Absolutely.
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Performance, there was no better way to lay on the fire than to set up mini squads and have them all attacking a target. Setting various tactics mixed in it was amazing the amount of damage a well managed swarm in mini formations could lay down, something was always firing.
I did not use large formations for anything but vette walls. Anything over 9 ships was too large if it wasnāt a vette wall.
I never used formations with capital ships, I kept them clumped up in a big mass as close together as I could get them. That way as they attack moved the damage was spread out over all the ships hit, it was really hard to hit just one target in that mix. Especially if the opponent used sphere.
Performance, nothing put out more damage (over the long game) than a wall of supported vettes, nothing lasted as long or got ignored as much in a big fight as that wolf pack nosing around to the rear and sides as the heavies were slugging it out.
I find it amusing that some one said this is where HW1 fell short. A true wolf pack was the pinnacle of vette usage. You couldnāt use just any vettes or even mixed vettes, only heavy vettes worked the best. Just slow enough in aggressive to be slightly faster than the 2-3 support frigates set to support them in evasive. By themselves they were near useless against cap ships, as a piece of your overall force they dealt that extra āin the rearā damage that could send an even fight over the edge in your favor.
Too much was lost going from HW1 to HW2, unfortunately there are just not enough oldsters around to tip the scales in favor of HW1, too many of the current community are what I would call HW2 children, raised and exposed to HW2 as their first real 3D RTS experience.
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I miss my vette walls too.
If we can get vettes to stay in walls, and the āhealing ion cannonā concept works out, then we may have a ball game in that area.
There is work being done to see if weapons can add HP instead of removing, thereby emulating our HW1 healing beam mechanic.
Repair vettes could shoot little āplasmaā pulses of healing goodness, and the Support Frigates could have a longer-lasting āionā healing beam.
So it is not just the formationsā¦ but the support, and guard, and repair orders that we need addressed.
Yes, Iāve been trying to make this point the whole time. Iād rather have support than formations.
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Wouldnāt scouts in a sphere (without using the guard order on a single scout trick) beat defenders because they could move around as a group faster than defenders rotated? I miss stuff like that.
No, every time a scout dies, the entire sphere has to reform. Not only that but the defender they targeted would be the only one racing or rotating. The few times I experimented with defenders I didnāt bother forming them up. I imagine sphered scouts fighting defenders would look like sphered scouts fighting any other fighter/vette. A deflating balloon.
But honestly, defenders in HW1 were not the defenders people know today. They sucked, rarely used. There were a few experiments we tried with them that showed promise, like locking them into a customer formation with a gravwell with the defenders outside of the well effected, then moving the entire ball around like a vacuum, but that wasnāt all that successful in practice. Funny, but not very successful.
The formations played a much greater role than just visuals two identical fleets would perform much differently depending on how they are arranged = all other thing being equal.
Formations were part of the visuals yes, but they gave the game depth all the way to end game when you had mini fleets battle it out. It allowed ships to have a purpose all the way through.
Right now the game is limited to "If I have more of unit x, or I build unit Y, or pull BC first I win, otherwise I quitā¦
Old HW1 allowed for a thought process that went more like this:
So If I sphere up these guys and have these two groups on aggressive managed so as to stay attacking from the rear I can even this ā ā ā ā up.
Its difficult to explain to people who have not played enough of HW1 to truly discover the little things. The subtle effects were cumulative and gave a depth to the game far beyond whatās immediately apparent if you just go āso its a wall, big dealā. It is a big deal because its what you did with what you had that mattered.
HW2 and HWR subscribe to bigger is better and biggest is best.
HW1 was all about how you use what you have and how creative you can get.
This is why over a decade later we are still hereā¦ hoping for a repeat.
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Itās not 100% like this, but itās big enough to be a problem. This coming from someone who only played HW2, itās clear that smaller craft are generally inferior. As for the biggest, well, itās the biggest problem. HW2 thinks it is tactical but it falls short in several areas unfortunately.
I didnāt play HW1 but I understand exactly what you mean, having played Supcom and other tactical games where you were able to deal with a situation using a non-mechanical strategy. Sometimes it can come down to trading bullets blow for blow, but most of the time itās effective use of what you have, which means support, angle of attack, formation, unit make-up and timingā¦ and also knowing when to retreat.
I honestly canāt think of a single scenario where formations are useful in HW2, itās too heavily about larger individual units which trash everything else.
One thing I will mention against HW1s strategies is the over-use of healing support. Not a fan of this sort of thing. Iām honestly on the fence of them not making a comeback to HW2 (though certainly full SP support), or at least not returning to their full former glory, maybe Iām just speaking out of turn but seeing units tank fleets with just healing aid is odd. Conversely, repairs in HW2 seem like complete garbage. A middle ground would be niceā¦ and definitely with a proper repair beam.
Hmm, doesnāt this work? I thought they just changed the hotkey.
I have a vague recollection that defenders may have had good range - maybe even had range on a grav well. They werenāt what that are now, but you could use them as a cheap corv wall and, if ignored, they could chew stuff up (again, thatās IF ignored).
Doesnāt it not? I thought if you drag box support order it just gives the order to do the thing to the closest unit in the box.
I donāt know grav well range, but in HW1 strike craft tended to have 60%-95% the range that capitals had. Often, they outranged many cap weapons.
In HWRM strike craft have at most around 50% and on the short end(scouts) 20%.
So whatever grav well range was, these variance in strike vs cap ranges changes the tactics around it.
Fightersā¦
fighter formations allowed us to be in charge of the fight, plain and simple. how you chose to break your fighters apart, how you grouped them, how you controlled those groups in battle all were part of whether or not you won or lost an engagement. the formations each group usedā¦ the tactics each group used, all played a very important part in the combat mechanics. the skilled players spent countless hours testing and labbing the details of each pro and con. minimizing non fire time, maximizing damage output. these were things left to the player to decide, learn and execute. in the hw2 engine, this was taken away from us completely and replaced with a more rock paper scissor feel. (to be fair, hw2 compensated for this with lots of tech, and lots of counters to countersā¦but that doesnāt negate the fact that a very important part of the game play mechanics had changed.) hw2 was never supposed to be hw1, so you either adapted ( i did, and enjoy hw2) or you didnāt, (it did get bit boring faster than hw1 and hwc for me personally, but thatās just my personal taste.) . a skill player who took the time to learn how the formations and tactics worked, could survive with less ships, less firepower,in some cases just long enough to change the entire dynamic of the game play strategy. allowing for a constant progression of 1vs1, 2vs2, and ffa strategies. the change-up strategies depended heavily on who controlled the map after the first fighter engagement. if we played hw1 or hwc, and you had more ships than me, it didnāt always mean i had lost the game at 8 minutes in. but in hw2, if you are coming at me with 10 squads of ac, and i have 8 int squads, there is nothing i am going to do tactically with those ships alone that will make me come out on top after the first fighter engagement. with formations and tactics, that would not be the case at all. b-balls, guarding retreats, fighter blossoms, all developed due to the dynamic abilities that formations and tactics allow us to create. we were not ādiscoveringā strategies like in hw2, we we creating them. we did things the developers never even considered possible. why? because the power was in our fingers, skill and speedā¦ not the dice rolls. i cannot think of one single thing that anyone has created tactically with hw2 fighters, other than, dock when a squad is damaged. managing these tactics and formations is what made one player better than another. that alone is why hw1 has remained so loved. it is why is was and is considered a gem of a game, even after 16 years. enough so that it sold 100K copies in the first 24 hours.
larger formations where fine to a degree, but even then, we learned quickly that there was such a thing as too big. the level of micro management was in the hands of the player. how you chose to group them, the formations you chose, all played a big part in battle. in hw2, this was replaced again with what tech you had, and how well you could kite around the enemy ships. managing these larger formations felt easier to me. the formations would hold together. i could easily see what ships needed repaired. what ships were not being utilized effectively. the ability to micro hw2 ships is no where near the level of control we had in hw1. at best, you could only use numbered groups, kiting and forced single ship targeting to effect how they behaved.
corvettes in general felt like the perfect balance between fighter, and frigate. want them to swarm aroundā¦ then no formation is used. want them to wall up and be supported, not a problem at all. again, the player had the freedom to choose how they wanted their ships to behave. hw2 limits that, and again, is replaced by whether or not you have a counter tech / ships. (not bad, just different).
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