Design: combat computer routines
Proposed, October 2026, from Mark: "I am sure we can find advanced flight routines and upgrades." Change by pull request.
The combat computer is in the game (Modern rules, 6,000 Cr at tech level 9 and up). Press O and it flies your ship in a fight while you work a rear or side laser, the turrets. It flies one way, a textbook chase: close in, pass, break away, come round. That's predictable on purpose, so a good pilot beats it, and kills made with it on count half towards your combat rating.
One habit is thin. Against the Falcon, who sits on your tail and reads how you fly, it's a liability. This design makes the computer a kit you choose: routines you buy and fit, better hardware, and pilots who learn to answer both.
Principles
- Every routine has a counter. A routine is a pattern, and a pattern can be read. Nothing you buy wins a fight by itself.
- Your own flying stays best. No mark of computer flies better than a good commander, and kills with it on still count half. The best commanders fly by hand and give the computer one job.
- Routines suit kit. Most need the right lasers to be worth fitting: a reason to think about your whole ship.
- Readable. You can see what your computer is doing (its routine is named on the HUD), and so can the pilot you're fighting.
- Modern only. Classic has no combat computer, as in 1984.
The routines
Sold at stations like equipment, the dearer ones at higher tech levels. Fit as many as you like; the computer picks the one that suits the moment, and you can lock it to one.
| Routine | What it flies | Wants | Its counter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Textbook chase (comes with it) | Close in, pass, break away, come round | Any turret | Time your run for its break, when its tail turns to you at a known angle |
| Tail guard | Something behind you: keep it in the rear laser's arc, weaving so it can't settle | A rear laser | Come from below or off the quarter, where the rear laser has to chase you too |
| Scissors | Turn into a pursuer again and again until it overshoots in front of you | Front laser, a tight-turning hull | Hang back and wait for it to stop turning |
| Hit and run | A fast pass, then open the range so your lasers cool and your shields recharge | Beam lasers, which overheat | Follow it out: it's running, so it isn't shooting |
| Broadside | Hold a target off your beam, side lasers on it | Side lasers | Stay on its nose or tail, where side lasers can't reach |
| Evasive weave | Stop fighting and survive: weave for the station or the jump | Nothing; for traders | Cut it off from where it's heading |
The anti-Falcon kit is a rear laser and Tail guard; the Falcon's answer to it is the rear quarter (see a reason for a rear laser).
The hardware: Marks I to III
| Mark | Reacts | Reads your target's turn | Switches routine | Price (to balance) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I (today's) | Slowly | Not at all: it chases where the target is | Never: one routine at a time, your choice | 6,000 Cr |
| II | Quicker | A little ahead | Between fitted routines, a beat late | about 15,000 Cr |
| III | Close to a good human | Well ahead | Cleanly, at the right moment | about 40,000 Cr, high-tech worlds only |
A Mark III is close to a good commander and never better than your own best flying.
Who reads it
Pilots learn routines the way people do, by seeing them (pilot skill):
- Rookies fall for any routine.
- Aces learn each routine's pattern. Scissors works once on an ace; the second time it hangs back and waits for you to stop turning. A higher mark hides the pattern a little longer.
- The Falcon reads your kit as she comes in dark: Tail guard fitted, and she comes from below. Beat her with it, and she remembers.
Building it in stages
| Stage | What |
|---|---|
| 1 | Routines as equipment: Tail guard and Hit and run first (they answer the Falcon and the beam laser's heat), then Scissors, Broadside and Evasive weave. The routine named on the HUD; lock to one with a second press of O. |
| 2 | Marks II and III, the computer choosing between fitted routines. |
| 3 | Aces and the Falcon reading your routines, with pilot skill stage 3. |
Open questions
- Should routines be equipment (one slot each), or software upgrades to the one computer, bought once and kept?
- Should a fight flown mostly by hand, with the computer used for a moment, still count half, or only the kills made while it flew?
- Could commanders write and share their own routines, a community contribution like ships and Titanoboa modules, tested against the same duels?
Think something here should change? Say so on the ideas board, where others can vote it up, or email hello@witchspace.org.uk. If you code: this page is docs/design/combat-computer-routines.md on GitHub, open to pull requests.