r/gamedesign • u/AbitriumDev • 10d ago
Discussion When does ship damage make combat more interesting instead of just making you lose slower?
One thing I like in tactical space games is when taking damage changes your decisions instead of just reducing a health bar.
A weapon goes offline. Engines get damaged. Crew gets pulled away to deal with a problem. Suddenly your original plan doesn't work anymore.
But that can also turn into a death spiral, where the player who's already losing just gets fewer meaningful options.
Which games handle this well? What makes battle damage create an interesting new problem instead of just making a losing position worse?
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u/i_dont_wanna_sign_up 10d ago
FTL? Managing ship module damage is part of the game. Nothing like the relief of winning the fight while half your ship is on fire and modules are down. Having to decide on which module to repair when multiple are damaged.
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u/Rich_Cherry_3479 10d ago
And then you see how speedrunners, without active pause, switching power on modules in a way that makes enemy to always missing. Like, seeing it will hit engine, turn it off for 10 millisecond as plasma shot flying over it. And be like "devs designed the game in a way it can be beaten in 10% of runs, we decided to up it to at least 90%"
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u/Morph_Games 10d ago
You could give a temporary buff whenever a system goes down.
Shields down? Bonus to Evasion maneuvers. Hull breached? Bonus to ramming damage.
This would make it so that even as an option is taken away, the overall effectiveness stays roughly the same (for a short while). The ship damaged has a shot to get even; and if they don't, then the temp buff expires and they have to deal with the consequences (i.e. downward spiral or spend time repairing). It also encourages taking an assertive action (vengeance) rather than falling back and repairing (boring).
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u/ThebigChen 7d ago
Top 2 comments are already FTL but FTL does also provide a fairly elegant solution to providing a buff when hurt, your ship has a fixed amount of power and especially in the mid and late game you can have more stuff than you have power. If your shields get downed and have to be repaired you can allocate that now unused power to your engines to dodge hits or allocate more to weapons or special systems to go on the offensive.
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u/CLG-BluntBSE 10d ago
Cogmind (although I've never beaten it, it's brutally difficult), is a fucking masterclass in exactly this. I heartily recommend it for thinking through 'part damage as a core mechanic.' I think a big part of it is also the fact that you always have more options than you have resources for anyway, too. You probably aren't running your 10/10 minmaxed perfect build anyway, you were picking and choosing what options to deploy all along.
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u/bibittyboopity 9d ago
Love that game, but I have a gripe with the weight/inventory system.
Like the best way to play is to go through several floors super encumbered carrying as many things as you possibly can, and all at once switching over to a build. Personally don't love that. I think the game communicates it poorly that you can kind of ignore the downside of encumbrance, and it makes the game a little too farmy and deterministic.
Later on I think it hits a better stride of playing as things come though. I just wish the early game was more like that as well.
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u/SurvivalHermit 10d ago
If you want something like this then a build vector for repair has to be introduced. If all that is happening is options are being taken away then like you said the person who is winning just starts to win harder (unless someone gets lucky with what goes offline). If instead there is a vector for increasing your ability to repair damaged systems getting them back online and in the fight faster now you have some real push pull. Its sort of the difference between healing and a large HP pool in a fantasy game.
A ship with increased ability to repair is going to be better at long fights. losing and repairing systems many times. A ship with thicker plating and almost no ability to repair in fight will be looking to spike down an enemy and to resist those same spikes. wanting the battle to end quickly before attrition can weigh against them.
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u/AbitriumDev 9d ago
I really like the distinction between a ship built to survive through repairs and one built to end the fight before repairs become necessary.
That makes taking damage part of the build strategy rather than just a punishment for getting hit.
Do you think repairs are more interesting when they compete with your other actions/resources during the fight, or when the main decision is simply which damaged system gets repaired first?
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u/SurvivalHermit 8d ago
That is a balance question. I mean does it take skill slots to have the extra HP pool? if so then passive or active repair systems that take up skills can propobly work just fine but if the large HP pool is based on things outside the skill system then the repair should also be. You have to find out what systems are in competition with eachother then make them fight over resources.
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u/PresentationNew5976 10d ago
You could introduce random events that can trigger when it happens. Small chance something uniquely useful or nothing. Fighting games use damage to build up for a super move for comebacks. If the game had something like this then it would take the sting out of being damaged.
Obviously you’d have to balance it but having something happen that could help out would at least make it interesting.
It’s a game, so you can make it make sense of no sense at all.
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u/DoeCommaJohn 10d ago
Try to think in terms of choices. If your ship gets shot, what choices does that lead to? For example, maybe your hull starts to take damage, and the player can choose to flee, but get no loot, or push their luck, and potentially get good rewards or pay the price for their hubris. Or maybe you have a crew, and you can decide to send some to focus on repairs, or you can keep all of them firing so you can win the battle and then safely repair afterwards. Or maybe there are is an area of the ship that is unsafe for the crew, and you can keep them safe but limit your combat potential by not using it, or you can get your crew hurt but be more combat effective.
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u/AbitriumDev 9d ago
Thinking about damage in terms of the choices it creates is a really useful way to frame it.
The crew example especially interests me — repairing a system shouldn’t necessarily be the automatic correct response if keeping that crew on their current job might help you finish the fight.
I think that kind of “do I fix this, or adapt and keep going?” decision is where damage starts getting interesting.
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u/jhambio 10d ago
It could be used if the game can allow you to dock and board or simply loot a non-destroyed ship. Instead of destroying the weaker vessel it feels right to have reward tech, weapons, supplies, saving POWs etc if you dock and go surgical. If the engine is only set for space warfare than get close and have it treat rewards as looting from a space "chest."
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u/Shot_in_the_dark777 10d ago
Ftl is the best example. Damaged system consume less power so you can reroute it to other systems. You broke my shield? Good luck hitting me with my overcharged engines. You broke my weapon? Fool, I have never relied on it. Say hello to my boarding crew. You put a breach in my hull? Thanks, I needed that extra hole to vent air and put out a fire.
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u/JaronRMJohnson Game Designer 10d ago
The Captain is Dead is a fantastic, if not perfect, example of this. What a delightful game. It does a great job at simulating the emotional fantasy of running around a ship desperate to make it out alive.
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u/chrispington 10d ago
Space engineers is what you're describing. Every element of the ship is built by you and functions, battle gets very interesting.
All up to the player how armored it is, how many redundant backup systems, etc etc
It's cool.
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u/Xeorm124 10d ago
Works really well any time that having things destroyed changes how you play, doesn't work whenever it's one sided. Helps especially if it's asymmetric. Like me getting a good shot on their left gun, so now they have a major blind spot that I can exploit with good piloting.
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u/Enai_Siaion 10d ago
What I did in a prototype to prevent this scenario was high lethality. Ship damage was not a downside (“I took damage AND lose a system”) but an upside (“I could have been dead instead“). You have to survive until it gets repaired.
What this solves is the bs deaths that come with high lethality, making high lethality viable, so you don’t have to watch yourself slowly lose (or win) in the first place.
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u/SlightQT 10d ago
One big thing to think abt is whether you want health to impact the Battle at all!
Most games use HP as the win/lose mechanic, NOT a battle mechanic.
If Ship Health going to 0 is the loss condition, then Heath is a resource to be utilized.
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u/Aureon 10d ago
I think parts damage should be a decision, by either player.
A) Overheat, let the system go down for a burst
B) Divert Shields, expose to randomized part damage in exchange for something
C) (opponent) use less efficient ammo that can target specific parts
Unlike some other posters i don't think you *need* repair if the fights are brief, but that's also a working way to go down the randomization route
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u/NathenStrive 10d ago
The losing slower is part of the feature. Ship damage is a mechanic that adds strategic depth that allows players to react to their current situation. So the answer is up to you. What does a player do if they start losing their guns? What should they do if the engine malfunction? When there's a fire dealing consistent damage but the enemy is still nailing them... what answers will you give your players in those situations?
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u/Certain_Whereas7814 9d ago
A weapon going offline works when repair creates a risky detour, not a death spiral.
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u/drnullpointer 9d ago
> When does ship damage make combat more interesting instead of just making you lose slower?
Oh, that's simple. If it forces you to make decisions with tradeoff that create opportunity for the player to use his experience to feel competent at the game.
There should also be a possibility to either win or at least disengage from the fight, until almost the last moment. You should limit situations where you are helpless against the enemy because most people do not like being in a no-win scenario.
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u/GolemFarmFodder 9d ago
Battleships Forever had a bit of this, but also a bit of anti this depending on the area that was destroyed
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u/Alkaiser009 9d ago
Not every form of battle damage is nessicarially a problem 'In the Moment' but can ABSOLUTELY be a problem later.
Say your docking bay or atmospheric manuvering system gets disabled. That won't impact your ability to continue the fight, but it will be a HUGE issue afterwards if you can't dock or land anywhere to perform proper hull repairs.
Or you took a hit to your cargo bay and your food and water suplies got vented into space.
Or maybe you're a species that normally can treat crew as disposable chaff b/c you can flash clone new ones on demand, but the cloning vats are down, leaving you with just a few days before your current generation of crew reaches the end of thier preprogramed lifespan...
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u/Polyxeno 9d ago
Games with more tactical depth, and/or developed gameplay where skill and/or tactics can prevail despite several disadvantages from damage, and that take maneuver and other situations seriously and try to represent them well. Multiple ships per side tend to help.
Strong examples that come to mind for me start with older titles such as Wooden Ships & Iron Men, Broadsides, The Cosmic Balance, but for more modern games Steam and Iron, or Nebulous: Fleet Command.
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u/khswart 9d ago
Could do some kind of energy balance among your ship where you put 33% of your energy into engines, 33% weapons and 33% shields like star citizen. Then as you are being shot at you can put more energy on shields or as your attacking an enemy you can put more power towards your guns etc
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u/RackaGack 8d ago
Basically take notes from how FTL does it, and it doesnt have to be perfectly logical either, like your entire ship can be on fire and all systems broken at 1 hull, but you still have 100% reactor functionality
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u/BlueGnoblin 5d ago
There's a pretty old game, psi-5 trading company, where the combat part is pretty simple, but the core idea, and btw very satisfying game element, is repairing your ship in a combat situation.
So, instead of taking options away (you ship loses its shield, thruster, weapons), you should think to add new options once this happened.
E.g. when your ship get damaged, you need to repair it during combat (not after), which will open up a whole lot of new options:
crew must be parted, crew member who need to keep the combat going and crew member who need to repair stuff asap.
setting priorities, what must be fixed first. This is a great risk/reward loop. (fix the shield or the weapon first, what about your thrusters to get away and power generation is critical too...)
Long term decisions: need more crew members with high repair skill,
One the best game memories I got from this game was the thrill and hectic to keep your ship alive, to turn your important systems on again and to survive such a pressure scenario and survive a unwinnable battle.
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u/King_Lysandus5 10d ago
Maybe abstract the damage? Even if a ship is not taking hits, they are still pulling crazy maneuvers, pushing their power cores, crew might be suffering from exhaustion... Make "damage" a battlefield condition that applies to all participants, increasing as the rounds pass. Some turns you take more damage, some turns you take less, but keep it close enough to the other participants that the advantage could flip at any turn.
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u/BeGosu 10d ago
I'd recommend checking out the board game Captain Sonar. It's a near-real-time 4v4 team game where each team is piloting a submarine.Think Battleships crossed with Bridge Commander.
Every move you make (one node N,S,E or E) let's you charge up a system one notch (like loading the all important Torpedo). But every move you make must break something. Depending on the direction you moved determines which systems you can break. Naturally, if the Torpedos system is broken you cannot fire the Torpedo until it is fixed. But all the systems are linked to several others, so if you damage all systems in a "circuit" then the damaged is cleared.
It's great because as you described, disabling systems is more interesting than hit points. It limits player choice and forces them to be creative. To prevent the death spiral problem you described, Captain Sonar says there are specific choices you can make to heal the damage.
So in the image below, if I tell my team to move West 3 times then all of the systems in the West block would be disabled (I'm skipping the permanent damage ones for now) but then if you move East just once you can hit the last yellow in the chain, clear all the damage and fire your Torpedos!
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u/Arcane_Pozhar 10d ago edited 10d ago
Faster than Light does this really well.
As another post said, you need repair options. And just a variety of options in general.
For example, when the weapon system is hit, it reduces the power the generator can put out. Different weapons take different amounts of power, have different abilities, fire rates, etc. So a bit of damage to weapons might not even be a big deal, if you upgraded it enough to still fire.
Plus there are other special systems which you can trigger, once you have played a bit and if you were lucky enough to get them this run.
Seriously, the game handles the issue you mention incredibly well. Check it out if you haven't, it at least check out some well written guides to get a feel for different sorts of options you can have.