Jan 30, 2024
Alliance of the Sacred Suns - texashawk76
Hello everyone! Hope everyone had a good holiday and are ready for the new year! We’re so excited for what the new year will bring Alliance, and we wanted to focus on the revised and updated military system - this will describe the updated system that we will be testing in preparation for our next public beta!
Please note: All development blogs that discuss systems in progress are snapshots of the game at a moment in its development process. Depending on feedback, those systems, including the military, may change further before release. These blogs are a nice way for you to get ‘under the hood’ with us to understand why systems are designed a certain way, and why certain changes were/are being made! TLDR: This system as described may or may not represent the final 1.0 release system!
ALL IMAGES in this blog are APPROVED DESIGN MOCKUPS that represent the look of the final UI. They are NOT screenshots.
First of all, and most important, we have removed the concept of having to create operations to do things in Alliance. We decided that this was way too complex for what players wanted to do, which was basically take some ships and attack a target. So we’ve streamlined the process by removing operations and Operation Points entirely.
In the new concept we’re testing, instead of icons, ships are now actually represented as 3D objects in space, and can be selected either marquee-box style or through the Imperial Organizer. Once ships are selected, you can select a target - a ship/fleet, orbital, system, or planet; or you can select a target first and then add ships to target it, and the selected ships will act appropriately based on what type of ships they are without any further management from you!
For example, if you select a scout ship, and then select a system, it will explore the system. If you select several missile ships and group them with some combat ships, and then select an orbital in a system or planet, the missile ships will attack the orbitals while the combat ships will intercept any ships that attempt to attack the missile ships. If you select several transport ships, and then select a planet, they will attempt to attack the planet with troops, and so on. The fleet will act dynamically depending on what type of ship it is and the target assigned, so as the player, you just select the ships, the target, and go!
Command ships are still in the game, but are now optional to use. You can only deploy a command ship if it has an admiral. Admirals have up to 2 military traits, such as ‘Ground Specialist’ or ‘Bombardier’ that improve the relevant ship's capabilities as long as they are in the same system as the command ship. If the command ship is destroyed, the admiral is killed, so that’s a risk the player needs to consider!
Combat and ship damage have been simplified as well, yet still require strategic consideration and should be easier for players to understand. Now, ships have 2 types of damage they can inflict - explosive and direct. Explosive damage tends to be more damaging, but less accurate and will inflict devastation and pop deaths on a planet, while direct damage is less damaging but is usually more accurate and does not kill pops or inflict much devastation damage. Combat now takes place in 60-second battles, and each ship has a rate of fire for explosive and/or direct fire. Each shot is now tracked and shown in 3D space in the system that it is occurring in! Accuracy is modified by the maneuverability of the target, so basically the faster the target, the lower the accuracy of a given shot. Admirals can also modify accuracy of certain ship types or damage types.
Ground combat has been greatly simplified as well. There are no longer ‘troop units’ that must be created and tracked - now each region has a conquest value (basically hit points) and a defensive modifier, determined by the type of region and planet, and modified by the viceroy’s military value. Any ship can attack a planet, but troop transports are most effective - they have high direct damage that doesn’t kill pops or destroy nearly as much infrastructure, and a high rate of fire, but are otherwise defenseless so should not be sent into a planet that still has a functional planetary defense network!
Regions are attacked one at a time, and once a region’s conquest value reaches 0, that region is considered conquered. The viceroy also checks for planetary surrender after each attack.
If a battle stretches past one cycle, you have the option to retreat the ships or leave them there, but you must pay the energy costs (explained later) for them to remain on station. This means you are not locked into an order past the current cycle.
Movement between systems has changed slightly as well. Now, all ships (except for exploration ships) must use the logistical network between star systems. All ships move the same speed, and cannot ‘offroad’. So the network has greater strategic importance, and offensive and defensive fronts are now a possibility.
Ship building has also been streamlined. Now, there are 3 types of shipyards - minor, major, and capital - that correspond to all other orbital and building levels (I, II, III) and they can each build a specific type of ship once that ship design has been researched.
You still need ship components to build ships, but heavy materials have been removed from the game and ship components now use rare materials, making them more difficult to manufacture and making rare materials more important for exploration and warfare.
Finally, let’s talk about energy. Ships now only use energy; no other resources are tracked when a ship is online. Ships have 2 energy use values: each cycle that a ship is idle or moving, and when a ship is performing its mission. Ships use a great deal more energy during mission cycles than during idle cycles.
All resources, but especially energy, has been scaled down considerably in new builds so large military offensives can quickly run a House or your Empire dry of energy, causing blackouts on your planets, orbitals and planetary buildings to go offline, and eventually riots and people leaving the dark planets!
Those are the major changes to the military system; we think these hands-on changes will make it more tactile, and we hope y’all will really enjoy diving into it!
Until next month!
Please note: All development blogs that discuss systems in progress are snapshots of the game at a moment in its development process. Depending on feedback, those systems, including the military, may change further before release. These blogs are a nice way for you to get ‘under the hood’ with us to understand why systems are designed a certain way, and why certain changes were/are being made! TLDR: This system as described may or may not represent the final 1.0 release system!
ALL IMAGES in this blog are APPROVED DESIGN MOCKUPS that represent the look of the final UI. They are NOT screenshots.
THE BASICS
First of all, and most important, we have removed the concept of having to create operations to do things in Alliance. We decided that this was way too complex for what players wanted to do, which was basically take some ships and attack a target. So we’ve streamlined the process by removing operations and Operation Points entirely.
In the new concept we’re testing, instead of icons, ships are now actually represented as 3D objects in space, and can be selected either marquee-box style or through the Imperial Organizer. Once ships are selected, you can select a target - a ship/fleet, orbital, system, or planet; or you can select a target first and then add ships to target it, and the selected ships will act appropriately based on what type of ships they are without any further management from you!
For example, if you select a scout ship, and then select a system, it will explore the system. If you select several missile ships and group them with some combat ships, and then select an orbital in a system or planet, the missile ships will attack the orbitals while the combat ships will intercept any ships that attempt to attack the missile ships. If you select several transport ships, and then select a planet, they will attempt to attack the planet with troops, and so on. The fleet will act dynamically depending on what type of ship it is and the target assigned, so as the player, you just select the ships, the target, and go!
Command ships are still in the game, but are now optional to use. You can only deploy a command ship if it has an admiral. Admirals have up to 2 military traits, such as ‘Ground Specialist’ or ‘Bombardier’ that improve the relevant ship's capabilities as long as they are in the same system as the command ship. If the command ship is destroyed, the admiral is killed, so that’s a risk the player needs to consider!
SPACE COMBAT
Combat and ship damage have been simplified as well, yet still require strategic consideration and should be easier for players to understand. Now, ships have 2 types of damage they can inflict - explosive and direct. Explosive damage tends to be more damaging, but less accurate and will inflict devastation and pop deaths on a planet, while direct damage is less damaging but is usually more accurate and does not kill pops or inflict much devastation damage. Combat now takes place in 60-second battles, and each ship has a rate of fire for explosive and/or direct fire. Each shot is now tracked and shown in 3D space in the system that it is occurring in! Accuracy is modified by the maneuverability of the target, so basically the faster the target, the lower the accuracy of a given shot. Admirals can also modify accuracy of certain ship types or damage types.
GROUND POUNDING
Ground combat has been greatly simplified as well. There are no longer ‘troop units’ that must be created and tracked - now each region has a conquest value (basically hit points) and a defensive modifier, determined by the type of region and planet, and modified by the viceroy’s military value. Any ship can attack a planet, but troop transports are most effective - they have high direct damage that doesn’t kill pops or destroy nearly as much infrastructure, and a high rate of fire, but are otherwise defenseless so should not be sent into a planet that still has a functional planetary defense network!
Regions are attacked one at a time, and once a region’s conquest value reaches 0, that region is considered conquered. The viceroy also checks for planetary surrender after each attack.
If a battle stretches past one cycle, you have the option to retreat the ships or leave them there, but you must pay the energy costs (explained later) for them to remain on station. This means you are not locked into an order past the current cycle.
Movement between systems has changed slightly as well. Now, all ships (except for exploration ships) must use the logistical network between star systems. All ships move the same speed, and cannot ‘offroad’. So the network has greater strategic importance, and offensive and defensive fronts are now a possibility.
BUILDING WEAPONS OF WAR
Ship building has also been streamlined. Now, there are 3 types of shipyards - minor, major, and capital - that correspond to all other orbital and building levels (I, II, III) and they can each build a specific type of ship once that ship design has been researched.
You still need ship components to build ships, but heavy materials have been removed from the game and ship components now use rare materials, making them more difficult to manufacture and making rare materials more important for exploration and warfare.
ENERGY/LOGISTICS
Finally, let’s talk about energy. Ships now only use energy; no other resources are tracked when a ship is online. Ships have 2 energy use values: each cycle that a ship is idle or moving, and when a ship is performing its mission. Ships use a great deal more energy during mission cycles than during idle cycles.
All resources, but especially energy, has been scaled down considerably in new builds so large military offensives can quickly run a House or your Empire dry of energy, causing blackouts on your planets, orbitals and planetary buildings to go offline, and eventually riots and people leaving the dark planets!
Those are the major changes to the military system; we think these hands-on changes will make it more tactile, and we hope y’all will really enjoy diving into it!
Until next month!
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