On anomalies, I agree that they aren’t very significant as is. Ones that essentially remove large game mechanics (fighters, beams, shields, etc) have potential, but you could have somewhat more subtle ones as well:
shield resistance reduced/increased by 50%
shield recharge rate increased by 500% (or less if that just makes things invulnerable)
armor resistance reduced/increased by 50%
armor repair units can’t work
beam weapons (rather than all weapons) 50% less range but 50% more strength
or some ones that require new mechanics:
all cruisers take a certain amount of damage (radiation) per second; this could vary from requiring decent shields on cruisers to making cruisers nearly completely unviable
any ship that actually suffers a hull breach (structural damage past armor, or reduced to 90% structure or whatnot) just blows up because the radiation gets inside or whatever
pulse radiation that hits every ship with X Shield-Disruptor points every second (like the Frigate Disruptor Bomb Launcher; causing intermittent shield outages)
ECM radiation that hits every ship (or non-fighter) with X ECM points every second
I like the idea of actual terrain like blackholes or gas clouds that do damage/slow down or maybe neutral weapons platforms that just shoot at everyone… but I think that it would probably take a lot of work to get the AI controlling both fleets to react to those things in a way that wouldn’t leave us players pulling our hair out at its stupidity (it could be made smart about them, but it would take a lot of effort). I think it could be a worthwhile direction for further development, though, to make maps much more interesting and different.
Edit: another idea is a damage radiation that does damage inversely proportional to the ship’s effective max speed; so fighters and fast frigates would take negligible damage but slow ships, ships with no engines, and ships with overly damaged engines would get tore up.
Rather than a simple colour shade over the ships we could use like a targeting box around every ship with an option to have little read outs coming off each box. That would just remind me of sci-fi control screens. Different coloured boxes for both teams so like blue for friendlies and red for baddies. Sort of like how the range indicators are now but much smaller.
1/ Yes, the side effects are not pronounced enough to make me change my design, I just change what I’ll deploy (mo’ missiles!). What about some more drastic effects? Let’s say a black hole, or a gravity well that sucks fighters and anything with a speed/mass ratio below a certain threshold? What about meteor showers where every ship takes x dmg/sec. What about ionic storms in nebulas which drain shields every 60 seconds?
2/ I have no clue what’s being fired at me, apart from seeing lasers or missiles tearing me apart. It’s frustrating and having some kind of feedback on the shield state would be great.
3/ I never play against the same race, the colors are too confusing.
That’s really a bummer that you can’t add a symbol or insignia to each ship for that race. Really, if that’s the one thing I could think this game is crying for, that would be it…fleet-specific insignias on each ship. Ouch…
Onto the questions:
I think we should have more fun anomalies that actually do influence things…ie a meteor shower that damages ships on impact, a black hole of some sort that distorts the paths of weapons near it, flying space monsters (idk), solar flares that periodically ECM scramble ships…you get the picture.
Enemy health and shield state, and maybe the ships name, would be the maximum I would want to know to keep things fair.
No colors or insignias? Not possible? Arghghgh!..that’s painful to hear.
well not easy by a long shot.
How about a scenario where a meteor storm will hit in 2 minutes. everything will take 100 damage at that point.
Could make for some frantic early fighter-rushes and some emphasis on heavy shielding
Ha! That sounds like a wonderful idea. There’s more than one way to deal with it too: either rush to kill everything within 2 minutes or hunker down and plan to absorb 100 damage without being obliterated. While planning to weather the storm, you could even try to make sure the enemy is damaged enough that they get demolished by the meteor. I love it.
That would be good. PLEASE!!! don’t go red/green as it’s the most common form of colourblindness there is… I wouldn’t stand a chance! It’d be a total game-wrecker for me because I’m incapable of distinguishing between the two when they’re all mixed up. Other people have problems with different colours, so being able to custom pick from a limited palette would be best. Alternatively, a togglable outer frame for friendlies would work (as used in early RTS’s like C&C or TA to show selected units.)
On the other points: yes, go for it with anomolies - they don’t do anything at the moment. I personally don’t mind the lack of status strips on enemies - I like looking for the visual clues.
1… there were anomalies…? i never took any notice i’m afraid ;/
2… it’s nice that you can’t just select enemy ships and see their health bars like in C&C … but it’s annoying too. if visible damage was directly tied into damage taken, i think that’d be the best way. (and shields that’re up should always shimmer - otherwise you can’t tell whether shields are down, or just not getting hit)
3… very annoying. there’re only ever two sides to a fight - why not pre-render a red and a blue side?
1.) Yes. They are kinda pointless right now, especially the speed reducers. Drastic changes are a start but I love the idea of more complicated environmental hazards. Lightning storms, flaming debris/missiles/meteors/whatever being shot across the map… maybe something super crazy like a ‘moving map’ - the background is scrolling, every ship is moved leftward(?) at a steady rate depending on its size, every ship that falls off the map is obliterated, special AI so that ships attempt to move right if they’re on the left side of the map.
2.) Yes. Visible damage vanishing as its repaired will be great, but also I think there’s that it doesnt matter how much damage is being done when a damage scar is made in the first place. A salvo of rapid fire lasers can make a cruiser look completely totalled even if it has 90% HP left. I think the major damage scars should maybe be more limited. On the other end of the scale, Megaton Missile spam can occasionally total weak cruisers without even activating all their damage scars.
I do like how you can tell when a shield is actually taking damage (vs reflecting) by the drain animation. One thing I might suggest is having the drain animation somehow reflect either total shield status or the severity of the hit. Or something.
3.) Yes… It’s not so much confusion as that it feels wrong. I prefer to mix it up a bit. An overlay would be nice but I don’t think it would change my habits any.
Currently they are more annoying than adding anything to the game.
Yes, absolutely.
SInce you cannot command your ships once the game is going, it’s meaningless to hide the attributes of the enemy vessels. Viewing the enemy ship status does not change the impact of the game, and it adds more enjoyment. It’s also easier for a beginner to understand how their weapons damage their targets if they can immediately see a response, rather than having to try over and over again with different fleet make-ups by trial and error.
Not really. If you want to change colors, it’s probably not too hard to take your sprites into photoshop/gimp and spray it with a blue or purple mask to change the colors, or add another layer or some such.
I’m adding a new button to the deployment screen that lets you reprise the spatial anomalies, and also adding a few harsher variables like these (more interesting ones hopefully to come later)
When my mates and me used to Hot Seat at Master of Orion 2, I’d always try to force fights in nebulas - my mates just couldnt cope with combat without shields. We need some harsh scenario anomalies to force us to adapt our fleet composition.
Is there any reason why we shouldnt be able to see their shield/armor/hull status?
If youre playing same race vs same race, perhaps one should have a different colour scheme? I cant say its ever bothered me to be honest, cos the minimap is usually clear enough to keep track of my own ships.
That’s Interesting. I hated shields in MOO2. My ultimate goal was always to get my hands on the damper field… stack that baby with the energy absorber and reflection field and you ended up taking less than 1-3% of the incoming damage. Oh I loved it.
I have a soft sport in my heart for armor only designs. I wish they were more tenable in this game.
