I find this quite funny because the whole reason I'm making this game is my issues with Freelancer's dogfight system. Mainly, it just takes FOREVER to kill an enemy and it takes so long that my mind just dozes off in the middle of a fight... Enemy's shield constantly regenerates and they even use nanobots, which prolongs the fight even longer. Considering the fact that you often find yourself against 3-6 enemies, it's not uncommon that even with the best weapons it takes upwards of 10 minutes to finish off all of them. That's the reason I really hate taking those "wipe out enemy group" type of missions.
Soooo, this year I started making my own space combat game. After 4 months of writing AI code I can finally complete a proper dogfight in the game. Here's a video:
Despite my effort in making the AI ship move more predictably, killing these four enemy ships still took over three minutes, with my weapons slightly better than theirs (I have 2 guns + 2 turrets, they only have 2 guns). I think the reason might be that their shields regenerate too fast. But I have made it so that having a low shield doesn't protect you completely from hull damage, and starting from about half way, lower the shield more hull damage you'll get. I also took out shield depletion time so the they always regenerating to balance the fact that shields don't completely protect the hull.
The reason I chose to do that is I want player to choose the right weapons for each fight. The player should equip two types of guns, one effective against shields and the other more effective against hull, this way as you charge towards an enemy, you first weaken their shield somewhat and then start blasting their hull, and if you position correctly and manage your weapon power well, you should be able to take out one minion in 2-3 charges. Also, if you are good at maneuvering you can keep the target inside your gun's gimball range longer and deal more hull damage before his shield recharges more.
Anyways, I'd like to discuss what you think may be good ways to make dogfights less tedious and rewards more towards player's skill rather than patience (lol)
Also if you wanna try it out let me know I can provide a build... just expect it to be extremely broken
