I am currently writing a TBS 4x space strategy game. I am done with interfaces and graphics and i am now developing the first of the three major parts - the combat starship. The next is the combat round and finally AI.
I have currently a draft setup for space combat. The major characteristics have as follows:
Ships are firstly divided into 6 size classes. Larger ships have greater resource cost, need more time to produce, have stronger hulls and shields and can take on more weapons of smaller class, because weapons also follows their own size class. Larger ships are also slower on combat but faster at interplanetary and interstellar travel.
All ships are unmanned. The player controls them, there could be a war general leading a fleet giving bonuses, but ships themselves have no crews. Just Combat AI applying the tactics selected. Even experience is data gained through battles used by the AI.
The role of each ship is determined by its design. Besides the size, a large set of meaningful choices apply. Hull properties, optional modules, primary and secondary weapons choice, weapons modifications and more all lead to a role the designer chooses: Super tank, glass cannon, firepower for shields, firepower for mass, size x destroyer, long range attacker, short range attacker, any combination, all apply.
Furthermore, ships are organized into divisions, or simply stacks. This gives them additional options such as 5 levels of ultra defense - ultra offence stances and formations that determinate attack concentration (max x ships hit 1 enemy ship) and defense against this (max y ships can hit 1 of our ships). However each ship of the division has its own attack and defense path - it is not working as "averages of the stack".
For combat now ships will have primary and secondary weapons. Primary weapons will be energy cannons of various types, sizes and modifications. The main purpose of cannons is to bring down shields, because, in my setup, compatible kinetic weapons (rockets, missiles and torpedoes) as well as ordinary large caliber projectiles are ineffective against shields. So the cannons need to hit the shields to discharge them and open ground for secondary weapons to finish off enemy cannons - then the ship is harmless. If own shields are still active even at 5%, the enemy ship cannot effectively attack with its cannons destroyed. For tactical reasons there are few cannons that deal damage versus mass.
Secondary weapons now consists of three categories: Missiles, Guns and Repeaters. Missiles are deadly as they almost always hit the target and deliver tremendous payload. However they can be countered by repeaters. Repeaters are compatible small caliber "machine" guns of high rate of fire and can also be energy ones(no ammo but uses ship energy). Despite that, the repeaters role is to counter enemy missiles. In overall, 1 repeater cannot fully counter 1 missile attack, e.g. the rocket launcher will launch 16 rockets the turn, 14 will be countered by the repeater, 2 will hit. A Repeater is always somewhat weaker than the Missile as a secondary weapon - of the same size class and tech of course. Guns, which are huge caliber guns seem to have little use at first glance as they are much less damaging than missiles and cannot be used for countering anything(missile type weapons can be used for countering although they are less than half effective than repeaters). The advantage of guns is that they cannot be countered plus they hit at the first phase of each round, just after energy cannons but BEFORE missiles and repeaters take action. This means that a Gun can hit ( and even take out) a Repeater before the Repeater gets the chance to be used. Same for a Missile turret, despite the missiles are already launched. Next turn there would be no Missile turret. Of course, guns can also hit other guns and energy cannons.
Considering that the above is meant to be a setup for a game that needs to have game play through tactical advantage, is there anything of the above that looks weird or strange or wrong to you?
