not saying that this may be the best way to implement the mechanic - other ways could be to sacrifice some crew and RU to keep them busy ('captain, we could launch a troop pod to distract them but you know that would be suicide mission') etc

This is actually an interesting idea.

I just proposed a fuel penalty but escaping by sacrificing a single ship would be another good idea - effectively costing you RU & crew. "Get a move on captain, we'll hold them off!"
It'd make the junk ships more useful too - the ones you find on planets.

[je bent een appel]

Another possible variant: add a cloaking device item. When you encounter an enemy, you get a menu item "Activate cloaking device" that costs fuel and then makes enemies unable to contact you for, say, 30 or 60 real-time seconds.

[Anxarcule]

I liked the system in SC2 to be honest and it seemed to be a good balance of risk vs reward. Escaping with your fleet ship would take you back to the ship selection (It escaped back to the mothership), while escaping with the mothership escapes the battle and costs fuel. There should be a 5 seconds delay ff you do it mid battle where you can take damage, and maybe give a small window after you kill the enemy where you can escape to swap out your ship. There is nothing worse than knowing you are going to lose a ship because it has a few crew left - would be nice if you could swap it out

[Bummer6]

Originally posted by Draginol:

How would you like this to work here?

Not sure what you mean. Plenty of people have given lots of constructive feedback, and judging from the reaction I've seen, it's a feature a lot of people would want implemented. We've all provided lots of ways it could work. My question was; why was it removed?

[Doctor_Dentist]

When you successfully escape battle, make sure that your ship actually do not get insta hailed into combat again. This escape feature is a must to get out of death loops (especially when chased / cornered by a bunch of super fast harmony ships). Maybe only enable this function when set to easy difficulty?