Cant medium range weapons fire on short range flottila?

If this is true, a dedicated thread should realy be created for this

As far as fghters and bombers go I wold think that these transcende the various flottilas and only travellingtime to the target is effected

Sounds pretty reasonable Kynrael.

If I may push for one thing, it would definitely be separation of Flak from Kinetics. For one thing, the size of anti ship guns should make them pretty bad at anti-fighter/anti-missile roles. 

The second consideration is that if this happens, then it could open up the possibility of making dedicated flak ships to protect a flotilla. Or possibly adding that role to support ships.

Hi !

First off, to those that wanted to see the UE Fighters & Bombers: we are keeping them as a surprise for the update release :) They're worth the wait, I promise you! Ok, I'll stop being a tease now and try and answer as best I can all of your feedbacks!

@Zolobolo:

Currently, kinetics are flaks. As we plan on nerfing them to counter balance their defensive use, if Large ships decide to go for Kinetics they will lose that extra edge Fighters & Bombers can bring, or even other weapon types. Also, you've mentionned Freespace 2 a few times - I'll have to try it out! (I've only seen a few gameplay videos).

@Miniboobs:

Yes, the idea is that fighters are still the best anti-squadron alternative, but the flaks can help adding that extra damage. As for visuals, we're going to do the best we can to provide the most cinematic experience possible!

@plutar:

Dividing flaks from kinetics is something we are considering more and more. Currently, we'll stay on course with our gameplan and see how everything works out, then balance everything out accordingly! (F/Bs are a big addition to the space battle after all). With this could come more specialized roles for ships.

@Strungest:

We're trying to adress the kinetic supremacy by nerfing it and bringing beams up to medium range (with a cooldown penalty). We'll see if that works! Also about AoE, this might feel weird (an explosion big enough to damage more than one Ship would also impact the bombers dropping the bomb...)

@Dragar:

We are considering upping morale bonus and to check how we can improve ranges. Big shoutout to @Cat-o-Nine-Tales for the tests he's done on his side and bringing this up in such a detailed manner.

I hope I've answered to satisfaction - there was a lot of feedback to adress!

If you have any more questions / feedback, don't hesitate :)

Cheers,

No, because long range preceeds short. Your fleet might not always survive getting into short range, when your opponent started with long.

@Zolobolo You specify not range, but range intentions. For long vs long, both flotillas will stay at long range for whole duration of the battle. Long vs middle will close to middle and stay there. Short vs short will start at short range and so on. Middle range becomes the most often range you'll see.

Definitely Slashman, if flaks were bound to coordinator and escort ships it would greatly increase the utility of how you would A)attack and B) defend against fighters and bombers, and then theres always the gamble that is about your opponents using them or not,  Fighters and bombers will be great, especially as they add utility to the other class ships to help define there roles.  A great way to do that, is seperate kinetics from flak, or maybe allow short range beams to the ultimate fighter defense, like somebody mentioned in freespace 2, Great game that was btw, nothing scarier than skirting a cap ship to have it fire a beam at you.  

Anyway just food for thought, all good stuff exciting to see this addition on the table!

A) Short range beams ultimate fighter defense adding to there utility,

B) Including a flak cannon either built into the class of the ship or utility slot, increasing viability of the troop/escort/gaurdian class ships.

C) Bombers vs Fighters in there own right, seperate health, maybe based ona  number of operating fighters and bombers that increases similar to regaining manpower on a fleet. Like your carriar can rebuilt fighters and bombers slowly in enemy territory, but orbiting a friendly planet the pace could be greatly increased.  

There are lots of great ideas and great things that fighters and bombers will add in depth to this game, looking forward to it!

Strungest is right. If a fleet without long range weapons finishes their section of the fight, they are dead weight for the rest of the fight, for it takes long range weapons to fire into other areas of the battle.

Dragar wrote:

Zolobolo wrote:

Hold on: If you stack all ships in fleet into a single flottila, aren't all 3 enemy flottilas just going to engage that single flottila?

Sure; at long range. Basically you can stack all the flotilla bonuses (shield recharge, point-defense coverage) into a single flotilla, and guarantee 3 stages of long-range combat. Unless the opponent also stacks their entire fleet into the same flotilla. Which is hardly the dynamic battle system hoped for. 

This, is in general, the only viable strategy. Doing anything else opens you up to huge risks for no actual gain. You can test it yourself in a multiplayer game with a friend. The one who stacks a flotilla with long range kinetics and a few missiles and picks a long-range tactic card will win against anyone who doesn't do the exact same thing. the "moral" bonus is laughable.

This game has great potential, but this needs to be fixed. All the interesting mechanics end up pointless and useless due to this mechanic. 

Well those complaints are somewhat inline with mine, I just want to see fighters and bombers make utilty to the other class ships and negatate the stacking of ships in a single flotilla.  I feel that if implemented correctly they could force the use of multiple flotillas in larger battles, which would make for great added depth of stradegy.  In multiplayer currently all you do is stack a lane, pick your tactic and go.  Making short range beams the anti fighter weapon would add to there utility considerable, because as is they are struggling.  What use is a gun that won't ever fire unless you both picked short range on the same flotilla.  Granted when it does fire, it means buisness, but its not worth the risk.  The stacking everything in one lane should be a terrible strategy instead of being the only current strategy.  Fights and Bombers have the chance to add utility to a lot of the escort vessals, increasing there use.  I would love to see hunters have dissadvantages against fighters, gaurdians strength against fighters, and modules that affect the use of your strategies.  

What I would hate to see, is fighters and bombers be effective accross the board, and something we race to tech too and only use one single class of ship.  Right now the gaurdians and the hunter class are too expensive and fragile to bother with in multiplayer, a tier 2 attack is cheaper than a tier 1 hunter, and can do more damage accross more flotillas.  I would love to see a base HP increase on the bigger ships to increase there survivability.  I like the idea of having fighters also have battle cards to protect hunters, protect the fleet, ect, or to focus on protecting a particular flotilla lane.  Like be able to assign all fighters to protect a given flotilla lane, and possibly give fighters the ability to intercept missles?  to offer some kind of fleet defense.  

I just want more than anything to see all the ships serve a useful function in a armada.   The only reason for escorts currently is speed buff or additional troops, both can be negated with a hero or upgraded MP.

Zolobolo wrote:

Hold on: If you stack all ships in fleet into a single flottila, aren't all 3 enemy flottilas just going to engage that single flottila?

Sure; at long range. Basically you can stack all the flotilla bonuses (shield recharge, point-defense coverage) into a single flotilla, and guarantee 3 stages of long-range combat. Unless the opponent also stacks their entire fleet into the same flotilla. Which is hardly the dynamic battle system hoped for. 

The 'stack all the fleet in one flotilla' issue is real enough. It hinders beams (which already struggle). I'm not sure AOE effects on bombers is right, but I'd like to know how to resolve this. 

Maybe ships in a lane with no enemies should have a strong bonus to their attack power (since they are not under attack and don't have to power densive systems, etc.).

I don't like this new system.

Currently: Stacking kinetic all in the middle flotilla and sticking at long range is the best strategy. There is no hard counter to it. Every other "all in" strategy has an obvious hard counter. Close kinetics lose to beams and long lasers. Long lasers lose to missiles. Missile lose to any kinetic.

Long kinetic hard counters missiles and beams, and only loses to long lasers sometimes, which you can often deal with by just having a few more ships than them. it's even crazier if you stick all of your long kinetic in one flotilla where they all benefit from the fleet shield and the fleet repair support modules.

Building a non-long-kinetic fleet is just a risk that isn't worth it under any circumstance.

This new mechanic doesn't really add anything new, fixes nothing. Large ships aren't a problem now because they cost too much, are too fragile and are buried too far in the tech tree. There is no "anti-large-ship" mechanic needed in the game.

The game needs a reason to not just field long kinetics, and a reason to not stack all your ships in the middle flotilla.

My suggestion:

Have bombers do AOE damage to all ships in the enemies’ flotilla with the largest number of ships. Have fighters be able to fight bombers from any lane, but do very little against ships (don't really need fighters honestly). Have beams just decimate every fighter/bomber in their lane, and have kinetics do nothing against fighters and bombers.

Fighters kill bombers in any lanes ok-ish (1 fighter makes 1 bomber ½ as effective). Beams kill bombers in your lane very well (1 beam = 2 bombers do nothing). bombers kill grouped ships at any range super well.

Results: Stacking all ships in one flotilla now means you die to bombers. Bombers die to beams, but if you stack all of your ships with beams in one flotilla then they will win their lane, nd lose to the other lanes shooting at them.

There is now a reason to ever use beams at all, and there is now a reason to not just have one death-stack flotilla.

So now the weapons are:
Long guns: Kills beams and missiles, dies to lasers.

Lasers: Kills guns and beams, dies to missiles

Missiles: kills beams and lasers, dies go guns

Beams: Kills bombers and anyone who is dumb enough to pick short range.
Bombers: Kills anyone who is dumb enough to stack flotillas.

That is much better.

Beams at MED would be a scary wonderful devolopment.  I agree can we have that now pleasee?  G2G 2.2 mod? :D  I can remember every time I put a beam on ship I never used such ship again lol.  

Currently, if you build kinetics and flaks together, players will never use any other gun.  I do like the idea of flaks on our specialized gaurdians/protectors, gives them more purpose than just a speed boost.  Its too bad the beam is a graphical issue that can't be overcome.  They seam a perfect fit if you aren't going flak cannons to be of great use here, since they aren't useful yet anywhere.  

Drone's have pilots too, BTW...  :)