Tactical Requests

[Kyramlaar]

I want to start that I don't want to be critical, this is an amazing mod and I truly love it.

My issues come with the tactical play. I am a rather solid tactician, some of the changes in this mod seem to make the battle less of a tactical ordeal and more of a broadside bash.

1) I know that in FoC they really made bombers a bit OP. My thought is that I'd like missiles and torpedoes to still hit the hulls but at reduced power. Maybe something like 25%-33% damage breaking through the shield. That was you can't mass bomb as easily but can have tactical play.

2) I noted that some of the Republic Capital ships were missing shield generator hardpoints. This really messes with some of my tactics.

3) Some of the starting locations start with one's troops far too close to the attacker's lines. This has caused my fleets to get overrun without being able to use stations and Golans as support. I have attempted using the first-in box to get only one ship into combat but it brings all (or most) of my ships into battle and often with poor position. I'm not sure how any changes with this could work but I'd love to see something adapted.

Thank you for reading, I hope these changes can at least be addressed.
Kyr

[tlmiller]

1.  Generally, no matter weak you make bombers when they pass through the shields, they're still OP.  Bombers are now powerful enough against most capital ships that a decent amount of bombers will QUICKLY strip the shields thus still allowing for quite good tactical battles (I do this constantly with the GM)

2.  Mon Cal ships (and those with shields designed by them) had multiple, redundant shield emitters.  So this is as it should be.

3.  The lousy positioning is a long-standing gripe.  The team have actively started trying to fix this (putting them in a more logical position and closer to defenses), but they're not miracle workers and they can only redo this so much at a time while trying to get everything else done and still have time for the things in life that make modding possible (like working to keep food in belly and electricity running to the pc).

[Metrohall]

The no shield pass thru is a huge problem and completely subverts tactical play during space battles. Piercing shields creates an reason to manage bombers and fighters. It creates an incentive to use corvettes. It allows capital ships to keep shields against other capitals even if they're having hard points taken out by bombers. Do I want to take out the proton torpedo launchers so I can move my caps in or the hangers so I can preserve my bombers to take out the shields later? As soon as shields are down the ship is basically dead.

[tlmiller]

Shield pas-through is a far larger problem than not.  A single squadron of bombers making a single pass and taking out the shield emitters on any ship is, simply put, OP'd.  The only way to deal with shield pass through and keep it from being OP'd would be to make bombers do such insignificant damage that they'd be useless.  As is, if you don't use corvettes or fighters to screen the bombers, you'll lose your shields quickly and very quickly start getting your hard point ripped to pieces, but a single bomber squadron can't defeat a flotilla of ISD's by itelf.  While it might not be absolutely perfect, the system the team is using is about as good as the game engine is going to allow for strategic play without making bombers insanely overpowered.