Introduction
As you may expect, combat in X Rebirth can take place between the player, other ships and or stations. Combat is worked out and represented in two ways depending on where it is taking place in relation to the player:
- High attention: The detailed simulation we see near the player (same or nearby zones).
- Low attention: An approximation of high attention for distant combat (e.g. other sectors).
The detailed simulation comprises things like drones and missiles flying around, turrets aimed and firing projectiles, and ships manoeuvring against each other. The simplified (AKA "abstracted") low attention combat aims to approximate the outcome of a high attention fight without bringing our computers to a stand-still. See here for further game engine details.
For the purposes of this guide, the information below describes high attention combat unless noted otherwise. The reasons being that it keeps things simple, relates to the combat that the player experiences, and any major differences can be considered valid feedback via the forum. We owe thanks to w.evans for unleashing lots of info about low attention combat.
Player ship combat
The player flies a ship called the Albion Skunk, which is classed as a fighter in X Rebirth and is a small M6 by the standards of earlier games. It can mount main weapons that are effective against small or medium ships and surface elements on capitals or shipyards. It can also mount a range of missiles that are effective against the above, and at the higher end, also the hulls of capital ships.
Generally speaking, the Skunk fights in the styles of dog-fighter, sniper and/or X-Wings flying over deathstars, erm, around stations. Picking off fighters or neutralising the capabilities of capital ships that other capital ships are often more efficient at finishing off. Boarding being another way in which the player can neutralise and capture capital ships.
Small combat ships
Small combat ships are NPC-piloted fighters from within the Small and Medium ship classes. They have less shielding than they have armour but their shields recharge relatively quickly when not being hit. Travel-wise, they will use highways to travel between zones where possible, and may use boost engines while dogfighting to help them gain range between strafing runs or if trying to flee. All small combat ships are armed with at least one forward-facing main gun. Some also have missile armaments but, Drostan notwithstanding, they are not fired very rapidly and occasionally, their missiles will be shot down by their main guns – sometimes damaging the launching ship… As they have no turrets, they can only apply damage when flying towards their targets.
Although their guns generally dish out around double the damage per credit compared to capital ships*, their strafing runs probably means they do similar damage per credit to capitals overall. When attacking capital ships, they will focus on damaging surface elements to weaken their target. Although it is often the case that single strafe runs are unable to break local shielding, which will begin to recharge once damage pauses. To offset local recharge and to increase the rate of turret incapacitation to reduce casualties, using fighters in larger numbers can help.
When not on strafing runs against capitals or stations, they may employ banking and other manoeuvres to try and limit the amounts of incoming damage. Fighters are relatively fragile, potentially being killed by single hits from some capital weapons, or shock waves from exploding capital. In addition, they tend to cost around 3-times more per hitpoint than capital combat ships*, do not auto-repair like capitals, and full repairs can cost as much as a replacement.
Although we can buy, order and assign them to commanders in groups, we can’t issue group repair orders. Given their lack of self-repair and the possibility that their default Pilots may be poorly-skilled (impacting on performance or implying replacements), they can require a lot of micro-management. Overall, although they are cheaper ways to increase the pilots fleet than capitals, they are not very cost-effective.
*Stat comparisons based on non-DLC Fight ships, excluding the Xenon P (costs more than an equipped Balor but has low DPS so it would bias comparisons).
Low attention notes:
- Attacker speed is a factor in abstracted combat so fighters have a lower damage penalty.
- The don't shoot their own missiles :)
- Surface element destruction doesn't factor in local shielding, which may help fighters (not tested if different to capitals).
Capital combat ships
By comparison to fighters, even the smallest combat capital ship is pretty large and slow in-zone. In exchange, they have between 18- to 455-times more hitpoints than the toughest fighter and auto-repair when crewed with and Engineer. Travel-wise, they possess boosters for inter-zone travel and jumpdrives for inter-sector travel, such that they are typically faster and safer over longer distances than fighters. Capitals and stations have a number of "surface elements", which are objects that have roles that support the ship and which can be damaged. These include engines, the jumpdrive and radar dishes. Surface elements, drones and the amount of undamaged hull are features factoring into how hard a ship may be to board by the player.
All capitals are equipped with a variety of gun and missile turrets as defensive surface elements. Weapons turrets and their protecting Force Field Projectors are on the exterior of the ship and so can be put out of action by incoming fire, weakening the defences of a capital over time. Three, the Balor, Sucellus and Xenon I, possess integral weapons in addition to turrets. All combat capitals employ the same combat style, which consists of facing their targets on approach and then beginning to manoeuvre around targets once within a couple of kms. With capital weapons varying in range from 1.7-8.8 km, this style tends to try and maximise the number of weapons in range of targets as possible.
The approach-based combat AI has some drawbacks:
- Turret distribution and damage isn’t explicitly accounted for so line-of-sight can be lost for main turrets.
- The Balor is fragile so trying to bombarding with integral missiles from range would make sense.
- The Sucellus’ integral gun is spinally-mounted, so trying to point towards a target would make sense.
Drone: Capital ships may carry a range of drones but combat drones will only be used against Small and Medium ships. Given that Overrun URVs shoot dumbfire rockets that may even occasionally miss stations, it's probably not worth using them. Similarly, since Assault URVs are broken such that they do not launch, they are not worth equipping (at least for high attention combat). This leaves Interceptor (faster, weak, low DPS) and Intrepid (moderate speed, toughness and DPS) URVs as the combat drones that are effective against fighters.
Low attention notes:
- Potential DPS is split around 6 by cardinal points, with up to 3 usable per target.
- As mentioned above, the slower the attacker, the lower the damage they can apply.
- It is unknown how well Overrun URVs may work on fighters.
- It is unknown whether Assault URVs are broken in low attention or not.
- Whilst the launching of drones is not simulated, they do add anti-fighter damage and they can be randomly lost.
Station combat
Stations are very tough and generally very well armed - often to greater extents than the largest combat capital. Their minor weaknesses are that they don't have hull shields and cannot move. So all hull damage they receive needs repairing (automatically for NPCs; with CVs are purchased wares for the player...) and substantial damage can impact on their manufacturing rates. On the other range, they have much more hitpoints than capital ships and are indestructible. So although individual modules can be wrecked, they can be repaired later.
A general bug with capital ships and NPC stations is that their surface elements repair very rapidly outside combat in low attention. This means that in practice, it is very hard to suppress NPC stations in low attention since they will regenerate over time and cause large casualties without the possibility of their destruction.
Stations possess a feature called "Supply Options", which allows for the automation of restocking of combat drones. As with capital ships, these drones will only be launched against fighters. Unlike with capitals, they do not have any impact on low attention combat (at least not yet)...
Low attention notes:
- NPC stations will replace lost surface elements (turrets and shields) relatively quickly.
- NPC and player stations may have defensive drones but they have no impact on abstracted combat.
Orders
WIP (Key bindings and controllers)