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Should ships just stand completely still in battle?

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Should ships just stand completely still in battle?

from Sins Forums
im just wondering if they should move during combat when they open fire. i mean i dunno about you but to me it just doesn't seem right that ships would stay completely still like that.

maybe its possible to mod the game so that ships move during combat when firing their weapons?
302,879 views 294 replies
Reply #226 from Sins Forums Top
Any ship which wasn't a strike craft, including frigates, could be issued a "move while attacking" order. This was incredibly useful as you could keep firing at a target while physically moving your ships away from harm
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and how is that different from sins? theres a move while attacking order here to, its something you can micro.
You still had to order the the frigates to move though. Most of the pepole here want the Victory Class Star Destroyer size frigates to wosh about the gravity well doing barrel rolls and loop de loops to doge phase missiles and auto cannon rounds.   
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LOLZ!
Your posts have irked me enough to make me come on down, register for an account and post
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congratulations, if your free time consists of completely incorrect forum vigilanticism, you need to get a girlfriend or a job, or both.
Reply #227 from Stardock Forums Top
Thing is...

Smaller frigates should be trying to use their movement vs the slower hulking cap ships.

I understand two cap ships sitting infront of each other exchanging blows like final fantasy.

But a smaller frigate that is faster and boasts greater maneuverability should be trying to fly circles around the cap ship. Hell, just like the strike craft only slower cause strike craft are even faster!

Pew pew pew!
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #228 from Sins Forums Top

Homeworld 2: Everything up to destroyers moves around a lot in combat, made even more prononced with the PDS mod.
ORB: see Homeworld
Nexus: The entire game centered around tactical starship combat. Anyone claiming capital ships don't move around in this one is simply blind, even battleships constantly roll and wave to bring weapons to bear and dodge fire. All done automatically, off course.
Company of Heroes: Don't know which game you are playing, but in my copy of COH infantry constantly moves around to find better cover and firing positions. Which is the land combat equivalent of dodging manouvers in space, perfectly implemented.
C&C: Start up the game, and build a couple of Orca's. When attacking a target they circle around it while firing. This helps them evade enemy rockets. How is that not exactly what people are asking for here?
Supreme Commander: Same thing as C&C, with aircraft constantly evading fire and making attack runs.
Sword of the Stars: Doesn't even feature strikecraft, so here is the proof you're simply making this up as you go. Every destroyer and cruiser dodges and waves around in combat, while the big dreadnoughts just plow through fleets of smaller craft.

homeworld: wrong, the frigates do not move dynamically in battle
and when capital ships do move (like they do in sins) its just to bring weapons to bear, no different here.
CoH: 1) there is no "cover" in space, 2) they usually sit behind static cover and fire on one another, they dont consistantly move around 3) why are you comparing infantry to the combat of great big ships carrying upwards of half a thousand people? its just not a good comparison on ANY level.
Supreme commander: yeah, strike craft. just like sins's bombers and fighters
SotS: ok fine, but I have two points I can remain standing on in this one 1) not a prolific game, many people hated the combat, that includes me, poorly designed system. cant hold it against them though, its a turn based game. 2) you dont have much micro in it unless you chose to and 3, just for kickers) you dont deal with tenths of the ammounts of ships you have in sins.
again bad bad bad terrible comparison.
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Homeworld: Right, frigates can and will mvoe while firing. It's not really noticable in vanilla Homeworld , but with some modifications such as in the PDS mod they zoom around the big ships and remain quite a threat.
COH: You wanted examples of games where units move on their own, so don't go crawling back when you're proven wrong. If a ga
Reply #229 from Sins Forums Top
I think the real problem is that ships like frigates, and honestly anything that fires its guns primarily forward makes you look at it and say "That ship should be making a strike run on the bigger one, not just sitting there"

The ship which looks realistic and stately is the Kol Battleship and the Battlecruiser. The Kol looks right because it does look huge, and its forward gun arrays give it a reason to be pointing at the target, the battlecruiser because it turns to broadside the target.

I think things would look far nicer if almost all the ships turned to exchange broadsides, it would give more motion and look more 'real'.

Incidentally there is cover to move to, its just that cover is defined by the areas of space where the enemy currently has the poorest gun coverage rather than by a bush or wall.
Reply #230 from Sins Forums Top

Homeworld 2: Everything up to destroyers moves around a lot in combat, made even more prononced with the PDS mod.
ORB: see Homeworld
Nexus: The entire game centered around tactical starship combat. Anyone claiming capital ships don't move around in this one is simply blind, even battleships constantly roll and wave to bring weapons to bear and dodge fire. All done automatically, off course.
Company of Heroes: Don't know which game you are playing, but in my copy of COH infantry constantly moves around to find better cover and firing positions. Which is the land combat equivalent of dodging manouvers in space, perfectly implemented.
C&C: Start up the game, and build a couple of Orca's. When attacking a target they circle around it while firing. This helps them evade enemy rockets. How is that not exactly what people are asking for here?
Supreme Commander: Same thing as C&C, with aircraft constantly evading fire and making attack runs.
Sword of the Stars: Doesn't even feature strikecraft, so here is the proof you're simply making this up as you go. Every destroyer and cruiser dodges and waves around in combat, while the big dreadnoughts just plow through fleets of smaller craft.

homeworld: wrong, the frigates do not move dynamically in battle
and when capital ships do move (like they do in sins) its just to bring weapons to bear, no different here.
CoH: 1) there is no "cover" in space, 2) they usually sit behind static cover and fire on one another, they dont consistantly move around 3) why are you comparing infantry to the combat of great big ships carrying upwards of half a thousand people? its just not a good comparison on ANY level.
Supreme commander: yeah, strike craft. just like sins's bombers and fighters
SotS: ok fine, but I have two points I can remain standing on in this one 1) not a prolific game, many people hated the combat, that includes me, poorly designed system. cant hold it against them though, its a turn based game. 2) you dont have much micro in it unless you chose to and 3, just for kickers) you dont deal with tenths of the ammounts of ships you have in sins.
again bad bad bad terrible comparison.
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Homeworld: Right, frigates can and will move while firing. It's not really noticable in vanilla Homeworld , but with some modifications such as in the PDS mod they zoom around the big ships and remain quite a threat.
COH: You wanted examples of games where units move on their own, so don't go crawling back when you're proven wrong. It's the same principle, only slightly more complex because of the directional and destructional cover involved.
SC: You know, if you keep on saying that any unit in other games that does exhibit this kind of behaviour doesn't count, it's kinda hard to have an argument. Of course only fighters, bombers and helicopters exhibit this kind of behaviour in SupCom, they are the only kind of unit where this sort of behaviour feels normal.
SOTS: Many people hated the combat, and many others hate the combat in this game. No pleasing everyone, but at least in SotS combat feels natural. And again you're twisting the argument in your favour. Nobody is asking for the sort of automovement that requires micro, so the amount of ships is completely irrelevant. And you asked about games with automovement, so this point is moot anyway.

I think you have an appointment with a certain floor for some sort of romantic entanglement. Remember, wine and dine first and a true gentleman never tells afterwards ;)

EDIT: Strange, part of my post somehow already got posted above, and I can't edit it. Mods, feel free to delete that incomplete response above.
Reply #231 from Sins Forums Top

Clearly everyone wants moving ships in combat, with line formations and broadsides and so forth. Movement in fact makes huge amounts of sense in space combat, even with lasers, since relative velocities can be immense and the ships can engage light seconds apart (or even much further, if we consider missiles and railguns etc)

Whether the game engine can do it, and still work on peoples systems, and still function as a combat system is another question. Damage output from the ships is already mediocre at best compared to hull strengths (single ships crossing heavily defended systems with only light damage etc, fleets warping past front line systems ignoring defense fleets totally) if they added a position sensitive element to the ships being able to exchange fire, it might reduce damage even further
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Who is this everyone person you speak of?

It's understandable you're lobbying for a change that you'd like to see, but somehow I doubt you've polled the entire SoaSE playerbase to determine that everyone wants it as well.

Personally I think movement in the game during combat is fine as-is, I even noticed the small touches like the capital ships often turning their broadside to fire on enemy ships.

I have a lot of confidence in the dev's that an element like this was throughly tested and debated before they finally settled on the system you see.
Reply #232 from Sins Forums Top
Who is this everyone person you speak of?
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ive read every post here and it does seem most people here want moving combat.
Reply #233 from Sins Forums Top
you click it on, then frigates and larger ships will move around and dogfight in their respective speeds.
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I don’t think this is an option as it might cause sync errors in multiplayer games as one person will have it on and one wont but i am not a programer so it would be nice to get an opinion from an EXPERT on this.

now back to the debate that i swore i was not going to feed anymore (damb me for being weak) :LOL: 

Here are my points
DONT try argue reality I tried that it don’t work as it is in space and more importantly its a GAME

Second you can have a mass furball with HUGE ships flying round like fighters and so forth

but it would lead to an unmanageable fleet i personally prefer to be able to subdivide my fleet and use my cobolts to flank and attack there javalis and my cap ships with a few codiak cruisers to attack the enemy cobolds and cap ships

While keeping my aircraft carriers in the backline with a few reserve units i enjoy structure and manageability as opposed to pretty wow factor

ps comparing sins to homeworld,orb or nexus is not on either as they are all VERRY different game engines and sins dose a whole bunch of things that those engines cant do or dont have to deal with ;) 

just my two cents
Reply #234 from Sins Forums Top
Movement would be good for small amounts of ships.
But when you're dealing with a small planet radius, and hundreds of ships it won't look pretty.
Reply #235 from Sins Forums Top
. It's not really noticable in vanilla Homeworld , but with some modifications such as in the PDS mod they zoom around the big ships and remain quite a threat.
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even in PDS there really isnt sporadic motion of frigates.
COH: You wanted examples of games where units move on their own, so don't go crawling back when you're proven wrong. If a ga
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there is almost no motion, sure they move to grab defense, but after that they just sit there

again its completely irrelevant, I expect you to at least not go 90 degrees sideways on me during an argument. it doesnt help your point any, just bugs me.
SC: You know, if you keep on saying that any unit in other games that does exhibit this kind of behaviour doesn't count, it's kinda hard to have an argument. Of course only fighters, bombers and helicopters exhibit this kind of behaviour in SupCom, they are the only kind of unit where this sort of behaviour feels normal.
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fighters and bombers use this behavior in sins, your point?

I'm excluding ships that inherently are dependant on motion, if you knew anything about helicopters or airplanes you would realize *why* they move.
SOTS: Many people hated the combat, and many others hate the combat in this game. No pleasing everyone, but at least in SotS combat feels natural. And again you're twisting the argument in your favour. Nobody is asking for the sort of automovement that requires micro, so the amount of ships is completely irrelevant. And you asked about games with automovement, so this point is moot anyway.
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the number of ships is damn well relevant, also the point that I was *wrong* that motion was automatic is relevant

you are grasping, oh so pathetically, at ephemereal straws. you have absolutely no precedent to support your argument from *any* of these games. this point is not even remotely moot, you're just plain wrong.

Reply #236 from Sins Forums Top
There are worse things about this game that would take less time to improve than moveing fleets. Thus although a nice idea, it'll never happen till sins 2 or maybe the third expansion pack?

Also if your reasons are realism, the fighters and bombers will be able to accelerate and change direction faster due to them having less mass than the bigger ships. Making it less effective to try to manuver the large ships when the energy could be used for wepons/shields.
Reply #237 from Sins Forums Top


even in PDS there really isnt sporadic motion of frigates.
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WWW Link
Did you even play the PDS mod, or are you just hoping enough people are unfamiliar with it to give credibility to your fantasy world?


there is almost no motion, sure they move to grab defense, but after that they just sit there

again its completely irrelevant, I expect you to at least not go 90 degrees sideways on me during an argument. it doesnt help your point any, just bugs me.
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In this thread you repeatedly ask to show you any game at all where units move on their own. I do this, and now suddenly you back up and say it has to be a RTS in space featuring similar ships as Sins? There aren't many space RTS games, so I pick games were units perform similar autonomous movement.


fighters and bombers use this behavior in sins, your point?
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Hey look over there, nice oranges. Shame they don't look as green as these apples though. My point is that SupCom doesn't feature spaceships, so they can't make them moving targets now can they? SupCom uses dodging movements for every single unit where it is believable. You asked for games showing independant movement, remember? It's only now, after you've been proven wrong, that you're trying to narrow the definitions to only suit your own point.

Oh, and SupCom does have one unit that could be likened to a Sins frigate: the flying Cybran experimental. It's a huge gunship, with multiple turrets. And guess what? It dodges incoming fire.


I'm excluding ships that inherently are dependant on motion, if you knew anything about helicopters or airplanes you would realize *why* they move.
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If you knew anything about helicopters, you'd know they can hover perfectly still in the air with ease. If you knew anything about spaceships, you'd know that it is incredibly energy inefficient to sit completely still in a gravity well. If you want to impress an engineer with physics, at least get your facts straight first.


the number of ships is damn well relevant, also the point that I was *wrong* that motion was automatic is relevant
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How is the amount of ships relevant in this situation, when the people in this thread ask for something that has no impact on gameplay, adds no micromanagement and is mostly a simple cosmetic change? And don't try changing it to processing power, the impact will be ignorably small.


you are grasping, oh so pathetically, at ephemereal straws. you have absolutely no precedent to support your argument from *any* of these games. this point is not even remotely moot, you're just plain wrong.


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I not only quote precedent, I even show multiple examples when all you do is say: "It's not true, it doesn't count, I can't hear you,...."
Oh, and a vaguely amusing gif does not make an argument, it only makes people look childish. We're trying to have a debate based on arguments and reason here, not a throw-silly-pictures-around contest. If you want that sort of forum, I suggest /b/ on 4chan.
Reply #238 from Sins Forums Top
I really don't get why some people here are saying that having ships that actually strafe and fly around would make them unmanageable. Any RTS player worth his or her salt extensively uses Ctrl + #, tab and shift+tab to quickly select the unit types that they would want to control. But even then, that's pretty irrelevent considering that it's well known that Sins focuses heavily on macro-management and not so much so on micro-management. It's there for people who want to micro everything, but saying that having this change would make ships and fleets unmanageable is an odd thing to say I think, even if the game was heavily into micro-management.

You Ctrl+ # or shift/tab till you select the ships you want. You then target something, and they strafe around and focus fire on that target. What's so hard to manage about that?
Reply #239 from Sins Forums Top
From the beginning Schod has said that except for strikecraft or their equivalents, units do not move automatically to dodge in any RTS.
Homeworld games, they don't. I mean, sure, they move to range, bring guns to bear, but dodge? No. Except, of course, the strikecraft.
ORB, the same, except probably more so.
Don't know about CoH, so I couldn't tell you :P
C&C, helicopters move, but it's really more aesthetic than anything else, for me at least. I never saw a "dodging" longbow, for example, actually successfully dodge a SAM missile... aesthetic. The planes sure don't "dodge" at all - I find the same thing on SC with gunships and planes not moving to dodge at all.

About the Point Defence Systems mod, I thought we were talking about RTS games, not mods... or am I way off here?
Reply #240 from Sins Forums Top
In CoH's Infantry and to a lesser extent tanks will search for cover when being shot at and try and stay in there most effective weapons range. This can lead to frustration for some pepole due to tanks ignoring orders when the AI decides to drive some were or infantry dancing between cover and there effective weapons range on occasion.

TheOpticNerve, it would become impossible to manage simply because it would become impossible to see were everything is. The Empire Tree and Icons are nice and all, but some times you need to know exactly were everything is an when fleets mix it can be hard to find your units hidden under a pile of icons and ships that are constantly moving. It would be like watching a fish tank I guess.
Reply #241 from Sins Forums Top
In CoH's Infantry and to a lesser extent tanks will search for cover when being shot at and try and stay in there most effective weapons range.
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But this isn't actually moving to dodge, is it? They're just moving to cover, right?
Reply #242 from Sins Forums Top
They will scatter into cover if a tank round explodes near them, but yea, just moving to cover.
Reply #243 from Sins Forums Top
They will scatter into cover if a tank round explodes near them, but yea, just moving to cover.
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kk thx
Reply #244 from Sins Forums Top
k first why complain about the simple things this is a new kind of game its cool yes
somethings may be lacking but can u name me a perfect game with nothing wrong or with all the correct real life settings if u can ill just shut up but i will not till u show me one + its just a game a form of entertainment not life k just chill out k
Reply #245 from Sins Forums Top
k first why complain about the simple things this is a new kind of game its cool yes
somethings may be lacking but can u name me a perfect game with nothing wrong or with all the correct real life settings if u can ill just shut up but i will not till u show me one + its just a game a form of entertainment not life k just chill out k
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True indeed!
Remember that, whether or not other games have specific features shouldn't really matter, unless the feature is standard - at least in my opinion. As an RT4X, a PIONEER in its field, we should at least refrain from saying "well, the game should have feature x because game y had it".
Don't you agree? And besides, this IS only a game.

On a side note, the other day I was in a train with a couple of friends when I saw an Aboriginal (Aus) girl/woman crying. When given a tissue, she said that her boyfriend had died on Sunday. It brought me to to reality to realize that, disturbed as this statement made me, there are far worse-off people on the planet, even than that girl.
So here we are, complaining about the game missing a feature or asserting that it doesn't need it, when there are far unluckier people on the planet to worry about such things. Granted, this is a game forum and it's by no means wrong to debate like this, but I suppose we shouldn't take it too seriously.
Cheer up! Smell the roses! :P
Reply #246 from Sins Forums Top
Did you even play the PDS mod
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yes, and while the motion was *improved* it was not made into "sporadic" motion of units, it was just better torking and slower decelerations.
About the Point Defence Systems mod, I thought we were talking about RTS games, not mods... or am I way off here?
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also a completely valid point.
In this thread you repeatedly ask to show you any game at all where units move on their own
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I apologize that I expected you to be realistic

but the point stands I was talking about *spaceships* (or close analogues, we'll go with that to avoid decimating the rest of your argument) that do sporadic motion. a 4000 kiloton ship has slightly more difficulty moving than a 250 lb soldier.

just slightly...
SupCom uses dodging movements for every single unit where it is
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no... people do that, supcom has units stand there and shoot lovingly. motion is micromanaged with the exception of gunships and airplanes.
and dont you start A&Oing me.
If you knew anything about helicopters, you'd know they can hover perfectly still in the air with ease
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ok fine, you have me there. but is that relevant? oh lets see, no not really...
but... most times if you're in combat and you're sitting there you're gonna get shot by an RPG.
If you knew anything about spaceships, you'd know that it is incredibly energy inefficient to sit completely still in a gravity well. If you want to impress an engineer with physics, at least get your facts straight first.
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sadly you've got it all wrong... its most energy efficient to go in large circles in a gravity well, known as orbit.

but, thats not whats important here (they're making goddamn antimatter, power isnt a concern) moving around to dodge fire is still not feasible.
How is the amount of ships relevant in this situation
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because while you can afford to chase around irritating ships when you're only dealing with 5-15 at a time, in sins where you have 200 odd something ships it can get a bit excessive.
I not only quote precedent, I even show multiple examples when all you do is say: "It's not true, it doesn't count, I can't hear you,...."
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no...

what you have evidence of is that I'm an irritated asshole who's starting to redicule you. I tend to do that sometimes when people keep coming back at me with the same old tired argument that doesnt hold together. What you have here jonny, is a bunch of either failed examples or examples that apply to games not even close in structure to sins (god, I could even say that about homeworld! but I wont). saying that ships should dodge and run for cover because they did it in CoH is your precedent, you're not going to get really far.

nonetheless i should apologize for being an unwarranted jerk, so I apologize. take it or leave it.
Reply #247 from Sins Forums Top
I do not wish for ships to move in combat. Go play a flight simulator or something if you do!
Reply #248 from Sins Forums Top

In CoH's Infantry and to a lesser extent tanks will search for cover when being shot at and try and stay in there most effective weapons range. This can lead to frustration for some pepole due to tanks ignoring orders when the AI decides to drive some were or infantry dancing between cover and there effective weapons range on occasion.


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Tanks never, ever, ever looked for cover.


Reply #249 from Sins Forums Top
due to being unable to fire on the move. You're thinking in terms of WW2. Sitting still is the worst thing you can do in a combat zone. Stationary tanks disappeared with the advent of modern electronics.
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Actually I meant they go in circles to be cool, I Was being sarcastic.

Tanks move around because they reall CAN dodge enemy shells...
Computer targeted lasers/gauss canons CAN! NOT! BE! DODGED!

The iraqies might have a guy manually aiming a shell... But
1. those are shells, not lasers.
2. they are not computer controlled.
3. there aren't shields or self repair..


As for company of heroes... the infantry NEVER "looks" for cover nor do they ever DODGE...
When you hover the mouse over a spot the closest calculated "cover" is marked (red, yellow, or green dots) and when you click they are ordered to go there, and if they are on a green dot they will use "cover animations"...

The enemy COULD run around at them and shoot from an area they are not covered from (i tried that)... it doesn't matter... if they are in "cover" they get a flat bonus to defense. that is all. there is zero dodging... the infantry will never, EVER, move from the spot you have designated by themselves.

And tanks will only move to shoot an enemy out of reach... because there is no "cover" for tanks in COH
Reply #250 from Sins Forums Top
due to being unable to fire on the move. You're thinking in terms of WW2. Sitting still is the worst thing you can do in a combat zone. Stationary tanks disappeared with the advent of modern electronics.


Actually I meant they go in circles to be cool, I Was being sarcastic.

Tanks move around because they reall CAN dodge enemy shells... Computer targeted lasers CAN! NOT! BE! DODGED!

The iraqies might have a guy manually aiming a shell... But
1. those are shells, not lasers.
2. they are not computer controlled.
3. there aren't shields or self repair..
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You mean that your computer controlled ship has no way of dodging a computer controlled laser.

There is also the chance of reducing the damage from a laser.