Suggestion: Large-scale battles

General discussion about the game.
Lestibournes
Posts: 67
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:02 pm

Suggestion: Large-scale battles

Postby Lestibournes » Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:48 pm

The game looks great. One thing that I would like to see is large-scale multi-way battles between multiple fleets of ships. What if the Wraith, Asurans, and Tau'ri all happened to congregate around the same planet before the Tau'ri and Wraith formed an alliance to wipe out the Asurans? There's be a 3 way battle, with each side potentially fielding more than 1 ship. More the point, what if you are engaged in bettle and there are other enemy ships in the region, wouldn't they come help out? What if a faction that hates both you and your opponent sees the 2 sides severly weakened and decides to take you both out? There already is apparently some system for keeping track who hates who, so you just need to add support for having more than one ship in a battle, so that each ship can then choose which ship to target. Of course, you'd also need to somehow get ships to get involved in an ongoing battle, and perhaps a way for multiple ships that are not controlled by the same player/AI to travel together. I'm also bothered by what happens to a ship that has been captured - shouldn't you be able to man the ship with some of your crew and add it to your fleet, or tow it and sell it or give it to a friendly faction as a present?

Also, having ships that can move around in fleets will allow some species to have very primitive ships but make up for that disadvantage with superior numbers, or alternatively to have races with super-strong, super-advanced ships, and overcome their advantage with numbers, like how Starfleet tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to stop a Borg cube ship with 40 Starfleet vessels.

It would also be nice if ships could not only target enemy ships, but also move to cover ally ships and lend their crew and other resources to each other during battle.
Last edited by Lestibournes on Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Warbird
Posts: 223
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2012 12:23 am

Re: Suggestion: Large-scale battles

Postby Warbird » Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:58 pm

I think you may want a different game entirely. May I recommend Sins of a Solar Empire or Starcraft?
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Lestibournes
Posts: 67
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:02 pm

Re: Suggestion: Large-scale battles

Postby Lestibournes » Wed Jun 06, 2012 8:00 pm

Warbird wrote:I think you may want a different game entirely. May I recommend Sins of a Solar Empire or Starcraft?

No, I don't. I understand managing more than one ship might not fit, but what's wrong with multiple ships fighting side-by-side? That certainly fits with the genre. I'm especially thinking about Stargate: Universe where they sometimes find themselves fighting multiple ships, with some ally ships on their side.
ThePsuedoMonkey
Posts: 53
Joined: Thu May 31, 2012 3:41 am

Re: Suggestion: Large-scale battles

Postby ThePsuedoMonkey » Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:05 am

There would have to be a completely different interface in order to do that well. It's a great idea but the beta is almost out already, and some of the backers might have a heart attack if they don't get to play it soon!
Lestibournes
Posts: 67
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:02 pm

Re: Suggestion: Large-scale battles

Postby Lestibournes » Thu Jun 07, 2012 8:13 am

ThePsuedoMonkey wrote:There would have to be a completely different interface in order to do that well. It's a great idea but the beta is almost out already, and some of the backers might have a heart attack if they don't get to play it soon!

Probably the ability to zoom out to see all the ships in the region and who they are fighting, select one, then it zooms onto that ship back to the normal battle view - just to keep things simple. Of course, it would be super awesome if you could actually target multiple ships simultaneosly.
CanadianWolvie
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:00 pm

Re: Suggestion: Large-scale battles

Postby CanadianWolvie » Wed Jun 13, 2012 6:43 pm

The idea has some merit if you are willing to forgo any bells and whistles - by that I mean, if it was say, a bit of text before a battle that adds a particular challenge mechanically, in a similar fashion to solar flares. No fancy pictures, no new ships on screen, just some "OMG THE SHIPS ARE ON FIRE" and a few more numbers. Have it make sensors and piloting that much more important with reduced percentages for instance and more incoming and outgoing fire you have no control over. Imaginatively it would be flag ship vs flag ship and the larger scale battle would just be a setting for the showdown.
Warbird
Posts: 223
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2012 12:23 am

Re: Suggestion: Large-scale battles

Postby Warbird » Wed Jun 13, 2012 6:47 pm

Ain't gonna happen I'm afraid.

"While it’s possible that some things could be added before the official release, it’s more likely that we’ll take your suggestions (and complaints) as a springboard for when we begin working on post-release content. Here are some examples of ideas that will not be able to make it into the game. Mostly these additions describe a very different game than FTL and so are unlikely to even make it into expansions.

Multiplayer
Multi-Ship Combat
‘Planet/Space station exploration
Larger, Multi-deck ships"
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JudsonCc
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2012 7:43 pm

Re: Suggestion: Large-scale battles

Postby JudsonCc » Wed Jun 13, 2012 7:56 pm

Okay, but I want my Kickstarter money back if me and 63 buddies can't dock our epic, 16-deck capital ships at a fully-explorable space station after beating another Ventrilo-equipped clan in multi-ship combat and then sell our loot on a Real Money Auction House™. That'd be leet.