Ship and Combat balance?

Well after all little more practice, it's definitely doable. I just had to change tactics somewhat, concentrating on sub-systems (weapons and shields), instead of just pounding at the enemies hull. So far, once I take out their PBCs and LDAs, they almost always turn tail and run.

Still, if they start throwing missles at me, there isn't much power to evade, as combat tends to be closer the usual EoC encounters, reducing reaction times.

The idea of decreasing range was based on lowering the main accel values, thus lowering ship speeds at crossing. The trick there is adjusting the bolt speeds down to match, or every bolt hits the now slower ships. In this case, forward accel is not really down, so I don't know why the combat range is shortening. Weapons ranges are longer, so the answer is not obvious.

Missiles are pretty deadly. You cannot dodge them and counter measures do not move far enough away. I could write a script that allows the player to target them (put them on the contact list). Which would allow the counter of shooting them down. We could also put the attenuation back in, which would let a player who moved away from the missile take less damage (or would take less damage if it hit a counter measure).

I don't know if you tried it, but it might also be possible to make the missile sensor ranges much less than the blast radius. So the missile tries to get a close hit before detonating. Which also means the missile that chased a counter measure might be farther away.

dunno.. it's almost like they all learned the X2 ramming tactic.

I was fighting 3 tugs, and it seemed like the all kept trying to run into me.

Hmmm. Looks like the side accel of a tug is 5. So it must be that they get aimed at you, try to dodge at the last moment, and fail. We might have discovered that there is some minimum accel that we cannot go below without making the AI crazy. Are you actually colliding?

yeah.. they kept colliding with my freighter ( playing combat1 scenario), as well...who kept trying to stay in formation instead of moving out of the way. Once I told the wingman to halt, they blew him up without trouble.

[edit]

Did you guys increase hull strength for tugs or something? They seem alot harder to kill now.

Everything is tougher. It is the part I like best about this balance. Before, you spent 5 hours playing to get the money to hire a wingman, and he died it 30 seconds of combat. Now you have a chance to save them. The wingman commands have been modified, and you can order your wingmen to approach a distant location. So you can send them to safety if things get really bad.