Ship-combat improvement ideas (Rotation and face direction)

[quetzocoatl]

Hello dear players and developers!

 

I was playing avorion since a while now and sometimes I thought about some interesting options, which would be nice to have in future Updates. Please remember, that these are just ideas and I would not be mad if they are not implemented :)

 

1. An invisible sector-grid-option that tells the AI and the player if their ships are rotated "correctly".

 

Now, I know that in space there is no "correct" rotation or "up" and "down". But sometimes you want a truly "epic" battle, like in Star wars oder battlefleet Gothic, where all ships have the "same" rotation. Sure, they fly on different hights but their horizontals are often the same. I am not saying that a battle, where all ships rotate however they want, is not epic, but I would like to have at least on option to toggle the grid on and off. 

 

There could be an indicator for the player, if he/she is aligned correctly to the sectorial grid.

 

 

2. Tell your ships in your fleet, with which part of their ship they should face the enemy.

 

For example: You have made a ship for your fleet which has powerfull prow weapons, but due to the weird AI behaviour sometimes, they suddenly show their side and are not able to defend them at all -.- This happend a lot of times and I had to spread the main weapons all around the ship to make them fight appropiately. On some ship designs this looks "ok" but sometimes you want a ship to fire mighty broadsides!

 

It would be very nice to tell a ship, how to fire. For example: "Try to attack with the prow" or "Face the enemy with the broadside."

There be also a option for the "Top" and the "bottom" of the ship. Basically the player will decide, where the "center" of the ship will be. Then a cross is displayed,  similar to the x,y,z axis-cross.  Then there could be checkboxes, which part of the ship should ty to face the enemy. If all boxes are checked, the ship will move and attack like before.

 

The options for attacking would be:

1. Top-Prow

2. Bottom-Prow

3. Broadside-Top-Left

4. Broadside-Bottom-Right

5. Top-Rear

6. Bottom-Rear

 

Now, these checkboxes would only tell the ship, how it should face the enemy, but it should still be able to fire all its weapons if possible.

 

I would really like to see these in the game ^^. And remember: just ideas  ;)

[DivineEvil]

1. I do not see the implementation model, nor do I understand the utility of the feature. There is truly no up or down in space, and whatever the plane you pick when entering the strategic mode, your fleet will follow when orders are issued. Perhaps you could use it to see your adjustment with the galactic plane, but I do not see how it would help you to adjust to that plane and what the point of it.

 

2. I agree with that, although it think that it's enough to just give the ship a set of behavior models - one for the facing and one for maneuvering and one of fighting. Facing behavior defines which of its sides it should point to the target when reaching the engagement range - nose, closest broadside, top or bottom. Maneuvering defines whether it should stand still, track the target or orbit the target when at the engagement range or any other options possible to instruct. Fighting behavior defines the range of engagement - by highest weapon range, by lowest weapon range, by medium between the two or by a set distance value.

[Kamo]

It'd be kind of like in Homeworld, when you can drag the cursor while right-clicking to order a ship to move to make it rotate~. And then you'd need order chaining and waypoints to kinda do it.

But right now Avorion needs:

• Fleet Command (as in, creating fleets by designing groups following flagships in formation, kind of like order hierarchy in Achron),
  
• Remote orders (to make non-player ships sector-to-sector moving less of a pain, as right now moving the fleet to the battle takes tens of times more effort than the battle itself, especially before naonitegrade ships)
  
• Cargo runs (Avorion needs cargo runs badly, it's the only remaining vital economy-type feature remaining before focusing on combat stuff).
  

Right now fleet battles need huge amounts of micromanagement (recently lessened by control groups, thanks for that :)) to not have ships falling asleep in middle of battle because their target is destroyed and they weren't ordered to Attack All Enemies.

 

The sectorial grid may be pretty cool to align stations with gates though 8).