MEIN COMBAT - A Combat Feedback Compilation

-- MEIN COMBAT --

I have been thinking about combat in SE a lot recently, and have been discussing with the community about various pain points that exist in SE that made combat unenjoyable for most players, as well as some general feedback and ideas, here is our results:

1) Where Combat Should Happen:

PvE:

- There should be combat encounters that we have to engage ourselves.

- There should be an option for random attacks on our base.

- Angering an AI faction should make them attack your base.

- NPC factions could fight wars with each other to claim sectors.

PvP:

- There needs to be some goals for people to fight over, else people will just hide in deep space forever and never come out to fight.

- Territory control for factions - have some building in every sector that we can capture to gain an sector-wide bonus for our faction.

2) Weapons Range:

Bigger is better.

One main problem in SE1 was that we could not reliably increase weapon ranges. It was much easier for modders to reduce a weapons range than to increase it, because of engine limitations. That is why weapons should be developed with highest possible ranges in mind, so people can customize it to their likings.

Personally i think a maximum combat range of 20 km should be possible, even if the game uses smaller ranges by default.

Furthermore, the increased ship speed requires longer weapon ranges too since it takes only about 3 seconds to fly 1 km at 300 m/s and you will be out of range faster than you can shoot.

3) Detection / Radar / Targeting:

For large weapon ranges, naturally we will also need a way to detect and track targets at long range.

I propose to add 2 types of radar / detector blocks:

One short ranged combat radar (up to 20 km) that can target objects in combat range, much like what the AI block was doing.

Long range radar system as described in my other post: https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/53795-idea-long-range-scanning-system

4) Ammo:

One problem about ammo in SE was that it was basically infinite. We never had to worry about ammo at all because it was very cheap to make and we could fit a lot of it into our storages.

1 large container could hold more ammo than we could ever use in a battle, guns were just never running out of ammo, there was no tactical depth to it, only 2 states - either you were ready for combat and had basically an infinite supply, or you were not ready for combat at all and had no ammo.

5) Combat Time:

Combat time was way too short in SE, important systems were destroyed too quickly, and we never really had time to react to anything, it was always just total chaos, and hours or sometimes days worth of work were lost in seconds.

We need to make a distinction here between small and large ships. Obviously, combat with a small ship will often be over relatively fast, but combat with a large ship should last for a long time, 5-10 minutes on average at a minimum considering the investment.

I think energy shields would be a very good way to extend combat time and would make it very easy for players to make their desired combat time as long or as short as they like in their servers.

Here is a really good example of how shields could work in SE2: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3154379105

6) Enemy Locations:

Would be great to have some enemies everywhere (space, air, land, water)

7) Ship Speed:

Ships need a way to catch up to each other in combat, having a situation where 2 ships are chasing each other at max speed is absolutely unenjoyable and stupid.

Sadly this is the outcome of combat in survival servers more often than not, and there needs to be a solution.

Increasing the weapon ranges will already help a lot with this problem, however, it will not be enough.

To deal with this problem, ships could be able to accelerate beyond the 300 m/s limit, at greatly increased fuel or power cost, up to a maximum of 400 m/s.

While flying faster than 300 m/s, drag is applied to the ship until it is back to 300 m/s.

This would allow for ships to catch up to disabled ships that have no engines, and also prevent endless fleeing or chasing by burning up fuel rather quickly.

Additionally, some new weapons / tools, which can influence a ships speed, could be introduced:

- Tractor Cannon - Fires a projectile at medium ranges that when it hits a ship slightly pulls it towards the direction it was fired from.

- Force Cannon - Same as above but inverse effect - it pushes instead of pulling.

- Tractor Beam - A short range beam that pulls ships with a certain force

- Disruptor Cannon - Fires an energy projectile that when it hits a ship reduces its acceleration by 50% for a duration, and has a small chance to disable its thruster controls for a few seconds.

(i think these can also have some fun uses outside of combat)

8) Gun Spam:

The usual combat strategy in SE was to just build as many turrets or guns as possible in an ugly block shape, there needs to be some way to limit gun placement or discourage spamming of blocks without proper infrastructure.

I think the best solution for this problem would be to have diminishing returns on blocks.

9) Combat Difficulty:

I think most players will prefer combat to be difficult and engaging, if you make it too easy, people will quickly lose interest in the game.

There will always be people whining about combat being too difficult, it will be best to add an "easy mode" for this type of players.

10) Economy and War

In most good economy simulations, war is usually a driving factor. Combat and destruction creates supply and demand, scarcity forges alliances. A market can not work if resources are overly abundant and without any demand for them.