Attack type

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Hello, fellow players.
Don't want to offend anybody, but I don't see a tactical use in attack modes. In vanilla it controls missile shooting frequency. However, it seems a little strange that anyone would choose anything but the highest shooting frequency. Sure there are cases when USO cannot reach interceptor from its longest reaching weapon distance but this usually does not play role in attacking really dangerous opponents when firepower matters a lot.

Any interesting suggestions what this attack mode may mean besides shooting speed?

Here is what I have in mind:
cautious: retreat after first hit
normal: retreat after 50% damage
aggressive: no retreat

This would make sense for group attack automatically pulling damaged interceptors out of the battle.

[psavola]

Actually in vanilla and in many mods, your corner case 'USO cannot reach interceptor from its longest reaching weapon' is the typical situation. Most of the engagements are such that you equip the crafts with long-range weapons for the specific purpose of keeping the distance. And engaging long-range enemy crafts is the exception (for which you usually require multiple craft and/or desperation).

By the way, current enemy dogfighting is very simplistic. If one wanted to make it more realistic, the engine should support a change in USO aggression mode. That is, if they get hit from a longer distance, they would either choose to aggressively engage you (to get within their own shooting distance - something like current hunter-killer behaviour) provided that they are faster than you, or flee quicker. Just sitting still and waiting to be annihilated with long-distance weapons, even though they would have the faster speed to engage or flee, makes little sense. But I'm not sure if such dogfighting mechanics improvements are a high priority in OXCE.

Back to the current behaviour,  if your mod is designed in a way that USOs can essentially always hit you back, I can certainly see that you might want the attack modes to be somewhat different. But I doubt OXCE allows this to be modded, and I don't see why the current mode should change.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I am not proposing OXCE change. Can do my own fork. No biggie.

I am just collecting feedback on what sensible meaning can be assigned to these modes.

You are right that people usually equip interceptor with different range weapons just to use long ranged one to keep out of USO weapon reach. Still it does not make much sense to me for two reasons.

1. If longer ranged weapon is so safe, why not equip both of them? They are not only allow to receive no damage from smaller USOs but generally more safer even if it shoots back. And having two of them shooting at the same time is even more effective. I cannot wrap my head around having two different weapons on the same interceptor. If, for some reason, player wants to have a mix of weapons to use against different opponents than the best way would be to differentiate a role of whole interceptors. I.e. half of interceptors with long ranged and others with short ranged weapon. This way they are twice as more effective at their respective tasks.

2. Tougher USOs, where firepower start defining interceptor life or death, have long enough reach to shoot interceptor at any range. Mixing weapons there is also quite stupid tactic. One would loose both half of reach and half of firepower/payload with that resulting in higher interceptor casualties.


Even if some people like to mix different ranged weapon, tying mode with shoot frequency is generally stupid game idea. Why would anyone prefer to reduce their firepower?

[psavola]

It depends on the context which weapons you equip.

If you have two identical slots, in many cases in games like TFTD I most often equip them with the same, be it DUP or when playing some mods (like TWOTS) then some other weapons. The problem is that unless you have something like vanilla laser beam/sonic oscillator that has essentially unlimited ammo, you may run out of your ammo if you have just one gun of a particular type (if it was otherwise and DPS was not a concern, I might more often equip the craft with different weapons). For example in vanilla TFTD you need double DUP launchers to take down all the small subs with one craft reliably.

What I think you're essentially saying is that if everytime all the weapons on the craft are identical, there is not much difference between different attack modes (except if you want to use aggressive, for example, to make sure the USO does not flee) - and in that case the attack modes might be redefined to mean something else.

The problem with that would be that in many mods and games there are valid reasons that all the weapons are not the same, so you'll need some of those current attack mode features anyway. Also, there are major mods like XCF where crafts have different kinds of weapon slots, one for example for short-range cannons, the other(s) for long range missiles, etc. (also either/or, not necessarily 'and'). So what you equip might change a lot. And to avoid confusion the interface cannot change each time you engage.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I agree that current behavior should not change and I didn't even plan it. But maybe to add some functionality optionally for people to turn it on/off as needed.

In my mod I am trying to make USOs proportionally difficult to engage. Player would need to attack larger opponents in group. And rotating interceptors in group is a very annoying job. One misclick and you lose an interceptor or battle. Ugh.

I am thinking to use attack modes to help player rotating them automatically. I.e. more often, less often, never (suicidal).