Tactical slots, these arent ship modules, but an idea “borrowed” from some other games. coughDragonAge
Basically these slots allow for more comlicated orders, triggered after certain events. These allow you to make some preset decisions that may or maynot help you.
I propose that you gain these with a module (Though prehaps you start off with some, depending on ship template). Its a trade of tactics versus firepower/utility.
Do you want a more powerful fleet, or a smarter one? Where do you draw the line?
Its not a straight boost, and it could add nice depth without being over powered (As very specific tactics would be wasted if their conditions didnt come around)
Its the the originality of the idea, its what you do with it.
well… there kind of IS a tactical module. but it’s hidden. i asked cliff about it, and it NEEDS to stay hidden. like, the tactical module is what gives the fleet it’s intelligence, other than the orders you give it. not sure how it works, and i’m not sure that i would agree with a tactical module that’s NOT hidden. so i’m not a fan of this idea. after all, YOU’RE the one that makes the fleet smarter. not some stupid gizmo.
I’m all in favor of exposing ship intelligence to greater levels of manipulation.
One old game I would love to see brought back from the dead one day was called “Omega”. You designed a tank and, much like GSB, you set it out with a bunch of other tanks to fight with no user input.
The real gameplay in Omega was that you had to write a program for your tank to use. It had its own scripting language like:
TURN TANK LEFT 1
MOVE FORWARD 2
TURN TURRET RIGHT 1
SCAN FOR ENEMY
(etc)
I don’t expect GSB to get into that kind of detail (a game which probably only appeals to programmers…) but any ability to script out some events and reactions is appealing to me.
For a simple example, I wish “Cautious” could be made to look at armor as well as health. By the time my armor is all gone I’m probably toast anyway. It would be nice to say “Retreat on 50% armor damage” and then additionally specify a return condition. Like “Return to battle if unable to repair further” so they don’t just sit on the back line for the rest of the game.
Or sacrificing a slot to be able to retreat to a certain range, like a more advanced cautious. Or to attack an enemy till shields are gone, then pick a new target. Or to attack a target a certain other target is attacking.
Fiddling with a formation can give things like that, but it can be lengthy trial and error. Then the other person just slightly changes their formation, recue trial and error.
