Why don't the ships move (continuously) during combat?

Maybe it's harder to aim if you move

maybe the devs just dont want em to?

if you get lucky and the forum search works, you can find a BUNCH of threads about this (they all got turned down)

full power to the shields

You know there was something thats been niggling me for ages and not put my fnger on, and thats it.

However you want to sell it ships do just pause in space and casually accept incoming fire. It gives the combat scenarios a very false & static feel like a turn based game.

Mmm... that means there is a search button? HERESY!

In his defense, it is almost worthless.

I believe combat in sins is supposed to simulate strategic combat not tactical though you can micromanage the hell out of your units if you want to. Haegemonia is the same way where units dont move during combat. The results would be the same regardless if the ships moved or not. Maneuvering would only be for appearance, and have no effect on combat results.

Basically this is why...


People micro if they think that micro can give them an advantage in a battle

Ships that move in combat like in Homeworld give rise to advantages if people micro

Making ships static and have 100% aim makes it harder to gain an advantage through micro.

Less inclination to micro in Sins

I love micro , but you have to take into the account the size and scale of Sins compared to Homeworld. Love micro or hate micro , its just not right to have too much of this particular micro in this particular game.

The dev's excuse is that ships are so large (a mere cobalt is a half click in length!) that evasive maneuvering just wouldn't let you dodge the enemies fire, and because of the advances is computer science and sensors, its impossible for you to miss-aim your weapons and miss "naturally".

As far as why do it that way when it would look "better" otherwise... who knows? Easier to code, less micro, and it has the potential to look better when you have big fleets duking it out.

I wish they would move also... :NOTSURE:

Micro-ing your ships and abilities still gives you an advantage over non micro players.

I wish you would move! You're sitting on my arm and it's numb!   

Yea, Special-ability micro is an advantageous micro type and that make me wonder why Ironclad chose to remove ship-movement and the advantageous micros it brings plus the 100% aim , because it sacrifices cinematic aesthetics at the same time.

Because micro sucks?

Fact is, they're working hard on improving the ability AI so you don't have to micro even that.

Micro isnt some tabooed bad thing for RTS games . Theres various qualities of microing

Good RTS have good quality micro , Shit RTS have shit quality micro. Quantity of micro is dependant on the type of game. Sins is large scale game so quantity should be minimal at best , BUT that minimum must be Good quality. Starcraft has hugh quantity and its also good quality. Vanilla supcom had a hugh quantity but it was shit quality (fabgens micro , Ras micro). You cant eliminate micro from games as people always find stuff to take advantages. Its the devs job to steer the micro gives advantages into good quality rather then shit quality.

In Supcom , people got advantageous if they can put up with the tedious micro of turning on and off FAbricators , and building and building and building , and swapping menus and stuff to build RAS modules every 5 seconds , with more and more exponential sim city building. This is poor quality micro.



I think improving the AI will help , but its not going to eliminate the need for micro. forexample if you have a triple dunov strat , how does the autocast know that you want to reserve the antimatter for healing ONLY other Dunovs? How does it know that your okay with the Dunovs letting shieldless frigates die? How does it know that once 1 of the Dunovs die your might want to use those Dunovs to now heal frigates rather then do a healing circle or just heal dunovs only?

this is an RT4X though

Eh, I have played so many RTS and turn based in my old age, the one thing I think about Micro is it is meant for manageable levels. From what I have read on this game, the size and scope of your units and the game in general would make micro a nightmare on large games.

I think the devs did this justice, thou I would have also opted for some sort of movement animation, but after watching all the vids, I don't see it very feasible when the game gets into a ton of units at once. Not to mention the animation slow downs that would be added to such large battles. Now mind you I am thinking in the massive sizes like those represented in Supreme Commander where unless you have a duel-core system you won't be playing a game past 500 units.

The only possible system I could have seen here being used is those they used say in Star Wars Empires at War, were the ties and x-wings would do 3 dimensional maneuvers (looks) but still plays on a 2D plain. It's a difficult thing to balance with animation and the like, I get the reasons and from what I have seen, the non-movement in combat is noticed, but doesn't diminish the game play. This is of course based on what I have seen not tried

The whole micro arguement whilst perfectly true is beside the point, the point is it looks a bit flat, lifeless and unrealistic when ships behave that way, just like the 2D square groupings/formations.

Its a weakness and it could be better, I'll leave it at that.

I think that maneuvering will add a bit of "randomness" to the fights, so that whenever 3 cobalts engage a kodiak sometimes the cobalts will win and other times the kodiak will win. The way it is now, its just a matter of unit stats.

and how is the above a good thing?

Like a turn-based game... this is something about the combat that I like.

More in line with the 4x concept, more in line with the ponderous strategic scope, the deployment of fleets and the capital ship roles. Add tactical ship movement and you`ll invariably have the Shofixti Scout pinpricking to death the lumbering starcruiser, which in this game would just be laughably absurd.

Granted a *very* limited degree of movement - maybe even drift - could add some visual variety, but I would not want to see such dilute the overall scope/flow of the game. Don`t forget as well that such could very well necessitate a redesign of the game combat, since firing arcs, shield facings, hit location etc. all would have to follow. Be more of a design job akin to StarFleet Command. Much work.

If folks want variable outcomes in combat, so sometimes an inferior force *can* indeed defeat a superior one, just introduce simpler behind-the-scenes critical hits/lucky hits. Much better.

P.S.: Also this has the potential to be welcomely adjusted by CREW skills...

I am keeping you warm while eet isn't here...

In a game this huge in scale ship maneuvering becomes a moot point. Especially if there are hundreds of units in a tiny gravity well. Where are they going to move to?

Facing only has a limited effect on combat, and some of the capitol ships can do equal damage at a 360 arc.

Will the game "look" better if the ships maneuvered around? Of course it would. However this game isnt designed for the computer "elitist" the way Sup Com was. Nor is it meant for only the RTS (real time spam) fans. Many 4x players dont give a damn about details like that.

The dev's wanted a game that can play on a wide range of systems, and still look good doing it. I believe they succeeded in doing that. Adding extra ship movement, and animations will only slow things down.

At least most of the TEC Capital Ships broadside!

Ive been watching carefully the battles in Sw EaW

What ive noticed is that upon engagement , a ship moves from a max_range to a slightly closer min_range , so fires and moves towards its target. Once it reaches the min_range value it will stop dead to fire but the movement from max to min is very slow.. This is offcourse is disabled vs defences.

It only moves slowly towards the target but the effect is very good and because ships are facing all sorts of directions , will give the illusion of actual ship movements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-4DfW1h4AI

Notice at 0.56 , the slow encroachment. Id love ships in sins to do that