Having a single ship fly across the entire sector in on turn is insane. Right now "engines" have unlimited speed. If you have the power you could go infinitely fast. While this present a player with the choice of speed or shields I believe it makes player way to fast. I would prefer engines to use power on a log scale. one power gets you x moves: T2: 5,4,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1, T3: 4,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 T4: 3,2,1,1,1,1,.5,.5.5 . . . This will mean at some point power internal system makes more since than speed. While still giving us enough power points to power weapons and shields. The numbers above are not an actually suggestion there just to make a point.
If you wanted real-world simple physics as an example, your acceleration is equal to deceleration to move from point A to B in space and stop. So you put 1000kg of thrust to accelerate you to 100kph, you would need near zero to coast (ignoring gravity of celestial bodies and such), and at your destination 1000kg of thrust to counteract and bring you to a relative stop. Can some current ships fly across the map, yes. But they are typically giving up any shields or extra sensors to do it, and typically "across the map" means they will end their turn very close to the target ship. Most of the time it just seems like they are flying across the map because they appear, fly in, zap, and fly out using rocks and such to block your sensors so they appear to vanish on their way "across the map" but in reality it's not that far. The current mechanic is just fine, and works well in the game!
On theses 4v4 maps yeah, 30 hexes across the map some ships can zip across quickly. But on 10v10 maps it wont seem like it.
Indeed speed mechanics is flawed. I am not sure that different scaling would help much - some ships would be still proportionally much faster compared to others without proper tradeoff.
in space, in war, you actually probably dont stop moving, its a turn based game, so you would not actually stop, fire your guns, or power your shields, while then waiting to see what happens next. So ????? the mechanisms for reality based physics is maybe not applicable to the question of gameplay.?
There was a turn base ww2 dogfight base sim that had a good mechanic. If you were going strait you could on the next turn slight left, strait or slight right. If you went slight left on the following turn you could go hard left, left, or strait. so on an so forth. Same thing with speed if your going slow next you can go med speed, but it take several turn to reach top speed. Most turn base games make you end your turn if you fire. You still got to shot first if you had the initiative. But the other guy still get a chance to hit you before you disappear.
Actually, I've been considering a solution for this, which not everyone would like, and would need a lot of discussion, but if implemented, it would be on the next server cycle (would not be on this server until one side wins). The basic gist, two options: A) Movement point ratios are shifted down a class (with some potential variances there). Eg. T3 ships at 1:2 movement would become 1:1, T4 ships at 1:1 movement would become 2:1 T5 ships at 2:1 movement would become 3:1 etc... B) Power is reduced by 10-20% across the board on all ships proportionally. What has happened recently with balancing the races is that there's been quite a bit of engine power inflation; the original ships in alpha weren't this high powered, and ships are moving too quickly across the map.
Sol needs more power, the shields are suppose to counter low hit points. Maybe make more expensive to move sol ships. I really would prefer fast ship (corvettes) to max at 10(sol)-14(gen) moves. With everything else slower. If T5+ where slower in play you would not have to leave them artificiality vulnerable at the edge tiring to zone out. Just getting to the edge would represent that vulnerability. Here is my thinking as sol ship should have 1-2 fully powered shields, 2 half powered shields, weapons up and still be able to move 10 in a corvette. However having nothing powered up except engine it should still be limited to 14 moves. Similarly a gen corvette should be combat effective at a speed of 14 and running and combat ineffective at a speed 18.
While this looks good on paper, i believe "B" option might widen the gap between high power/low damage ships that are favorited now and the high dmg/low power ships. for example c5 interdictor vs interdictor 3. The int 3 has less powerful/less energy required weapons than int 1 AND more engine power. That means that, because all extra power available after powering systems goes to movement points, the int 3 will be even more mobile than now when comparing it to int 1 when doing a percent based reduction because this will have a greater impact on the int 1 that needs more power for weapons as a flat amount. "A" option might be better. but i think it might come down to the variances.
I think movement should work like shield, you can power up the value of move you want until a max and there is efficiency depending of the class ship like now --> Much more easier to balance mobility in this game like that cause you just have to change the max value instead of start change power which have impact on all aspects
TBH, I think movement shouldn't be touched at all after the very significant maneuvering skill nerf. You guys have never played on a large map yet. Try crawling across a 100+ tile wide map at a max of 10 hex/turn (Which is what the larger ships do currently with any systems powered) and then think about EVEN LOWER movement rates. You think combat takes too long now... wait. Most of us have been playing on the smallest (now limit 4) sized maps because those are the most effective for officer credits. Even the defense station sectors are pretty big and you can feel the lack of mobility on the mid tier ships quite a lot. I've gone to the largest maps (previously faction limit 26) and holy crap... if you pick the wrong way to circle around looking for your target or you spawn away from an ally..... forget it! I think what people are really worried about is the ability of a ship or group of ships to annihilate a target in a turn or two. That sort of coordination SHOULD be rewarded (possibly, if you spawn close enough). What we've already seen change multiple times is the number of hull points per ship (significantly, I've done my fair share of hollering at V about the ridiculously low HP's of ships, especially Sol frigates, relative to the damages that surrounding classes do 3, 4, 5) and now a much stronger capacity for shielding Sol ships. What needs to change is players' understanding of game mechanics, accepting responsibility for taking a risk, and knowing how to minimize risks. There's a reason I've only lost one light ship of value since server up. You can make choices that affect your safety greatly from even before an enemy arrives. Sol is vulnerable to burst damage, Genari loses the long game/sustain without shields. If you take away the ability of Genari to burst down a ship any more, then Sol is favored in just about everything. Considering that permadeath is being removed, I really don't want to see anything changed. Heck, I think permadeath is a great thing because of the risk and reward aspect of it, changing the entire way the game is played. I like paintball: risk, reward, punishment for stupidity, thrill of the game and danger. I hate laser tag: stupid kids can run straight up to you and tag you because it doesn't really cost them anything if they get hit and end the end, whoever pulled the trigger most and took the most stupid chances wins. Please don't turn this game into laser tag.
Disagree .Not much fun if a T4 or T5 o or t6 jumps into a map runs in the same move across the map and blast your ship. This has nothing to do with TAc or stupidity. I think an oveall reduction of energy would help
While I can sympathize with being on the far side or in a large zone, I still say speeds are too fast. Maybe the solution is a "after Burner" setting allowing a ship with no weapons powered / no shields to move 30% further. To allow combats to get into combat, but not be combat effective until the next turn.
