Let's talk about mechanics

[helsync]

Just gave this thread a bit of a glance over and feel I need to make a point about not making the game *too* hardcore. You still want a large enough population to keep the game going so you're going to need to make it accessible enough to the average rts gamer. Theres also the problem with tactical variety since with such a high degree of micro people who want to play something fast will be punished more than those who play slow lumbering ships, even pro gamers will be encouraged to play slow ships since it'll give them an edge. I'll probably touch on this in more depth later on...

A good way to look at this is that you're not piloting each and every ship (who could?), you're commanding those who are... each ship has someone inside them with the sense not to shoot at or collide with friendlies.

[pwnstar]

I just want to point out that gunners should be aware of what they are firing at and not fire on allies if they estimate that the shot will hit them.

It doesn't matter if I am ordering them to fire on a bad guy. If the shot will hit an ally, they should refuse to fire. This is standard military code. It is legal to refuse illegal orders.

The same should go for the pilot. If I'm ordering them to turn the ship but doing so will ram an ally, they should either slow down, speed up or otherwise refuse the order.

[adenylatcyclase]

This particular mechanic is indeed intentional on game design level. Starfall Tactics is about strategy, careful tactics, and setting up your fleet on the battlefield.

Although some might find this a terrible example: if you position two tanks on the battlefield one behind the other, and fire at the same target, the front tank will get hit.

Similar case here, so you need to control your fleet and really manage how you position everything to make every shot count.

But of course, there are, at this point, some rather difficult aspects to this mechanic which we will review again, and further work on making it more of a Game Feature, rather than an annoyance.

I would like to emphasize that your feedback is much appreciated! It is great to have a player's perspective on the gameplay and its mechanics, especially at such an early stage as pre-alpha. We are reviewing all of our hypotheses as feedback from players flows in, and it is sight for sore eyes (literally, as well as figuratively), to have someone offer a new perspective on a mechanic you thought you were certain about.

Maybe this will be less of an issue once the controles are more finetuned, cause they feel very raw and clunky at the moment. But generally I see no benefit in letting you clickattack your own ships. I get the friendly fire, that seems fitting for such a game but letting you attack your own stuff just seems pointless. Though if the game is developed more I could imagine scenarios where it might be useful but even then I'd prefer an explicit shoot at ally order and not "oh I misclicked well F***."

[relampago]

Hey guys,
Thanks a lot for writing here and letting us know what you think about mechanics - keep it going!

[tsukengnek]

keep it going!

Well, friendly fire - yes.
Clickattack your own ships - no. no-no-no-no. NO.

[helsync]

Yeah... friendly fire in situations where you catch stray projectiles after they've been shot or intercept a charged lazer during fire is acceptable and makes things interesting for sure but firing on allies after a misclick or firing on a target when blocked by an ally is a bit too much.

The main issue is the collision. Its very hard to avoid between the clumsy camera controls, the limited camera zoom, the potential number of ships, the speed differences between them and the dodgy pathing that occasionally sends ships within the same group into one another. In fact its kinda whats put me off playing a great deal currently as its too demoralising losing ships that way.

I believe there shouldnt be any friendly collision at all unless a ship is damaged or is going too fast to de-accelerate in time. There ought to be an AI built into the ships that slows and halts them if they are on a frontal collision course with a friendly.

[Prox]

Thank you for all the feedback guys. We will work on those mechanics to make sure that it is much more enjoyable for the players.

[fr0stjack]

"clap clap clap" for copperpride. While on the topic, something like a gratuitous space battle 2 gameplay of overlapping ships and non-friendly fire rounds would be nice. Makes it a bit more RTS-ish though.

[pwnstar]

Yes, Gratuitous Space Battles is a great example to follow.

So is Star Wars: Empire at War, at least the space portion of that game.

[foxneagle]

As for friendly fire, I found that you can cancel it by moving them and pressing A, this makes them look for enemies to target and they stop firing on friendlies

I thought the firing on friendlies was for boarding modules, I haven't run into it yet, but does boarding automatically turn your ship into an enemy?

As for collision damage/friendly pathing, the only issue I have run into is stupidly setting up my dreadnaughts IN FRONT OF my fighter squadron, then having them all push forward as one group. The ships TRY not to run into each other, and will slow down/repath to avoid collision, but having 4 frigates go through 2 dreadnaughts makes them bounce between them, run into each other and the dreadnaught they flew into to avoid the first dreadnaught