Disengage Button

[tmcc]

I disagree regarding the infinite field. One of the big changes from SEIII to SEIV was removing the ability to retreat. I think this is a good compromise between no retreat and being able to just jump over a line. In practice when the enemy is escaping I use 8x time until I'm in weapons range. Maybe viable options would be to allow time acceleration to 16 or 32.

Also as an exploit if combat ends before you catch the guy you can use the sector view to re-position your ships before you re-attack

[Captain Kwok]

Except repositioning doesn't work in simultaneous MP games - it doesn't remember the location of where you place ships. So a player can keep running away and eventually get all the way to your homeworld and glass it etc.

[tmcc]

Well if he is faster then he should be able to run away. Better put some defense on the planet.

I would like to see a change where running away puts you into the adjacent hex. Right now you can run away and still be in position to blockade. This doesn't make so much sense, the essence of a blockade is engaging and either running off or destroying the enemy's shipping.

[AngleWyrm]

If running away at equal speed or better, then there is no chance to catch up -- The faster ship determines the range of the engagement. So in this situation, the proposed EndCombat button would be available as a shortcut instead of waiting for the timer to run out.

I also like the infinite field much better than the previous version. In SEIV, retreating ships would just get stuck in the corner of the map, and be hunted down like fish in a bucket. Space is supposed to be big, and the infinite field does a great job of portraying that.

[Slick]

Running away should be determined something like this: the minimum distance between enemies is calculated periodically, say every second. A critical distance is initally established and reduced slightly every second. At any time, if the separation distance is greater than the critical distance, then the combat ends with disengagement.

The numbers should be chosen so as to ensure that combat won't immediately end due to initial placement, and that a faster ship should be able to catch a slower ship without combat ending first.

This way, ships of equal speed will end up disengaging after some time and immobile ships, no matter how close will eventually meet the criteria.

I also agree that disengagement should result in moving the fleeing ship/fleet to another sector. Which sector it moves to should be random so as not to be exploitable in rushing to an enemy homeoworld with a superfast fleet - the slower fleets, being able to set up defensively ahead of time, would (in a "real" battle) block the faster fleet from "retreating forward". Moving the disengaging ship/fleet to another sector is strategically important so as to prevent blockading planets with superfast ships.

[DarkHorse]

Perhaps there could be an option in Fleet/Ship strategies to specify how far/long to pursue a fleeing ship before automatically acquiring another target or ending combat if there are no other valid targets.

[Blueentity]

Playing Demo ver 1.00

It seems that the game already has a default for ending battle when nothing can be accomplished.

Had a race that gave +1 to movement. Researched Frigate hull size till I could put a colonizer on the Frigate. Another race “attacked” my colonizer that had 1 more movement that the attacking frigate. “Battle” ended in about 30 seconds on the game battle clock as my colonizer ran away.

Had another battle where I took a fleet across a defended warp point. Destroyed most of the defenders; the remainder of the ships had no weapons left and retreated. After a short chase, the initial battle ended. Since my fleet still had movement remaining, I ordered them to attack. Both sets of ships had the same speed and moved away from the warp point. The "Battle" ended in about 30 "seconds" according to the battle clock. Repeated "Attacks" took the same time, with ship using supplies to move and retreating further from the warp point. At the beginning of the next turn, the original ships left the sector to repair at a nearby planet and the defender brought over some fresh ships to the warp point. My ships started from where they had left off, a distance away from the warp point. The battle was significantly longer than 30 seconds, but played out to conclusion.

It appears that the game does recognize when a battle is futile and will terminate battle, such as trying to land troops on an empty population planet (wish that could be changed), or when the retreating ships have the same speed or better than the pursuers. Entering battle under these circumstances does use supplies, but of course no ordinance.

[dmm]

tmcc said:
I would like to see a change where running away puts you into the adjacent hex. Right now you can run away and still be in position to blockade. This doesn't make so much sense, the essence of a blockade is engaging and either running off or destroying the enemy's shipping.

A simpler change would be to charge supplies for combat movement. Then the blockader eventually runs out of supplies.

An even simpler change would be to change the rules for blockades. Any ship or fleet with a "Don't get hurt" strategy should not be able to blockade. Problem solved.