Firing arcs and their place in DW2 (Full Version)

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Whiskiz -> Firing arcs and their place in DW2 (1/29/2021 11:57:53 AM)

I love the idea of firing arcs, of direct fire turrets and firing arcs vs indirect fire or seeking like missiles etc.

Maybe broadsides vs front facing and whatever else.

Which also goes great with apparently the combat having been made slower, making it more tactical also and so synergizing nicely.

But I'll be interested to see just how much of a place firing arcs have in a game like this, how much we're able to use and interact with them and how much of an impact good use will have:

-In a game that isn't specifically built around the ship combat, like Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 and their Spaceship RPG like combat for example. Instead more like an RTS with fleet vs fleet.

-In a game where mostly ship combat is automated with orders specifying things like roles, actions, attitudes and weapon ranges. Manual control of every ship, in every fleet, in every battle, at all times in all situations of each battle technically possible of course, but..

-And in a game where the ranges seem relatively low to work with such a system in a meaningful way, giving less room to maneuver for said firing arcs and tactics for an entire fleet vs another entire fleet - especially in a fixed perspective, fixed plane? For all the ships to be maneuvering around on.

I guess we'll find out soon and hopefully it comes into play more than I fear it might.




Cauldyth -> RE: Firing arcs and their place in DW2 (1/29/2021 12:06:23 PM)

I think one immediate impact they'll have is to increase the importance of maneuverability. Load up your ship with more thrusters to increase its turning rate, and the faster it'll be able to bring its weapons to bear on a target. You can kind of see that in the stream once the combat starts to get messy. Once a ship's current target is destroyed, it needs to turn towards a new one.

At the start of the fight, you can also see when the one Mortalen ship warps behind the Ackdarian fleet, the Ackdarians are facing away and unable to fire on it. The better their maneuverability rating, the faster they'd be able to rectify that.



Whiskiz -> RE: Firing arcs and their place in DW2 (1/29/2021 12:15:56 PM)

True. I guess even the big, mostly automated, random fleet battles will still be affected by firing arcs and I guess longer ranges would reduce the impact of firing arcs, in this scenario.

I guess it does also make Thrusters more meaningful which is cool.

I wonder if AI can prioritise the different arcs of different weapons depending on the size/type of enemy they're targeting, unless most arc setups have a nice majority where they want to be facing for the most effectiveness/most manageable development anyway.

Maybe I saw firing arcs and tunnel visioned on hands-on use, then tried to figure out how it'd work in this kind of environment.

I guess I just try to get RPG style spaceship combat anytime the opportunity presents itself haha, as well as being a fan of making the most of any tactical options.



Erik Rutins -> RE: Firing arcs and their place in DW2 (1/29/2021 3:41:02 PM)

The tactical AI has been taught to understand fire arcs, the firepower within a given arc and range and to consider all that in both how it maneuvers its ship and what it targets.



Bleek -> RE: Firing arcs and their place in DW2 (1/29/2021 3:46:50 PM)

Firing arcs are great, it's another layer of strategy. Flanking in particular. Or surprise readguard action.

Instead of just throwing a blob at another blob *cough* Stellaris *cough*.



ncc1701e -> RE: Firing arcs and their place in DW2 (1/29/2021 5:10:02 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bleek

Or surprise readguard action


Must think in Russian... [:D]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky-uzsw0kqw



Jorgen_CAB -> RE: Firing arcs and their place in DW2 (1/29/2021 10:14:26 PM)

It would be interesting if some ships (or at least factions) can get fire arcs more like that of wet navy gun layouts. So heavy weapons slots could fire front to side or back to side and then medium weapons have more narrow arcs and some small get good arcs and some smalls more narrow arcs.

So that not all the ships just have most of their firepower facing forward which realistically is not the best position for direct fire weapons to begin with. This forces the ship to fire in the same direction it travels which is not optimal, especially in a formation.

If a ship wants to keep range to their target (have a long range weapon) if make zero sense to put the guns facing forward in any way. Even with close range weapons then facing them forward still don't seem reasonable.



Erik Rutins -> RE: Firing arcs and their place in DW2 (1/31/2021 12:42:22 AM)

There is variation in the design philosophy of weapon placement and weapon arcs among the factions. This is actually another point of differentiation. While you as the player have the ultimate choice of where to put your weapons on a hull if you wish to customize your designs, some factions will be more geared towards all around fire arcs, others more towards head on fire arcs, some even towards more rear-facing arcs.



razaron -> RE: Firing arcs and their place in DW2 (1/31/2021 2:30:54 AM)

Firing arcs sound fun, even if late game battles end up blob fights.
I imagine it'll go something like:
- Early game: you hardly have any ships so microing every ship like an RTS will be fun and viable. Trying to keep as many of your guns on target while staying out of the enemies firing arcs.
- Mid game: you're starting to get more and bigger ships. So you let you smaller ships blob fight, while microing your flagships for glorious salvos.
- Late game: too many ships to micro. Fleets will boil down to having a front side and back side with tactics being a choice of which side you engage first, maybe both via baiting from the front to attack the rear. Which while sounding boring I think is tactical enough, since late game imho is more about strategy than tactics.



Whiskiz -> RE: Firing arcs and their place in DW2 (1/31/2021 2:50:19 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

There is variation in the design philosophy of weapon placement and weapon arcs among the factions. This is actually another point of differentiation. While you as the player have the ultimate choice of where to put your weapons on a hull if you wish to customize your designs, some factions will be more geared towards all around fire arcs, others more towards head on fire arcs, some even towards more rear-facing arcs.


Man that is awesome.

Whether we take fine control of it all, partially, or we let it mostly play out in automated combat, it's going to make things much more unique and tactical.

Just the idea alone feels like it'd add so much more work for balancing and design, no wonder you say each race takes alot of work - between ship design and balance as well as 3D art.

No-one saw firing arcs coming much less expected something like it, so it didn't need to be done but you guys went ahead and put in the work anyway.

After the badgering about the UI [:'(] i just wanted to also leave some positive feedback about some of the awesome things you guys are currently doing too.

Economy more scarce and meaningful, combat slower and more meaningful, combat more unique and tactical, combat much prettier looking, giving the world more texture and strategic value via nebulae, making exploration and the "world" more meaningful with warp-drive jumping limits, the rest of the awesome graphics outside of combat, adding cool new concepts like shipwreck salvaging after battles.

Not bad for oldschool =P



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