Steve-Law
	In the Weapons Ranges thread, Rich Farry suggested: QUOTE If there is not already an option to do so would it be a good idea to have a combat option toggle for ships to either remain out of LOS of a starbase, or to engage within LOS? It sounds like a ship armed with both direct fire and indirect fire weapons would automatically move into LOS of a starbase to attack with its direct fire weapons, even though it may be more prudent to just attack with its indirect weapons. Someone else also suggested the option to target specific ship types. Any other suggestions for improvements to the battle orders? More conditional Flee orders perhaps? i.e. only flee if your attack is returned. Only flee if outnumbered. Only dump cargo on flee if your opponent is faster/smaller than you. etc. (Perhaps higher ranks get progressively more battle options?) I think there is a huge scope for a much more tactical aspect to Phoenix battles. Any thoughts?
Avatar
	Oh there was something I mentioned during beta, that I think would add quite alot. 1:A order for weapons discharge by type. EX: I have kin missiles and normal ones. I'd like to see the kin missiles fire last, so that by then shields would be down and mak the most of the armour penetration ammo. Or, seeing highly energetic weapons fire sooner (aka light guns) to lower shield depth so that the big guns can like the kin missiles go straight to armour damage. 2: Another thought and seeing that emergency jumps are such a killer, I wouldn't mind seeing pinning ships lose grip on target due to having to manouvre to escape a missile or torpedo spray. If the ship has the evade option turned on, it gets less hits but allows the prey a chance to disengage
David Bethel
	Forwarded from: Richard Farry Proposal: Ammo queues The different ammunition types offer different tactical options, but currently it doesnt seem very flexible to swap between ammo types. Would it be worth having a queues associated with each weapon system (as opposed to individual weapons) that use ammunition so that you could specify what you want to fire and how many rounds? Once a queue had been completely actioned the program could default to the current approach to determine which ammunition type should be used. And thats assuming there isnt already an easy way to swap around what you're firing..
Kragnost
	Due to the way torps work it would be nice to be able to control which rounds they are fired during (in addition to the ammo queue suggestion). With the possibility of people wanting to control when other weapons might be fired should this be available to all weapons? Maybe by numbering the weapons on the space combat report and then allowing options to be set for a given line number (similar to how standing orders are deleted). If a weapon higher in the list were to be destroyed, if the list was renumbered (to avoid) leaving a gap) the options would have to stay with the weapon rather than stick to the number they were assigned against. Now this topic has been opened - are people going to want to have different options (e.g. target structure/weapons/life) for their individual weapon or weapon groups rather than the ship as a whole? Similar to how space fighters could be setup differently to other weapons in BSE??
David Bethel
	We could add Weapon Options Order: Weapon Item Number Target Fixed Position {Yes/No} Target Type Primary Ammo Secondary Ammo This is just another example of a template like boarding parties, only 5 options though and i would prefer not to get too complicated. You could dump secondary ammo type for something else as its not normally relevent (you would have to carry 3 ammo types).
Rich Farry
	QUOTE (David Bethel @ Jun 16 2003, 01:25 PM) We could add Weapon Options Order: Weapon Item Number Target Fixed Position {Yes/No} Would this be better as a single order for the ship? It seems to me that a ship would want to engage directly, or not. I cant see any benefit from only using certain weapons when engaging a fixed position in LOS, no LOS weapons (orbit-->surface) use ammo? QUOTE Primary Ammo Secondary Ammo I think an actual queue would be more powerful, but the above suggestion is much more straightforward and should do much the same job with tweaking between battle days, with less work. How about an option to not fire weapons that require ammunition? For example if you feel that you have no hope at all of penetrating the point defence of the ship you're attacking with your missiles, you may wish to save your ammo and just shoot it with your photon weapons.
Avatar
	Finally the idea I gave in Beta Test gathers an interest It must allow which weapons fire first and what ammo, the rest is only gain
David Bethel
	QUOTE Would this be better as a single order for the ship? It seems to me that a ship would want to engage directly, or not. I cant see any benefit from only using certain weapons when engaging a fixed position in LOS, no LOS weapons (orbit-->surface) use ammo? I thought it might be more flexible like this. Torps are indirect fire but you might not want to waste them on a fixed target and so on - makes it useful for both staying out of targeting and deciding where your least accurate weapons fire.... no sure really. QUOTE I think an actual queue would be more powerful, but the above suggestion is much more straightforward and should do much the same job with tweaking between battle days, with less work. Except there are only 3-4 types of ammo for most things. I can not really see a need for a secondary as its what ever you have left after the primary has gone. In most cases you can resend the order set to change what ammo will be used first after the ship is equiped. Also its space that is a real issue on a combat ship and having many types of ammo seems unlikely. It has to be said that i'm not happy with implementing some list that will not be used with more than 1 or 2 entries and then having to tie this to each weapon.
Frabby
	Incidentially I came up with another proposal some time ago: Hold Fire orders (standing orders for all position types who can perform space combat). Here's some suggestions for you David: ---------------------------------------- 1. Hold Fire On Rounds [Item] [1] [2] [3] [4] The weapon or ammunition specified will not be used in the selected rounds of combat. [Item] is the item that this order applies to. It can be any weapon type or an ammo type. (Same for the other suggestions below) [1-4] is a boolean parameter indicating during which rounds of combat said item shall not be used. Useful for the above stuff (which ammo to fire when). Also good for platforms to save ammo until round 2 when their targets are immobilized with tractor beams from round 1. ---------------------------------------- 2. Hold Fire On Target Hulls Below [Item] [Integer] The weapon or ammunition specified will not fire at targets that have less hulls than specified. [Integer] indicates the hull size. Could be fooled with certain tech. Useful to save ammo against small ships. Like the other suggestions below this would also make sense as a retarget option order. ---------------------------------------- 3. Hold Fire On Ship Class [Item] [Class] Ships of the specified class will not be targeted by the specified weapon or ammunition. [Class] is the ship class number. ---------------------------------------- 4. Hold Fire On Hull Type [Item] [1] [2] [3] [4] [1-4] are boolean parameters for heavy, normal, light and xlight hulls, respectively. ---------------------------------------- 5. Hold Fire If Accuracy Deemed Below [Item] [Real] Will hold fire on the specified weapon or ammunition if the probability to hit during this round is deemed to be below X percent. The accuracy can only be guessed so there is much margin for error here. [Real] is anything between 0 and 100.
Frabby
	Following up on my suggestions above (esp. Point 5): Recently, a ship of mine fired volley after volley of missiles and torpedos at an enemy ship without hitting anything. The targeting accuarcy was 0%. The enemy had a high dodge, but was pinned by a friendly ship and therefore the battle lasted for full 4 rounds. As you can guess I'm a little unhappy now. It makes plainly no sense to fire ammo based weapons if the chance to hit is 0%!
Jons
	Weapon Options Order: Weapon Item Number Target Fixed Position {Yes/No} Target Type Primary Ammo Secondary Ammo I like the above proposal as it will allow ships/starbases much more scope in battle situations. The more options that somebody has to choose from, the more open to error they are.... Cheers Jons
Dan Reed
	QUOTE (Frabby @ Nov 10 2003, 11:58 AM) As you can guess I'm a little unhappy now. It makes plainly no sense to fire ammo based weapons if the chance to hit is 0%! I can understand your point - but there should be at least one round of fire/ammo usage as you will launch the missiles before you realise how quickly the opponent can dodge... Dan
Andy
	QUOTE (David Bethel @ Jun 25 2003, 07:29 PM) QUOTE Would this be better as a single order for the ship? It seems to me that a ship would want to engage directly, or not. I cant see any benefit from only using certain weapons when engaging a fixed position in LOS, no LOS weapons (orbit-->surface) use ammo? I thought it might be more flexible like this. Torps are indirect fire but you might not want to waste them on a fixed target and so on - makes it useful for both staying out of targeting and deciding where your least accurate weapons fire.... no sure really. QUOTE I think an actual queue would be more powerful, but the above suggestion is much more straightforward and should do much the same job with tweaking between battle days, with less work. Except there are only 3-4 types of ammo for most things. I can not really see a need for a secondary as its what ever you have left after the primary has gone. In most cases you can resend the order set to change what ammo will be used first after the ship is equiped. Also its space that is a real issue on a combat ship and having many types of ammo seems unlikely. It has to be said that i'm not happy with implementing some list that will not be used with more than 1 or 2 entries and then having to tie this to each weapon. Ships may not use this as much but platforms would