Broadside Weapon Layouts

I came to learn pretty early that you cannot equip your ships with turrets, only fixed-direction weapons with a relatively narrow firing arc. By default all fitted weapons are forward-facing, meaning enemy ships can only be fired upon from a forward-facing position.

This got me thinking, how effective would it be to fit weapons in a broadside arrangement instead of a forward-facing arrangement? Forward-facing weapons usually involve a ship making a run on an enemy, going around and turning for another run (depending on whether you and the enemy keep on moving). With a broadside arrangement you can keep an enemy under constant fire by circling them and keeping them within the firing arc of your broadside weapons, allowing for much higher DPS. The question is: Will the AI use broadside-equipped ships effectively within the battle viewer? Will the AI know to turn ships into a line of battle to bring broadsides to bear? And will the AI be smart enough to circle a target in an effort to expose blind spots?

I am too early in the game and have not seen full-scale war yet to test such layouts, does anyone have any experience in testing alternative weapon orientations in battles larger than just taking a few shots at a pirate or two? I searched around a bit but the Google gestapo gave me no results and searching on the forums here returned results from 2015 and earlier so, I would assume broadside layouts is not a common strategy at this point.

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

mortili

Join Date 05/2013

+19

Weapon-orientation doesnt matter in gc3. The battle-viewer dosnt reflect whats actually going on.its just there to look pretty^^

Successfully updated karma reason!

This would be an interesting idea if you could specify facing for weapons in the ship designer which gives a bonus to hit or something?

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting mortili,

reply 1

Weapon-orientation doesnt matter in gc3. The battle-viewer dosnt reflect whats actually going on.its just there to look pretty^^

So basically the outcome of a battle is determined beforehand by calculations of the numbers involved, and then the battle viewer simply plays it out according to that predetermined outcome? I sort of expected something like that so it's no real bummer. I still hoped that by viewing a battle instead of just auto-resolving it on the map, the manoeuvers of ships might still have an effect on the outcome - like a medium hull ship finding itself behind a large hull ship for example, giving it a clear advantage.

I still appreciate the battle viewer though, much more interesting than a mere auto-resolve screen.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Yeah I agree with you that the battle scenes are a bit of a shame.

I would prefer to play the battle scenes and think it wouldn't be beyond Stardock's skills to come up with an interface where you could control the ships movement (perhaps on tiles) and the ships' weapons functions with the opportunity to do a broadside or attack the rear of a vessel just as you mentioned. This might lead to weapons placements techs (other space 4x games have this functionality (I believe Star Drive does) or better techs that would allow you to fire lasers or missiles or guns backwards. That would certainly make Gal Civ of whatever number the best 4x game ever.

But I suppose we can only have so much at once - what with the new expansion out soon.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting EmperorDragon77,

reply 3

So basically the outcome of a battle is determined beforehand by calculations of the numbers involved, and then the battle viewer simply plays it out according to that predetermined outcome?

yes, that is how it works.

Successfully updated karma reason!

While I know SD is deeply against adding tactical battle control, weapon facing, if combined with the role system and ship behaviors would be a great way to enhance the battle system, however, it visually still would be a bit clunky because you have such maximum freedom of design with the ship editor.

Basically, you'd have to design ships as you do currently, but the Role you picked for the ship would dictate where the weapon shots actually come from/arcs and when they fire/etc. and how they target.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I hate to rain on your parade, but I highly doubt that a space battle would be in any way similar to a ww2 naval battle. The whole concept of broadsides etc only make sense in a close quarters naval battle. Even today's naval battles are fought by aircraft and over the horizon missile cruisers. The distances involved in any realistic space battle would be immense.

A big advantage of missiles is that they have no firing arc, while a ship with energy or kinetic weapons would very likely have an extremely wide firing arcs by design.

It's a lot more fun when the battles are in close quarters though

Successfully updated karma reason!

True. I mean... There's a reason virtually all my ship designs rely on turrets.

But I was thinking purely that the current combat model is sadly underdeveloped and not engrossing.

Successfully updated karma reason!