Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Rap1d on November 13, 2017, 03:21:53 AM

Title: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Rap1d on November 13, 2017, 03:21:53 AM
When you reach a certain point in fleet size, after getting in contact with an enemy fleet you get the message that your fleet is too large to disengage properly and you have to fight. What exactly is the limit? I tried searching for it, but can't find the numbers. Is it purely based of the number of ships, or are things like supply cost and ordnance points considered? I wanted to make a fast and nimble fleet with just frigates and destroyers but I got stuck with the message anyway...
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Histidine on November 13, 2017, 03:30:24 AM
IIRC it triggers if you wouldn't be able to deploy all your ships in the battle (due to hitting the deployment cost limit).
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: John_A_Tallon on November 13, 2017, 04:30:51 AM
You can change it in \Starsector\starsector-core\data\config\settings.json

Code
	# the smaller of these two values is used
"maxDisengageSize":150, # maximum number of supplies-to-recover cost before a fleet can't participate in a disengage-style battle
"maxDisengageFraction":0.4, # maximum number of supplies-to-recover before a fleet can't disengage, as fraction of current battlesize.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: FooF on November 13, 2017, 01:27:49 PM
I find it interesting that after playing this game for 3+ years, I didn't know the mechanic behind this. In and of itself, that's not a big deal but if someone like me (who frequents the forums, dives into config files, plays *a lot*) doesn't know these things, how the heck is a new player going to?

This isn't the only mechanic like this. There's questions about the refit screen (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13110.0), mothballing (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13103.0), armor (which I wrote a guide on and learned a ton about in the process), etc.

I don't think this is intentional but information being hidden or buried is helping turn the learning curve from steep into Mt. Improbable.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Alex on November 13, 2017, 01:54:05 PM
The refit screen is a fair point, definitely. Mothballing, 90% of it is already explained in the tooltip - just added a bit about it reducing CR to zero, since that was missing.

For the "no retreat for a certain fleet size" mechanic in question... to me, it's one of those that doesn't really matter 99% of the time. It's certainly not something that's part of the early learning curve - if you've managed to get a big enough fleet for it to come into play, you're doing well enough that you're past the early difficulty. And when it does come up, it pretty much resolves itself - you're forced to fight, you lose some ships, and then you can retreat. I'm not sure a detailed explanation is particularly beneficial here.

(Edit: I should say, I very much appreciate things like this being pointed out.)
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Rap1d on November 13, 2017, 02:33:20 PM
Quote
I'm not sure a detailed explanation is particularly beneficial here.


I would find it very beneficial. I wanted to keep the fleet small enough to be able to escape any unwanted battle, but as strong as possible within those bounds. I'm playing on ironman, and running into a giant fleet on accident, like when it jumps out from a jump point right in front of me and I'm not paying enough attention, or when I'm going on sustained burn and the limited handling just doesn't let me not bump into it, it can be pretty catastrophic.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Alex on November 13, 2017, 07:46:08 PM
A question, if you don't mind - are you playing with a smaller battlesize? Just curious how you're running into this limit with a small fleet.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Rap1d on November 14, 2017, 02:53:16 AM
I haven't modified it myself in any way, nor am I playing with any mod that modifies that IIRC. But as I said, I had no idea what a "small fleet" entails. All my cargo vessels were fast frigates, Hermes, Dram and Cerberus ships, I was using a Hammerhead as my flagship, and I wanted as many Drover carriers as I could fit in, one for each officer, since they are the fastest carrier. I just slowly expanded my fleet with nothing but these small fast ships, and I noticed that I lost the ability to disengage. I can't know when was the exact point this happened, but I'm pretty sure it was when I still had only 6 officers, So I didn't have like 10 Drovers yet.

Then I had no idea how to downsize, so I wrote here. Like what was I going to do, remove one carrier or frigate and try to run into a fleet that would fight me? That just seems unnecessarily tedious. If I want to "beat the game" on ironman, I thought that obviously the best strategy is to use a small nimble fleet to gather enough money to get a fleet of sufficient strength all at once, to reach a point where you don't want to run away from any fight - all at once.

Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Histidine on November 14, 2017, 06:30:10 AM
As an aside, the handling of the disengage restriction has annoyed me greatly on one occasion.

Spoiler
Misplanned mission in Askonia led to a run-in with multiple large Sindrian fleets, with a combined force much larger than my own. Can't disengage and have no chance of winning. I decide to try fighting them to thin them out a bit.

Fight an engagement round. Kill many ships, lose some. Still can't disengage.

Fight another round, with what's left of my beaten-up and CR-degraded force. Lose more ships. Still can't disengage.

At this point, if the game had a surrender option I would have taken it. As it was, deploying ships just to get them killed so I could finally just leave felt too asinine for me to put up with, so I just savescummed.
[close]
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Alex on November 14, 2017, 09:07:58 AM
Thanks for the added info!

Hmm. Thinking this through a bit, what about a "sacrifice X points of ships to get away" option, sort of like when you're picking ships for pursuit? That would have the advantage of letting you know exactly what you need to drop to be able to get away, and wouldn't belabor the process. Made a note.

Taking that one step further, I wonder if that wouldn't be a good general replacement for retreat-style battles on the player side. I'm not sure all that much would be actually lost by removing those, though I'd still like to keep the battle type where the player pursues the retreating enemy ships.

Any thoughts on this?
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Megas on November 14, 2017, 09:39:58 AM
These days, I auto-resolve pursuit because ships that are fast enough to catch many fleeing ships are weak enough to risk getting killed.  Also, it is hard to kill everyone if there are too many targets.  Thus, I auto-resolve nearly all pursuits and take the risk-free freebie kills.  Even better, if I auto-resolve, I can deploy ships that are otherwise unsuited for fighting (civilians or even sub-par combat hulls with junk weapons) instead of my best ships.  The few times I manually fight pursuit as the attacker is either I want no survivors (rare unless playing something like Nexerelin) or I want to save-scum and capture a rare ship or more rare equipment (like more tier 3 weapons or Remnant fighters).

Earlier in the game, when my fleet is smaller, occasionally it is more advantageous for my fleet to run and fight a battle as a pursuit because my big ships are closest to the enemy and their smaller ships may get deployed at the sides, which gives my heavy-hitters an advantage; just turn around and blow up their big ships or support ships before the enemy AI recovers.

As for sacrificing ships when retreating, I would not want that if I retreat because I want superior ship placement if I think the enemy will pursue.  However, it would be handy for those who do not want to bother with fighting and say "take my ships and leave me alone".

EDIT - Although if fleet is too big, player cannot retreat to fight, so just dumping excess ships can be a quick and dirty way of running.  It would be nice to know how close my current fleet is to the threshold before I get into a fight in the first place (when it is too late).  The OP's suggestion is sound.  After all, in earlier versions I have used small fleets (that do not exceed 40 or so points) to avoid objectives spawning in the first place.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on November 14, 2017, 10:53:26 AM
Thanks for the added info!

Hmm. Thinking this through a bit, what about a "sacrifice X points of ships to get away" option, sort of like when you're picking ships for pursuit? That would have the advantage of letting you know exactly what you need to drop to be able to get away, and wouldn't belabor the process. Made a note.

Taking that one step further, I wonder if that wouldn't be a good general replacement for retreat-style battles on the player side. I'm not sure all that much would be actually lost by removing those, though I'd still like to keep the battle type where the player pursues the retreating enemy ships.

Any thoughts on this?
Would this mean that the player would no longer have the ability to fight retreat battles if they want to?
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Alex on November 14, 2017, 10:59:12 AM
Taking that one step further, I wonder if that wouldn't be a good general replacement for retreat-style battles on the player side. I'm not sure all that much would be actually lost by removing those, though I'd still like to keep the battle type where the player pursues the retreating enemy ships.
Would this mean that the player would no longer have the ability to fight retreat battles if they want to?

Yeah, that's what I meant by "replacement". Would get weird when the player only has one/a few ships, though.

I *think* retreat-style battles tend to fall into the "fake retreat, actually want to fight" and "won't take any losses" categories. There's also some middle ground where they can be interesting, and the game tries to avoid forcing you to play through "won't take any losses" situations (by allowing an immediate withdrawal), but I'm not sure how often retreat battles end up being interesting in practice, without being "fake retreat". I'd appreciate some feedback on that specifically!
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Kanil on November 14, 2017, 12:19:32 PM
I wouldn't miss fake retreats, but I'd be pretty annoyed if the game demanded I sacrifice a ship that I wouldn't actually lose, so hopefully the "won't take any losses" detector works correctly.

I can't really remember having any retreat battles that were especially interesting (I'm sure I've had a few, but not memorable ones), however my playstyle is extremely heavy on trial and error and savescumming, so I don't typically retreat to begin with.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: intrinsic_parity on November 14, 2017, 12:27:47 PM
I generally save scum if I'm in a situation where I would generally lose a lot ships retreating, so I think the sacrifice ships option would cause me to save scum anyway. I think a 'bribe to escape' option would feel more palatable, even though it's kinda the same thing.

Also what about a 'rear guard' style battle where you leave some ships behind to fight, and they can't retreat for x minutes, but if they last that long, they can retreat and un-deployed ships escape unharmed.  If all ships are destroyed before time limit, you lose some additional ships but most of your fleet still escapes, you could also just end up back in another dialogue with the option to fight or retreat again if you fail. The only concern would be cheesing with a phase ship or something fast to run away and hide for the time without properly fighting. This maybe could be resolved with a small map so it's harder to run and hide? I think that could be a more fun way to resolve the situation.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: ANGRYABOUTELVES on November 14, 2017, 12:53:19 PM
I really would not like no longer being able to fight retreat battles. Faking retreats has saved my fleet multiple times; having the enemy fleet split up can let you win otherwise non-winnable fights, if you can take out the split up ships fast enough. Actual retreats that I don't take losses in are still tense and engaging, as a single slip-up can lead to losing a ship. People keep mentioning save-scumming retreat battles where they lose a lot of ships, but Ironman mode exists and those kind of retreat battles become a lot more relevant when it's turned on.

I generally don't auto-resolve pursuits, as it's more supply efficient to send out one dedicated fast SO "chaser" destroyer or frigate to mulch through the weakened combat ships and civilian loot pinatas than it is to deploy enough ships in auto-resolve to kill anything. When I auto-resolve with the ships I would usually send to chase, all that happens is the enemy loses CR, when I know that if I was piloting then most of the enemy would be dead.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: FooF on November 14, 2017, 04:15:03 PM
If I'm in a retreat-battle, I've usually screwed up somewhere. I don't make a habit of using the "fake retreat" option because I'm not keen on gaming the system, so to speak. It does give an advantage in some instances.

If it were to go the way of the dodo, I don't think I'd fret about it. Giving the option to sacrifice a ship is kind of like auto-resolve: I'm guaranteed to lose something but if I retreat-battle, I might be able to save everything. Alternatively, I could lose everything! There's just a sour taste in automatically losing multiple ships.

I do kind of like the "rear guard" option suggested by intrinsic_parity, though instead of a timer, I just think the rear-guard ships should start closer to the bottom of the map while the non-rear guard ships start closer to the middle. It could be used as the "fake retreat" option but since you're deploying your whole fleet, it would be CR prohibitive to do so. Anyways, it allows your (designated) fighting ships to stall while the civilian/other ships make a getaway.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Rap1d on November 15, 2017, 04:06:57 AM
Quote
Thanks for the added info!

Hmm. Thinking this through a bit, what about a "sacrifice X points of ships to get away" option, sort of like when you're picking ships for pursuit? That would have the advantage of letting you know exactly what you need to drop to be able to get away, and wouldn't belabor the process. Made a note.


That would be ok. Honestly, anywhere you put this information in the game, I think would be fine. I wouldn't mind if the information was available in the fleet screen somewhere or before an engagement like you suggested, but I'd rather know it before you get in a "guaranteed ship loss" situation by misplaying in the sector map. For example, some kind of simple summary of your fleet that would be written in the fleet screen, or on the screen where you choose which officer pilots what. Like small fast fleets would have "A small and very fast fleet, can escape any unwanted fights". Than a larger fleet would have "An agile fleet, however not small enough to escape every engagement" and an even larger would have "A formidable fleet. It's sheer size prevents disengaging properly."


However, I think it is crucial that you can get punished if you misplay in the sector map, and that you can and and will get punished for getting caught by a fast fleet while sporting huge number of cargo ships and tankers, or if you get caught by hunter fleets. Taking the possibility of save scumming into the decision process of resolving this, and just throwing the punishment for misplaying away just because the majority of people will save scum would be a mistake in my opinion.


If you think about the rear guard options that people suggest (I think it is definitely an idea worth exploring), just make sure to make it reeaally hard. Like maybe the ships you choose to distract the opposing fleet start the fight surrounded or something.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: zaimoni on November 15, 2017, 07:34:58 AM
The information needs to be in the UI to prevent save-scumming.  (I normally experience two motives for save-scumming: powergaming, and working around UI defects [as understood by a wargaming grognard].  This is a UI defect: I'm pretty sure that in-game the fleet captain would know the disengagement capabilities of the fleet, so there is no valid rationale for hiding this from the player.])
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Megas on November 15, 2017, 08:27:18 AM
zaimoni explained better and more succinctly than I did.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: TaLaR on November 24, 2017, 11:11:39 AM
The information needs to be in the UI to prevent save-scumming.  (I normally experience two motives for save-scumming: powergaming, and working around UI defects [as understood by a wargaming grognard].  This is a UI defect: I'm pretty sure that in-game the fleet captain would know the disengagement capabilities of the fleet, so there is no valid rationale for hiding this from the player.])

But don't we actually have this info, just not as single easy to see value? Sum up your deploy costs and check if it is below 40% battlesize. More than that is risky.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Megas on November 24, 2017, 04:41:03 PM
I doubt every player wants to (or can) crunch numbers in his head or on pen-and-paper, and doing it every time his fleet changes.  Player needs to know the rules and remember how much each of his ships are worth.  This is the sort of info that would be useful on the HUD somewhere.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: zaimoni on November 24, 2017, 10:56:14 PM
But don't we actually have this info, just not as single easy to see value? Sum up your deploy costs and check if it is below 40% battlesize. More than that is risky.
That almost constructively demonstrates why omitting it as a single easy to see value, is a UI defect.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Ryncage on December 07, 2017, 09:15:42 PM
I wouldn't mind a "sacrifice x to escape" sort of option. That sort of thing should be open to good decision making however.

Using a freighter or tanker as your sacrifice shouldn't be worth as much as sacrifcing more combat capable ships, or it could be tied to something like, faction personality, where throwing away freighters would be effective against a pirate fleet since they are out to loot and plunder to begin with, but less so woth others.

Then again, its pretty rare for me to make a mistake on the map to be in a position where i need to retreat given how much i've played, so i dont know if such an option would make me bite the bullet instead of save scum my lazy and impatiently made mistakes.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Thaago on December 08, 2017, 07:54:26 AM
I would miss the retreat scenario because I play Iron Man quite a bit - a lot of my most tense moments come from trying to protect my support ships after I get ambushed by a superior fleet. However I do occasionally use the "false retreat" trick to split up the enemy... but thats a valid tactic isn't it? You expose your support ships to danger for a tactical advantage. (The retreat scenario does force deploy all your ships, right?)

One way of improving retreat scenario's might be to remove the side deployment and just start the fleets closer to each other (both coming in from the bottom of the map, the retreating fleet slightly ahead). As the AI is not broken up the player no longer can defeat them in detail, so it stops being an advantage. The player's noncombat ships should be automatically set to a full retreat so that they don't have that annoying "turn around oh wait I should be retreating" behavior, and the player would need to fight the enemy hard for a little while to save them.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Megas on December 08, 2017, 07:58:21 AM
I would miss the retreat scenario because I play Iron Man quite a bit - a lot of my most tense moments come from trying to protect my support ships after I get ambushed by a superior fleet. However I do occasionally use the "false retreat" trick to split up the enemy... but thats a valid tactic isn't it? You expose your support ships to danger for a tactical advantage. (The retreat scenario does force deploy all your ships, right?)
Yes, defender is forced to deploy all.  Early in the game, player may not need or have pure support ships except maybe a Dram.  Fake out is less of an option later when pure support gets added or fleet gets too big to retreat to begin with.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: nathanebht on November 26, 2018, 11:31:51 PM
...

One way of improving retreat scenario's might be to remove the side deployment and just start the fleets closer to each other (both coming in from the bottom of the map, the retreating fleet slightly ahead). As the AI is not broken up the player no longer can defeat them in detail, so it stops being an advantage. The player's noncombat ships should be automatically set to a full retreat so that they don't have that annoying "turn around oh wait I should be retreating" behavior, and the player would need to fight the enemy hard for a little while to save them.

I really like this idea. Think it would work well. Both for when I retreat. Or when an enemy fleet retreats their remaining forces after a battle. A short sharp skirmish with usually the retreating ships given a few losses.
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: DrPhat on November 08, 2019, 01:50:52 AM
You can change it in \Starsector\starsector-core\data\config\settings.json

Code
	# the smaller of these two values is used
"maxDisengageSize":150, # maximum number of supplies-to-recover cost before a fleet can't participate in a disengage-style battle
"maxDisengageFraction":0.4, # maximum number of supplies-to-recover before a fleet can't disengage, as fraction of current battlesize.

Can anyone explain the math on this for me, I'm having a difficulty understanding... Specifically the 0.4 fraction. Is it a fraction of your fleet? Enemy fleet? Both fleets?
Title: Re: Fleet size disenagge limit
Post by: Yunru on November 08, 2019, 02:49:08 AM
Personally I've only ever fought three sorts of retreat battle:
1. My ships can take them, I just didn't want to so I'd tried to disengage.
2. My ships out speed them, cue starring at a screen until all my ships reach the top.
3. I'm genuinely screwed, in which case it's full retreat anyway because the AI is far too battle happy and will get itself surrounded fighting an enemy instead of actually retreating.