Space combat QOL

[Barleyman]

It's very hard to get the ship waypoints oriented since whole arrow business is so coarse, it just jumps around. You'd really need to be able to draw a vector where you'd like to point the nose at. Or just click on waypoint and then do "x marks the spot" to give the aimpoint.

Something simple like the mouse just goes x/y and mousewheel does Z would take a load off the fiddly difficult to control arrow we've got right now. You probably would need one of those 3D controllers that mechanical designers use to make the controls work properly with the current scheme.

If we can get a 3D grid, it'd help a bit.

There is a padlock command, that's hidden in "special commands", perhaps it should come out of there? The downside of that command is that you then can't burn. I can see where you're coming from with that as pointing nose at target and burning isn't the best idea in newtonian space. But perhaps we need a couple of additional commands such as "close in" to a given target. Or, say, close in towards an "x marks the spot" position in the 3D grid you just added for us. With burn control widget so I can say "close in to the target with 2kps burn" or something to that effect.

Finally, you can get oscillation when you have two AI objects closing in towards each other. If you're old enough to remember Elite: Frontier, that game suffered from it big time. It had this autopilot mode that was supposed to close in with a selected enemy ship, only the problem is that the said enemy ship was ALSO using that same mode. What would happen is that the ships would wildly oscillate in yo-yo fashion of accelerating to a great speed and passing each other far too fast to lay any fire.. And then flip over and apply braking burn for the next loop. I think something like that might be happening when you allow AI to control ships as the xenos are making high-dV turns and your ships are then trying to compensate which makes xenos change their flight path and .. You see where this is going

I don't know what's a reasonable solution to that problem. In any case the speeds don't get out of hand like that here but your ships definitely think waving their butt at the enemy is the way to go. Sorry guys, but you don't have a torch drive that can be weaponized yet. With Elite: Frontier the solution was to simply switch off the autopilot, ignoring what the manual says. That way the AI would use it's close-in autopilot and would nicely plot intercept and synchronize speed when close by. You could then use lateral thrusters manually to wiggle the ship while pointing your nose at the enemy.

[bane]

It is the waypoint system. There is no good solution to it because the waypoints themselves are counterintuitive and anti-RTS.

Imagine... Total War Warhammer (armies), Total War Empire (the sea battles specifically), Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 (space fleet combat) or... even any normal RTS such as Age of Empires with waypoints. It is not fun. Even Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts avoids waypoints similar TI.

I can only assume that the game designer here is not into RTS. RTS ship combat usually is about moving and turning it. No magic there. And, if you need to, you can still add "declining" in 3D space or pitch it to the right (usually with the movement marker).

I also noticed that almost all YouTubers move their fleets in Terra Invicta like on a flat plane. It is probably more intuitive and easier to use. They move it up a little sometimes or down a bit, but generally, their tactics pretend to be on a flat plane in 3D space.

Examples:

- Terra Invicta: Perun is good at the waypoint system. He did an 8 vs 10 battle here recently (at 6:08): https://youtu.be/7gbsxZus2I8?t=369 -- It shows how it is supposed to work but you can see how messy it gets, with all the waypoints of so many ships, and towards the end, he uses the ram function to plot the course, to avoid plotting it manually the pursuit. And, as you can see, he commands his units almost like on a flat 2D plane.

- Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2: The space combat itself is in some regard more complex than Terra Invicta, in terms of possible ship actions and tactics. It is not perfect by any means, but it handles large fleets easier and more intuitive: https://youtu.be/cgGn2rOkLpI?t=284

[Barleyman]

It is the waypoint system. There is no good solution to it because the waypoints themselves are counterintuitive and anti-RTS.

What I'm asking for is a different method of setting the waypoint rotation. Instead of the current method of trying to get the pointer to jump into correct direction that's quite hard, you should be able to set a point in 3d space that the waypoint rotates towards. So click on a waypoint and you can then set a dot in the 3D space and the waypoint will rotate in that direction. That does away with the current trying to juggle a greased cat-dilemma we have.

True, you could (should?) just implement a target waypoint like this, but that's a bigger change than giving a different method of rotating the waypoint.

An another option would be to copy what actual 3D design programs have, which is this control-ball:

Control ball.png (104.55 KiB) Viewed 1517 times

Autocad has a more basic one but the same idea applies.

3drotate-AutoCAD1.png (3.09 KiB) Viewed 1517 times

So right click on a waypoint and that ball comes up and you can then rotate in 3D to your heart's content.

[Barleyman]

With regards to Perun, yes he can get the waypoints to turn the way he wants. The problem here is that you have to memorize hotkeys to make that happen, I've not been really successfull with that. I guess with a lot of practise you could in fact make clean turns like that but usually when I try it the pointer will jump around depending how you're moving the mouse so small movements can flip it to point in the opposite direction and back to where it was supposed to be. This is where this draggable vector would come in.

After playing with it in skirmish I think I get the concept. You're better off using x/y/z hotkeys to rotate and then apply burn with E. But 3D ball would take away the need to use the x/y/z in the first place. It'd also be good to be able to *select* a waypoint so you can zoom in and rotate the camera with the waypoint as a center point. That'd also allow adding UI buttons for X/Y/Z rotation.

[ecpgieicg]

I also noticed that almost all YouTubers move their fleets in Terra Invicta like on a flat plane. It is probably more intuitive and easier to use. They move it up a little sometimes or down a bit, but generally, their tactics pretend to be on a flat plane in 3D space.

Youtubers are not necessary the paragon of all things.

In any case, the true reason of planer movement (and the corresponding outsized strength of Tall Wall starting formation) is likely because there is currently no way of adjusting vertical axis in waypoints as of 0.3.27. That will change soon. (Exciting!)

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Honestly, the following references

• TW: Empire

• TW: WH

• Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2

are rather mismatched examples.

The better comparison would be the naval battles of TW: Empire or TW: Napoleon. Their controls have more similarities than not. Cuz, at sea, you also have movement restrictions in not being able to sudden stop or attain speed.

btw, Terra Invicta is NOT RTS and the player base is NOT RTS (and the whole gamer base in the world is NOT RTS). So, please don't make Terra Invicta somehow RTS

I digressed.

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When you are able to maneuver in 3D, which the AI does do, I would expect to be able to better take advantage of the finer points such as armor orientation and different ship types for different tactics.

The problem here is that you have to memorize hotkeys to make that happen, I've not been really successfull with that.

UI buttons would be great. When you can move waypoints in 3D though, the orientation will conform. So in perhaps half of the situations, if not more, you wouldn't need to adjust individual orientations.

For UI, we also need the ability to select multiple waypoints of a ship. For example, if you are trying to create distance while keeping nose pointed to an enemy ship, you just need 1 orientation setting -- and you don't want to have to repeat them for all waypoints.

[Barleyman]

I got better with the axis keys with some practise but yes, it's cumbersome. Selectable waypoints or UI rotation buttons that "stick" would be nice.

It seems most of the time it's better not to do much, just let the ships drift in the original formation and speed, apply padlock and ram as appropriate. If the xenos wield a lot of kinetics, doing some vertical manoeuvres could be appropriate but most of the time there's just missile-spam which makes box formation best kept tight.

And if you go vertical you'll want to return to original heading after 1-2 waypoints as reorienting is not that easy.

BTW, undo button, anyone??

[ecpgieicg]

BTW, undo button, anyone??

Undo button in space combat layer and outside. Yes please.

It seems most of the time it's better not to do much, just let the ships drift in the original formation and speed, apply padlock and ram as appropriate.

That's not what I find at all. It makes a big difference in my battles if I face the alien fleet properly. I did start off with a LOT of escorts and they mix into the battles due to battle size limit. But I find that with a range of ships. One Dreadnaught survived a battle with 0% integrity on nose and that's with 97 adamatane armor. So if I hadn't micro'd its orientation, and taken any of the hits to the side, it probably wouldve sunk. (There is a piercing mechanism which is probably why 97 armor couldnt protect it.)

The alien destroyers and smaller ships zip around at will -- and you can't guarantee to shoot them all down at first salvo without extensive experimentation on what constitutes a sufficient salvo per ship -- which I am never going to do because it'd be a terrible game experience and self-inflicted. And with the few ships getting past my main formation, the smaller ships are at great risk even if the shots fired at them aren't plentiful. Hence, again, the importance of nose orientation.

As for keeping formation, some formations I find not worth keeping. Before I toggled formation settings, the starting formation was something bad to get out of. But one formation in particular: High Wall Heavy Center works very well for me as that formation naturally overlaps defensive fires, raises the priority on heavier ships to be deployed at start and ensures effective firing by all ships regardless of how the smaller alien ships maneuver. I find myself having to micro a lot less with this formation.