Combat difficulties

You can use the sector view to re-position your ships around the enemy ship - which is kind of an exploit but would work.

You could also attack the ship when it's moved into another sector and the positions are centered again.

Overall there are a few problems that need to be worked out with "retreating" ships...

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Space Empires Depot | Space Food Empires!

I was looking Settings.txtx and it looks like you adjust how long combat lasts in there. Haven't tried it yet though.

Actually I like this behavior. If your ship is faster you should be able to outrun the enemy. I think the ability to retreat, in a controlled way, is a great comback. This is one thing I never got with SEIV, you have all of the vastness of space arround you but you can't lose a slower ship. Of course SEIII had retreat, but there it was too easy, you could get away even if slower just by crossing the line. I think the way SEV handles it is great, or will be when a few bugs get worked out.

There *is* no edge of the map, actually. If you fly past it the game just extends the grid a little farther.

Would you call it an exploit?

Lets use star trek as an analogy.
Tactical combat is 'thrusters', sector movement would be 'warp engines' and warp gates would be 'worm holes'.

I've seen this happen while playing the AI, when they come through the warp gate and initiate combat and run away out of 'thruster' range, they then continue to their destination because they had enough 'warp' movement to get there in their turn.

But in your turn you attack but don't finish the job, so you re-position to finish the job. Using the above analogy, you've attacked and then as the opponant has tried to flee you've gone to warp within the same sector to finish them off because you've still got enough power to do so in your turn.

Some games re-market that as 'initiative' like in rpgs or so, meaning if you're quicker or get the jump on the enemy you get to hit first or get a 'free' hit. I would say re-positioning would be that free hit.

Of course you could open it up to a vote - re-position, exploit or feature?

BTW, i vote feature
Your lord and master (below Foamy) LordHavoc

I call it an exploit because you're changing the relative distance between the ships. If they have a faster ship then how are you magically catching up to them? Also in sequential movement, the attacking player can continue to re-position and surround the retreating force at will even if the attacker's ships are slow...

You shouldn't be able to re-position your ships in a sector with an enemy.

I'd think I prefer when your ship exceeds the combat map they move into the adjacent sector on the map - where then you can re-engage the enemy starting in a closer relative position.

In Space Empires, there is only one type of movement so the Star Trek analogy is not valid.

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Space Empires Depot | Space Food Empires!

I like the initiative concept, but I think it should be based on racial bonuses as well as crew skill and experience as well as other modifiers associated sensors, thrusters, etc. Pass your initiative roll and you get to reposition, fail it and the other guy gets away.

Speaking of thrusters to aid turning speed will these be in the full version? They were available in Starfury.