Some Thoughts On Dogfights

[Belmakor]

Having taken a break from playing the game at the start of the year I decided to jump back in and see what had changed and then reflect.

Dog fights

1. Like the new look of the dog fight GUI.

2. Really love being able to change the speed of my aircraft (+)

3. Being able to change the speed of my aircraft makes dog fights really easy (-).

About this third point. I have heard mention of improved AI for more advanced tactics however I'm not sure how this will really help the situation. I suspect that as the game progresses and you end up with fighter wings vs mixed ufos things will get interesting and hectic. However at the moment, engagements are quite boring. Now this isn't an issue if the ticker does (as has been stated) drop low enough that you are only fighting once every few days. But if your like me and fast forward most of the time you will end up fighting against single aircraft so often and punctuated with only occasional ground combat against pitiful forces of 1 or 2 aliens that things get boring quickly.

Now I understand the need for getting new players into the game gently and have no qualms about this (it is also more lore friendly). But the question is how to make the game more interesting for other players.

Could you give us the option of a quick resolve button for dogfights? *dodges bottles*

The interface is already there for the intercept on the geoscape. How about giving another button for Auto-resolve with a percentage next to it of the chance of success. I think I would probably prefer this to fighting single scouts or fighters as I find the combat at present just too easy (1 vs 1) or too boring (when 3 vs 1).

The percentage need only take into account the type of aircraft and number on each side and perhaps a random seed for the UFO craft which determines its pilots ability (to make things slightly less obvious).

Either that or maybe an easy way to drop some tactics into the mix is to start the dogfight with a deployment zone. It doesn't have to be big and could be restricted to one or two sides of the screen but would allow you to essentially drop your aircraft into the engagement tactically (perhaps having one come in from an angle). It would add some variety to engagements.

This would give you the option of deploying 1 or more aircraft together (as standard) or splitting them for a hair raising flanking afterburn while one of your aircraft plays bait.

Deployment zones aren't the only idea but they do get around the fact that at present it is really difficult to manoeuvre around the smaller enemy ufos.

On a different note.

I still have some qualms about the Ufo Sighted pop-up screen. Often it pops up and blocks the location of the UFO in question. It makes it kind of difficult to work out whether you should be launching from you Indochina base or Europe from example.

Why not either make this pop up have a very small transparency so you can just make out the UFO or say "Ufo Spotted (Europe)" etc.

Edited March 30, 2012 by Belmakor

[Gauddlike]

The invasion AI is not yet in the game and the rate of progression of the early craft has not yet been balanced.

Neither has the rate at which wings of enemies will form rather than solo craft arriving.

The power of weapons and toughness of aircraft has also not been balanced yet.

Taken together this means that the difficulty of the fights is not set in stone.

If you really don't like the balancing of the current basic implementation then the best bet is to tweak the settings until you feel it is more balanced.

Maybe you could increase the enemy weapon damage or ranges or maybe the UFO turning or flight speeds,

You should also be able to alter the files for the alien missions (AM_ files in assets) to change how early the more powerful craft arrive or their chances of arriving with a wingman.

With a bit of familiarisation you should be able to tweak the air combat into something you find more challenging and fun.

Just remember to make notes of the settings you adjust so you can share them with others, especially when the time comes for balancing.

I believe an auto resolve is planned, but only for fights where you have a large advantage in power over the enemy.

[Chris]

Yeah, at the moment the invasion AI etc isn't balanced. There's also a couple of restrictions in the code we need to fix before we can do so (related to escort spawning and UFO wave size). The next build should have improved combat though. If nothing else, I've made Corvettes a LOT more fearsome.

[Amiga4ever]

Yee Corvette should be a really tough guy )

[Gauddlike]

Wow thanks for that Chris, something else that can wipe the floor with my fighters