Everything we are discussing here is quite early days into the design, we may well change everything. Don't hang us out to dry for being open.


In looking at the issues that faced the game in 2018, we discovered that ground combat was moving towards a situation where it was impossible to attack a good proportion of starbases.

The linear nature of production means that it is just a case of producing enough tanks and eventually no one in their right mind would attack you. At some point the ratio of fire power to troops available (even if they are shielded by tanks) would mean an attacker could not win.

We want combat in the game, but we do not want it to be an unbelievable feat of [correctly] writing orders to achieve an objective.

So we have been having our usual sets of massive conversations to work out exactly what we think the problem is in order to have a chance of solving it.

We have currently broken down the problem into 4 parts:

• Logistics: It should not be impossible to move large amounts of troops and materiel around the game. Masses of 50LH freighters do not improve the game.
  
• Interest: Ground combat should not be about correctly entering orders for 1000's of ships. We want something strategic, tactical and engaging.
  
• Attachment: No one is attached for 250K tanks, its crazy numbers that have got out of hand.
  
• Maintenance: Linear mu's leads to disaster at some point in the future. Soft caps are needed to prevent insane situations.

Limiting fast jumping and cloaking to small ships to reduce their use only makes sense where there is a fee tied to running individual ships. Clearly this is not the case in Phoenix so keeping the constraints as is is pointless.

Tank Size*
We are proposing removing the limitations of movement of ordinance around the game. This will be done by condensing tanks, so that you have less of them but they do the same job. So for example, a tank might remain as a 40mu item but could take (say) 1000 production/minerals and be as effective as 25 pre-update tanks.

As indicated in the opening section we were using the logistics involved in getting forces from A->B as a wall against ground combat getting out of hand but this is not good for player sanity because players like to break walls. This idea of unrestricted movement scares the hell out of us, but hiding behind a wall and pretending people will not overcome the restriction is worse.

*A similar approach will be taken for aircraft though if anything even more expensive.

Jumping
In order to relocate cargo with speed you have to use 50LH ships, there are not enough incentives to use bigger ships. This is the proposal to render this paradigm obsolete:

• All quantum jump drives and normal jump drives on LH/XLH ships will be replaced with a 'light jump drive' that jumps for 50TU (only usable on XLH/LH ships).
  
• Antimatter drives will jump 5 jumps rather than 4 for 50TUs. Some jump lengths will be changed to keep their nature within the game in light of this mechanic.
  
• Hyperdrives will reduce to 40TUs and still be allowed on heavy hull ships
  
• The starter ship bonus drive will be 40TUs jump.
  

• No restrictions on the size of a cloaking ship.
  
• Cloaking devices will have a fixed number of cloaks before they need maintenance depending on the mark [2/4/6/8]
  
• Maintenance of ships with cloaks will require korondite to restore the cloak charges (yes we have to think about charges on newly installed cloaking devices)

We want to make ground combat interesting to both sides. To achieve this we have to remove the emphasis on assembling the attacking force and the first day of combat.

Zone of Combat
We intend to allow bases to be split up into different zones, that can only be captured sequentially. The benefit however increases with the size of the base due to costs as each zone will be protected by built in defences and ground forces assigned to that area. Only a limited amount of ordinance will be allowed to fight in a particular zone. This will mean that complete overkill (on either side) may not immediately win - however having an infinite reserve to throw in everyday will eventually get the job done.

Beyond the zones under direct control of the base is the outer zone. This will be where the open starport is located (where anyone can land as opposed to the protected and restricted inner starport). It will not be restricted and can be considered as the open ground/no man's land around a base. Attacking GP's reserves will be located here.

Objectives of Ground Combat
Players will generally initiate ground combat for the following reasons:

• Destroy the asset
  
• Capture the asset (to keep or strip)
  
• Drive the asset owner out of the territory
  
• Capture the territory

• Bombard (destroy) - Destroy the base from a distance [tanks + air]
  
• Assault (destroy) - Close range heavy damage destruction and control capture [tanks* + troops]
  
• Capture - Close range control capture [tanks + troops*]
  
• Siege - Encircle base and stop interactions [requires air]

• Dig In - Increase holding of control / reduces damage
  
• Sabotage - Destroy some of the base
  
• Withdraw - Distribute some of the base to the planet from later pickup

We want to make players feel attached to their ground forces, and make the numbers feel less astronomical. To move towards this goal we are considering the following:

Condense Tanks
We mentioned this in logistics but it is equally important here. We are going to make tanks a sensible ratio to troops and reduce their size and increase their firepower.

Most tanks will now be 40-200 mus and their numbers will be divided by 25. The fire power of the new tanks will be in line with the new mechanics for combat but will be equivalent to how they used to be. Their production/mineral requirements will be equally increased. This will mean that 100 tanks actually means a lot and they can be easily moved around but are worth the equivalent to approximately 2,500 pre-update tanks. However maintenance will mean you can not have an infinite amount so where you deploy your tanks will be very important.

Reduction of ships
Since we addressed the 50LH quantum jump drive issues, we would like to see less positions that are bigger. So we are going to allow (for a limited period) you to condense LH/XLH ships into 200 Hull ships (if you do not have access to tech). We will announce what we intend for those with access to higher tech at the time of release so as not to influence player decisions on current research.

An order will be created that allows designated ships (at the same location) to be combined and converted to a new (larger) ship template. This can either be done at a base that has the relevant tech/blueprint (for above 200hulls) and additional items and higher tech items or anywhere in space if you do not require additional support. Any basic tech (that does not require bps) will be added in for free.
We will also be looking to upgrades for ships larger than 200 hulls. Many of these will have a maintenance patch cost or require the exhaustive use of a blueprint.
Ideas include:

• No weekly integrity loss (for light/xlight ships) for X weeks.
  
• Manoeuvre tolerance.
  
• Battle integrity loss tolerance.
  
• Belt/Nebula tolerance (nice to be able to ignore those pesky hazards).
  
• Transaction TU reduction.
  
• Maintenance time reduction (as being out of service can be really annoying).
  
• Cargo efficiency upgrades
  
• Escape pods

As we did with ships many years ago, we need to add something to ground combat that prevents it going out of control in the long run (after we re-establish control that is).

Troop Maintenance
Some of the maintenance for positions will be moved the post-processing run on Monday with the rest of the weekly updates. We can then remove the costs for transferring troops (and the issue with sequential transfers of troops needed for a large ground assault).

Ground Combat Vehicles (Tanks)
To prevent ground combat going out of control we need to have some form of negative feedback loop (like the maintenance of ships). This will require tanks to decay by a certain percentage each week unless they are protected with a finite resource.

All tanks will decay (by a %) unless they are provided with a maintenance factors listed on the tanks stats.
The following produces maintenance factors:

• Troops (each week)
  
• Ordnance Patches [optional per position]
  
• Stellars [optional per position] - has to be in stellar credit