Retreat Option

[God Emperor]

I suspect that the simplest option would be to just reduce the length of a combat round to say 20 turns. Sides that want to run can do so immediately from the start and if they are not at a speed disadvantage, they should only sustain a few rounds of fire in the corner.
The combat length setting is in the Settings.txt file by the way.

I have tried this (not in current patch though) and it does really encourage you to use fast ships - fleets tend to end up with more battlecruisers than dreadnoughts as a result.

Interception becomes interesting as you want to engage the enemy with a couple of movement points spare so that you can initiate several combats in the same square in order to damage enemy ships to the point that you can catch them in subsequent combats.

Give it a try and see what you think....

[Suicide Junkie]

How about a wrap-around map? Then one-on-one, you can try to outrun the enemy. But if the're serious, they can get a fleet and trap you somewhere by splitting up the fleet.

Would need combat AI work, though

[Marty Ward]

If the battle map was unlimited in size or like SJ proposed then if you wanted to retreat/withdraw then you could, but why would you want to retreat?
How would the retreat rules work in tactical combat?

[capnq]

The thought of the technobabble needed to justify the physics of space-time that a wrap-around tactical or strategic combat map would imply makes my head spin.

OTOH, some kind of wrap-around on the galactic map would be easier to justify. There isn't any reason that the map of warp connections needs to correspond to the locations of stars in physical space.

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Cap'n Q

[Sinapus]

It would be nice if you could set a 'group move' for multiple ships/fleets in different sectors so they all arrive at the same target sector simultaneously from different directions. Then I might not mind the retreat option being added in.



I don't know if this is possible in simultaneous games since I don't play that type of game.

Can you now initiate attacks while cloaked? If so, it would also be nice if your start point was much closer than it normally is. Like with in ten squares.

[Will]

I personally don't miss the retreat option. I always found it annoying when I went into combat and the opposition had one more combat movement point than me. I would have to break up the fleet, surround the ship in the system map, then send in a kill ship...

If people don't want their colonizers to be killed, why don't you send an escort (role, not ship) along with it every time you send one outside your "control area".

Always: Scout, Secure, Colonize, Reinforce, Build, Scout, Secure... on and on.


To initiate attacks while cloaked, you need to make sure the victim can see you. So, decloak and recloak when you're finished (or you could make a satellite with sensors, deploy it in system, give it to the victim, then attack... might want to destroy the satellite afterwards ).

[Sinapus]

quote:

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Originally posted by Will:
To initiate attacks while cloaked, you need to make sure the victim can see you. So, decloak and recloak when you're finished (or you could make a satellite with sensors, deploy it in system, give it to the victim, then attack... might want to destroy the satellite afterwards ).

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Yes, that's how I usually attack with cloaked ships now. What I was getting at was to be able to simply go to the same sector as the target, click the attack button and have combat initiate. As in you just decloaked within firing range of an enemy. Using the usual method, the game treats it as if you were making an attack with an uncloaked vessel and you are too far apart.