I have to agree. Weren't we told that they were going to do something fun with the battle view? Allow us to at least give out fleets some commands before going into combat or something. Personally I'd prefer full Tactical Combat control (especially in MP) but devs don't want that.

I 100% agree with you here except FE's TC pales in comparison to Age of Wonders 3 but even it would be better than what is in the game now.  It is a shame you spend all this time designing cool ships yet you really can't do anything with them in battle. This was what I did not like about GC2 as well.  Now I have yet to see these so called "massive battles' that the anti-tactical battle people keep bringing up.  But if they are in the game I still would want TC battles because right now every battle is auto-resolve which is no fun.

At some point Brad mentioned that they were planning on implementing a "hardcore" combat mode that would take weapon arcs and ship facing and other factors into consideration.  If you are going to all that trouble why not just implement tactical combat anyway but whatever...it's their game.

If we want to allow missile boats to keep range, then we should also correct the issue of missiles being actually effective weapons.

Missiles would not be an effective weapon for general ship to ship combat. Point defense and escort screens using kinetic and beam based point defense would make it almost impossible for even hundreds of missiles per volley to make it through.

Missiles would be at their most effective on assault (carrier based bomber type) fighters, that can get in close and deliver a payload after bypassing much of the point defense screen.

Beams and Kinetics realistically would be the most common capital ship weapons. Very difficult to shoot a railgun slug down with another smaller railgun. Impossible to shoot a beam down. Unless the missile is invisible, they are going to be shot down by PD. The only way to defeat the PD is going to be massive volume, and how economical is that?

I actually see an ENORMOUS potential for the tactical ship to ship combat in this game.

I really, really, really hope they act on this potential. Few rambling ideas first.

1) The ships should have some sort of logic regarding positioning. As the OP mentioned, just charging in and fighting like they are all fighters seems odd. Capital ships should be looking to find their maximum range and maintain that range vs other capital ships with tactical movement determining who keeps range and who doesn't.

2) The weapon systems and defensive systems need a revamp.

          a) Weapons should be scaled by ship size almost completely with their damage modified by the ship size. For example and these are just numbers being thrown around to explain the point. A tiny sized railgun should do 1 point of damage per hit to all sub capital ships. A tiny sized rail gun should do .5 damage a hit to a medium capital ship, .25 damage per hit to a large capital, .1 to a massive cap. Basically, kinetic weapons should have their damage modified based on the target. Every tier higher reduces the damage by say .25%. Every tier lower doubles the damage, but reduces the accuracy (to simulate tracking). So a large railgun does 1 damage against other large ships. 2 damage versus medium ships. 4 damage versus small, and 8 versus tiny. (if it already works like this regarding weapon masses I am unaware, I haven't played with anything beyond small ship sizes yet!)

          b ) Missiles should NOT follow this system. Missiles don't get bigger, or smaller, there just becomes "more" being fired at a single time. Damage yield on missiles should remain the same. A tiny stinger should do the same as a single stinger launched from a massive hull. 

          c) Beam weapons should follow a system similar to kinetic weapons, but rather than the size of the projectile being throw being larger and more massive, it takes more energy, so the beam just does more damage.

          d) Defensive systems could work roughly like this.

                        i) Armor, flat defensive bonus against everything, but modified along the following lines. Kinetic weapons do .5%, missiles do full damage, beams do 150% to armor.

                        ii) Point defense, offers no protection to beam weapons or kinetic weapons, but is HIGHLY effective versus missile systems. To balance this, point defense would negate X number of missiles. So a 16 point defense system is in essence 16 mini rail guns that can shoot down up to 16 missiles.

                        iii) The jack of all trades defense system. Basically operates as an HP buffer, takes full damage from all weapon systems. Point for point probably the least efficient, but it gives the greatest generalist protection.

3) The ability to modify or create tactical ship roles. Assault, Support, Capital etc. 

4) A general fleet strategy that can be applied to fleets like a template.

           a) knife fight fleet, just charge in, get as close as possible and swing away.

           b ) the run away pepper you from range strategy. 

           c) you get the idea

These kind of concepts applied to a more in depth tactical battle system would be amazing and DLC well worth the purchase.

Realism is a very dubious thing to start arguing about when it comes to space combat. 'Real' space combat would almost certainly bear no resemblance to anything like the kind of thing portrayed in the game (and nearly all other SF games, movies and TV shows). It would all occur at vast speeds and distances.

With the scope of this game I'm pretty certain that combat will get an overhaul at some point with more interesting choices for us to deal with. But it will not be in the near future.

I don't expect to see any tactical combat that we can ever control, but perhaps influence with some sort of choice is not entirely impossible.

The thing that I would like to have more than tactical combat that we control would be combat that not always end up with one side getting annihilated. That would add more to the game than controllable combat in my opinion. But I don't think that is very likely either.

The issue is, it doesn't have to be real. However, it should be based on some semblance of reality. Why? Simplicity sake. The more organic something is, the easier it is to apply. You don't have to jump through hoops.

Why are missile systems effective in real life? Why do they exist? 

Why do large bore artillery exist? Why do large bore guns exist in general? What makes them effective?

Why would rail guns be effective? Why are we developing them?

Why would a beam weapon be effective? Why is there work to develop those?

Or you can throw these fundamental questions out the window, and then you have an enormous balancing mess, where missiles are the best weapon, and to fit some sort of odd balancing equation kinetic weapons have the shortest range...It's almost like physics only apply to missiles.

That magnetically accelerated 10 KG slug you just put down range doesn't suddenly stop moving. That missile has to conserve fuel for maneuvering. 

Not only does this sort out your balancing problems, but it adds DEPTH to the gameplay, because all the systems in the real world that have risen up regarding naval combat (the most obvious analog here) can be applied.

The visual is just a visual. Nothing changes from the moment the entire battle hits are calculated and the end of the battle viewer. They have said that the viewer is just a representation, not actual battle.

Eh they could improve it and make it work out just fine...  Put a 10-25% speed penalty on each missle rack in combat (depending on tech level bigger hurts speed more), include some rationalization  like the warheads can only take some much stress, then it makes thrusters and range make sense, while keeping energy and kinetic viable, since thrusters will help them more.  It really is kinda stupid currently, and saying that would be OP is just an excuse... you can always balance without having things behave wonky.

This thread is a great example of why we don't allow for tactical control of units.

Because someone would have made a unit within infinite kiting ability and we'd be spending development resources endlessly dealing with that rather than focusing on making the overall game better.

If you want tactical battles, find another game. We will NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER have tactical battles in GalCiv.

It's all about what you bring with you and understanding how those forces work and making plans around that.

I don't really need or care for tactical battles. 

I just would like the current system to make sense.  With range and speed being featured aspects of a ship and weapon type, it is illogical for combat ships to not fully utilize their range/speed advantage.

As others have mentioned above, perhaps range should be taken out until it is fully fleshed out by the developers.  Combat speed (ie thrusters) could just add to the evasion factor/roll. 

Which is perfectly fine with me.

Could you clarify whether or not the battle viewer is displaying an accurate 'replay' of the battle simulation or not? There seems to be some confusion about it - I had been assuming it was accurate, and so I could base design and fleet composition decisions on how I see my ships performing in the viewer, but several posters here seem to feel it's just a visual approximation. In which case it's not giving useful feedback for me to make my plans around... 

Indeed.The game might not have controlled tactical combat but it still tactical combat and should be better developed.

But you're saying there's a chance, right?

My post wasn't asking for player controlled tactical combat. It was talking about just developing the system that exists now through tweaks to some mechanics.

I like the hands off approach, I'd just like it to be more expanded on, because it adds another layer to the game. 

Think the point of this thread just went right over your head, which is a bit sad if you represent the devs or are one.  You could make more intuitive ship ai behavior without giving users control, and thats what was being asked for, not to be given control.  The concern of missle boats kiting could easily be adjusted by adding speed penalties to missleboats on a per missle basis, and even giving speed bonuses to say kinetic.  Kiting would be non existent, and the ship combat wouldn't look.... well... mediocre.

Are you familiar with Dominions 4? Where it lacks depth in macro management, it's battle sequences are very good. It uses crude visual representation, where you give commands to certain groups of units before the battle and they follow the scripting to a point.

Do you think you will work towards improving that? Where classification of ships means more than what they target first? Is some movement flexibility within pre-determined AI options possible for battle management in the future?

your post is not logical if faster ship could kite, who would have the best tech would instawin every fight

its game, it doesnt have to be hyper realistic in every aspect

They have said something in the line of giving people more control over ship behavior in combat... and hints about some sort of influence over the combat before a battle starts. But I don't think we will ever see any more direct influence as long as the mechanic work as it does. As far as we are told the combat is simulated before the visuals we actually see, unless this change there will be on possibility to influence combat at any other point than before it starts.

I would not mind a better simulation model where there actually is real maneuvering going on and where range and perhaps some rudimentary fire arcs is part of the calculations. This way ship roles would be more than just fire priorities.

I also agree that controllable combat is not really necessary, that just open up things for more abuse and quite frankly feels out of place in a game of this scope. Perhaps doable on the smaller maps, but certainly not on the bigger ones. A more complex and interesting battle mechanic would be pretty nice though...

Only with bad balancing... Kiting = high mass of ships (ammo), slow acceleration, easy to catch if not properly defended. Add a nice point defence option and there is no problem whatsoever. Seriously, so many games prevented kiting successfully (SotS...) that this argument is not valid.

I don't think we should confuse a game like GalCiv with too much reality.

For weapons in real space...

Classical Rail-Guns would be totally outclassed by beam weapons while beam weapons would be totally outclassed with missiles that have near infinite range in space as long as you can detect the opponent in time.

It would be more appropriate for Rail-Guns to launch missiles in a real space combat scenario.

There are some nice articles to read about these things if one feels inclined to do so...

Double post...

Yes. I know the viewer is a replay. That doesn't mean it's not useful information (assuming that it's an accurate replay of the battle sim).

Let's say you're the coach of a football team, and for some reason you can't make it to a game. Which is going to be more useful to you when preparing your team for the next match - being told the final score, or sitting down and watching a replay of the whole game?

Just because the viewer is a replay and you can't change anything by watching it, doesn't mean that the viewer isn't providing very useful feedback on how your ship designs and fleet composition performed in the battle, which you can then use to tune and improve your designs and your fleet composition for future battles.

Once again, I am sorry if I am being dense or obtuse, but I can't see how.