SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

SEV tactical combat does not seem to give the player an edge over the computer like it did in SEIV. So far I am less successful with tactical combat than with strategic. Tactical combat certainly is fun to watch and doesn't really seem any slower (with low ship count) than running strategic combat.

A question: Does performing tactical combat by clicking the start button without issuing any orders first provide the same outcomes as strategic combat?

TM

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

While there is randomness in combat, they both should give the same range of results.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

I've found in Tactical, ships quickly ignore move orders and keep turning right back into the enemy. Stupid lone frigate refuses to flee a fleet of destroyers.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

You need to turn off the automove.
Later patches will turn it off automatically when you give a move order.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

Have you tried messing with the strategies? I think the default is "optimal weapon range" which will keep a ship armed with guns moving toward the enemy as the to hit % improves. Try "don't get hurt" or "maximum weapon range". I have not fooled with these yet as they were not to necessary in SEIV tactical combat, but with the continuos time combat of SEV I think they could be critical. I think another setting that needs to be looked at is the % overkill for targeting. I think the default is 150% and I also read somewhere that a 50% to hit is added to that, so that would add up to a full 300% targeted on one ship. This may be why my WPs get wiped by small attacking fleets. One attacker gets anhilated while the others pound away without being engaged.

TM

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

Regarding automove I had one battle where I had 4 ships. Gave them all movement orders and 3 of them stopped when they got the location and one just kept flying arround. Of course that one flew into range of the enemy and was fried. What causes this behavior?

BTW I love the red range circles. We need a new strategy to select "stay out of the ring of death". Brings me back to the old Harpoon days.

TM

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

When you cancel automove (by manually giving a ship orders), it stays off until/unless you turn it back on. In your case those ships just sat there because you didn't give them firing orders, at least, that's how it seems to me.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

Giving attack orders doesn't appear to make your ships fly into attacking position, though, so you have to give both movement and attack orders, and continue to update the movement orders as the enemy ships fly out of range.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

It isn't a seek and attack order, just a targetting order.

You still have to manoeuver to bring your guns into range before they will fire.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

Speaking of that though...I think a 'seek and attack' order might be a very good thing to have.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

Leave the movement AI on, and target manually?

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

True, that's just as good.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

It's sort of nice to have the ship automatically follow when choosing a target to attack though.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

So back to the original observation. Has anyone had success generating consistantly better outcomes using tactical combat as opposed to selecting an appropriate ship strategy and using Strategic Combat. So far I have not.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

If you micromanage your ships in tactical combat, you can achieve better results particularly if you have a longer range weapon.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

Personally I think that's going to be more trouble than it's worth. It seems to take at least 2 whole rounds just to turn! If I bother with tactical it'll be for small fights (2-4 ships), or just to watch the fight close up.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

I find this much more difficult in SEV than SEIV though. In an early game the only long range weapon is the missile. Missiles are now much weaker than their SEIV counterparts. I am currently using CSM lvl 5 and they only do 80 points damage. The enemy frigates have 345Kt of structure 140 of which is armor. My missile frigate has 3 missiles so their first voley only does 40Kt of damage. on top of that by the time they actually fire the missiles and turn around to run the enemy is within DUC range. Ussually the missile ship only gets one more shot, at most, before it dies, leaving a damaged but living enemy behind. While typing this I just realized that I need to put the engines in the front of a missile boat.

Bottom line is that, for me, tactical is much less useful than is SEIV and as such takes away a HUGE portion of the enjoyment I got from the game.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

Whenever you switch to something new, there will always be people who liked the old way better, but I maintain that the turn based combat of SE4 was absolutely horrible compared to this new system we have. The missile dancing, the "first shot wins" of warp points, the fact that an entire fleet of hundreds of ships can unload full salvos into their helpless enemies without a single shot of return fire, the way that ships could dance into range and then dance out after firing to be virtually immune to stationary targets, the list goes on. All of these problems are cured now, it doesn't take nearly as long for combat to play out, it looks better (even disregarding the graphical upgrade), feels more exciting, and the only drawback is no longer being able to take advantage of the game's limitations to walk all over the AI. To me, this is not a drawback, but another advantage.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

Everyone has their own opinions of what makes a game fun. For me it has always been mastering the nuances of the tactical combat system in order to pull victory from what should have been defeat. This has been true for me from the early days of Wizard's Crown on a C-64 though to today.

I agree completely that the new system is much more realistic and looks pretty, but that doesn't make it fun.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

You can do the same tricks in SE5 as in SE4 you know. Just have to get used to the new system.

For example, your missile boats need to turn *before* they fire. Close to, say, 2x CSM range then heel around and let the enemy come to you. When they come within missile range accelerate away.

Your ships will hammer the enemy as they approach, and since you're heading directly away from them, catching up will take a while.

Pressing F5 to show the range circles helps a lot with this, by the way.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

All those problems have been fixed in Carrier Battles mod.

I made missiles SE3-style (launch from range 20, infinite travel distance)
Weapon/Defense balance is adjusted to prevent instafrags.
No tactical combat, plus using missiles on your stationary platforms neuters the dancing issue.
Leaky shields and armor, so every hit does *something*. Even an overwhelming force can get a bloody nose in combat.

Plus, there is the fact that all the guns in the game are useful. 4 guns x 5 mount sizes + 6 missile types, and they all get used to varying degrees in a competitive PBW game.


I once attacked a defending force of 400 with only 300 ships; they got the first shot from close range. However, I still won. It took two game turns and about 5 combats, and in the end it came down to 20 operational ships from each side strafing each other. I only actually lost 20 ships in the battle and 50 more a couple turns later when the enemy cleaned out my immobilized ships. The rest made their way home for repairs.

Superior strategies (better spread fire for more crippling and less overkill),
A pincer attack tactic(attacking from below and the right let my ships spread out and partly surround the enemy),
And the fortunate inclusion of a good number of plasma-cannon battleships which require no ammo to fire (just lots of rads) were what turned that battle.
The inclusion of spare fighters in transports to restock the carriers for the second month of combat helped significantly, too.

Mods are where the serious SE game starts http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

Preaching to the choir, buddy. Got a copy of Carrier Battles on my hard drive. Excellent mod, by the way. Kudos. Can't wait to see how you bring it to SE5.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

You can see some screenshots of GGmod here:
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/MM/SE5/Screenshots/

There are a number of SE4 mechanics I really miss... the turn based move&shoot made my leaky point defense work so very well.
There are plenty of new things to do though. The manageability of a GritEcon style economy looks quite promising.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

I discovered the 90 degree turn last night using the simulator. It works quite well to execute the turn when the range rings touch. Using this tactic one frigate with 3 missiles could easily damage or destroy 3 gun armed destroyers with no damage to the frigate. Brings up an issue with AI not using PD on their ships. Hopefully a TDM like mod will come out for SEV.

Another observation, it would be nice to have some type of reload time info attached to ships on the combat screen. It is a pain to go through multiple menus to get this info.

Finally a stupid question. What are the hot keys to zoom in and out in combat? I normally play on a laptop with no extermal mouse so I don't have the wheel function available

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

Shift - and +, I think. You can check (and change them) in the Controls part of the main menu.

EDIT: its numberpad + and - actually. I'd recommend changing them since you probably don't have a numberpad.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

Thanks, that helps.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

dont have a number pad? how do you play nethack? or any serious roguelike, for that mater? you can get external usb numberpads, you know. cant be having a computer without nethack on it.

Re: SEV Tactical Combat Impressions
 

Some laptops have an integrated numberpad with the keys mapped to a 4x4 area on the keyboard. To use the number pad for games, you need to toggle the keyboard mode by pressing SHIFT-NUMLOCK or whatever. It's usable but not convenient because you have to keep switching back to the regular mode when you need to type any of the letters that it uses.