Things we'd like to see in the next patch

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:

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7. (May already exsist) A way to disable the frelling Fleet Leader during tatical combat. I have lost way to many ships because of them trying to follow the GD leader and using up all their moves freaking out like a GD grasshopper on a hot plate!

CTRL-(1-9) sets ships to be members of the matching fleet number.
CTRL-0 sets the ships to have no fleet designation. This applies to leaders as well.

You can also go into the orders menu and select clear fleet designation, or clear all fleet designations.

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You can also set "all ships break formation" in the strategies screen (I think that's where it is). Then you don't have to worry about weird formation movements in strategic combat...

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by QuarianRex:

Does anyone know why it was set up like this? In ship combat components tend to get damaged from largest to smallest and I can't see why it would be reversed for planets.

Actually, I think ship armor is damaged from smallest to largest, and other components are typically damaged largest to smallest... but I think there's some randomness involved as well, because sometimes I see engines get destroyed before weapons...

[Slick]

One of my pet peeves is having to keep going back to the log and scrolling to find my spot. Even if you filter the log, sometimes this can be a chore if lots of things happen that turn.

I would like to see a "goto next [and previous] log entry" button. That way I can quickly step thru the events, even filtered, to act upon the new developments without having to go back to the log and scroll.

[Suicide Junkie]

Actually, I think ship armor is damaged from smallest to largest, and other components are typically damaged largest to smallest... but I think there's some randomness involved as well, because sometimes I see engines get destroyed before weapons...

Correct, although it is hitpoints that matter, not size. Most components have the same size as hitpoints, so this distiction only comes into play with mods and armor.

The B5 mod uses the fact that tougher internals are hit more often quite extensively. The B5 armor is simply high-hitpoint internals, so it gets hit more often, but is not guaranteed to be hit first.
Standard SE4 uses the "weaker armor gets hit first" feature for Stealth, Scattering and Emissive armor. The three above all have special abilities, and are much bigger, so they have more hitpoints. That makes the regular armor absorb a lot of the damage that would otherwise damage your extra ability armor

[geoschmo]

With these internals, how much more often are you thinking that they get hit. That doesn't seem to jive with what I see. It appears for all intents and purposes to be completely random to me. I suppose if it just a small difference in chance it's possible I would not see it. An internal armor would offer some resistance as cannon fodder soaking up the damage that would otherwise go to usefull components. If the cost was low enough, or the tonnage to structure ratio were high enough I could see a lot of use in having these comps on your ship. But do they really get hit any more often than other comps? Have you done some real analysis to determine this?

[Suicide Junkie]

Yes, I have.

At worst, the system randomly picks a hitpoint on the ship and then figures out what component it belongs to. (so a 20 hitpoint engine is twice as likely to be hit than a 10 hitpoint Bridge)

However, it does even better than that.

I did some simulations while balancing the B5 armor;
Two otherwise identical ships... both have the same tonnage devoted to weapons, engines and C&C. The remaining space on design A was all heavy armor and design B had all Light armor.

The light armor had 50% more hitpoints than the light armor. (6000, vs 4000), but the heavy armor came in 8kt components instead of 1kt components. Thus, the heavy armor have 5 times more hitpoints per component.

In actual combat, the Heavy ships won 2 out of three times!
With auto tactical, this was shown to be a result of the heavy armor blocking a greater % of the shots from the enemy weapons. The light armor ships would get hit, and suffer damage to weapons much more often than the heavy armored ones would.
Occasionally, the light armor ship would get lucky, and not lose a weapon until late in the battle. By that time, the heavy armored ship was nearly out of armor, while the light ship still had 2000 hitpoints left.

[Slick]

The light armor had 50% more hitpoints than the light armor. (6000, vs 4000), but the heavy armor came in 8kt components instead of 1kt components. Thus, the heavy armor have 5 times more hitpoints per component.

Can you explain this a little further?